Egalitarians, Complementarians, Patriarchalists and Misogynists - Oh My!

I'm not one who thinks that defining the role of women in the church is an "essential" on which the church stands or falls, but boy do folks get bent out of shape over it.  I've been in some pretty conservative churches over the years and I've never felt like this was a huge issue in the overall scope of things, because I never felt the difference between egalitarian and complementarian was all that great.

Recently  Rachel Held Evans called complementarianism patriarchy.  That seemed to me more than a little false.  Count on Tony Jones to up the ante. He referred to Russell Moore and John Piper as misogynists, haters of women. 

The reason for the consternation was apparently a statement by Moore that too many complementarians were living as practical egalitarians, which carried the suggestion to egalitarians that to be consistent, complementarians needed to "push women down" more.  I think Moore spoke poorly, but knowing what most complementarians think about "servant leadership" I tend to think the point is that Moore feels men often exercise no leadership at all, behave in a passive manner that serves no one. I do not think he was "pushing women down" as Tony Jones opined.  (More)

I'm not sure I'd agree entirely with Piper or Moore in their particular emphasis even if I describe myself as complementarian.  I think Ephesians 5:21, "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." is the context of Paul's instructions on marriage.  If we connect the fall and subsequent curse of Genesis to the regulation of marriage in fallen world, Paul's words make a lot of sense.  We are told in Genesis that the man would "rule over" the woman, and her "desire" would be for him.  Many take that definition of the word desire there to mean a desire to "rule over" the husband.  In other words, one of the effects of the fall is the war of the sexes - men tend to be jerks and women want to turn the tables.  So Paul's response is "men, love you wives sacrificially as Christ loved the church" - don't be domineering brutes; women on the other hand should not try seize the reins and become nags or domineering women. 

I've always felt that as Paul taught there is no "slave nor fee, Jew nor Gentile, male nor female" in the church, some semblance of equality of value has to be acknowledged as biblical truth.  Men are not more important than women, nor women more than men.  And yet...

We cannot, on the other hand discount differences - physical, physiological, psychological, etc.  God did not create one androgynous sex.   There is value in the differences.

As I have understood the complementarian position, the only real difference between complementarians and egalitarians has to do with two specific offices, one in the church and one in the home.  Only men can be husbands and only men can be "elders".   Paul said "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man" in the context of church.  Most of the complementarians I have been around emphasize the second half of the statement.  Perhaps in light of the fall and the subsequent war of the sexes, the issue seems to be not the matter of women teaching, but of the "exercising authority over".   But whatever Paul's thought process, we have to deal with Paul's restriction just as fairly as we deal with his "no male nor female" statement.  Both are true, though they seem on the surface to be at odds. "The husband is the head of the wife" is just as much Paul's teaching as "be submissive one to another".  Both are scripture and both are authoritative.

It seems to me complementarians seek to find the balance between those passages, whereas egalitarians tend to want to dismiss the "headship" and "authority over" passages and emphasize the equality.

Truth be told, in complementarian circles, women do teach as long as they do not "exercise authority over" men.  Complementarians do listen to women who speak at conferences.  Women serve as deaconesses in church structures.  The only role not open to women is the specific office of "elder" or "bishop".  And, like it or not, the reason for this has little to do with male ego.

Interesting to read this morning that in the Church of England where the topic of the day is the consecration of women bishops, some 2200 women signed a petition in opposition. Their words were chosen carefully.

"All sides of the debate agree that men and women are equal - we believe the Bible teaches that in the family and the Church (which is God's family), men and women are equal and different and therefore not in every way interchangeable."

Exactly.  Men and women are equal, but men are not women and women are not men.  They are not interchangeable.  The article went on to say, quoting one of the organizers:

"Not all the women in the Church of England think having women bishops is a great idea....We believe that God created men and women equal but different, and that difference is seen in the God-given roles that men and women have within the family and within God's household, the Church...This is not an outdated view held by a few diehard traditionalists. Our survey of those who signed the petition shows that they come from churches that are growing, youthful and very female friendly."  Guess what Rachel and Tony.  Lots of women are complementarians.  It is not just alleged "haters of women" who hold this view.  And lots of them are in vibrant growing churches.

In the end, I think C.S.Lewis' essay on "Priestesses in the Church" gets at the heart of it.  Insofar as a "priest" (elder, presbyter, bishop, overseer) represents people in prayer or other service to God, a woman can represent humanity to God as well as any man.  But since God describes himself as Father, since his role in the Old Testament was husband to an often unfaithful wife in the form of the nation of Israel, insofar as Christ is the bridegroom and the church is the bride, the leader in the church or the family as a representative of God to the church and visibly before the church needs to be a masculine figure - else the image of God scripture portrays is altered.

We are all, collectively, feminine as members of the church as the "bride" of Christ.  Christ alone is the bridegroom.  Very simply, the office of elder, priest, bishop, pastor, as a representative of Christ is given to men, not because men are superior, but because scripture paints that picture of God and Christ in the masculine.  The differences between the sexes matter to God and matter in the church even though men and women are equal in value.

And in the family, the image of "father" should ideally be a picture of God - sacrificially loving his bride.  The feminine in church tradition has been applied to the church, so mom's figuratively picture the role of the church.  Marriage is a picture of the relationship of God to humanity.  That picture matters.

And to hold to those fairly minimal restrictions is not misogynistic, nor even patriarchal.  It is simply, in the minds of the complementarian, obedience to Christ and the Apostles.