Wendy Alsup's Blog

1) Nomenclature

To quote Shakespeare, "What's in a name?" Many evangelicals claim the name complementarian. I have myself identified that way since the time I first became aware of the term about fifteen or so years ago. For many who identify as complementarian, they use it simply to mean that they are not egalitarian . They believe that Paul's instructions to husbands and wives in Ephesians 5 and on male-only elders in I Timothy 3 transcend time or culture and remain relevant for today. However, I have come to realize that the term complementarian was coined by a group of people with a very specific agenda related to evangelical feminism. The outworking of some of their agenda has been seen in the recent debate on the Eternal Submission of the Son. I personally have some big differences with those who founded the conservative complementarian movement and would love for there to be a different word to identify non-egalitarians.

Except that I believe in complementary genders in the image of God.

I did some research on the term complementarian, and I was fascinated to note that while the term complementarian was coined by those who founded the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, the concept of complementary genders had a long history of being used and valued by egalitarians long before the Danvers Statement.

One of Giles’ observations is that what we now have — in the reality of this debate — is hierarchical-complementarians (those who use the term “complementarian” today) and egalitarian-complementarians (those who are called “egalitarians” today).  Both believe in complentarity of the sexes: 

Because God made humankind man and woman (Gen 1:27-28), virtually all theologians agree that man and woman complete what it means to be human; the two sexes are complementary. Man alone or woman alone is not humanity in its completeness. Since the earliest descriptions of the evangelical egalitarian position in the mid-1970s, egalitarians have unambiguously affirmed the complementarity of the sexes. … 

Grudem, in his 2006 book, Countering the Claims of Evangelical Feminism, tells us how his side came to use the words, “complementary” and “complementarian.” He says the first time those arguing for a hierarchal relationship between men and often used the word “complementary” was on November 17,1988, in the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood’s founding document, the Danvers Statement. He says, that as far as he knows, “it had not been previously used in this controversy.” It had indeed, as I will show below. In the Danvers Statement, the stance taken is not called the “complementarian” position. Grudem tells us that he and John Piper, in editing the 1991 symposium, Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism, “coined” the term “complementarian” as a self-designation of their position. In other words, they invented it. In this book, the editors admit that, in designating their understanding of what the Bible teaches on the sexes the “complementarian” position, they were seeking to establish a new term for what had hitherto been called the “traditional” or “hierarchical” position. From this point on, virtually every book written by an evangelical in support of the creation based subordination of women has designated the stance taken as the “complementarian” position and constantly spoken of the man-woman relationship as “complementary.”

I find this history interesting and validating. For I have long resonated with the idea of complementary genders while being subsequently uncomfortable with how that vision has played out practically through the writings of the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. It is good to know that historically, the discussion wasn't between one group who thought there was 100% parity between men and woman and another who believed God created complementary genders. You can believe in complementary genders without identifying fully with the group who claims to be the "flagship organization for the complementation movement", the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.

2) Doctrine

The other concerning thing for me has long been the manipulation (in my humble opinion) of Scripture and theology to fit the perceived ills of evangelical feminism by those who coined the term complementarian. Now, don't get me wrong. I have been clear on my strong belief that we can not write off large swaths of New Testament teaching on gender just because we feel like it limits us as women, which I believe many evangelicals do. I have strong push back for evangelical feminists who would deny the importance of Paul's epistles in particular. But God forbid I manipulate Scripture to validate my concerns with the more liberal position. And, frankly, that is exactly what happened, starting with Susan Foh's admitted reinterpretation of Genesis 3:16 in 1975.

“THE current issue of feminism in the church has provoked the reexamination of the scriptural passages that deal with the relationship of the man and the woman. A proper understanding of Genesis 3:16 is crucial to this reconsideration of the Biblical view of the woman.” Susan Foh, The Westminster Theological Journal 37 (1974/75) 376-83

Reexamination. Reconsidering. Prior to Foh's concerns with evangelical feminism, Genesis 3:16 was never interpreted to mean a woman would have a desire against her husband to manipulate or rule over him. It makes no sense that God would speak something to Adam and Eve at the Fall that the Church would not understand until the problem of modern evangelical feminism, almost like the curse was non-existent for women before we suddenly came to understand the real problem during 2nd wave feminism.  That is, frankly, ludicrous.  I've written a long article here about why I think Foh was wrong in her interpretation of Genesis 3:16 and how it has harmed women in the Church.

According to CBMW's history page, Foh went on to have a crucial founding role in CBMW, and her new interpretation fit nicely with their agenda. The thing is that she didn't need to reinterpret Genesis 3:16 to support Paul's writings as constraining the Church for today. She found a convenient way to pin the issue of evangelical feminism on a woman's rebellious heart but at the expense of the perspicuity of Scripture and a historic understanding of the passage.

I'm deeply disturbed and have been for some time with conservatives employing liberal methods of coming up with new interpretations to fit a modern cultural issue. This has been brought to light again with current debate on the Eternal Subordination of the Son. This doctrine too was not on the radar of 20th or 21st century theologians until Bruce Ware and Wayne Grudem, also both founders of the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, brought attention to it in … you guessed it … response to evangelical feminism. I'm not sure exactly when Ware and Grudem began to focus on Eternal Subordination of the Son. Grudem wrote about it in his Systematic Theology in the mid 90's, While there seemed to be theologians talking about this doctrine in history, Ware and Grudem are the first (that I can find) who highlight it in conjunction with gender roles in the Church.

Ware and Grudem seem the first to popularize this doctrine linked to gender (as early as Grudem's 1994 Systematic Theology). And, again, their discussion of this doctrine is a RESPONSE to evangelical feminism.

Ware, like Grudem a past President of the Council on Biblical Manhood & Womanhood, has contributed numerous journal articles and book chapters to scholarly complementarianism. His book on the Trinity entitled Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Crossway, 2005) shows the necessary linkage between authority-submission relationships in the Godhead and authority-submission relationships in the church. https://9marks.org/article/a-brief-history-of-complementarian-literature/

Grudem and Ware have unapologetically set gender relationships as the frame for their handling of ESS. In the book, One God in Three Persons: Unity of Essence, Distinction of Persons, Implications for Life (co-edited by Ware with essays by both Ware and Grudem), Grudem introduces the topic with the essay: “Doctrinal Deviations in Evangelical-Feminist Arguments about the Trinity.” In Grudem's book Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth (2004), his first chapter in response to evangelical feminism teaches that the “equality and differences between men and women reflect the equality and differences in the Trinity.” Ware, Grudem, and the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood on which they sit fundamentally link their understanding of ESS and Trinitarian relationships to gender.  http://www.theologyforwomen.org/2016/06/the-eternal-subordination-of-son-and.html

In conclusion, the nomenclature issue isn't really an issue in my opinion. But it does help to understand why so many more people resonate with the idea of complementary genders than with the specifics of complementarian application that the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood supports. But the reinterpretations of Scripture, in my opinion, are a massive issue. They reframe the spectrum of debate on women's issues in the Church from liberal and conservative to liberal and another kind of liberal. We can't play lose and fast with Scripture to fit our agenda. Liberals can't. But conservatives can't either.  This is clearly the case with the reinterpretation of Genesis 3:16, and I'm concerned it may also be the case with linking ESS to gender (and not just marriage) as well.

I don't know what this means for the future, but I will say these things again and again here on this blog because I think the clarity of Scripture is a precious thing and the old doctrines are still worth fighting for. “There is nothing new under the sun,” the author of Proverbs wisely instructs us. And we don't have to manipulate Scripture when we think we are facing some new issue in our culture. The Church for the most part has been there and done that. And the Bible is sufficient at each recurrence of old problems.  We could have had the same reclamation of orthodox doctrine around gender in our denominations without the doctrinal/hermeneutical gymnastics some have used to make their point.

As I watched the gay pride festivities over social media and my Facebook stream, I thought (as I have a thousand times before) the pressure on gay, Bible-believing Christians to go against their conscience and write off God's sexual ethics as harmful. Many Christians have changed their views about the Bible's teaching on homosexual sex. The ones that I can most closely identify with are those who believe that the New Testament word Paul uses against homosexual sex is referring to pedophilia. I disagree with that interpretation, but I appreciate that it stays engaged with the text of Scripture. But if that's the case and Paul was condemning pedophilia, there is still a larger theme in Scripture that can't be written off without writing off the entire Bible—that promiscuity in general, heterosexual or homosexual, is anathema to God. He is a God of faithfulness, and He created His children to be faithful in their relationships as well. In that sense, I think Christians misapplied their moral outrage to the gay marriage debate. Of all the things that downgrade society, gay fidelity doesn't seem to be it (spoken by someone who lived for years in a community full of faithful gay couples raising respectful, responsible children). Heterosexual infidelity seems a way bigger issue in harming larger society than gay fidelity. Seems is a gentle word for that – I should say that I know many, many people harmed by both gay and straight infidelity. I wish our Christian culture had harped on all forms of infidelity with the same vigor they did against gay marriage.

But what is a gay person to do if they believe, as I do, that Scripture can be taken at face value and that the church hasn't misread or mistranslated the Bible around the issue of gay sex for the last two thousand years? In a word, they are to endure. But here too, our evangelical church hasn't been fair to gay Christians. We ask them to endure when we look away from heterosexuals who don't. We ask them to endure when our theology of general perseverance in suffering is weak and anemic. The prosperity gospel is alive and well in the evangelical church. And it forces evangelicals' hand around the issue of gay Christianity. Of course instructions against gay sex are archaic if the end goal of the gospel is to make us happy and fulfilled by earthly standards. I've said it often that this type of thinking has no room for Christian martyrs. It has no room for even the Apostles or early Church.

Hebrews 11 35 … Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. 36 Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. 37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated— 38 of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. 39 And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, 40 since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.

I want to write a word of encouragement to gay Christians who share the conviction that gay sex is a sin before God. First, I acknowledge that this is a heavy, heavy burden. You know the hard road that lies ahead if you choose faith in the Bible. But my second thought is that there is beauty in suffering for all of us, whatever our personal long-term burden. Persevere, friends. Embrace the hard road. And have hope. God works through hard things, and you are not alone on the road you walk. Deitrich Bonhoeffer, Henry Nouwen, Wesley Hill, and countless other unnamed male and female believers have walked this less-traveled road before you. And they stand cheering you on as the cloud of witnesses Hebrews 11 speaks of. They are witnesses to God's faithfulness on the journey and the goodness of His instructions for us. They witness too to His grace to bear up under what at first seems an impossible and unfair burden.

I encourage you too to find the fellowship of suffering. Find others, be they heterosexual or homosexual, who are enduring in their own suffering. Some are infertile. Some have lost living children. Some have chronic illnesses. Some have family who have rejected them. The list goes on and on. You know the ones who make the best friends on this journey, the ones who face their suffering holding both the rawness of the pain and the hope of their faith hand in hand. Find them, and don't quit on them in faith.  The good news of Christ never sounds more beautiful than when heard hand in hand with the hardest of suffering.

Finally, I highly recommend Wesley Hill's Washed and Waiting. Wesley comes to see his homosexuality as a gift from God to push him toward Christ. I'll end with words from his final chapter of the book.

In Peter Jackson’s wonderful film version of The Two Towers, Sam says: 

By rights we shouldn’t even be here [on this quest]. But we are.… I wonder if people will ever say, “Let’s hear about Frodo and the Ring.” And they’ll say, “Yes, that’s one of my favorite stories. Frodo was really courageous, wasn’t he, Dad.” “Yes, my boy, the most famousest of hobbits. And that’s saying a lot.” 

Many times in my experience with homosexuality I have wished my life was different, that I had some other burden to bear— anything but this one. But I have also felt that if Someone is watching— taking note; caring about each footfall, each bend in the trail; marking my progress— then the burden may be bearable. When the road is long and the loneliness and sheer longing threaten to extinguish hope, it helps to remember that, like Frodo and Sam, I, too, am in a grand tale, with an all-seeing, all-caring Reader or Listener who also happens to be in some mysterious way the Author. Sam of The Lord of the Rings trilogy believed there would be listeners and readers who would want to know the story of this struggle. I believe that in my case, too, there is Someone who cares about my story.

… Homosexuality calls us to consider our own lives and to trust in the mystery of God’s providence and his gift of redemption through Christ. With patience and openness to the good that may come even from evil, we can learn to “hear” the voice of our sexuality, to listen to its call. We can learn to “appreciate the value of our story and the stories of others, because God is the ‘potter’ or ‘storyteller’.” Slowly, ever so slowly, I am learning to do this. I am learning that my struggle to live faithfully before God in Christ with my homosexual orientation is pleasing to him. And I am waiting for the day when I will receive the divine accolade, when my labor of trust and hope and self-denial will be crowned with his praise. “Well done, good and faithful servant,” the Lord Christ will say. “Enter into the joy of your master.”

There is a debate right now over the implications of a teaching called the Eternal Subordination of the Son (ESS), which explores the intra-Trinatarian relationship between God the Son to God the Father. Here are two summary articles that will bring you up to speed if you are unfamiliar with this discussion and would like to learn more.

Eternal Submission in the Trinity? A Quick Guid to the Current Debate 

A Different Way Forward 

Opponents of ESS like Carl Trueman and Liam Goligher believe that ESS represents a departure from long-held confessional statements of the Church. ESS advocates Wayne Grudem and Bruce Ware have responded by saying that they keep the confessions, and their theological beliefs are not being accurately represented. To complicate matters, the debate is actually more than one debate, as Andrew Wilson helpfully points out in the above article by identifying 10 essential questions underneath it. ESS adherents respond to these questions differently which even further impedes dialogue. It is not sufficient to say “ESS proponents” believe XYZ without designating which proponents and which beliefs.

For some, the debate is primarily academic and is best left to those who have spent years reading Trinitarian theology. But for others, the debate has very practical implications. Bruce Ware and Wayne Grudem in particular have cultivated the doctrine of ESS in direct response to modern evangelical feminism and use it to bolster their very real world views on gender, particularly submission of women. This teaching then filters down through books, conferences, and pulpits and has significant influence on how men and women are taught to relate to each other in their churches, marriages, and society at large.

Some scholars see the link between ESS and gender as unhelpful. But we would like to submit that the link is much worse than simply unhelpful. We believe it is actually corrupting and confusing the Trinitarian debate. ESS is being shaped by gender debates, not the other way around. And this, in our opinion, is precisely where the disconnect lies. This is why so many have pushback against the ESS presentation of submission in the Trinity.

Grudem and Ware have unapologetically set gender relationships as the frame for their handling of ESS. In the book, One God in Three Persons: Unity of Essence, Distinction of Persons, Implications for Life (co-edited by Ware with essays by both Ware and Grudem), Grudem introduces the topic with the essay: “Doctrinal Deviations in Evangelical-Feminist Arguments about the Trinity.” In Grudem's book Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth, his first chapter in response to evangelical feminism teaches that the “equality and differences between men and women reflect the equality and differences in the Trinity.” Ware, Grudem, and the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood on which they sit fundamentally link their understanding of ESS and Trinitarian relationships to gender. 

In his Institutes, John Calvin famously wrote that without knowledge of God there is no knowledge of self, and without knowledge of self there is no knowledge of God. While scholars are handling the question of “the knowledge of God” in this debate, we believe it’s essential to give attention also to “knowledge of self.” How has Ware and Grudem’s knowledge of human gender influenced their knowledge of God? Has the tail wagged the dog here? We think so.

In this sense, we are not offering solutions to the Trinitarian debate. We are instead suggesting that faulty anthropology has infiltrated it. We are suggesting that Ware and Grudem’s understanding of gender is the reason that their opponents believe their argument is ontological (essential to God the Son's very existence – the foundational topic of debate among the scholars) while Ware and Grudem insist that it is not. Their gender angst is importing faulty categories into the Trinitarian debate.

Consider Grudem's own words as he explains his understanding of Jesus' subordination to God the Father –

“In those relationships, Scripture speaks of the Father having a unique role of initiating, planning, directing, sending, and commanding; it speaks of the Son as having a role of joyfully agreeing with, supporting, carrying out, and obeying the Father; and it speaks of the Spirit as acting in joyful obedience to the leadership of both the Father and the Son.”

Now consider how The Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood applies this to women – First, from their website Summary of the Complementarian Position:

A. Created Equality of Essence and Distinction of Role 

Male and female were created by God as equal in dignity, value, essence and human nature, but also distinct in role whereby the male was given the responsibility of loving authority over the female, and the female was to offer willing, glad-hearted and submissive assistance to the man. Gen. 1:26-27 makes clear that male and female are equally created as God’s image, and so are, by God’s created design, equally and fully human. But, as Gen. 2 bears out (as seen in its own context and as understood by Paul in 1 Cor. 11 and 1 Tim. 2), their humanity would find expression differently, in a relationship of complementarity, with the female functioning in a submissive role under the leadership and authority of the male.

And from another post on the cbmw.org website:

Given that gender identity will remain (in the New Creation), is there evidence that functional distinctions will likewise remain in the new creation? Will resurrected saints as male and female {emphasis added} have gender-specific roles? How will we relate to one another? Will male headship apply? … Complementarity is not just an accommodation to the less-than-perfect conditions that prevailed during the first century. Rather, it is a divine principle weaved into the fabric of God’s order for the universe.

Note the parallel language of the joyful agreement and support of the Son eternally to the leadership of the Father and the female's willing, glad-hearted and submissive assistance to the man. To sum up Grudem, Ware, and The Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood's position, Jesus is eternally subordinate to God the Father and woman will be eternally subordinate to man in the New Creation. 

Herein lies the problem. Grudem and Ware argue for submission of the Son on the basis of role. So far, so orthodox. But when they apply ESS to gender, they have tied submission to the essence of femaleness and not simply the role of being a wife. By necessity then, when they talk about the Son’s submission to the Father, it is almost impossible not to hear it as an ontological argument. Why? Because Bible-believing Christians know gender (more accurately, biological sex) to be an ontological category. We know that being female is an identity given by God and intrinsically bound up in the imago Dei. This is the fundamental argument against transgender positions: “So God made man[kind] in His image; in the image of God He created him; male and female he created them.” '

When these leaders emphasize female submission instead of wifely submission, they are speaking of submission as if it were an ontological characteristic. Consider how John Piper answered a question on whether a woman should be a police officer.

“At the heart of mature manhood is a sense of benevolent responsibility to lead, provide for, and protect women in ways appropriate to a man’s differing relationships. … At the heart of mature womanhood is a freeing disposition to affirm, receive, and nurture strength and leadership from worthy men in ways appropriate to a woman’s differing relationships. … it would be hard for me to see how a woman could be a drill sergeant … over men without violating their sense of manhood and her sense of womanhood.”

These leaders of The Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood believe that this benevolent responsibility of man and joyful receiving from woman is the heart of mature manhood and womanhood – not roles for husbands and wives but the essence of the two genders, and they believe it holds still in the New Creation. So when these same men start talking about submission in the Trinity, it makes sense to import the categories they have already established back into the discussion. And they, not any of their detractors, have set this frame. If a woman is not fully female without submissiveness, how is Jesus fully God's Son without it as well? That, friends, is by definition ontology.

Being a wife is a role; being a husband is a role; being a servant is a role; being a citizen is a role. Being male and female are not roles. While our biological sex necessarily shapes the roles we hold (in marriage, a woman will be a wife and not a husband), submission does not stem directly from gender but from a role that exists in the context of relationship. A wife submits to her husband not because he is a “man” but because he is her husband and has committed himself to certain vows and duties in the context of their marriage. The same is true of a servant and master, a congregant and elder, and a citizen and his government. Submission happens in context of specific privileges and responsibilities found in specific relationships bound by specific covenants.

In contrast to the belief that women are ontologically (and therefore eternally) subordinated to men, we believe with Paul in I Corinthians 11:3 that “the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.” See these posts for clarification of what “head” means in Scripture.

Thomas Jefferson and Headship 
Male Privilege 
The Missing Head 

If we then let the Bible give commentary on itself, we see that in the New Creation, that middle category of I Corinthians 11:3 does not endure for humans in eternity. Jesus said it Himself in Matthew 28:29-30,

“You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.”

This is foundational to this discussion. While the categories of male and female endure into the New Creation, the earthly roles of being husbands and wives do not. Or to be more eschatologically accurate, these earthly roles are finally fulfilled. Our earthly marriages—and the submission that happens within them—are but mere shadows of the one great marriage between Christ and His bride that will exist for all eternity. As our roles shift from being individual husbands and wives so too will the submission that flows from our individual relationships. As the collective Bride of Christ, we will all submit to Jesus as our Bridegroom. Christ remains the head of both man and woman. His supremacy (which Philippians 2 tells us is the direct result of his obedience to the Father) will govern our relationships with each other, male and female alike.

In this life now, husbands and wives have an opportunity to give testimony, not to the subordination of women to men, but to the eternal truth that Jesus is a Bridegroom who loved His wife enough to leave His glory, descend to the earth, and fulfill His Father’s plan of Redemption. And this is what we celebrate when we celebrate the subordination of the Son. We do not celebrate authority. We celebrate sacrifice. We do not celebrate control. We celebrate the submission of our wills. It is this beautiful dynamic between the Father and Son, and eventually between the Bridegroom and Bride, that will set the world right.

Hannah Anderson and Wendy Alsup

In my post on Thomas Jefferson and headship (which a commenter rightly pointed out is NOT a word that the Bible uses), I briefly mentioned addressing in the future women operating in the kingdom with an absentee head (a word the Bible does use). I've been slow to address that, but it is certainly worth exploring. If you haven't read the other article, this one won't make much sense.

I know many men whom I respect as kephale cornerstones in their homes and churches. Christ is the chief cornerstone in the household of faith, but these men image Christ out in their little households within the Big Household. They are load bearing men, who leverage their privilege to provide support and direction to those in their care. I love and admire these men. I won't walk up to them and say anything, because that would be weird. But I note it from afar, and I thank God for what they bring to the household of faith. 

I also know a number of men who have walked away from their load-bearing responsibilities. Some call it mid-life crisis. I think many men, including Christian men, reach a fork in the road a few years into the load-bearing responsibility of family and ministry. The naivety has worn off, and the responsibility is hard. And they must choose. Do they lean into their head, Jesus Christ (I Cor. 11:3), for the strength to persevere under the weight of responsibility, or do they extricate themselves from the household altogether? Many men choose the latter.

When a man removes himself from the weight of responsibility for his home and family, what happens? He was a load-bearing cornerstone, and the house sags in his absence. It will fall to pieces if not for a woman of courage and virtue to bear up in his absence. We see in Scripture such women of virtue bearing up in the absence or abdication of the men who should have been bearing the weight with and for them. Hagar. Abigail. Ruth. Esther. Lois. Eunace. These are the main ones from Scripture who come to mind. But they are joined in my head by the many women I know here on earth who bear up similarly. Felicia, Beth, Christine, Katherine, Louise, Tracy. Women who initiate devotions with their children when no one initiates with them. Women who must figure out how to earn an income after taking years off of their career path to have children. Women who tirelessly rally themselves and their children to church week after week with no reward or pat on the back. Women who spend their Mother's Day serving others because no one is left to serve them.

The Bible calls these ladies women of virtue or capable women. The Bible looks at their role in their homes and praises it. In Proverbs 31, the woman of virtue bears her weight within the context of a marriage in which her husband bears his as well. Scripture implies that he is well respected in the community. This is a man who is a kephale cornerstone, levering his privilege as a load-bearing foundational element of the household. But Ruth was also known as a woman of virtue. Her reputation as a capable woman of strength preceded her (Ruth 3:11) when the kephale stones in her household of husband and father-in-law had died. Ruth was a load-bearing wall, a necessary cross-beam, in Naomi's life. She couldn't replace her father-in-law, yet she carried much of the weight that he would have been bearing if he had still been alive. Yet we see clearly from Ruth and Naomi's life the profound loss in their lives from the death of their heads. Ruth in particular persevered and brought comfort to Naomi, but that did not make the sense of profound loss go away. In fact, it was a new head in the form of Boaz that helped restore Ruth and Naomi's household and family.

Now, depending on our backgrounds and doctrinal inclinations, we are often offended by one or the other of Ruth's states. Some are offended by her persevering independence when widowed. She did it on her own, providing for her family, even leading her mother in law in perseverance and hope. Some would say her independence would make her a bad future wife. On the flip side, some are offended by Ruth's rescue by Boaz. Did she really need a white knight riding in to save her? Could she have not persevered on her own? A woman doesn't have to have a man, right?

We might recognize this tension better in a modern situation. Consider the divorced woman in your church, a divorce not of her own choice, who rises from the ashes to make something of her life. Is she too independent? Is she perceived as unwilling to submit to another man? Maybe other church members think she brought this all on herself and no godly man would have her. Or, on the flip side, is she too interested in finding a new husband? Is she needy and unable to care for herself? Would you tell her she doesn't need a man? That she can do this on her own? That's she's better off not dependent on some other man who can hurt her?

We don't need to pit the two stages of Ruth's life against each other. We don't need to pit the overcoming single woman without a man against the woman who has a husband who is bearing the keystone weight of his household. One does not undermine the value of the other. Both stages of Ruth's life pictured overcoming gospel hope, Ruth as a widow bearing undue weight as she persevered caring for Naomi, and Ruth and Boaz as a couple who picture the coming kinsman-redeemer. At neither stage of life was Ruth without the consequences of the fall. Not only did Ruth's first husband die, her second did eventually as well. She very likely was a widow on the back end of life as well as the front end. And at neither stage was Ruth without hope from her newfound God. These two stages don't need to be pitted against each other to recognize the great help and structure that Boaz brought to both Ruth and Naomi as Ruth's head. He provided a foundational fix to the household structure Ruth had been valiantly holding up on her own. We can both honor the kephale cornerstone that Boaz was and say with profound conviction that the house would fall without the woman standing alongside the man, and sometimes standing without him when he defaults on his responsibilities.

With a title referencing male privilege, this surely must be another article bashing evangelical men, right? Absolutely not! Though the mere mention of the term privilege causes some folks to bristle, I don't want to talk about male privilege as something to bash men about but as something that is a gift to the entire Body of Christ, particularly the most vulnerable in it, when used as God intended.

First, is there such a thing as male privilege? It's important to define privilege. When I use the word, I mean an advantage available to a certain group of people. The entire male gender does enjoy some advantages over the female gender when statistical averages are compared. It's important to note that privilege refers to statistical averages more than individual comparisons. There will always be outliers, and any one individual man can easily find twenty women with more money or influence, even more physical strength. But averaged out by county, state, or nation, men consistently earn more than women working the same jobs. They average out as physically stronger than women. And in many nations, men still hold clear legal privilege over women by law. Averaged out through humanity, there is a clear advantage financially, physically, and often even legally to be being born a man.

Next, is privilege a bad thing? NO! It can be a very good thing. It's not a thing to be ashamed of, UNLESS you only use your privilege to serve yourself. Always in Scripture, those privileged by race, gender, or financial ability are called to steward that privilege to serve those around them in need. I don't write as a bitter old woman mad at all the men in my life who abused their privilege. In fact, quite the opposite. The majority of men in my life with God-given authority over me, particularly my dad and my pastors, have used their authority to bless me again and again. I have had really good examples of men in my life who leveraged their privilege for my benefit (even though they likely have never thought of it in those terms).

As I've been thinking through what headship should be in the Body of Christ, I can't get away from my dad's example. Each Father's Day, I stand in the aisle reading cards until one makes me cry. Then I know I've found the right card for Daddy. Yesterday, he gave my oldest son a farmer's cap as he took him to guitar lesson. When my son got out of the car and walked in the house with the cap turned sideways on his head, he told me, “Mom, you have a good dad.”

Daddy had three daughters and no sons (now he has six grandsons and no granddaughters, which I find funny). Daddy loves his daughters, and he worked hard as a farmer to provide for us. He did not personally start off in life with land or equity that he inherited from his parents. He didn't have a chance to get a college degree. But through hard work and a good business sense, he is leaving his daughters with financial security and peace of mind.

Daddy is an authority in my life. He doesn't request much, but whenever he does, my sisters and I drop everything we are doing to help him. But it's because we love him, and we know he would do anything he could to protect us and help us. Daddy saw that we were well educated, and he values our opinion and defers to us often. He is proud of his daughters' accomplishments. He respects our minds. But Daddy also knows stuff we don't know, and we need his knowledge.

Daddy is more financially secure than me. Daddy is stronger than me. Even with chronic heart failure at age 78, he can slice a piece of wood with a single swing of the ax (which I learned last year when he was trying to show me what I was doing wrong). But Daddy has never lorded that authority or strength over me. He instead has used it to bless and help me when I have been vulnerable or needy. He has used his strength to enable me to be strong.

A friend gave me feedback on my post on Thomas Jefferson, “Authority isn't missing from your expression of headship, but it's a means to an end; not an end in itself.” This is how my dad and the majority of pastors in my life have used their authority in my life. Their authority wasn't about their authority. Their authority wasn't the absolute thing to preserve. Their authority was a tool. They felt responsibility for those with whom they were called to relationship and they used their authority to bless those in their care.

There is beauty in this vision, which I argue is the Biblical model, for both men and women. For men, it addresses the angst we have seen over the last two decades over what it means to be a manly man. May my sons and nephews understand that being a manly man means above all else that you shoulder your responsibilities and leverage your gifts and privileges for those smaller or weaker or less secure than you. For women, this vision frees us to recognize godly men (men who don't protect their authority or privilege but use it for the good of others) and respond to them as is appropriate, to encourage them as needed. If God calls us into relationship with one, then we support them as they support us. We bear our responsibilities beside them, with them, be it in the church or home, as helpers strongly suited for just that kind of co-labor.  All in the image of God.

Mary Kassian wrote an article at Desiring God entitled Women Teaching Men — How Far Is Too Far? In it, she addresses recent discussions about what women can do in the church. She gives the guidelines she uses, some of which I found helpful. She also affirms that women asking this question are doing so from a heart of faithfulness to the Scripture, a point I appreciated as well.

May women ever teach from Scripture when men are in the audience? Should men even be reading this article? How far is too far? 

It’s a question being asked by scores of women who want to be faithful to the Bible and want to exercise their spiritual gift of teaching in a way that honors God’s pattern of male headship in the church.

My problem with the article comes primarily from the analogy she uses to explore this question.

The discussion surrounding the boundary reminds me of another how-far-is-too-far issue: How physically affectionate should a couple be prior to marriage? Should they hold hands? Kiss? Kiss for five seconds, but not fifteen? Lip kiss but not French kiss? How far is too far? 

Well, the Bible doesn’t exactly specify. Trying to put together a list of rules about permitted behaviors would be both misleading and ridiculous. But we’re not left without a rudder. The Bible does provide a clear boundary. Sexual intercourse prior to marriage crosses the line.

Here's the major problem I have with this analogy. The Bible specifies a lot more about women teaching/prophesying/proclaiming in the church than it does with foreplay before marriage. What if the Bible told a story of Boaz and Ruth french kissing without judgement before they were betrothed? What if Paul affirmed in I Corinthians young men in the church holding hands with women not yet their wife? If the Bible affirmed some form of premarital foreplay, then the line for premarital foreplay would be a reasonable analogy for acceptable forms of women teaching men in the church. But the Bible doesn't give examples of acceptable foreplay outside of marriage.

In contrast, Scripture does give examples of women affirmed as prophets, apostles, judges, and deacons. When we forget that fact, we run the great risk of declaring as bad (or just projecting some type of taint on it) what God affirms. We must not set up a false dichotomy between affirming and honoring God's plan for male headship in church/home and women using their gifts of teaching as Scripture allows. In fact, I would argue God's plan for male headship is harmed, not helped, if co-laborers in the household of faith are encouraged away from using their gifts as fully as Scripture allows.

I went to Bible college with a number of earnest Christian women who used Mary's encouragement on the issue of premarital foreplay. There was the Virgin Lips Club, the model women on campus who had never kissed a guy and vowed not to until marriage. I lost my virgin lips in high school youth group many moons before, so I wasn't a member. I had no problems with that club, and I don't have much problem with my experience either. In general, we all valued God's command around sexual faithfulness, which was good.

But I submit that the women-teaching-men version of the Virgin Lips Club greatly undermines God's plan for the Church. If a large portion of the Church is instructed that it is OK to stamp down their spiritual gifts of teaching to stay as far from the line of teaching with authority that I Timothy 2-3 limits to male elders, we are going to lose a boat load of 2x4 studs in the household of faith. In my article on Thomas Jefferson and headship, I argued the case of husbands and elders as kephale headstones in their little houses in the big house of faith. But women come alongside them as necessary supports. The cornerstones can not hold the entire structure of the house. They need 2x4's and cross beams, and the gifts of women, including the gift of teaching, are necessary, not periphery to the health of the Church.  This is the point complementarians must regularly stress if they want to be truly Biblical.  We are not free to not use women's gifts. 

This is going to be a shorter article, because I have much more research and study to do on it. I'll put out my thesis, but I have not yet done the full survey of Scripture that I need to do to come up with final conclusions.

Thesis: By conflating the roles/offices of priest and prophet in the Old Testament and elder and apostle in the New, modern evangelicals (particularly around the Young, Restless, and Reformed resurgence) have conflated roles in which women were used in Scripture with roles in which they were not, the result being that all roles are open to women in egalitarian thought and none to women in complementarian thought. Both of these systems of thought miss the Biblical model which had women robustly used in ways involving verbal proclamations (prayers and prophecies) but limited them in authoritative/pastoral roles involving sacrifices in the Old and sacraments in the New.

Points to consider: 

1. It's a presbyterian/reformed thing to see Scripture as connected and coherent. The Old Testament is not a disjointed set of antiquated Laws and stories. Instead, it is the foundation for the New Testament, the first buds of the gospel story that blooms in earnest in the gospels. For instance, in reformed thought, the New Testament practice of baptism is closely tied to the Old Testament practice of circumcision.

2. What if New Testament elders are tied to the ministry of Old Testament priests and New Testament apostles more to Old (and New) Testament prophets/prophetesses? How would this change our understanding of what women can and cannot do in the Church?

3. The church polity of individual churches and denominations are varied. Rather than considering how different churches use the words apostle, elder, and pastor, we should start by simply considering how the Bible uses the words.

4. Women were clearly prophetesses in both the Old and New Testament (Ex. 15:20, Judges 4:4, 2 Chron. 34:22, Luke 2:26, Acts 21:9).

5. Women clearly spoke (prayer and prophecy) during worship gatherings in the New Testament church (I Cor. 11:5).

6. Women were forbidden from either all speaking in services or a certain type of speaking in I Cor. 14: 34 and I Timothy 2.

7. A woman, Junia, may have been an apostle, depending on how you read Romans 16:7.

8. Priest in the Old Testament and Elder in the New were official roles with very specific qualifications. Only men are named in either role. New Testament qualifications for elder are less strict than Old Testament qualifications for priest.

9. Neither prophet/prophetess in the Old or apostle in the New have clearly specified qualifications (at least not on par with priest and elder). There are no qualifications in Scripture around their gender. 

Points 5 and 6 are important – either Paul wrote a convoluted mess of instructions to the church at Corinth, or he didn't. I personally don't think he did, and I think we can use the different things he says to refine what each instruction means, using the Bible as commentary on itself. Whatever keeping silent means in I Cor. 14 and teaching with authority means in I Timothy 2, it apparently doesn't mean a woman can't pray or prophesy publicly in church. I have seen churches which don't allow women as elders that are more and more asking women to lead in prayer during worship service. I think that is closer to the practice of the New Testament church.

In general, I think the conservative gender resurgence of the last few decades involved a charismatic element that conflated the office of elder with the general gift/role of apostle. Mark Driscoll saw himself as receiving direct words from the Lord. He believed the charismatic gifts were still for today and, in my humble opinion, played loose with the phrase, “God told me ….” C J Mahaney and John Piper, I believe, are both open to charismatic gifts for today. I personally don't have strong convictions either way – I see in Scripture both the argument for and against apostolic/charismatic gifts for today. I tend toward a belief that direct words from God were shut off when the canon of Scripture was set.

This conflation of the priestly and prophetic serves the egalitarian argument that everything is open to women. My friend Jeremiah says it this way – “Complementarians who maintain the lazy conflation of priestly and prophetic don't realize they've conceded the argument to egalitarians if they won't begin to distinguish the two roles from the OT forward.”

Personally, I have no problem that Junia is talked about like she was an apostle. I can concede that to egalitarians and still believe the authoritative office of elder in the church is for qualified men only. I also don't have a problem with the ministry of women like Beth Moore or Joyce Meyer, at least not because they are women (in contrast, I disagree with how both handle Scripture). Neither has attempted to take a spiritually authoritative role of elder (that I know of). They don't exercise church discipline. In fact, I watched an episode of Joyce Meyer speaking with her husband and noted the deference and respect she gave him (whom I think actually oversees her ministry).

In conclusion, I think we see women throughout Scripture speaking to God's people—prophesying in the Old (and New) and praying in services in the New. I'm wondering how a triperspective view of elder as prophet, priest, and king, a thought that took off over the last decade in Mark Driscoll's circles, confused us about what women can and can't do by lumping all of those under the auspices of one specific role in the church, the authoritative role of elder.

I have much more thinking and research to do on this, and if you have thoughts or input, please add them. I always grow from reading comments.

(Unless you want to tell me what's wrong with Beth Moore or Joyce Meyer. Please don't do that. That will only distract from the important discussion over what women did and did not do in the Old and New Testament.)

My writing has taken me down a twisted, rocky path. But it's ended at a beautiful destination – one that is tweaking how I think about gender in the Scripture.

I started with a manuscript addressing hard things in Scripture concerning women. I wanted to wrestle with as many of the hard passages as I could, and none seemed quite as convoluted and unhelpful to women as I Corinthians 11's presentation of headship and head coverings. (If you aren't familiar with the chapter, I suggest you stop and read through it – this post assumes a basic familiarity with it.)

I wrestled. And studied. And talked to others who wrestled with me. No one has helped me think through this quite as much as Hannah Anderson. The thing that finally unlocked I Corinthians 11 for me was applying the number one law of hermeneutics – the Bible is the best commentary on itself . Was I Corinthians the only place the Bible talked about head coverings? No, actually, it wasn't. In fact, there is a highly relevant passage in Scripture that tells us exactly what Paul is referring to when he warned about head-coverings and the shame of a shaved head in Corinthian culture. It's found in Deuteronomy 21.

10 “When you go out to battle against your enemies, and the Lord your God delivers them into your hands and you take them away captive, 11 and see among the captives a beautiful woman, and have a desire for her and would take her as a wife for yourself, 12 then you shall bring her home to your house, and she shall shave her head and trim her nails. 13 She shall also remove the clothes of her captivity and shall remain in your house, and mourn her father and mother a full month; and after that you may go in to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife. 14 It shall be, if you are not pleased with her, then you shall let her go wherever she wishes; but you shall certainly not sell her for money, you shall not mistreat her, because you have humbled her.

There you have it, folks. I Corinthians 11 decoded, and all from a simple cross reference in Scripture. The hair issue is about protection from sexual subjugation in a culture in which women were regularly used as sexual slaves. This was major issue in Corinth. And the entire world really. Women were taken captive, and female slaves were considered the sexual property of their owners. Their head covering was integral to their representation in that culture. A woman's shaved head (and in Corinth apparently even just going without a head-covering) represented her status as a captive.  A recent New Yorker article on the hair styles of the presidential candidates pointed this out as well.

“Ted Cruz would fit perfectly in ancient Rome. Carly Fiorina, absolutely not: short hair was a sign you’d been conquered.

God's children were to act differently. In the Law, if an Israelite took a female captive that he wanted sexually, there was a process. She went through a ritual to mourn her losses, and the Israelite then must marry her . He could not force her to be his sexual slave without the protections of the covenant relationship of marriage. And from the next chapter, Deuteronomy 22, we know that God took the marriage covenant very seriously. Covenant marriage under the Law, especially to a woman who was without family protection, offered the woman much needed protection, provision, and representation (consider also Boaz and Ruth).

Things hadn't changed much between the time the Law was given in Deuteronomy and the time Paul addressed the church at Corinth. A friend of mine recently visited the acropolis at Corinth and learned of its long history of sexual subjugation of female captives. I could recount what she told me of its sexual history, but we really don't need to look much further in the United States than our very own founding fathers to see exactly what the issue was.

My kids and I love the musical Hamilton, and therefore, we've been learning a lot about Thomas Jefferson. I was intrigued last week to read this story in the New York Times about Jefferson and his relationship with his slave Sally Hemings. I knew of Sally, but I researched her deeper. I learned that there are no pictures of Sally, but accounts say that she was a beautiful light skinned woman who Jefferson began a sexual relationship (non-consensual since she was a slave without the ability to say no) when she was quite young. She eventually had six children believed to be fathered by Jefferson. After reading the NY Times article, I went to the Monticello website to read more about Sally Hemings.

And I cried.

I'd been studying I Corinthians 11 too long to miss the significance of her story. For what I learned was that, beyond just being the mother of six of Jefferson's children, Sally Hemings was also likely the half-sister of Thomas Jefferson's wife, fathered by Jefferson's white, respected father-in-law John Wayles. Wayles had a daughter by a covenant marriage that he recognized who became Jefferson's legal wife. Wayles educated that daughter and saw her married to a brilliant, powerful man. But John Wayles had another daughter, Sally. This daughter was born from a relationship of captive sexual subjugation. Her mother was a slave with no rights. Her father provided Sally and her mother food, shelter, and clothing. But he didn't claim either as his own. He didn't take responsibility for Sally the way he did for his daughter of covenant relationship. Neither Sally's mother or Sally herself carried his name or the protections and privileges that went with it.

Jefferson continued this generational sexual subjugation. It is thought that Sally was pregnant with her first child by him at the age of 16. There is no record of Wayles objecting to this relationship. Jefferson never freed Sally but did eventually free her living children. His daughter of covenant marriage, Martha, who bore Jefferson's name and inherited his estate, freed Sally after his death. 

Martha Jefferson and her descendants claimed Jefferson's name freely. Eventually, the family of one of Sally's children added Jefferson to their name. They had every right in my opinion, yet in the culture at the time, they were Jefferson's slave bastards. They had no legal rights to his name. He certainly never claimed them.

Headship.

Egalitarians argue that head, gr. kephale, in I Corinthians 11 and Ephesians 5 means source – the husband is the source of the wife, as Eve was made from Adam's rib. Complementarians emphasize that it means authority – a wife is under her husband's authority. But both of those meanings miss the point. Jefferson was an authority in Sally Hemings life! But he wasn't her head. He didn't take responsibility for her. He didn't represent her with his name. He didn't steward his role in her life or the lives of the children he created with her. He used her. His authority over her resulted in her abuse and misuse.

Headship in I Corinthians 11 and Ephesians 5 isn't primarily about authority. At least, if you look at how Scripture uses the word throughout the Bible, it isn't. Headship is about responsibility and representation. It's about entering covenant with someone and following through on your God-given commitments to them. It's about owning your relationship with them, both the rights of relationship and the responsibilities. It's about covering them in ways that protect them and provide for them.

The Greek word for head is used most often in Scripture to refer to the literal head on a body. But there is one other time it's used that has nothing to do with the head on a body, and I find that use of it especially helpful when we consider I Corinthians 11 and Ephesians 5's figurative use of it to refer to a husband.

Matthew 21:42 Jesus said to them, “Did you never read in the Scriptures, ‘The stone which the builders rejected, This became the chief corner stone; This came about from the Lord, And it is marvelous in our eyes’?

The stone which the builders rejected became the kephale cornerstone. If you think about the difference in cornerstones and chief cornerstones, you start to understand the nuance of headship. And when you then apply that nuance to I Corinthian 11's application of headship to women caught up in a culture of sexual subjugation, the whole concept breaks open. And it doesn't break open through some extra-Biblical secret cultural decoder ring. Scripture itself is the tool that breaks it open for us.

What was a cornerstone in the ancient Mid East?

The cornerstone (or foundation stone) concept is derived from the first stone set in the construction of a masonry foundation, important since all other stones will be set in reference to this stone, thus determining the position of the entire structure. (thank you, Wikipedia)

Jesus is the kephale, the chief, cornerstone of the entire building that is the universal Church. And Christian husbands are called to reflect this in their family of influence. Lots of men have authority. But how many men own their covenant commitments, their responsibility and need to represent their family? Well, if you're privileged by race or economic status, that entire question likely sounds ludicrous. But if you travel down the economic ladder just a rung or two, you will easily see how this matters.

From my article on Friday –

Another root problem in complementarian thought is that the movement was fundamentally a reaction to 2nd wave feminism. It's obviously a problem to build a system of teaching from Scripture as a reaction against any cultural movement. But it is even more of a problem when you realize that 2nd wave feminism itself was in many ways a white privileged movement. First wave feminism was not, in my opinion. But 2nd wave feminism hasn't impacted other cultures the same way it has middle and upper class whites because other cultures and other income brackets struggle with a different set of gender issues than those traditionally associated with 2nd wave feminists (like equal executive pay). Gloria Steinhem and other feminist leaders have long been criticized for their overemphasis on equal pay in the upper echelons of the privileged while only paying lip service to the types of gendered abuse that occur throughout the world among the poor. 

No wonder we've been off center in our discussions of headship.

I could (and will) write more. But to summarize this post, I think that I Corinthians 11 presents headship as a husband in a committed covenant relationship with his wife in which he protects her by owning his relationship with her, taking responsibility for her, representing her and their children with his name and protection, and much more. Does authority play a role in the husband/wife relationship? Certainly it does. But there are so many authorities and leaders in life that have nothing to do with headship and marriage that focusing on authority as the point of headship causes us to miss what it's really about.

Looking at their absence in society helps us understand what God created husbands to be to their wives. Any wife who has had a husband abandon his responsibilities (and there are many) and walk away from covenant relationship with her can tell you exactly what her family is missing, what she has to make up in his place, the weight she has to bear and the triple work she must do. I've watched my best friend do this. And she did it! She was strong, and by God's grace and a lot of help from her earthly father, she raised her sons to love God. She was faithful in church, paid her bills, and raised her children. But it was hard, and she felt the gaping hole left by the abandonment of her husband daily. I get disgusted by the headlines around the discrepancy in women's pay in Hollywood. It's hard to muster up outrage that Jennifer Lawrence made $3,000,000 less than Bradley Cooper in their last movie when nationally, $108 billion dollars is owed mostly by men to their children's mothers in back child support.

The feminist response is to downplay the vulnerability of women. Be strong. Be powerful. Don't let men define your identity. The problem is that women's statistically smaller size than men and their bearing of children inherently puts them in a vulnerable position. Short of all women taking steroids worldwide, we are not likely to average out to the size and strength of the average male. Ever. And the human race will die out if women don't allow themselves into the vulnerable position of childbirth and rearing. The Bible recognizes this vulnerability, and Peter specifically addresses it and the inherent role of husbands in this vulnerability in I Peter 3.

7 You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.

The stakes are high – that a husband's “prayers will not be hindered.” A husband's protection, representation, and responsibility at a woman's weakest and most vulnerable time is a non-negotiable with God.

In conclusion, this probably sounds very much like old school headship. And in a sense it is. It's an age old concept, arguably put in motion since creation. And though western culture is working like crazy to minimize it, in my opinion, the foundational need for husbands to bear their responsibility in their homes in order for the home to be set straight will never go away.

Why then is there so much dissonance around this concept in today's churches? There is a very big problem, in my opinion, with how headship has been handled in the complementarian movement. I have loved exhortations to men to “man-up” and bear their responsibilities. But it has been the lip service paid to protection and responsibility without the hard actions in reality, particularly around the topic of spiritual and sexual abuse, that has really undermined this teaching. Instead of their headship elevating the status of the vulnerable, a number of complementarian leaders abused their headship to walk over the vulnerable. They confused headship with authority and forgot to protect and represent the vulnerable under their care. They made it unsafe to be vulnerable, and that is a travesty in God's design. It is serious enough that their prayers will be hindered.

There are a few men speaking and acting on abuses. In our presbytery, there are godly men speaking out particularly on the topics of racial prejudice (which included much spiritual and sexual abuse). But again and again, there is another story of a conservative man who in theory believes in headship who allowed his daughters to be molested, or molested them himself. There are pastors who look away again and again when men in their church use a young woman who is not in position to give consent, men like Thomas Jefferson with an air of respectability who still see women as sexual objects. What should be a load bearing cornerstone that contributes to the full functioning of other stones instead becomes a stone that crushes others under it. If the leaders who put forward headship can't call out those who abuse it, their moral authority to speak on the subject erodes away. 

NOTE -- I haven't addressed the functioning of wives in the concept of headship – I'll point out now that the cornerstone doesn't consume or subsume the other stones. It contributes to their best use, and the other stones bear weight and contribute to the alignment of the building as well. In my next post, I'll talk about the interpretation problem of conflating apostle and elder in the New Testament and prophet and priest in the Old which has made correct interpretation and application of what women can do in the Church nearly impossible. This has contributed to a de-emphasis of women's essential role in the health of local conservative churches and resulted in closing off opportunities to women in conservative churches that were clearly given to women in Scripture.

There's been a number of posts this last week defending complementarian thought. Most notably, Kevin DeYoung wrote 9 Marks of Healthy Biblical Complementarianism. I've had this post in the works for a long time, but Kevin's post and Aimee Byrd's response to it reminded me anew of a long unsettled feeling I've had with complementarian language.

Many reformed conservatives feel dissonance with the Counsel of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. Though we generally identify aa complementarian, this is more a function of the fact that we DON'T identify with egalitarian thought than a hook, line, and sinker support of conservative presentations and applications of complementarian thought. Furthermore, we generally identify as complementarians because we've been greatly influenced in other ways by the old leaders of the movement. I was deeply influenced by John Piper's Desiring God. I find D. A. Carson's exegeses of various passages incredibly helpful, including passages on women. Tim Keller's writings on social justice transformed how I think about the gospel applied.

I really don't want to be at odds with any of these guys whom I respect and from whom I have learned life changing truths. But some of their language around the Bible and gender and the applications of the groups they support leave me uncomfortable. I go back again and again to the word dissonance. Something is not quite right. Something doesn't fit the rest of Scripture. I think often of a science conundrum that well illustrates the problem (in my humble opinion) with the last 30 years or so of discussion on gender among evangelicals.

  Note: if you are of the personality type that curls into the fetal position at the mention of a science conundrum, I'll try to explain this in a way that is empowering, not frustrating, to you. If I fail, let me know in the comments, and I'll try harder next time. 

Consider for a moment Newtonian physics. Most of us are familiar with it -- even you artists and poets who don't think you are. At least we all live according to it everyday. It centers around the concept of gravity. An apple fell on Sir Isaac Newton's head in the late 1600's, causing him to figure out gravity. Large objects (like our earth) pull smaller objects toward them (like an apple being pulled back to the earth or the moon being held in orbit by the gravitational pull of the earth), and the foundation of Newtonian physics was laid. Much in our world fits Newtonian physics, and it has become a great tool for understanding the universe. We all stick to the earth because of Newtonian physics. The moon orbits the earth; the earth orbits the sun. From satellites transmitting data to the earth to ants crawling along the ground, it seems that our universe is fundamentally held together by gravity. I was even taught in high school that electrons orbited around neutrons in atoms similar to the planets around the sun. The idea was that the neutron held the electrons in orbit through the gravitational pull of the neutron.

The problem is that scientists later discovered that electrons and neutrons don't actually work like that. In fact, you can't even measure how an electron travels in an atom. All of our world does not in fact obey Newtonian physics, particularly at the micro level. So we have a universe that follows one principle while the tiny parts that make up that universe defy it. Atoms don't fit Newton's model. Albert Einstein and others after him sought for a Unified Field Theory, something that explained how the universe worked on a macro and micro level. How could the big parts of the Universe work together in a way that the small parts making them up defied? There has to be a bigger principle at work, one that explains both.

Can you see where I am going here with gender?

In the 70s and 80s, a new conservative model on gender in the Church was codified. Statements were written, councils were established, and books were published. And these statements, councils, and books spoke into a number of problems around gender in the Church. They highlighted the fact that God created two distinct but overlapping genders (though the overlapping part has been sorely under-emphasized), two genders that complemented each other. Complementarian thought was born, and it caught on with many because it explained a lot of our experience to us. For those who value a straightforward reading of the Bible, especially when it comes to submission in Ephesians 5 and male-only eldership in I Timothy 3, it gave us a systematic way to look at gender. It also fit what many Christians were seeing in their homes. Among my generation, it gave many a counterexample to their upbringing shaped by parents of the 60's who were putting off the conservative social constructs of the previous generation. Ozzie and Harriett accidentally raised the Woodstock generation. Who raised my peers. And many of my peers wanted more stability in the home for their children than they had experienced with their Woodstock parents. Complementarian constructs resonated with children of Woodstock parents.

The problem is that while the complementarian movement explained a lot and defended important Scripture, it still has underlying root weaknesses. The primary one in my opinion is its foundational misinterpretation of Genesis 3:16 that believes a woman's root problem after the fall is that she wants to take control from the man and dominate him in return. That view put termites in a corner foundation of complementarian thought. You can't build a solid structure on gender with that kind of foundational misinterpretation of the root problem from the fall for women.

Another root problem in complementarian thought is that the movement was fundamentally a reaction to 2nd wave feminism. It's obviously a problem to build a system of teaching from Scripture as a reaction against any cultural movement. But it is even more of a problem when you realize that 2nd wave feminism itself was in many ways a white privileged movement. First wave feminism was not, in my opinion. But 2nd wave feminism hasn't impacted other cultures the same way it has middle and upper class whites because other cultures and other income brackets struggle with a different set of gender issues than those traditionally associated with 2nd wave feminists (like equal executive pay). Gloria Steinhem and other feminist leaders have long been criticized for their overemphasis on equal pay in the upper echelons of the privileged while only paying lipservice to the types of gendered abuse that occurs throughout the world among the poor.

This movement has also allowed for other wrong interpretations in Scripture, for instance that women were created to image the church (Nancy Leigh DeMoss, Mary Kassian) and that all women should submit to all men (John Piper).

Most of all, this movement hasn't allowed for women to serve in the modern complementarian church the way they served with Jesus, Paul, and Peter in the New Testament church. 

So what to do? Well, we need to re-examine some key teachings from Scripture. Personally, I've been looking at this from two angles.

1) Re-examining headship through Scripture. I think headship is an incredibly important teaching because it starts in Genesis and extends all the way through the Epistles. Understanding how the Bible uses the concept unlocks a lot around gender. I've been looking at headship particularly in reference to I Corinthians 11's instructions on women and head-coverings. I feel like the light has come on in my head, solidified after reading an article on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings. THAT STORY IS I CORINTHIANS 11 PERSONIFIED – it is everything Paul was trying to warn the church in Corinth about. The competing definitions of headship as source on the egalitarian side and authority on the complementarian are equally weak choices. Headship in Scripture is deep and beautiful, and I'm looking forward to publishing that article on Monday -- Headship, I Corinthians 11, and Thomas Jefferson.

2) Looking at all the women in the Bible. Conservatives have come up with an idealized womanhood that fits about 50% of the women affirmed in Scripture. Every woman used by God in Scripture gives us a data point for understanding what God did and did not mean by certain words He used. Deborah, Phoebe, Priscilla, and Abigail. Euodia, Synteche, Lydia, and Junia. These ladies aren't outliers. They are part of the normative plan for women made in the image of God. We must couple them with Sarah and Ruth, Mary and Rachel for a holistic understanding of what God created women to be and how He uses them in His story.

Of course, Einstein never figured out a Unified Field Theory, and maybe we won't around gender either. But I do believe that God is sanctifying His Church, and I think the next step may be moving us to a better understanding of male and female in the image of God, one that contributes to the flourishing of both man and woman in the Body of Christ as God intended in Eden.

The phrase gospel community denotes the community brothers and sisters who were formerly alienated from God and each other now have in Christ. Consider related words. Community. Communal. Communion. Common.

Gospel communities hold something in common. They share something, holding equally in it. This thing they share is based on Christ and held together by Christ. Those in gospel community are IN Christ, who breaks down barriers between people who were formerly alienated from one another. In Paul's time, it was Jew and Gentile, slave and free, and male and female. These groups were alienated from each other, one oppressor, the other oppressed, but in Christ the alienation was put away, and they were reconciled. Reconciliation between unequal powers is an interesting thing. In the end, every last time, it is the oppressed that receives the greater grace, for they have more to overcome in reconciliation. They have more to forgive. They lay down more in sins against them. They lay down more in deserved retribution. But where sin abounds, grace abounds much more.

In the United States, there are two particular groups who have been systematically oppressed for generation after generation – the Native American community and the black community. Honestly, I don't have much first hand experience with gospel reconciliation among those in the Native American community, though I am sure it exists in places. But I have been watching carefully gospel reconciliation in the black community and, by extension, the black and white community.

I started taking special note of this phenomena listening to the families of the Emmanuel Nine last summer. I watched and wept during the arraignment hearing for Dylan Root, who gunned down nine faithful church goers at Bible study and prayer service. BECAUSE THEY WERE BLACK. The black church members had welcomed the white kid with nazi tendencies into their little service, and he killed nine out of the twelve of them. Their family members confronted him at the hearing, and several offered forgiveness. There were no riots in the city, no looting of streets. There was profound grief at the weight of what Root brought upon those families. There were rounds of Amazing Grace. And there was forgiveness.

As I listened to that hearing, I was struck that for all the efforts of young white hipster Christians longing to take the gospel to inner cities (and please do!), it would be the quiet voices of weeping black family members who had descended from slaves and still lived in the area many had served that would ring the bell of gospel grace to a community. And I was deeply humbled. I saw a little burst of God's kingdom light shining through a previously unknown, humble little group of African Americans.

Fast forward to the last two weeks, and I again am humbled, my faith strengthened, through a humble little group of African Americans associated with the Reformed African American Network. For a long time, it deeply disturbed me that the reformed movement (and churches) of which I was a part always seemed so white. In Seattle, they also included a number of Asian Americans, but I could count on one hand the number of African Americans that I worshipped with. Why was presbyterianism so white?! Well, as I look at its history in America, I understand now. But I believed the doctrines of grace, and by extension, I believed them for all nations and all races. I struggled with the disparity between races among my reformed cohorts.

Enter RAAN. Just their mere appearance on Twitter and Facebook encouraged me. The doctrines I believed DID transcend race and nationality, and I praised God to see the growth of African American brothers and sisters who believed the doctrines were true and worthy of embracing EVEN THOUGH the history of the reformed church in America was anything but helpful to their quest for equal rights. In the last few weeks, I've had reason to grow in faith yet again through these folks. A controversy arose when another reformed teacher made insensitive, prejudicial statements about a young black man he saw on the street. His original post pre-judged the young man based on his dress and insolent demeanor toward a police car. And when confronted by African American pastors, this man doubled down justifying his words rather than humbly hearing their concerns. I'm not going to link to his words, because I think they are proud and unteachable, and I don't want to draw extra attention to his sin. But you can read articles on the RAAN website that address it.

There is only so much one can take, right? When the people who believe the same doctrines as you are provoked to pride rather than humility, to judgment rather than compassion, at what point do you throw in the towel? When do you say that there must be something wrong with the doctrines if people believing them can act with such pride and prejudice? But instead, Jemar Tisby of the Reformed African American Network did a podcast to address the situation. And it increased my faith. Jemar isn't throwing away the doctrines of grace, for they are too precious to be tossed aside and too solid to be crushed under the weight of such a conflict. Another brilliant beam of light shone in my eyes as the kingdom of God broke through the clouds. Seeds fall into the ground, look like they died, and then turn into oak trees. Leaven transform an entire lump of dough. Hidden pearls of the kingdom are bursting forth in unlikely places, and it is beautiful and faith increasing to watch. Jemar and other reformed African Americans chose faith and truth, and they addressed sin from that gospel foundation.

My own presbytery in the low country of South Carolina is planting a multi-ethnic church in my hometown. Guess who is going to be a part of it? I'm excited for this opportunity to continue watching God's kingdom coming through the black community to the whole community of faith. I feel as much the mission field as the missionary. I have much to learn from the perseverance through suffering of the black community of faith. To the praise of His glorious grace.