Chewymom has recently posted some great thoughts over at her blog. After reading Finally Feminist, she asks the question, “What if we’re wrong?,” considering the negative outcomes of both the egalitarian and complimentarian views.
She writes:
For each viewpoint–egalitarianism or complimentarianism–what if they’re wrong? If the egalitarians find out one day that they were wrong, what has ultimately been the consequence? I guess you could say it has resulted in an inaccurate portrayal of Christ and His church, since marriage is a picture of that. What else? Too much freedom has been given. Women have been allowed to do things that biblically, they ought not to do, like preach. Or maybe they have been allowed to serve communion. Or hand out bulletins. All in error.
What if the complimentarians are wrong? Then they have been guilty of oppression. They have held back an entire people group–half of the population of the earth, in fact. Not only have they kept women silent who may have a gift of preaching, which is the most obvious example of what women are currently not allowed to do, but they have not allowed women to hold the office of deacon, or to serve on committees, or in some cases to even hold certain jobs outside the church. Some take it so far as to treat women almost as property of the men they married.
Clearly I am not God, and I do not presume to be. I don’t want to sound like I know how He would react to any sin. But in my feeble human mind, I can’t help but think that the sin of oppression would be viewed a lot more seriously than the sin of granting too much freedom. In Jesus’s earthly ministry, He spoke against those who would oppress–the Pharisees. I wonder if my own denomination, the PCA, is going to find one day that they were guilty of oppressing women unbiblically? I don’t know. I’m still thinking through the issue. And for now, I’m wondering if one or the other view is in error, which is the most or least Christ-like?
Read more of her conclusions here.
Personally, I tend to think that granting freedom would be the most Christ-like. However, at this point in my journey I consider women to have freedom within boundaries– I believe that Scripture forbids women from ordination and proclamation of the sacraments (though I know there will be some who will disagree), though I do think that women may teach and speak and sing in church and hold jobs and be leaders outside of the church. But again, in that view, am I not granting women some freedoms they rightly deserve? I’m still not sure.
Christ came to set free the captors, and in the first century as well as in many societies today women were oppressed and considered little more than property. Jesus’ interactions with women in the gospels lead me to believe that though he had to work within his cultural boundaries, He knew that the Kingdom was coming in which there is no male or female, and that over time women would be released from certain bonds, though I’m still uncertain as to exactly what that means. What are your thoughts? What does freedom in Christ mean for women? As others have noted, is it something in between the two views mentioned above? And if both turn out to be wrong, then what is the right answer?
April 10, 2007 at 2:54 pm
“What if we’re wrong?”….. a better question might be, what if both sides are wrong? The Bayly Brothers et al use their exegesis of the first chapters of Genesis to describe what they believe is the “Holy Spirit’s doctrine of sexuality” (yep, that’s what they call their doctrine of father-rule: the Baylys are apparently now claiming divine inspiration.)
But, what if those passages in Genesis ARE teaching us to be complementarian in our view of marriage, but egalitarian in our view of relationships between the sexes in general?
When the events described in the first part of Genesis took place, Adam and Eve were the only two people on earth. The passages describing their relationship are of necessity descriptive of both the relationship of the world’s first married couple to one another, and of the relationship existing between the sexes at that time, because at the time, there was no difference: Adam and Eve were IT. But as other people were born and reached adulthood, other relationships between men and women became possible. It became possible for a man and a woman to interact together as mother/son, brother/sister, cousin/cousin, and eventually, stranger/stranger. To ascribe the same dynamic found in marriage to the relationship between two strangers seems ridiculous at best and perverted at worst.
In other words, the Baylys claim that because of the relationship assigned at Creation to Adam and Eve, a wife should love her husband submissively, AND a husband should love his wife sacrificially.
So far, so good.
But they go on, saying that this also means that all women are to be under – ie, be submissive to — all men in the social order, for all time (I assume that they also mean that all men should sacrificially love all women as well, but somehow they never quite get around to “going there”.)
So, think about it – can the relationship between Adam and Eve be extended to the relationship of all men to all women, married or not? Should all the men in town love every woman in town sacrificially, and should all women submit submit themselves to every man they meet, solely on the basis of gender?
Animals do that, certainly, EXCEPT for those species that are naturally monogamous — there, the picture is quite different — and, this model also comes pretty close to the ideas found behind the “community of women”, as notoriously practiced by Jan Matthys, Jan Bockelson, and their Anabaptists followers in the rebellion at Munster.
But, I doubt that as Christians we want to emulate either cattle or Munsterites.
April 10, 2007 at 3:36 pm
Well, I think the original post WAS asking what if both sides are wrong–but I see your point.
This is a great question: “But, what if those passages in Genesis ARE teaching us to be complementarian in our view of marriage, but egalitarian in our view of relationships between the sexes in general?”
Upon further study, I hope the answer would be yes, but I haven’t looked into it enough yet. A big-picture study of interpersonal relationships in scripture might give us some clues, but I have to go feed a hungry infant so I’ll have to get back to you…
April 11, 2007 at 2:53 pm
I am wondering something for those of you who agree with Allison’s comment: “I believe that Scripture forbids women from ordination and proclamation of the sacraments…though I do think that women may teach and speak and sing in church and hold jobs and be leaders outside of the church.”
Where do we see this in Scripture? It’s clearly a part of church tradition (I am also a communing member of a PCA church), but where is it in Scripture? Where are women forbidden from one thing, and given liberty for something else? WHY would a woman be given the gift of preaching, teaching, or leadership by her Creator and then be told NOT to use it in His church body? Why would she be qualified to use these gifts away from her church body, but to keep them hidden or suppressed within her church body? This view always seems to be a wishy washy form of the complementarian view. I think we come to it because we can see texts in Scripture (1 Tim, 1Peter) that seem to be saying that women are not as free in the church body as men are to exercise their gifts…and yet it is too much, too hard, to apply that entirely…so we make exceptions to make it more palatable.
As I continue to search and learn, I find that neither “side” (complementarian or egalitarian) seem to present a satisfying answer. I am not a “feminist” (that ugly word with all its unhelpful connotations), but I do believe women are given gifts of preaching, teaching and leadership…and I can’t see how these gifts should be shunned in the church.
I’m not sure how to end this, and I don’t want to ramble, so I’ll stop here with a reminder of my original question: where do you see in Scipture that women are forbidden from some things, and not others?
April 12, 2007 at 12:53 am
Kate,
I just wanted to comment that I did address some of your questions on the other post. Just briefly, however. : )
April 12, 2007 at 2:23 am
Thanks Kimi, I responded there too
)
April 14, 2007 at 5:20 am
I have wondered a LOT about these issues (see the catagory “On Women” on my blog)… There are some major things that caused me to change from being a complementarian/patriarchalist (and strictly so) to an egalitarian. Much of that is rooted in Scripture.
For example, I always viewed a woman’s role as a “helpmate” to clearly show her inferior position in matters of authority. Then I discover that the word, “ezer” used for “help” is a word never used to indicate an inferior but an equal or a superiors help (it’s a word freqently used when God comes to “help.”).
I also read the curse/Fall in Gen. 3 with new eyes: part of the curse, right in there with pain in childbirth, is that men will rule over women.
The word for “rule” there is not an “evil tyrannical rule,” as is commonly asserted by patriarchalists, but simply “rule,” period, a root word. And the next line tells us that women will still want to be in relationship with men, regardless of men’s Fall-based “need” to rule over them.
And just as we see pain in childbirth and laboring by the sweat of ones brow all through history, we also see, clearly defined all through history’s story, an undeniable male rule, in culture after culture…and we see an equally undeniable pattern of female acceptance of this rule, even when it involves burqa wearing and worse.
Why is that? I personally think history supports the Fall in Genesis 3 in every way, and that includes male rule and a female acceptance of it. And I would say that it is NOT the way God originally designed things, but a product of a Fallen world where good things are now warped and twisted.
When I was a patriarchalist, I never took into consideration the fact that the NT was written to a strongly patriarchal culture (on both teh Jewish and the Roman sides).
Paul told slaves to obey their masters, for example. Does that mean that slavery is right and good? Are we going to make that a precedent for a Biblical *command* for slaves to exist?
…Or does that just mean that slavery ALREADY existed in that culture, and that Paul was writing to real people in real time, writing to issues that they specifically had in their culture (and that we can learn from today).
Was Paul simply saying it was important for the sake of the Gospel NOT to cause a huge storm in the culture by advocating release of all slaves just because Christians just learned they were free in Christ…yet at the same time, it seems that Paul was quietly subverting slavery by throwing in the then-unheard-of assertion that slaves and masters were equal before God (therefore inherently equal)?
I believe it’s the same with women. Ephesians 5 was written to men and women in the grips of a tight patriarchal ship. By telling wives to submit to their husbands, Paul was simply quoting Roman law! (Meaning, do we automatically infer from that that Paul was passing on a heavenly rule, or was he simply doing the same thing he was doing in addressing slavery—saying this is the way things are in this culture, so let’s just deal with it)?
Because by telling husbands to love their wives as their own selves, Paul was saying an unheard of thing—comparing *wives* to a man’s own self!??? Egads! That was crazy talk! Women were a subspecies! All the Greek philosophers said so, and the Jews prayed daily prayers of thankfullness that they weren’t born female! A man to consider his wife as he considers his own MALE self??? Yeesh!
So how would a man love his wife as his own self, anyways? Would he do it by ruling her, by seeing her as someone to rule? Or would a man grant her respect and love her as an equal (despite his own Fall-based difficulty in actually seeing her as an equal)?
I’m rambling…but these things are powerful for me. I was a woman who lived under patriarchy, of the sort that the Bayly brothers preach of. It did not set me free, but in fact did the very opposite (though I did it for God, and thought it was God’s will for years, to glorify Christ).
Then Jesus came and set me free.
PS. I believe Christians are bound by the Law of Love. This means that all of us should respect and love eachother. So as an egalitarian wife, I still respect my husband. I have been given two rules as a Christ-follower—to love my God and to love those around me with His love. This means that as a wife, I am called to love my husband deeply (and my children) with God’s love. So I still completely respect my husband, because he’s a person made in God’s image who God loves. I just no longer think he’s the voice of God to me. And I can tell you, there’s a world of difference there. And it’s good to be free.
April 15, 2007 at 6:06 pm
“I also read the curse/Fall in Gen. 3 with new eyes: part of the curse, right in there with pain in childbirth, is that men will rule over women…..And the next line tells us that women will still want to be in relationship with men, regardless of men’s Fall-based “need” to rule over them.”
Molleth, I think that your take on the rule of men being rooted in the fall is right on target, and I think that the desire of men to rule over women is part and parcel of another, larger symptom of human sinfullness, namely, that ever since the fall, EVERYBODY has wanted to dominate others, to “be as God”, and usurp His position — men have wanted to rule over other men, as well as over women. The fact that men by their nature will not happily submit to the rule of other men over them has been a major cause of war throughout the ages, and the social gyrations whereby men do convince themselves to submit to the rule of other men has been, in large part, the driving force behind what passes as civilization.
It’s almost a GOOD thing that women were cursed with the desire to want to be in relationship with men in spite of being ruled, or else the human race might never have survived.
But as I pointed out, it looks to me like humankind’s desire to hold dominion over other humans is indeed a result of original sin.
In Genesis, dominion is given to man over the whole of non-human creation — fish, birds, and animals, everything except the angels — BUT, no dominion over men is given. People didn’t start trying to exercise dominion over one another until after the Fall — in fact, their doing so appears to be a direct result of the Fall: mankind wanted to be like God, “knowing good and evil”, and, in the attempt to usurp the position of God, they immediately began trying to lord it over one another, even when there were only two human beings on the earth.
I think that happened because one of the conditions inherent in being God is that, by definition, there can only be one of You — the very condition of being God presupposes that you are by nature in DOMINION over everyone and everything else in existance. When humans decided that they would be like God, the first thing they wanted to do is rule over one another — EACH of them wanted to be God, which necessarily placed each of them in competition with one another, and with God Himself.
This sort of competition is the root of pride, (or maybe vice versa): as C.S. Lewis said in his article, The Great Sin, “The point is that each person’s pride is in competition with every one else’s pride….it is Pride which has been the chief cause of misery in every nation and every family since the world began. Other vices may sometimes bring people together: you may find good fellowship and jokes and friendliness among drunken people or unchaste people. But pride always means enmity – it is enmity. And not only enmity between man and man, but enmity to God.””
April 15, 2007 at 6:07 pm
“I also read the curse/Fall in Gen. 3 with new eyes: part of the curse, right in there with pain in childbirth, is that men will rule over women…..And the next line tells us that women will still want to be in relationship with men, regardless of men’s Fall-based “need” to rule over them.”
Molleth, I think that your take on the rule of men being rooted in the fall is right on target, and I think that the desire of men to rule over women is part and parcel of another, larger symptom of human sinfullness, namely, that ever since the fall, EVERYBODY has wanted to dominate others, to “be as God”, and usurp His position — men have wanted to rule over other men, as well as over women. The fact that men by their nature will not happily submit to the rule of other men over them has been a major cause of war throughout the ages, and the social gyrations whereby men do convince themselves to submit to the rule of other men has been, in large part, the driving force behind what passes as civilization.
It’s *almost* a GOOD thing that women were cursed with the desire to want to be in relationship with men in spite of being ruled, or else the human race might never have survived.
But as I pointed out, it looks to me like humankind’s desire to hold dominion over other humans is indeed a result of original sin.
In Genesis, dominion is given to man over the whole of non-human creation — fish, birds, and animals, everything except the angels — BUT, no dominion over men is given. People didn’t start trying to exercise dominion over one another until after the Fall — in fact, their doing so appears to be a direct result of the Fall: mankind wanted to be like God, “knowing good and evil”, and, in the attempt to usurp the position of God, they immediately began trying to lord it over one another, even when there were only two human beings on the earth.
I think that happened because one of the conditions inherent in being God is that, by definition, there can only be one of You — the very condition of being God presupposes that you are by nature in DOMINION over everyone and everything else in existance. When humans decided that they would be like God, the first thing they wanted to do is rule over one another — EACH of them wanted to be God, which necessarily placed each of them in competition with one another, and with God Himself.
This sort of competition is the root of pride, (or maybe vice versa): as C.S. Lewis said in his article, The Great Sin, “The point is that each person’s pride is in competition with every one else’s pride….it is Pride which has been the chief cause of misery in every nation and every family since the world began. Other vices may sometimes bring people together: you may find good fellowship and jokes and friendliness among drunken people or unchaste people. But pride always means enmity – it is enmity. And not only enmity between man and man, but enmity to God.””
April 17, 2007 at 1:03 am
Hm…good thoughts. I think we’re on the same page in this area…
June 23, 2007 at 2:12 am
Just curious, has anyone ever read Cunningham’s “Why Not Women?” It’s been several years since I read it, and while he is decidedly egalitarian on women in spiritual leadership, he raises some great thought-provoking questions and cases.
He takes a look at the original Greek words and situations Paul used in the verses some use to argue against women teaching, and after reading this portion, my confidence in the way the NIV has been translated is very low. He wonders, as Allison does, what if we’re wrong, and Satan has used the opportunity to paralized half of God’s workforce?
And having recently looked at the stroy of Deborah, I’m still unsure of how it should be translated into today’s ministry.
I’m just wondering what your takes on the book or these arguments might have been, because I’m still uncertain, and I don’t know if it’s because there are holes in the case, or if I’ve just been so indoctrinated in “no women in leadership”.