Rachel Held Evans’ post last week generated a lot of discussion on the perceived problems among those who identify as complementarians.
“The problem with accurately portraying what complementarians believe about ‘biblical womanhood’ is that complementarians do not agree on what they believe about ‘biblical womanhood.'”
I’m not attempting to refute Rachel’s blog post. But I’d like to engage it and go in a different direction – orthogonal, if you will.
I deeply value many things complementarian leaders over the years have brought to my own growth in Christ and subsequently to my ministry to others. In particular, I am blessed by leaders who have argued against writing off words such as submit and respect as instructions for a particular culture in the 1st century without relevance for today. We lose so much more of the Word than we gain in personal freedom when we adopt that approach, in my humble opinion. My life and ministry would be very different, much less in my opinion, had I not valued the word submit in my own life.
My husband talked with me in the early days of my blog about staying vulnerable and honest about my personal struggles in relationship with God rather than getting caught up in larger evangelical debate (and I do note the irony in this post). Though I loved debate and wanted to put my two cents into big discussions among evangelical leaders, I took his concerns and direction seriously in part because a group of men and women in the 1970’s decided to teach on the value of male leadership in Christian homes. My husband didn’t demand that I submit. He never bought into the manly-man caricature of Biblical manhood espoused in some circles of complementarian thought. He simply shared with me his vision of what would be good long term for my ministry to women and what he thought women on the ground would most benefit from hearing. Because I valued the word submit as an instruction that is a lamp for my feet along a rocky, tricky path, I listened to his vision and put it in practice. Over time, I bought into it at the deepest level personally, and now, it is the guiding principle for me when I’m trying to decide what to write about. I have around 3,000 subscribers to this blog. Many of those readers write to me regularly, affirming without realizing it this wisdom my husband shared with me years ago.
I explained all this to make this point – I value the word submit (while understanding its limitations) in part because of the influence of this group of believers who banded together decades ago to teach on this topic. I also value what I do in my home as a wife and mom in part due to them. They banded together around the idea of complementary genders, teaching on the value of each gender using their differences to bring glory to God. I have a strong disagreement with some of the presuppositions they brought to that discussion, yet I see movement on that issue which encourages me. Nevertheless, their original burdens and concerns had some strong points. Without a doubt, when you downplay distinctiveness in the genders, you miss aspects of the beauty of the full image of God, and this is the hallmark of those who identify themselves as complementarians.
When discussing complementary but not identical genders, we should note that characteristics of gender form a bell curve. They are not binary, where either you are or you aren’t reflecting your gender. Some leaders have missed that in how they present the value of complementary genders, and they leave little room for overlap. That’s unfortunate and confusing for their listeners. Nevertheless, it is to the benefit of the entire Body of Christ that the global Church values the different things complementary genders bring to our understanding of the fullness of the character of God.
Yet, Rachel raises some good points, which the discussion in internet-controversy land doesn’t address very well. We keep going to caricatures, and we don’t engage with each other using our best representations. We find the worst examples of our perceived opponent, and we debate those. But a movement is defined by the thing on which those adhering to it agree. It is those places that we should have our discussion and debate. There is obvious self correction going on among those who identify as complementarians. The values shared by old school complementarians and those who identify with the new wave are better places to focus for a fruitful debate/discussion.
Rachel says this:
It’s ironic that some complementarains have criticized A Year of Biblical Womanhood for employing an inconsistent hermeneutic without seeming to realize that this was exactly what I intended to do with the project.
This is interesting to know. If I understand correctly, Rachel is attempting to show that complementarians have inconsistent modes of interpretation by using an inconsistent method of interpretation herself.
… My point is that, despite insistent claims that they simply follow the “clear teachings of the Bible,” complementarians themselves are not in total agreement on what those teachings are. And despite all these references to a patently obvious and consistent hermeneutic regarding biblical manhood and womanhood, complementarians have failed to produce it.
Here is the strong disagreement I have with Rachel. There IS a clear hermeneutic. Here is an explanation adapted from The Gospel-Centered Woman, aptly subtitled, Understanding Biblical Womanhood through the Lens of the Gospel.
I knew early on in my wrestling over Scripture that I did not want to rely on myself to determine what was and was not relevant for me today. It seemed foolish for me to choose to accept the parts of the Bible that I liked and reject the parts I did not. Thankfully, the Bible did not leave me as an orphan to navigate that on my own. The Bible is the best commentary on itself, and we are wise to examine the various things it reveals to us about itself.
At times, God wrote out His revelation of Himself in the form of stories. Sometimes, He used clear commands and instructions. Within those clear commands and instructions, God gave universal truths for all cultures and all times along with instructions that played a specific role for a finite period of time. How does Scripture reveal what parts were for a particular time and what parts transcend time or culture? Most believers agree that not all parts of Scripture should be literally followed today, as evidenced by the fact that no modern Christian group offers animal sacrifices. However, beyond animal sacrifices, there are divergent perspectives within the larger evangelical movement on how we know what is required for today, especially in terms of application to women. It is tempting for me to rely on my own cultural understanding as the basis for what does and does not apply to me in Scripture. But the Bible transcends cultural context. The Bible claims to be living. It claims to be trustworthy for the long haul. It speaks to events that occurred well before it was first written and to those that will occur long after it was completed. Most of all, it claims that each human writer was ultimately carried by the Holy Spirit to say what God Himself, not the human writer, inspired them to say (2 Peter 1:20-21).
The most important insight the Bible gives us for understanding itself is that Jesus’ life and death fulfilled the Old Testament Law. Jesus teaches in Luke 24 that all of the Law and Prophets pointed to Him. In Matthew 5: 17, Jesus says, “ Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” He states this previous to His death and reinforces an impossible standard, that we need to keep the Law better than the Pharisees. After His death, Paul teaches that Jesus alone was the only one who could keep the Law as God intended, and His death marked the great exchange where we are now counted as having kept the Law as Jesus did. Christ is the “end of the Law” for all who believe in Him, according to Paul.
The Law served several purposes. It served to show civilization what God values. We value the dignity of human life, care of the poor, fidelity in marriage, fairness in business dealings, social justice, and so forth because God first showed us through the Law that He cared about such things. Also, the Law showed from multiple different angles both our need for a Savior and what He would look like when He comes. The Law also served to give humans at the dawn of civilization basic guidelines toward health and safety. Old Testament laws should not be written off, ignored, or abolished. Instead, Jesus fulfilled them. He brought them to completion, and their purpose is concluded. Much of the books of Galatians and Hebrews are spent exploring this point.
Combining these principles for reading Scripture, we get a clearer picture of how to receive the Word on any subject, especially the topic of biblical womanhood. We start in Genesis 1 and 2 where God states in perfection that every woman is an image bearer of God reflecting especially His strong help and advocacy for His children. From there, I recommend studying Ephesians, where Paul lays out our spiritual inheritance via the gospel as the key to once again being the “imitators of God” that He created us to be (Ephesians 5:1). In between, the Old Testament Law pointed toward Christ and was fulfilled in Him. Proverbs 31 gives insight, wisdom, and understanding (not law), which is best received under the press of the Holy Spirit who helps us apply it in ways that are actually wise in our own lives as opposed to the conclusions some may espouse when they try to convict us in place of the Spirit. The New Testament reaffirms the summary moral code of the Ten Commandments. Jesus even intensifies it in His Sermon on the Mount. The essence is summed up in the Greatest Command and Golden Rule. Much of the epistles then flesh out what such love looks like in the New Covenant, and we can trust those instructions even as we wrestle with the Holy Spirit to understand and apply them.
The problem isn’t that there isn’t a consistent hermeneutic that leads to complementarian conclusions. The problem is that 1000 different people can use this consistent hermeneutic and STILL HAVE DISAGREEMENT. But is that really a problem? This seems a straw man. Complementarians disagree on some points. So what?! Most complementarians don’t get TOO worked up over these disagreements because there is a doctrine that gives us perspective on such disagreements – the priesthood of believers. Christians for centuries have believed that the individual believer is ultimately the one convicted by the Spirit as He applies the Word to their own heart. We can all agree on the perspicuity of “Thou shalt not kill.” But when Paul says a woman “should not exercise authority over a man,” it simply is not as clear, and our convictions on the priesthood of believers influences how we interact on areas of disagreement.
It’s clear among complementarians that women should not be elders. But deacons? There’s room for debate there.
We believe the command for wives to submit is for all women in all cultures. Yet, the limits of that submission are up for debate. I know what my limits are, but I have to be careful in projecting the ways the Spirit convicts me onto others.
We value a woman’s role in the home, yet we debate how to present its value to others without putting undue weights around women.
Of course Christians who generally agree about the value of distinct genders aren’t going to completely agree on all applications for all cultures for all times! This is Rachel’s main focus of both her book and her recent blog post. And I just don’t understand it. Because we don’t agree on all application it then discounts all parts on which we generally do agree?!
However, I lay much of the fault for the ongoing debate this straw man has caused at the feet of complementarians who have not thoughtfully and respectfully engaged others on the topic. We have too often engaged with suspicion and defensiveness. Those two things cripple the ability to have a genuine discussion on the topic. If you can’t talk about this without defensiveness, please don’t talk about it, because defensiveness is an anti-gospel response mode that pushes away the very people leaders want to influence.
I’ll attempt to respond to a few of Rachel’s specific questions from her blog post.
“Is Proverbs 31 really meant to be interpreted prescriptively, or does its poetic format suggest it should be interpreted as a celebration of women rather than a to-do list for them?”
No, it’s not meant to be interpreted prescriptively. It’s wisdom literature. People who interpret it prescriptively are generally poorly taught and would do well to better study hermeneutics.
“If it is “unbiblical” for women to teach or assume leadership over men why are women like Deborah, Huldah, Miriam, Priscilla, Phoebe, and Junia praised in Scripture for doing just that?”
This is one of the debatable ones. Leaders who identify in the complementarian camp have various views of what this should look like practically, but most use Deborah and Phoebe as helpful Scriptural commentary on what this does and does not mean. Priesthood of the believers.
‘Why is “wives submit to your husbands” taken more seriously than “submit one to another.” And if every biblical instance of these instructions for husbands and wives is either preceded or followed by instructions for slaves to obey their masters, (verses that have historically been used to support slavery), might it be prudent to consider the spirit of these instructions in their Greco-Roman context rather than literally applying the letter?’
I’m not familiar with complementarians who don’t value “submit one to another” though I’m sure there are some. “Wives submit” is an intensifier to “submit to one another,” but the second means nothing without understanding and deeply valuing the first. Everyone in the Body of Christ is called to submit.
“Why are Paul’s instructions regarding Corinthian women wearing head coverings dismissed as cultural and specific to a unique audience, while his instructions regarding Ephesian women teaching the Ephesian church considered universally and timelessly prescriptive?”
I hear you. I personally keep my hair moderately long (the passage says a woman’s hair is given as a covering) because I could not reconcile this Scripture with my hermeneutic otherwise. But I don’t talk about it publicly (doh!) because it’s my own personal conviction based on my own wrestling with the Spirit over the Word. Priesthood of the believer again.
“Is a single-income household with a father who goes to work and a mother who stays home really the only way to honor God? Is this really a ‘biblical’ concept or does it impose modern Western cultural assumptions onto the text? Can Christians support such teachings when such a lifestyle is out-of-reach for many of the world’s poor, to whom Jesus first brought the gospel? And what about singles and non-parents?”
Of course it’s not the only way to honor God. This is not consistently held among complementarians. Driscoll trumpeted this in his early years of ministry. But there originally was a legitimate issue he was addressing, not among women helping their families this way but among the men who exploited their willingness to do so. But as leaders jumped on his bandwagon, they sloppily talked about the real issue, painting a caricature of manhood that has caused legitimate push back.
“How does the teaching that women are to be subordinate to their husbands in sex square with 1 Corinthians 7, which says the opposite? And if this sort of mutuality and equality is celebrated in such an intimate context, why not extend it into every area of life?”
This is a low blow on Rachel’s part. Jared Wilson corrected himself on this, in part because of push back from men and women associated with The Gospel Coalition.
“John Piper cites the first half of 1 Timothy 2:12 (“a woman should not have authority”) as universally applicable, but disregards the second half (“she must be quiet”) by encouraging women like Beth Moore to continue speaking. If the first half of 1 Timothy 2 is so crucial to the complementarian hierarchal construct, why is the second half, (along with the silence command in 1 Corinthians 14:34) essentially ignored? Why is that complementarian women are forbidden from assuming leadership in churches, and yet permitted to speak?”
I need to do more research, but Piper seems pretty consistent here. He believes, as do I, that this teaching with authority reflects the discussion in I Timothy on elder qualifications. It’s not limiting women from speaking. It’s limiting women from having the role of elder.
‘And where on earth in Scripture does it teach that “real men” are “heterosexual, win-a-fight, punch-you-in-the-nose dudes” who don’t do the laundry or allow their boys to play with dolls? If all men are “hardwired” one way and all women are “hardwired” another way, why don’t we all fit into these stereotypes? Does the Bible really perpetuate these stereotypes?’
No, the Bible does not perpetuate that stereotype. Jesus busts that stereotype in two. While some loud leaders like to use such sensational language, this does not uniformly characterize the view of complementarian leaders with whom I interact.
That concludes my meager attempt at non-defensive engagement on the subject. Again, it’s wise to characterize a movement by the best elements of it with which adherents most agree. In terms of complementarian thought, this element is that God created complementing genders, different but overlapping, to reflect the fullness of Himself. And that heart of complementarian thought is beautiful and to be valued.