"I don't think you have to be a complementarian to be saved." John Piper
Adam and Eve Driven Out of Eden
Complementarianism was one of the crucial topics discussed at the 2012 Together for the Gospel. (link) Ligon Duncan moderated the panel of three, which included Russell Moore (Al Mohler's protege), Greg Gilbert (who is closely aligned with Mark Dever), and John Piper (who made significant contributions to the Danvers Statement which defines complementarianism).
What follows is a partial transcript of some of that discussion that took place in the presence of 7,500 attendees, including pastors and future church leaders.
Ligon Duncan: Let me just start by asking Dr. Piper to tell us where the term came from. How can we articulate what the Bible says about this in a term that is not liable to some of the misuses or misnomers.
John Piper: I don't have a good memory of the timing, but i can tell you what I remember. Wayne Grudem and I were a part of the production of the Danvers statement, which happened in the late 80s in Danvers, Connecticut, and the Danvers Statement is found…at the Biblical Manhood and Womanhood website in which we tried to articulate a vision of how men and women are equally, gloriously in the image of God with that worth and that dignity and yet complement each other in their differences both in marriage and in church and in society in such a way that the flourishing of manhood and womanhood happen best when those complementary differences are honored rather than minimized, and what we saw happening in feminism and in evangelical egalitarianism was a minimizing at best or a nullifying of those differences. And over on the other side we saw a historic abuse of women. A kind of machismo that would define manhood as mishandling or bossing or putting down, and we said well egalitarianism, we don't see that in the Bible. This abuse and belittling of womanhood, we don't see that in the Bible, and this goes under various names like hierarchicalism or traditionalism or whatever, and so we said we need another name because we're just gonna get called traditional otherwise and then there will be no distinction between this. And I don't remember who thought it up, but it came into being in one of those conversations that why don't we take the word "complement", that's complement with a "e" not an "i", complement we're not paying each other compliments, we are completing one another, it's not good for the man to be alone here's a woman fit she's a complement for him. That's the origin and essence of the term. So the gist of it today is it's a vision that steers we hope a Biblical path between the nullification or minimization of differences that are to be lived out in church and home and society and the abuse of those differences that I think the New Testament is written to correct. And it seems to me that in the Garden and then corrected in like Ephesians 5 the abuses can be either men domineering or being passive and the women being domineering or being doormats and mindless and coquettish, and we want to call women to full articulate creative personhood and men to step up to the plate with a kinda Christ-like sacrificial leadership in the home that enables the woman to flourish in all she is and him to flourish in a Christ-like demeanor.
Ligon Duncan: If I could follow up with one more question. Egalitarianism had been around in Evangelicalism from the beginnings of neo-evangelicalism. Why in the late 80s did what became the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and what became the Danvers Statement, why did a group of folks get together and say it's important for us to articulate this now? What was pushing that particular issue?
John Piper: I don't remember except personally. (laughter) You probably know culturally. I was teaching at Bethel College between 74 and 80, and the speakers that were coming in were increasingly strident in their feminism, so that Virginia Mollencott, for example, who's gone her peculiar way since those days called our view obscene in the Bethel Chapel. And it was that kind of rising tide of aggressiveness of the evangelical wing that caused me at least to say I'm gonna say something about this because I don't see any of that in the Scriptures.
Ligon Duncan: Russell, you are now the Chairman of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. Given where they were then, can you assess where we are now? Give us an idea where you think evangelicalism is, where the culture is on this?
Russell Moore: Well, what I fear is that we have an evangelicalism or many people within evangelicalism who can check off complementarian on a box but who aren't really living out complementarian lives, and so sometimes I fear that we have marriages that are functionally egalitarian because they're within the structure of the larger society, and if all we're doing is saying male headship and wives submit to your husbands but we're not really defining what that looks like in a Christ-centered way of discipleship in this kind of culture when those things are being challenged, then it's simply going to go away. People are going to conform to the pattern of this age, which means we have an increasing struggle when it comes to questions that previous generations never had before in the same way. So I have had in recent years people who have come and said my, a woman came to me once and said my husband has told me he wants to be a woman; he wants to have gender reassignment surgery and become a woman. He doesn't want to leave me; he wants to stay together. Martin Luther never had to deal with that. (laughter) I can only imagine what he would have said, but he didn't have to deal with that. Pastors now have to deal with that.
Ligon Duncan: Al Mohler is famous for saying used to a father sat his son down and said now son when it comes time to get married, it's important for you to marry a good Christian girl. Now he has to sit him down and say now son when it comes time to get married it's important to marry a woman and what that means is, and then he has to explain. Greg, you're a pastor. What kind of issues do you see going on with regard to what Russell just talked about in the local church?
Greg Gilbert: Yeah, I think Russel's exactly right. I pastor a church here in town. It's not a large church at all, but I do a good amount of premarital counseling, for instance. Functional egalitarianism among the young people that I council is just all over the place. So you have men who think that being a complementarian and leading their wives really has no feet on it until they come to a decision that they're disagreeing about. But up until that moment, it's just an egalitarian sort of living together without male leadership and headship kind of creating the atmosphere of the home.
Ligon Duncan: You know, a lot of folks have said why include this issue in a conference called "Together for the Gospel"? Aren't there wonderful people that hold high views of God, high views of the doctrines of grace that are egalitarian? Why would we want to highlight this given that it divides some parts of evangelicalism? I'd like to hear from each of you on that. Maybe I'll start with John.
John Piper: Wow. It is really a good question… I don't think you have to be a complementarian to be saved, and so it's not essential at that level, but as soon as you move beneath that level and ask what are the implications of not following through with what Ephesians 5 seems to say or 1 Timothy 2 seems to say – those would be classic marriage / church texts – the implications let me just mention two or three; the implications hermeneutically for the Gospel are significant. If you do the kind of gymnastics that I think you have to do in order to escape Ephesians 5, you're gonna get the Gospel wrong. Secondly. What? That's an overstatement. You will tend to go in that direction and sooner or later you're gonna get the Gospel wrong. Here's the second thing. Marriage, as it's described there, is the Gospel in portrayal. And the husband is to love like Christ loves the church and suffer for her, die for her, and she is to submit to him as the church submits to Christ. If you come along and say there is no head and there is no submission, you simply cancel out the visible Gospel in marriage. And then I would say in the church…it's the pillar and bulwark of the Gospel and if you at the core of its structure deny that men because of their call of God to be men should be the leaders here and women should be leaders, it's going to malfunction along the way. And I would say that in spite of the fact that I know there are Bible women in China and I know there are major women pastors in the charismatic renewal in the global south. I would say notwithstanding it is written on male and female hearts to malfunction long-term where the church is not being led by strong male proclaimers and leaders the way Christ would lead. So I would say for those three reasons at least it gets very close to the center in the kinds of things that are around the Gospel protecting it and making it spread and vital in the world.
Greg Gilbert: i would echo that and just push it again and simply say that in order to get I think to an egalitarian position, you have to bring into your hermeneutic some bad DNA. You have to have some principles and ideas that tend in a certain direction to corrode the authority of Scripture. And once you do that, the corrosion isn't just gonna stop on those particular passages that you want it to stop at. It's gonna move onto other passages until eventually you're sitting right at the heart of the Gospel and letting those corrosive principles work on those texts, also. It's just a dangerous and unhealthy thing I think.
Russell Moore: You know when the United States military went into Iraq, one of the images that we saw all over the world was that statue of Saddam Hussein being torn down because that was a repudiation of Saddam Hussein. Pastor Piper is exactly right. Ephesians Chapter 5 Paul says this is a mystery – marriage is designed to show you Christ in the church. Not the other way around. God says it is not good for Adam to be alone, not simply because he needs company. He could have designed Adam to sub-divide like an Amoeba, but he creates Adam to have someone taken from him who's like him but who is different from him and the two become one flesh. Paul says the mystery is Christ and His church. When you strike at that and the satanic powers always want to strike at that, you're striking at the very picture and sign of the Gospel itself and in the fullness of time the Gospel will not be credible when you raise up children who see the image of the Gospel being torn apart in front of them all the time. The second thing is I don't think it's a question of whether we have male headship. I think it's a question of what kind of male headship will we have. We live in a culture right now that is dominated by pagan patriarchy in which there are restaurants that are there expressly for men to come in and ogle women. Internet pornography is preying upon women. When you have a male headship that is unhinged from the Gospel and unhinged from Christlike discipleship, women and children are going to be harmed and hurt, and that is what we see all around us right now. So part of what complementarianism is saying is not women submit; it is saying wives submit yourselves to your own husbands. When a woman submits herself to her own husband or when a young woman who is not yet married submits herself to that future husband whose name she does not yet know, she is refusing to submit to men generally, so she's not seeing her identity in terms of how men view her in terms of sexual attractiveness and availability, which is why the Apostle Peter when he's talking about what it means to be sanctified as a woman says not what the culture demands of you in braided hair and external appearance but that quiet beauty of the heart. That's a counter-cultural statement, and if we don't preserve that and show the kind of male headship that is self-sacrificial, that washes feet, that goes to the cross, then we're gonna wind up with a kind of male headship that is satanic to the core.
Well, that's the first half of the interview. More to come…
Lydia's Corner: Ezekiel 23:1-49 Hebrews 10:18-39 Psalm 109:1-31 Proverbs 27:13
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“We want to call women to full articulate creative personhood…
Huh?
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I guess we women haven’t arrived to full creative personhood until we submit to a man according to Piper et al !?!
In the church it (wives submitting to husbands) is the pillar and bullwark of the Gospel? What does the Gospel mean to these guys – submission? Earlier he says this is the Gospel in portrayal (which means a picture) then he says it is the pillar and bullwark? He is the one doing gymnastics.
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w-o-w
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Nothing with women being Christ-like and a great fear of defining what a woman is. w-o-w
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And you can only get the gospel right if you interpret your marriage with what they interpret, AND watch out, because you’re probably interpreting more scripture wrong like a disease that spreads. So much for the blood of Jesus, I guess… and the Holy Spirit…
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Coming to a church near you, or perhaps YOUR church…
Please click on the link in the post and read the transcript as you listen to get the full effect.
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How do “egalitarian” marriages make decisions?
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I like what Russell Moore had to say about women not submitting to any man beforehand. I know that some believe that women should be submitting to all men. Interesting view about submission and our sexuality as seen by “society.” (Hollywood…)
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Not one exerpt of that made a bit of sense.
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There’s something rather strange about a bunch of men getting together to decide what the role of women should be! If I was there, I would have asked them if they had consulted any women before coming up with their novel theology, and also if the fact that they were men could somehow have influenced their understanding of the Bible.
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What a laugh — I guess pagan patriarchy is different than “biblical” patriarchy? Have these guys not read the OT? Do they somehow think those OT patriarchs didn’t commit adultery and take women at a whim? I think we just conversed about David and Bathsheba. Is that somehow different than what Moore calls “pagan patriarchy” today?
I guess we are letting the satanic powers use us if we believe in mutual submission or anything other than complementarianism. IMO they are butchering the Gospel with their declarations and they have a really high view of man’s power if man can so easily destroy and misrepresent the Gospel by not believing in complementarianism.
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Ian –
What are you thinking . . . women have no business interpreting scripture and teaching men. Men are the heads and as you can clearly see the male interpretation is always going to be correct because man was made in the image of God and God is male only! Come-on, you surely know women are made in the image of something altogether different than God. These great male minds are still attempting to figure out exactly what image females are made in 🙂
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Sorry to get off the subject, but Justin Taylor’s blog has posted the lineup for the NEXT Conference in Orlando next month:
Kevin DeYoung, “The Church and Friendship: How Not to be a Stupid Friend” and “The Church and Holiness: Why Jesus Says We Need It and Why We Don’t Want To Talk About It”
Matt Chandler, “The Church and Culture: Reaching Out Without Selling Out”
C.J. Mahaney, “The Church and Disappointment: When Expectations Collide With Reality”
Jeff Purswell, “The Church and the Purpose of God: The Eternal Significance of Your Local Church”
Jared Mellinger, “The Church and Membership: Our Privilege and Protection”
Ian McConnell, “The Church and Sunday: A Little Taste of Heaven on Earth”
SGM is giving away 5 free registrations. You have to leave a comment saying why you want to go. I left one: “I wouldn’t be caught dead there.” I don’t think I’ll be one of the ones chosen.
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Hey Russell, what does a “functional egalitarian marriage” have to do with a man wanting to have gender reassignment surgery??? Like…somehow because he wasn’t the “head” of the marriage a man suddenly decides he wants to be a woman?
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Here is the problem with egalitarianism, at least in how I have heard it, it tends to over assert the roles, too much on individualism. Complementarianism from the way I have understood it for years treats each spouse in its unique distinction and services and works together as a whole for a greater good. There seems to be balance, a sort of yin and yang approach, not a hierarchy.
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Eastern orthodoxy placed a lot on identity from the community of faith. America has gotten lost into way too much individualism and it has seeped into the churches in doctrines like prosperity tithing.
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Dee & Deb,
Do YOU believe New Testament Scriptures teach male leadership in the church and in the home?
Where do YOU stand?
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So…um, I was just wondering what Russell would say about women who devote their lives to Christ and never marry – Nuns, missionaries, etc. They aren’t the image of Christ?
And, I love how, despite criticizing everyone who reads Ephesians 5 a little differently, they barely mention the NT as a whole – women were: deacons, teachers, prophets, and (gasp) apostles. (If you need some names: Phoebe, Pricilla, and Junia.) Oh, wait, these non-able-to-handle-the-truth-in-the-scriptures types use a “special” translation of the scriptures (unique to English, apparently) that kowtowed to their ilk and turned Junia ‘the outstanding Apostle’ into a woman ‘known “to” the apostles’. Now who is using”… some principles and ideas that tend in a certain direction to corrode the authority of Scripture.” ? Hmmmm.
I guess this was just mistake on the Apostle Paul’s part, since “…if you at the core of its structure deny that men because of their call of God to be men should be the leaders here and women should be leaders, it’s going to malfunction along the way.” Glad to know you held all the solutions to the ailing early church there Piper. Too bad the Apostle Paul didn’t agree with you.
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GracefulEve,
These guys (and the CBMW blog) like to focus on extremes to justify their complementarian position. John Piper talks about Virginia Mollencott and her strident talk, while Russell Moore discusses a husband who wants a sex change and pagan patriarchy.
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@ Bridget2, I got it wrong. I repent. 🙂
@ JeffB, Notice how the same names keep cropping up at these conferences? Sounds like a money-making scheme for the chosen few (men of course).
@ Casey, Egalitarianism is not individualistic. Quite the opposite, in fact, because it says we all need each other (and actually complement each other). It simply rejects the view that roles in church, society, or family (other than childbearing) are a function of gender.
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“When a woman submits herself to her own husband or when a young woman who is not yet married submits herself to that future husband whose name she does not yet know…”
This is a new one. As a single, I’d like to know how this works in practice. If submission involves letting the husband make the final decision, does my invisible future husband make decisions for me? Or has CBMW/T4G now become Vision Forum and I submit to my future husband by submitting to Daddy? This seems pretty close to Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin’s idea that a girl who gets a crush on a boy she doesn’t marry, has just committed adultery by “cheating” on her future husband.
Complementarianism and patriarchy are becoming indistinguishable.
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Moore is a hoot. Here’s a quote of his from a few years back:
http://www.sbcbaptistpress.org/bpnews.asp?ID=22161
“Evangelicals maintain headship in the sphere of ideas, but practical decisions are made in most evangelical homes through a process of negotiation, mutual submission, and consensus,” Moore said. “That’s what our forefathers would have called feminism — and our foremothers, too.
Did you know that apparently, according to the likes of Moore, negotiation, mutual submission, and consensus are FFFFFFEMINISM (said with a curled lip, spittle flying everywhere)? And apparently this is spiritually unhealthy. Uh huh.
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@Hester, maybe it means a woman doesn’t make ANY major decisions while she waits for her future husband. No choice of vocation, no higher education, no nothing. One patriarchalist, I think it’s Jonathan Lindvall, doesn’t let his daughters get a driver’s license because that’s for their future husband to decide if they get permission.
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Have you ever read so much nonsense in your life? I find it actually funny the lengths these grown men will go to to maintain their perceived power. I wonder how long before they designate his and her drinking fountains. lol
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Sorry John Piper. Now it’s you who are mishandling scripture. Genesis 2:18 says, It is not good for man to be alone. I shall make an ezer for him. The word ezer often translated by conservatives helpmeet or in this case complement, is most frequently in the Bible used of God. The NRSV translates it partner. To use at as a justification for a complementarian view of marriage is twisting and distorting the view of God much the way Bruce Ware’s Eternal Subordination of the Son does. By the way, this interpretation is basically that of my husband, like me a retired seminary professor, a biblical scholar with a doctorate in New Testament from Princeton.
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They have bastardized the word “complementary” to mean hierarchy, man in charge. At least some of them recognize that “patriarchy” is what they really mean. One can be an egalitarian complementarian — recognize that men and women are different in many ways without necessitating a difference in power in the relationship. And they are ignoring portions of the scripture and emphasizing and misinterpreting other portions. Consider that the family codes in the new testament were written in the context of women as chattel who could be abused in terrible ways, and the substitution of sacrificial love (love her enough to pass out nails for one’s own crucifixion!).
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Barbara 07:40 am:
So if God is ezer to us and Eve was ezer to Adam, one could exegete that as God saying that the female was to be superior to the male, not inferior!!!! So that the patriarchialists are heretical and anti-Biblical!!!
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Victorious: “I find it actually funny the lengths these grown men will go to to maintain their perceived power.”
I often think of The Toddler Property Rights when I hear these men talk to each other about how they are going to keep fellow-heir authority away from women:
1. If I like it, it’s mine.
2. If it’s in my hand, it’s mine.
3. If I can take it from you, it’s mine.
4. If I had it a little while ago, it’s mine.
5. If it’s mine, it must never, appear to be yours in any way.
6. If I’m doing or building something, all the pieces are mine.
7. If it looks like it’s mine, it’s mine.
8. If I saw it first, it’s mine.
9. If I can see it, it’s mine.
10. If I think it’s mine, it’s mine.
11. If I want it, it’s mine.
12. If I “need it, it’s mine (yes, I know the difference between “want” and “need”!).
13. If I say it’s mine, it’s mine.
14. If you don’t stop me from playing with it, it’s mine.
15. If you tell me I can play with it, it’s mine.
16. If it will upset me too much when you take it away from me, it’s mine.
17. If I (think I) can play with it better than you can, it’s mine.
18. If I play with it long enough, it’s mine.
19. If you are playing with something and you put it down, it’s mine.
20. If it’s broken, it’s yours, (no wait, all the pieces are mine.
Duncan, Piper, and Moore are spiritual infants. Instead of operating by the fruit of the Spirit or I Corinthians 13, they operate by self-centered, self-preserving, self-promoting toddler principles disguised with a lot of high sounding language and Bible twisting to make them look like they are mature. They are not spiritual men, but fleshly and worldly toddlers.
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Mara,
I love it! Toddler “Temper Tantrums!”
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A few off the top of my head observations…
The push against complementarianism is having an impact. They have softened their words in some ways and are looking for ways to make the woman’s role more appealing. I especially see this in comments by Piper both here and in the whole “the church is masculine” debacle. Some of them still don’t make sense to me, but you can tell he is trying to make the woman’s situation more positive, probably as a result of the outcry against his recent comments. So they are feeling the heat.
I don’t understand how they can say this is not a salvation issue and then go on and on about how if you embrace egalitarianism it will eventually erode and destroy the message of the gospel. That sounds like talking out of both sides of their mouths. They KNOW they have brothers and sisters in Christ who are egalitarians and passionate about the gospel. And yet they still say that view will destroy the gospel.
I agree that they take the very worst examples possible to mischaracterize the other side. I think both sides are guilty of it at times, but I think more often than not comps use all kinds of scare tactics to make people completely fear anything remotely resembling egalitarianism.
I’ve come to the conclusion that until egalitarians can bring forth some very articulate, positive role models, they aren’t going to make much headway against this. The average Christian who would sit in that conference session is going to simply nod and agree because everything on surface sounds good and these men are deemed trustworthy. The average Christian is never going to take the time to study this issue out in depth unless it impacts them personally and in a very real way.
I’ve been studying these issues for years because it matters a great deal to me and I’m still not completely an egalitarian. I’m very far out of the complementarian camp, but still not completely able to articulate all the reasons why I think egalitarianism is the correct view. And this is coming from someone who basically WANTS to be an egalitarian. How much more challenging is it going to be to convince people who think this view is in direct opposition to the gospel itself?
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I took the link and that picture made me sad and, frankly, sick to my stomach. How can it be “Together for the Gospel” when half of the church is missing in that picture?
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Piper, Mohler, Moore and others are beginning to understand that there are evangelical Bible-believing conservatives who disagree with them. They seem to want to continue to throw all Christians who believe in the equality of men and women into the bin of “feminists.” The truth behind this issue is far more subtle. Christians who believe in the spiritual, moral, and functional equality of men and women are the true complementarians. We believe that women complement men and men complement women as equals always complement other equals.
The real issue among Christians who disagree in this matter is over authoritarianism. Some wish men to have authority in the same manner God possesses authority–to the exclusion of women. This is the heart of the issue, and it is an important one. We should start calling this a debate between authoritarians and complementarians. In authoritarianism men have the authority and women who act as if they have authority (by teaching men, leading men, supervising men, etc…) are in sin (according to the authoritarians).
However in New Testament Christianity, Christ has all the authority and He dispenses gifts by His Holy Spirit to empower His BRIDE (men, how do you like being called a bride?) to do His work on earth. In Christianity, you lead, teach, and serve based on giftedness, NOT GENDER.
I am a true complementarian, and as such, I must resist un-biblical and un-Christian attempts at imposing authoritarianism. I believe we should call authoritarianism what it is – sin. We are commanded to love sinners and in fact, the Bible teaches us that our love “covers a multitude of sins.” So I can love my brothers who hold to authoritarianism, but I must speak out against their error or I am not truly loving them!
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Toddler rule #3
“If I can take it away from you, it’s mine”
Piper/Duncan/Moore version
“If I can keep you out of the picture, it’s mine.”
TWW & co. response: You might be able to keep us out of your petty, little pictures, but you will never be able to keep us out of the big picture.
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Ian I have never hear egalitarianism described that way at all. I know what you are saying but that is a role issue all together. Egalitarianism is often used to describe the power structure and I think that where this issue is being confused and misunderstood. I think someone posted the right idea on how complementarian has been “bastardized.” If one studies the history behind the promotion of egalitarian ideas in general (not with roles) it comes straight out of the French revolution.
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I have always wanted to know why complementarianism is such a big deal? I never understood why it would matter if I “obeyed” my husband or not? I can read scripture for myself, I am an adult with a pretty good brain, I can reason things out, I can make decisions. I love the Lord God with all my heart, soul and mind, my husband respects my decision making abilities as I do his. Why do they seem to want to make it their business how God will use me as a woman? Yet men have no such restrictions?
I thought they might be worried that women and men in the church were finally waking up that Complementarianism is simply not in scripture, thus the frequency of conferences. I think conferences are more to the detriment of the church than for the good of the church. Certainly they have been poison for women in the church.
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It used to be that the arguement in this area was about traditionalism not complementarianism. “Yes you have your rights, but do you insist in standing in your rights” Watchman Nee.
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These guys seem to have an odd view of what Ephesians 5 is all about.
It’s like they think that marriage was invented for the purpose of showing humans the Gospel, and Ephesians 5 is trying to tell us that.
No. Ephesians 5 says marriage CAN FUNCTION AS a picture for the Gospel, but that is a far cry from saying that it was specifically created to be THE means through which humans hear the Gospel, and therefore if you get it wrong people won’t understand Jesus. Those are two TOTALLY different claims.
It’s ironic, considering how much they referenced the Genesis passage of women being created so man wouldn’t be alone. It seems that THIS was the original intention for creating marriage, and a bonus (as laid out in Ephesians 5) is that Christian marriages can ALSO be a neat picture of Christ’s love for the church.
The point of Ephesians 5 was to show people how to bring Christ-like attitudes into their existing families. The point was NOT to show how to shape your marriage SO THAT people will understand Christ.
Talk about gymnastics.
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BTW: Today is my 28th wedding anniversary and I would do it all over again to be with this man who has allowed me to be me and stood by me as I found my way both in my personal life and in the church. He is a lot of the reason I have been able to do what I have done and will do. He encouraged me to go with my gut and never tried to be the “boss of me.” 🙂
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Wade,
I agree with what you are saying, but I don’t see how to make this an authoritarian versus complementarian debate from the practical standpoint. They have already coined the term complementarian and I think it would be nigh unto impossible to change that perception/definition in the minds of the general public/church.
Your comments about authority are right where I am at in my own process. In working through my own thoughts and beliefs on how I can live and serve in the body, it has caused me to question the very way we structure our local bodies.
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About Ephesians and in dealing with unruly husbands as a counselor, there is NO pretext that a woman is to submit to an unruly husband from that verse. There were a lot of family creeds in the Greek culture so it need to be stated in its whole context and directed to a whole community not in an individualistic tone.
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While it’s true that women complement men, it’s equally true that all people complement one another. Friends complement one another; children complement one another; parents complement those with no children; those of different ethnic backgrounds complement one another. This causes us to grow in understanding and appreciate the differences; it should not cause us to want to develop a “one upmanship” attitude.
May we forever put to rest the question of who is greater in the Kingdom of God.
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Piper talks about the classic texts of I Tim 2 and Ephesians 5 as being pivotal to this issue, but does he take them at face value without exploring WHY they were written? Both these texts are written in the context of being to the Ephesians and if one reads about the religious and societal issues involving men and women’s roles, it can shine a different light on what these texts are saying. And this is not “reading the culture into the Bible”. The culture of Ephesus is already in the Bible in Acts 19. If one doesn’t understand what was going on in Acts 19 to cause such an uproar, then they ought to look it up. It’s there. I’ve heard so many sermons about “the Corinthians had these problems”. Where are the statements about “the Ephesians believe [insert issues here]”.
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Complementarianism. A long Newspeak word for MALE SUPREMACIST.
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Sallie,
You make a good point. However, I’m not so sure that push back on the word complementarianism (because THEY are misusing the word) and assigning them the word “authoritianism” (or patriarchalism) and taking the word complementarianism for those of us who believe in equality might not have some long-term benefit. I am, as yet, unwilling to concede the word complementarianism. 🙂
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Not one exerpt of that made a bit of sense. — DB
That’s because you do not have the Holy Spirit/Secret Gnosis of those wanna-be Commanders of Gilead.
Late Great Planet Earth has been replaced. There’s a new 67th Book of the Bible, and it’s The Handmaid’s Tale.
@ JeffB, Notice how the same names keep cropping up at these conferences? Sounds like a money-making scheme for the chosen few (men of course). — Ian
“One hand washes the other…”
“When a woman submits herself to her own husband or when a young woman who is not yet married submits herself to that future husband whose name she does not yet know…”
This is a new one. As a single, I’d like to know how this works in practice. — Hester
As a guy, I’d say it works just like Shari’a. I want her, I buy her from her father and she can’t refuse. And she won’t ever challenge my male will. She’s MINE. Win-win on my (male) end. God Saith. Al’lah’u Akbar.
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Arce, the problem is trying to bring out is that the word that usually applies to God as helper in a crisis is being used to justify subordination. Attacking the nature of God is helper much as Bruce Ware’s Eternal Subordination of the Son has a defective of the Trinity and the divinity of Christ. In both cases, in favor of absolutizing women’s subordination, conservatives are willing to say untrue and misleading statements about God.
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abused women face tough questions our free SPREAD THE WORD TALK WITH THE LORD program inspires daily talks catch they need your help with first question our blog helps g hubbard po box 2232 ponte vedra FL 32004 http://talkwiththelord.blogspot.com/
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J P : “If you do the kind of gymnastics that I think you have to do in order to escape Ephesians 5, you’re gonna get the Gospel wrong.”
Amen, brother! Let’s start in verse 1, shall we?
Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.
In just 2 verses Paul mentions God’s fatherly LOVE, our childlike imitation and walk in LOVE, and the willing, voluntary LOVE of Christ (our head, by the way). This GOSPEL LOVE is mentioned precisely zero times in all 18 “gOspel” affirmations of T4g.
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Dee, Deb; still hoping you’ll weigh in with what you believe the Scriptures teach regarding male leadership in the home and in the church.
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I might be one of the few on here who seems to be “in the middle” of the whole comp/egal debate.
I confess I have not taken the adequate time I have needed to dive deeply into the historical/cultural issues of the day that would show the context of some of these “classic” verses as Piper mentions.
I guess I just don’t know what to make of all of this yet.
On one hand, I have heard those who support COMP doctrine (Not necessarily Piper) come up with some adequate studies on not only the context of the verses themselves, but the cultural context behind it.
Then on the other, I have heard those who support the EGAL doctrine reveal adequate defense on it as well based on the cultural and contextual side of those verses.
Somebody is obviously wrong/Somebody is obviously right…
Just haven’t become “sold out” on either side yet.. Hoping to find some clarity in all of this..
One more reason why I am thankful for this blog–Iron sharpens Iron so to speak..and I certainly need some sharpening in this!
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Wade,
This Calvinista crowd is really good at coming up with misnomers. Here are two besides “complementarianism”.
Together” for the Gospel – Why do I, as a sister in Christ, feel like such an outsider?
Nine Marks of a “Healthy” Church – Just how healthy are these churches? Anyone care to chime in?
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Debbie K,
Happy Anniversary! You are a blessed woman.
My wedding anniversary is May Day (May 1). My hubby and I will mark 24 years of marital bliss. 🙂
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Been tracking this stuff for a long time and see some patterns.
First of all, ESS was real big a few years back but not so much promoted anymore. Not that they deny it or changed but it is not pushed anymore. Why? Because it did not fly. Too many people around the blogosphere were pulling it apart and analyzing it. And let’s face it, you tamper with the Trinity even some of your comp/pat comrades are not going to go along. So, they just let it quietly die as something to affirm patriarchy.
Russ Moore has been on this “women do not submit to all men” kick for a few years now. And I think it is a direct result, again, of all this analyzing of their words on the internet. I mean, that dog just won’t hunt, so they back off and change tactics.
John Piper has cognative dissonance. Not really but he is trying to so hard to NOT say ‘you are not saved if you if you not comp” so he goes around the mulberry bush to say eventually you get the Gospel wrong. This is also a slight change.
These guys LOVE to take a metaphor way too far. They are NOT Christ but they take the Eph 5 metaphor as if they are. Too bad they don’t take the “Bride” metaphor that far for themselves. He HE. Masculine Christianity, you know.
This is basically phallic symbol Christianity. And Driscoll is the end result of where their very bad interpretations and adding to the text end up.
Russ Moore is one to watch. He is really big on thinking comp marriages are too mutual. He used the “egal” language. But he hates it when marriages are a la Eph 5:21.
If you have never met him or Piper you might not know that both are tiny men. I would be shocked if either one of them weighed over 120 lbs. So much for “masculine Christianity”. :o)
To the person above who wrote about submitting to their “invisible husband”, I have been laughing about that all morning.
These guys are silly! They remind me of silly people at work who run around saying, I am the leader! When real leaders don’t have to tell you they are the leaders. DUH.
May we analyze each and every word with the reasoning brains God gave us to understand His Word. Let us be Bereans.
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Anon1,
Great comment! Why anyone follows these guys is difficult to understand. They’ve got quite a racket going… and I mean that LITERALLY.
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If you all notice by Piper’s words, comp doctrine was created as a response to CULTURE. I say created because before the 60’s, women really did not have financial equality. (In the sense that even widows could not just get money out of the bank without a will probated. Could not get a credit card without husband signing, etc)
Financial equality really was a game changer and add to that the economy made it necessary for more women to work.
Of course Piper takes an extreme example and uses it as a “norm” when it wasn’t. It is like all that footage of protesters against the Vietnam war. That was really a small percentage of that age group but you would think every single college student was protesting. That is what they want you to believe about radical bra burning feminists taking over the church. It simply was not like that.
They really do think they are saving the culture. It is a culture war using the Bible. It is sick. And it all started with George Knights book in the 70’s. I cannot remember the name of it. Anyone remember? That is where comp doctrine originated.
Before that, everyone knew women were not equal. It was a fact in reality. When that thinking changed in society, the church men got scared.
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Casey, I know where you are coming from with the term “egalitarian”. I prefer “mutualists” because it better affirms Eph 5:21.
But you reference egal with individualism and the French Revolution. I know where you are coming from but have you read our Constitution lately? It is based upon the “individual” being more important than the state. And the individual had RIGHTS given by God. That was revolutionary thinking.
Think about that and the fact that we will stand before the Lord as individuals and give an account. Your husband will not be giving an account for you.
Do “groups” matter? Yes, the letters to the churches in Rev make that clear concerning the Bride. But we are individuals within the Bride. Christ dwells within us now. The individuals make up the Body.
What is really confusing is that many churches now have bought into the collectivist mentality that was the norm in European Reformation churches. You can hear it in their teaching: Covering, keys to the kingdom held by local church, you must be in a local church, etc, etc.
They forget that where 2 or more are gathered IN HIS NAME, He is with us as the Authority in the Body.
Beware of the collectivist mentality pervading so many churches. They make a mockery of the Priesthood of believer. Remember in the REformation, the priesthood included the magistrates! They just want to be the magistrates in a free country and in the Bride of Christ!
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Eagle, you wrote:
Jimmy…
Here’s a question I would like you to answer, especially when it talks about women leadership, and women teaching.
As an agnostic which is the bigger sin? Walking boldly into hell with my head held high, being prideful and dissing God?
or….
Being led to Christ by a woman and disciplied by one who helps an agnostic wrestle through issues such as the problem of evil, what happens to those who never heard the gospel (ie Wuhan, China 200 BC, etc..)
So I ask you…which is more offensive to God?
”
THIS IS IT. This is the defining thought of this whole conversation. It brings it down to the most common denominator. And it shows that their false doctrine is a mockery of God and WHO God is.
Is God offended when a woman teaches a man about Him? Is God offended when a woman teaches a room full of men about Him? Where is human authority and “leadership” in this? Or, is it about being a “servant” to others?
Well done, Eagle. Keep us on track!
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Eagle,
Four or five years ago I attended a Presidential Forum at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Students submitted questions, and Dr. Danny Akin answered them. Here is what I heard with my own two ears!
Question: Can a woman teach a man?
Dr. Akin: She can if that man is lost.
I may not have the wording exactly right, but that was the response. I will never forget it. So Christian women can “teach” agnostics, but the moment they become Christians they must cease and desist.
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Let me see if I’ve grasped this argument:
My wife and I are both intelligent, responsible adults, each with our own knowledge, talent, gifts, as well as weaknesses and temptations. We treat each other with love, respect, and encouragement, as we pursue our various responsibilities and interests. Big decisions we make together, as appropriate to the fact that we are joined together in one flesh (and one bank account). A host of smaller decisions we make individually, or in degrees of consultation appropriate to the impact they are likely to have on the other. With regard to decisions that have no effect one one another, we generally leave each other alone (unless seeking counsel), having no desire to micromanage the tiny details of each others lives. In the event of a conflict, we seek through reason and love to sort through to an agreeable solution. In the rare event of an insoluble difference, my wife defers to me as head of household.
The likely result of this despicable, ungodly, and gospel-threatening practice is that I will eventually want a sex-change.
Is that pretty much it?
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Hey everybody,
Dee is out of pocket for most of the day, and I am going to lunch with my hubby and daughter (who attends college two miles from where my husband works). The three of us are doing early voting this afternoon. We have a very important marriage amendment on the ballot here in North Carollina. I hope you can figure out how we’ll be voting. 🙂
Anyway, I will have my IPhone with me but may not be able to approve comments. Please be patient, and I apologize if there is any delay in approving your comment. Rest assured I’ll be back in the saddle by mid-afternoon.
I have enjoyed reading all the comments. We have the smartest commenters on the planet! That’s NOT a joke!
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Their approach is pretty destructive and divisive, and needlessly so. Piper asserts that you can be egalitarian and saved, but the remainder of the discussion makes it clear that those who are will be inferiior Christians, and sinners because they are somehow tearing down the gospel. And extreme examples are used to justify these positions (e.g. gender reasignment is talked about as if it were common and caused by egalitarianism. Puhleez!)
One of the consequences of the attitudes expressed in these discussions is a sense of spiritual elitism among these people. At the same time, the actual spread of the gospel is hampered because most people outside the church, and many within, can see that they have gone off the rails.
This won’t end well unless something truly changes.
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If dee and deb wouldn’t mind, I’d like to share how I see Ephesians 5 as those hearing it would understand it. It may be a trifle long, but I’d divide it into 3 pts; slaves/masters; children/parents; and wives/husbands.
I think it will help refute the meaning continually offered by the comps. I’ll wait till they’ve returned from their voting expedition. 🙂
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Jimmy, I can’t speak for Deb and Dee, but here’s what Gilbert Bilezekian thinks about male leadership in “I Believe in Male Headship”. http://www.cbeinternational.org/?q=content/i-believe-male-headship
What do You think about his points?
BTW why don’t we hear about female followership or female bodyship in home or church?
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This arcticle on “Brotherhood” also well-adresses “headship”, I think. What Do You Think about their points, Jimmy? http://awildernessvoice.com/brotherhood.html
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I have a question for you all. I’ve been married to my husband for almost 23 years now. He is an unbeliever, but in spite of that we have a wonderful marriage. I was wondering how Complementarianism applies to someone like myself who attends church alone with her children?
Seems to me, Complementarianism comes across as be very exclusive and elitist. Would that be an exaggerated view?
Thanks,
Janet
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” I fear that we have marriages that are functionally egalitarian ”
Oh wow. Yeah…there are no bigger issues for the church to take on, such as widows and orphans, poverty….
That Bad Dog – loved your comment before, as it was almost EXACTLY what I was thinking to myself as I read those same words about sex-changes. To think that these men really think that way. Shocking & scary!
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The ancients thought of the head as being the source of the body. They thought that emotions were in the head but knowledge and learning were in the heart! The concept of head as supervisor, top dog, leader, etc., is of a time after the NT. So all of the headship stuff is totally unBiblical and heretical.
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I have been lurking this excellent blog for a while and I feel compelled to join the fray.
So many insightful things have been said already, so I just have a few semi-connected thoughts that have been running through my head that I want to float out here.
1. Barbara brought up Genesis and made a great point. In “Either/Or”, Kierkegaard also points to Genesis and shows, in my view, just how culturally embedded (in early modern European patriarchy) the complementarian position is. Genesis tells us that it is the man who leaves his father and mother and cleaves unto/is united to his wife. In Piper & Co.’s cosmic patriarchal order of nature, I would expect Genesis to be clear that the woman leaves her family and cleaves unto her mast…er….husband. But no, the woman is elevated in this text and the man appears as a “weaker vessel”. It is not good for him to be alone so he leaves his family and clings to his wife. Hmm, perhaps family names should be matrilineal? Kierkegaard forever changed my view of Genesis and gender the moment I read him years ago. I wish complementarians would discuss passages like this rather than their (mistranslated) hobby verses about helpmeets, etc.
2.Not only are the complementarians embedded in a culturally and temporally specific view of gender (and a rather insidious one, drenched in European imperialism), but they also misunderstand (or are ignorant of, or don’t care) the economic conditions of medieval and early modern society that spawned these gender arrangements, but which no longer apply. Namely, this idea that a woman must not labour outside the home while the man is the “breadwinner” fails to grasp that for much of our agricultural existence, women and men held equal economic or “breadwinning” responsibilities in the operation of the home economy. In fact, the term ‘economy’ had very different meanings than it does now – think “ordered management of the household” or “thrift” (many excellent scholars have written about this) . Complementarians act like the economic and social structure of contemporary society is unchanged from that of a predominantly agricultural society and so they seem to think that homemaking in suburbia ought to give women the same sense of purpose and meaning that it did for women in agricultural societies. As an aside, I think that their refusal to acknowledge the degree of relativism that comes with historical knowledge stems from a fear that such an acknowledgment would somehow invalidate THE truth of the gospel. They are insecure about truth so they make everything they believe universal.
3. I am terrified by Russell Moore’s concern that too many evangelical marriages are ideologically complementarian but “functionally egalitarian.” You’ll notice that in public these men rarely go into detail about what a “functionally complementarian” marriage looks like. They are smart enough to know that they will get serious blowback if they do because, well, the details ain’t pretty. Think Piper on women and abuse. What does Moore want? Why doesn’t he say specifically how marriages should function beyond the adjective/adverb-laden newspeak about ‘loving headship’? Why doesn’t he tell us what the Godly opposite to the sin of “negotiation, mutual submission, and consensus?” (Thanks Leila for linking that Moore quote). I wonder when the 9Marks brand will start talking about how the church must discipline couples who are “functionally egalitarian”? Will “redemption/care groups” monitor how couples relate and make their decisions? Will we see the emergence of complementarian accountability groups? *Shudders*
4. Finally, I love that many commenters here won’t drop the link between complementarianism and patriarchy/authoritarianism. Keep it up! We mustn’t forget that such patriarchal authoritarianism is not far-removed from other heinous crimes. Note that Piper and Driscoll have made friends with people like Douglas Wilson – he is an ally in hyper-masculine patriarchy. But Rev. Wilson takes his patriarchy further. Let’s not forget that he defended southern slavery in his co-authored pamphlet “Southern Slavery, As It Was” (The full text is here: http://reformed-theology.org/html/books/slavery/southern_slavery_as_it_was.htm). In that pamphlet, Wilson said “Slavery as it existed in the South was not an adversarial relationship with pervasive racial animosity. Because of its dominantly patriarchal character, it was a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence. There has never been a multi-racial society which has existed with such mutual intimacy and harmony in the history of the world.” (!!!!) Sirens should be going off. This is not such a radical step, especially when times get tough and people are more vulnerable to extremes. Any legitimate historian will tell you that patriarchy was essential to the justification and degradation of African slaves and Native Americans in the European conquest of North America. Not so for Wilson. There are faint but terrifying undertones of blood and soil fascism (which is inherently patriarchal) in the language of complementarianism that we need to watch for. Please note that I am NOT calling complementarian evangelicals fascist. I am merely saying that we, and they, need to think seriously about the social/political implications of our theological positions and ask if they truly come from God.
Thanks for letting me vent. I love this blog.
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Eagle –
Did you see my book suggestion on another thread?
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Eagle, you said:
“Maybe my days as an agnositc will be a few more years if this is where Christianity is headed… What is the good news about all this?”
I know others have said similar things to you before, but you really can’t let the goofiest parts of Christian culture take up first importance in your understanding of who God is. You’re way smarter than that. Illegitimum non carborundum! (And besides, what about all of the thoughtful, decent people you interact with daily here and on internet monk? Are we all chopped liver?) 🙂
I really appreciate your comments, and I love it that Deb and Dee have made a safe spot for all of us bruised reeds.
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Jimmy muses, “Dee, Deb; still hoping you’ll weigh in with what you believe the Scriptures teach regarding male leadership in the home and in the church.”
There is nothing; seriously nothing on the Y chromosome that makes someone inherently fit to lead a family or church.
There is nothing about having really tiny gametes or a hormonally modified clitoris.
And before you start looking like the painting The Scream, those are the things that define maleness biologically.
The term, “Headship” isn’t much better, why is someone with headship always male? because the little man thinks for the big man? Certainly not because men are particularly stellar leading the church, home, or government.
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Apparently (according to what Mars Hill will cover at their Women’s training day), these are the BIG questions that concern women:
“Some of the most common questions we wrestle with are:
• How do I make sense of what’s been done to me?
• Suffering has changed my life. What do I do now that nothing is the same?
• What does it mean to worship Jesus in my sexuality?
• How do I become a good mom with good kids?
• I’m single and wondering when God’s good plan for my life will begin!
• I have so much work to do! How can God be glorified when I feel so overwhelmed?
Ladies, please join us this Saturday for the Women’s Training Day. You’ve been anticipated and prayed for, and much has been planned for you on this day. We can hardly wait to welcome you!”
Don’t even get me started…my life will begin when I get married? How do I become a good mom (because I can’t already possibly be one without MH instruction)…Worship Jesus with my sexuality? WTFlip?
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T4G, The Caveman Conference
This is the 21st century correct?
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Who said the following?
“Woman’s world is her husband, her family, her children and her home. We do not find it right when she presses into the world of men.”
And
“I pledge that I never will tie myself to parties who want to destroy Christianity .. We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit … We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theater, and in the press – in short, we want to burn out the poison of immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of liberal excess during the past … (few) years.”
Hint– a male “leader”.
Along with Caleb W, Please note that I am NOT calling complementarian evangelicals fascist.
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Just a heads up everyone: check out Brent Detweiler’s blog. He is considering civil action and just posted at around 3:45 EST today.
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Caleb W. –
“2.Not only are the complementarians embedded in a culturally and temporally specific view of gender (and a rather insidious one, drenched in European imperialism), but they also misunderstand (or are ignorant of, or don’t care) the economic conditions of medieval and early modern society that spawned these gender arrangements, but which no longer apply.”
I think we need to ask why it is drenched in European imperialism? My personal view is that many modern day theologians and “pure doctrine” advocates really mean they are conforming to “Reformed Orthodoxy.” Don’t get me wrong, I believe the Reformation had its good points, but IMHO the Reformers did not reform enough. They continued to embraced much of what the Catholic (Universal)church was embracing, and this was mixed with all kinds of worldly philosophy that was contrary to the scripture. It would have been better to go clear to the time of Christ and the first 100 years after his birth to espouse their doctrines.
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I find it amazing that these guys, who claim to be “saturated with Scripture,” spend so much time talking, preaching, and speaking about anything but the Bible. I love looking at the schedules for these mega conferences. How refreshing would it be to see a schedule that included talks on Matthew 1-5 or the book of Ephesians? Teach pastors how to do exegesis, hold conferences on the original languages or text criticism. That would help give depth to the pulpit….but, oh no. These men LOVE to hear themselves talk, even when it’s uninformed. Piper use to have great empty. Now, he has a hot button issue and he throws one or two proof-texts out there before he talks around them for 45 minutes.
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Well I’m guessing Dee and Deb won’t be weighing in on whether or not New Testament scriptures teaches male leadership in the church and in the home.
BUT, apparently it is Dee’s anniversary today so “huzzahs” to her and her protector, provider and spiritual leader ie., her husband the doc.
May they have many, many more years of wedded bliss. Truly.
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Jimmy,
This was posted at 11:59 a.m.
Hey everybody,
Dee is out of pocket for most of the day, and I am going to lunch with my hubby and daughter (who attends college two miles from where my husband works). The three of us are doing early voting this afternoon. We have a very important marriage amendment on the ballot here in North Carollina. I hope you can figure out how we’ll be voting. 🙂
Anyway, I will have my IPhone with me but may not be able to approve comments. Please be patient, and I apologize if there is any delay in approving your comment. Rest assured I’ll be back in the saddle by mid-afternoon
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Did Piper really say Danvers, Conneticut?
Correction: Danvers, Massachusetts.
I remember that detail because I lived in Danvers, MA in 1987 and though I was unaware of the meeting, I have wondered if being in that “principality” had a spiritual impact upon me being so deeply ensnared by the doctrine?
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RE: Janet on Fri, Apr 27 2012 at 12:46 pm:
Just ask yourself two questions:
1) Does hubby love me & the kids?
2) Is our home a place of real love and shelter from the alienation & cruelty of the outside world?
If you’ve answered yes to both of them, Providence has truly smiled on you and what you have is straight out of Schiller’s “Ode to Joy”.
Don’t fret too much about what priests, preachers, Bible teachers and theologians have to say about it. Most of them (not all) are what T.S. Eliot referred to as “The Hollow Men” anyway.
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Charis,
Yes, John Piper said “Danvers, Connecticut” at the 2:10 mark. I will mention this error in today’s post.
I previously remarked that we have the “smartest commenters on the planet”. 🙂
It is definitely true!
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I guess it’s neither Dee nor Deb’s anniversary. My bad.
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Jimmy: I don’t recall Dee and Deb ever hiding from your tough questions before, and considering that they are out of the house today, I’d wager their silence has more to do with being away from the computer than with any attempt to hide from you. Please stop being silly. 🙂
Eagle: You asked what the good news is about all this. I have an answer for you. The good news is that these men are wrong 🙂
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Jimmy,
You are a piece of work! I’m assuming you’re married. I certainly hope you aren’t as impatient with your wife as you have been with us. I, along with our readers, are taking note of your demeanor and it doesn’t bode well for the complementarianism your espouse.
I actually do have a life outside of TWW, and it has kept me busy in a wonderful way today. Instead of playing my blogger role, I have been fulfilling my roles of wife and mom, which bring me much joy.
I may get back to your query AFTER I write today’s post. At the rate I’m going, it will be another late night…
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Actually, the question ( Do Dee and Deb believe Scripture teaches male leadership in the church and the home) is very relevant.
BUT, it does appear they are out of pocket today.
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I’d love to see someone go along on the woman’s day & say, ‘I have followed Christ since a child. I have an IQ of 145 and am a neuro-surgeon, who leads many men on my team, & did whilst I was on military service in the Gulf War. Can you guys point me to a man who can ‘lead’ me without minimising the gifts God has given me & used in his service?’
There’s a horrible undercurrent in ‘complementarianism’ that somehow women have to become less, intellectually, & so on, in order to submit properly, rather than men being expected to become more. If a woman seeks to explore or stretch to the full capacity of the gifts God has given her (rather than just her reproductive capabilities) she’s seen as uppity & unwomanly. I just think a lot of these men are scared of truly capable women, because their own ‘leadership’ skills may be shown up.
And, randomly, what is the little grey rectangle underneath each comment? It goes red if you scroll over it. Who knew?
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One small, crazy-making point (bit rushed here today). Has anyone ever met a non-Christian who looked at anybody’s marriage and said, “So that’s what Christ’s relationship with the church looks like!”?
Didn’t think so.
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Jimmy. What did you think of the articles (with which I believe Dee and Deb would generally agree) I linked at 12:33 and 12:39, or the quotes from the other side at 3:53?
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Beakerj
I think the little gray box has something to do with preventing spam.
Perhaps Dee or the “Guy Behind the Curtain” will clarify.
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Jimmy and others wondering where we are
My husband and I have been attending the national meeting of the Christian Medical Dental Association- a group that is known in Washington DC as well as the mission field all over the world. We heard the head of the Salvation Army, Dr Gaither speak along with some others. We particularly focused on human trafficking which is something I would like to discuss at some point. We have been going early morning to late at night and just arrived home, somewhat beat. I will try to catch up after a good night sleep. Some members of CMDA expressed an interest in E Church, especially for medical students ,etc who often have to work on weekend.
One further thing, Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy-do you really think I am afraid to answer your question? You should know us better than that! Short answer, I believe in radical servanthood in marriage; each struggling to out do the other.
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Caleb W
I really loved your thoughts. So much there to consider. I must go back and read it all again…
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Deb
Danvers, CT.???? My mother was born in Danvers, Massachusetts, where the conference was help at a very nice golf resort that my dad used to golf at. I grew up just down the street in Salem…One of the best candy stores in the country is right there near the meeting site-Putnam Pantry-its been around for 150 years.The chocolate is out of this world.
On second thought… maybe I don’t want to claim the meeting after all. Forget I said it-leave it as Connecticut’s problem.
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Charis
Did you live there long? Did you go to the Topsfield Fair while you were there? That was one of my favorite events growing up.As for any principality, I grew up there and look at this blog-no ensnaring for me but maybe the pull was a little less in Salem.
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This Calvinista crowd is really good at coming up with misnomers. Here are two besides “complementarianism”.
Together” for the Gospel – Why do I, as a sister in Christ, feel like such an outsider?
Nine Marks of a “Healthy” Church – Just how healthy are these churches? Anyone care to chime in? — Deb
All three of these have that Newspeak vibe.
“Complementarianism” — EIGHT syllables. Like some sort of Marxspeak or Psychobabble.
And the other two have the Marxspeak vibe. Like that entry “People’s Republic of Tyranny” over at TV Tropes — the more adjectives about “People” or “Democratic” in an official name of a country, the nastier a dictatorship that country usually is.
Plus, they have the Apple Pie & Motherhood Vibe you get from actual secret police names — like “Society for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice” in Saudi & Talibanistan. (Actual Secret Police almost never use obvious names like “Homeland Security” or “Internal Security”; it’s usually some bureaucratic alphabet-soup acronym or a Wholesome Apple Pie & Motherhood name.)
Screwtape wrote to Wormwood about reconstructing and redefining words into “diabolical meanings”, usually the opposite of the original meanings.
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Dee said, “I believe in radical servanthood in marriage; each struggling to out do the other.”
OMW Dee, I simply am beginning to be your biggest fan. Woo-Hoo!
That’s my version of COMPLIMENTarianism for you today. 🙂
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@ Eagle:
“1. Should men and women be segregated and have ‘his’ and ‘her’ seating? Especially in church?”
I live in New England and there are old Congregational churches everywhere. Once when I was playing a handbell concert in one of these, I saw an old floor plan framed on the wall of the lobby/narthex. When I looked at it I saw that the men and women had separate staircases! Very clearly marked – “ladies’ staircase,” etc., down in the corner. No idea if this was an established practice in New England Congregational churches, though. Also, last I heard, at the fundamental Baptist “university” Pensacola Christian College, male and female students not only have separate dorms, but separate sidewalks, staircases and elevators. Hopefully they’ve changed this policy or I heard wrong. But I doubt it.
“2. Should men and women have defining careers with ‘his’ and ‘her’ jobs?”
I grew up in the Christian homeschooling subculture/movement and I cannot count the number of MOTHERS I heard say things like, “My daughter doesn’t need to learn things like trigonometry and chemistry. She’s only going to be a wife and mother.” They honestly never realized they were actually calling wives and mothers stupid by saying that. I also heard one dad semi-apologize to his girls for sending them to college, because he was making them choose between home and the workplace by giving them an education.
Basically, girls have only one job – wife and mother. Everything else is just a diversion that might take away from being “busy at home.” No need to talk about “careers,” because we don’t have them. At least that’s the logical conclusion of many comps’ and patriarchs’ arguments.
“3. Should men and women be told that they can and cannot read certain material? As women might not be intellectually up to it?”
Vision Forum (the brainchild of uber-patriarch Doug Phillips) has separate collections of books and toys for each gender (“Beautiful Girlhood” and “All-American Boyhood”). Girls get dolls and tea sets, boys get toy guns and toy swords. Girls read Elsie Dinsmore (the story of an insufferably legalistic 6-year-old who lives on an antebellum plantation); boys read the complete books of R. M. Ballantyne (stories about boys who go to exotic locations and have adventures while preaching Christ). They really do think in four colors: black and white, and blue and pink.
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Golly, Hester, what on earth would they do with Calc?
Particularly when you have a daughter that taught herself calc somehow when she was in fifth grade?
No chem (ooooohhh the agony when I was taking it but ooooohhh, how much I appreciate it now) and no Trig?
I suppose those women’s oocytes would fall out of their ovaries if they knew said daughter was going to Berkeley to earn her Masters in civil and environmental Engineering.
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Hester,
I currently live and swim in that homeschool culture. I’m one of the very few homeschooling moms who are speaking out against it in these circles. I’ve been called a non-Christian, a vile feminist, and so many other things just because I believe boys and girls should be EQUALLY educated for life after 18.
So many homeschool moms teach their daughters to cook and call it math. It drives me MAD. I have several higher ed degrees, but even without those degrees I would feel the same about educating girls and young women.
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@ DB:
Calc? What’s Calc? : ) Seriously though, most girls I know didn’t go much past Algebra II. To be fair, some of the boys didn’t either, but at least many of them were sort of interested in science/math anyway and would probably have picked it up at some point. Most of the girls quit as soon as their math started having letters in it.
@ True Words:
Keep it up. The subculture desperately needs to hear it. I haven’t been called any names (yet); instead I mostly get deaf ears and/or suspicious, disbelieving looks. Sad part is, when the parents do choose to really get into high school-level work, they use heavily censored curricula like Bob Jones and Abeka (Pensacola Christian College’s curriculum). For instance, from my few and unpleasant forays into Abeka, I learned:
China is still referred to as “Red China”
The UN-recognized capital of Israel (Tel-Aviv) is not the “real” capital (Jerusalem is)
Yasser Arafat is still alive (geography curriculum hasn’t been updated since 1998)
People who don’t believe in Christianity/the Bible are mentally ill
Humans have no reproductive or urinary systems (they weren’t included in the anatomical diagram)
All the above is in addition to the standard stuff about mandatory tithing, Satanic rock music, women not wearing pants, etc. Ugghhh.
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David wrote: Piper talks about the classic texts of I Tim 2 and Ephesians 5 as being pivotal to this issue, but does he take them at face value without exploring WHY they were written? Both these texts are written in the context of being to the Ephesians and if one reads about the religious and societal issues involving men and women’s roles, it can shine a different light on what these texts are saying. And this is not “reading the culture into the Bible”. The culture of Ephesus is already in the Bible in Acts 19. If one doesn’t understand what was going on in Acts 19 to cause such an uproar, then they ought to look it up. It’s there. I’ve heard so many sermons about “the Corinthians had these problems”. Where are the statements about “the Ephesians believe [insert “issues here]“.”
David, Thank you! You are exactly right and this is one of my pet peeves. The absolute perfect place for Paul to teach hierarchy in the Body was in Galatians but he did not. The comps teach that the passage is about salvation only. Not true. Women are CO HEIRS and that means as believers they are given everything men are given. All spiritual gifts can be for women, etc.
You are right, the situation in Ephesus was specific because of the Temple of Diana and the fertility cult that taught Eve was created before Adam. (Nevermind the grammar is singular and not plural for all women and nevermind “authenteo” is found only here in the NT and means “domineer” as it was translated in the Vulgate and other older translations. Chrysostom wrote that husbands should not authenteo their wives so we know it is a bad thing either sex can do to each other)
I have the same pet peeve about this elder led proof texting. Why weren’t all the letters addressed to them to deal with the situations? How come the Corinthian church had been around so long and no elders mentioned at all? The closest we can come to is Chloe because she “had people”.
Yes, we are ignorant of the historical context of so much scripture. If more people were educated about that they would know that Paul’s telling wives to submit (in the Greek meaning) to their husbands was a STEP UP the chain of being they lived in that society. It was unthinkable. They were chattel and obeyed not submit as it is rendered as a voluntary thing because they “are filled with the spirit” vs 18+. They would also know that back then (Arce mentioned this earlier but it is important to understand it) they believed the “head” was the source for the body as in feeding, breathing, etc. The head was not the place were thinking took place to them. Head was not a position of authority and would never have been understood that way in the 1st Century.
But the heart was where they thought thinking came from. If you can understand that, there are a ton of verses that come alive to you. Just do a word search on “heart” in the NT and when you read the passage understand it is talking about your thinking, decisions, etc. It is amazing how much scripture will come alive for you.
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“One small, crazy-making point (bit rushed here today). Has anyone ever met a non-Christian who looked at anybody’s marriage and said, “So that’s what Christ’s relationship with the church looks like!”?”
Lynne, Excellent point.
Caleb, Loved your comment, too.
There are some smart cookies on this thread! Or I should say some iron sharpening anvils? :o)
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“I’d love to see someone go along on the woman’s day & say, ‘I have followed Christ since a child. I have an IQ of 145 and am a neuro-surgeon, who leads many men on my team, & did whilst I was on military service in the Gulf War. Can you guys point me to a man who can ‘lead’ me without minimising the gifts God has given me & used in his service?’”
Beakerj,
You really saw the cognative dissonance with comp leaders and their doctrine during the last presidential campaign. It was amazing. You see, Sarah Palin could be VP but could not lead a bible study with any of her male staffers. Piper was just about in knots trying to explain this stuff in a reasonable way that did not make them sound like dolts. They even had ABC News at SBTS interviewing students (stepford students) on why a woman could be VP but not teach men scripture. They sounded like idiots!
Only Voddie went on cable news and made any sense according to their doctrine. He said she should be home raising her family and submitting to her husband.
The comps set up these ridiculous doctrines then have to explain them away when logic gets in the way. See, According to Piper’s own writings over at CBMW, Palin could be VP but she should not give ORDERS to men who report to her. That is not natural, you see. A woman boss can give “suggestions” to a male direct report.
Now, he did not mention Palin specifically, that article was written long before her. But what he taught there about women in the workplace applies to her because she is female.
I often wonder how comp women keep from going insane trying to remember their Talmudic rules.
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Anon1,
Quick question in response to your post at 11:37 pm…As I am trying to figure out where I land on COMP/EGAL debate, I have been looking for some resources that dive deeply into the historical context of that day.
I know the internet is a good resource, but I was looking more for a book that might deal with the subject..preferablly the author being someone who actually has a degree in this historical era and could explain the context of some of these passages a bit better.
I have seen what the leaders of COMP/EGAL have written–and so many times it comes down to what one word means in the Greek..and unfortunately, they come to entirely different conclusions of course..
That is why I want to step away from the debate all together, and just see if there is a good book that can bring the context alive for me…and help me to see all of this a bit clearer.
Not sure if you know of some, but anything you can share will be helpful! Thanks!
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Or, as my 10 year old son would say, “Boys rule, girls drool!”
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Seeker –
You might be interested in Kenneth Bailey
http://shenango.org/Bailey/bio.htm
If I were you, I’d start with the Jesus book and then maybe take a look at the Paul book.
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@Seeker, I suggest you get a book called “Good News for Women” by Rebecca Merrill Groothius. It will explore the comp/egal question using a logic framework. Her treatment of “functional” subordination vs ontological subordination is brilliant.
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Do you have that published anywhere online? I’d like to read it.
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dee 8:21
AHA, you have a deep connection to Danvers!
That just proves God uses those who have been near and/or under the sickness as the antidote and/or the vaccine… Just sayin’ 🙂
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dee,
I didn’t live in Danvers long. But prior to that, I lived in Salem for a few years and my first daughter was born in Beverly hospital in 1984.
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Charis
Shades of my past! My worship leader at church is from Beverly. Did you ever eat at Strombergs on the bridge or Lens’subs? And how about the popcorn at the Willows?
When I became a Christian in my teens in Salem, I was the only Christian I knew.I was a bit of an oddity at that time although there are many who would contend that I still am!
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Jesus Christ freed women from slavery by making them equal with men. Until He came, women were treated like property by men.
In Jewish society, men could divorce their wives for any reason.
In Greek society, men could have several wives and were worshiped (by means of sexual immorality), reducing them objects of pleasure.
In Roman society, men could abandon, beat, kill, and otherwise abuse their wives with impunity as women had little to no value.
He (through the writings of Paul the Apostle) gave them the right of reciprocation. The husband is to love his wife just as Christ loved His church, and the wife is to submit to her husband as unto the Lord.
“As unto the Lord” is almost never quoted by men who insist on dominating women. Ask yourself a question: Why do you love the Lord? Because He first loved you and gave Himself for you. Husband, if you want your wife to submit herself to you as unto the Lord, then LOVE HER FIRST AND GIVE YOURSELF FOR HER! When she is convinced that you have her best at heart in everything, she will gladly submit to you.
Look at the word, “Submit:” Gr. hupotasso (hoop-ot-as’-so), primarily a military term, to rank under (hupo, under, tasso, to arrange). Paul used this military term for the purpose of establishing order in a marriage. Husband and wife must be united in their marriage. “Submit” is not used of authority over, but of responsibility for. Ultimately, the husband has responsibility for the marriage before the Lord. (So, guys, if your marriage “fails” who do you think God is going to hold accountable?).
Consider 1 Corinthians 11:3: “But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.” The word, “head,” is used metaphorically, of the authority or direction of God in relation to Christ, of Christ in relation to believing men, of the husband in relation to the wife. In relation to. Do you honestly think that the Son is inferior to the Father? Or that the Son is less than the Father? If you do you are denying the historical doctrine of the Trinity.
Consider what Jesus says through the Apostle Peter: 1 Peter 3:7:Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered.”
The word “weaker,” Gr. asthenes (as-then-ace’), lit., “strengthless”, used of physical weakness. The woman is the weaker vessel and must, for that reason, be treated with gentleness. She is not weaker spiritually or mentally or in any other way. She is no less than the man (in fact, I have met some women over the years that were far stronger than me physically).
Honestly, how are you honoring your wife if you are demanding that she submit to you?
Within the fallen nature of man there is the fear that women will dominate them; so men (out of fear) seek to dominate women. How does that mindset fit into the Christian Gospel?
Gentlemen, I am not perfect, but I have an outrageous marriage! My wife is my best friend and my closest counselor. I never make any major decision without her counsel. And often, she overrules me and I have no problem with that, as she is often right and I am often wrong!
Guys, you should step up to the plate and love your wives. If you dare to do so, you too will have an outrageous marriage!
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Steve
“Or, as my 10 year old son would say, “Boys rule, girls drool!” Now that is the best paraphrase of the nonsense that flies around the radical comp crowd that “women are gullible and easily deceived.”
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“know the internet is a good resource, but I was looking more for a book that might deal with the subject..preferablly the author being someone who actually has a degree in this historical era and could explain the context of some of these passages a bit better.”
That is the best way to approach it and the language and how it has changed over time.
One example, NT Wright was an Ancients Prof before he was ordained so he brings a different perspective on the historical context. Kenneth Bailey, (mentioned above) grew up in the ME and was also a seminary prof in the ME who helps us see scripture through ME eyes. In fact, one of his books, Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes is not about women only but about understanding the parables. (You will be amazed at how much the “Luke 2 as Jesus Birth” story is misunderstood by us and is taught wrongly.
As to the woman question (and all scripture concerning) there is nothing better than Katherine Bushnell in God’s Word to Women. A missionary in China and a medical doctor who spent years learning Hebrew and Greek and had her lessons critiqued by the scholars (this is in her footnotes and she gives their disagreement, too)
I have found that so many minds are closed because they think if they seek historical context they are sinning and not believing the Word. The brainwashing of following man has really worked throughout history when it comes to the things of God. I think if God puts it on your heart to seek better understanding then the Holy Spirit will illuminate truth to you. It is not about agreeing. It is about who you are in Christ. Pretty important issue when you think about it.
One way I started years back was with an interlinear and then study the range of Greek word meanings in Koine Greek. That, alone was startling. You run across things like what Charis mentioned about about women “ruling” the home. Little things that are really big if you are a woman with translations. A BIG one is how Teshqua is translated in Gen 3. Most people do not know it was translated as “turning” until about the 1300’s when a Monk named Pagnini translated as “Desire” and changed the focus. God predicted that Eve would we “turnin” to Adam (instead of God) and because she did that he would rule over here. No where in that passage does it communicate that Eve would want to rule Adam. What a lie people have believed.
Happy hunting for the truth! It is not an easy journey because your peer group will think it is sinful.
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Caleb W,
Welcome to TWW! I am so glad you have joined our discussion, and I found your comment extremely enlightening.
I hope you will continue to bless us with your insights.
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Steve Scott,
My 10 year old son would agree about who rules & drools.
Of course, as far as my 8 year old daughter is concerned, it’s “Girls rule, and boys drool”.
Our children are simply expressing human nature at its “basest” (if that’s a word).
But as Rose Sayer (Katherine Hepburn) said to Charlie Allnut (Humprhey Bogart) in The African Queen,
“Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above.”
(love that!)
I intend to see that my children do just that in how they view themselves and others, regardless of gender.
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Sad part is, when the parents do choose to really get into high school-level work, they use heavily censored curricula like Bob Jones and Abeka (Pensacola Christian College’s curriculum). For instance, from my few and unpleasant forays into Abeka, I learned:
China is still referred to as “Red China” — Hester
If so, they’re the only ones other than Rush Limbaugh who uses the term. (Though Rush’s version is more like “COMMUNIST China”.) I have long said that China in the 20th was “The fall of the Ching (Manchu) Dynasty, a Time of Troubles, then the founding of the Hong (Red) Dynasty by Mao.” I’m pretty sure that’s how future historians will read it.
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And popping out 3 kids a year depends on whether you are a part of SGM…or the standard fundy who views Mormons as a threat and want to outbreed them….before they outbreed you. — Eagle
Don’t forget the Muslims, whose most Extreme Imams (who are also Extreme Complementarians) say the same thing: “We conquer the lands of the Franks! Our wombs shall be our weapons!”
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I think we just conversed about David and Bathsheba. Is that somehow different than what Moore calls “pagan patriarchy” today? — Bridget2
“Christian Complementarianism” is GOOD and Godly because WE the Godly do it; “Pagan Patriarchy” is EVIL and Satanic because THEY do it.
George Orwell called it Doublethink and Blackwhite; any three-year-old can understand that. (Remember the “Toddler’s Property Rights”?)
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Thanks everyone for all the suggestions…
All of this is helpful and is exactly what I am looking for!
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DB, True Words, and others who may have referenced Calc. The Calculus is one of the greatest intellectual achievements in the history of humankind. Its “stellarness” ranks right up there with the invention of the written word composed of re-usable symbolic characters.
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And Caleb W. , like Trina, I too find resonance with your comments. TWW is known for its tolerance of all viewpoints; even when they don’t comport with what is generally considered to be ideologically pure in evangelical circles. As you may have discovered, this is not the case on many other faith-based blogs.
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Fuller Prof, Daniel Kirk (@jrdkirk) has been live tweeting the Christians for Biblical Equality conference in Houston. He raved about Dr Philip Payne’s presentation where Payne destroyed the 12 Pillars of Male Hierarchy.
I wish Payne’s book, Man and Woman, One in Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Paul’s Letters was available for the Kindle. I’m going to have to order a hard copy, methinks.
Payne apparently began his multi-decades study of this issue as a believer in male headship and was changed through his intense study of the Scriptures.
Ben Witherington says this about the book:
‘Philip Payne’s work has always been characterized by careful, detailed exegetical study of the biblical text. In Man and Woman, One in Christ, Payne brings decades of meticulous research to its proper culmination in a compelling and thoroughly biblical demonstration that Paul the apostle to the Gentiles was a wholehearted supporter of women serving in any and all sorts of ministerial roles they are called and gifted to undertake. Indeed, he demonstrates at length that Paul should no longer be seen as the ‘party of no’ when it comes to women in ministry or their equality in Christian marriage. This book deserves the highest commendation.’
Kirk says the CBE Houston presentations are being videotaped and may end up on YouTube. Make it so, please, Lord!
All of this to say another good and important post from the fine minds at TWW.
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Deb (from on Fri, Apr 27 2012 at 11:19 am)
Happy Anniversary to you on May 1!
But please tell me the “24 years of marital bliss” [in a row] is at least a little hypberbole.
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MUff
Funny story. Someone was very annoyed with us on another blog. They said that we allowed someone to comment that did not believe in traditional Christian doctrine. I do not get why some Christians are afraid of dialog with those who disagree. In fact, I would find life very boring if everyone parroted me at every step. It causes me to think and consider my beliefs and how I have arrived at them. That’s why I always smile when I see you have commented.
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Bill
Keep us posted on this. Drat, how did I miss it? I hope it gets posted to you tube so we can link here. BTW, are you back stateside?
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Elastigirl
I think Deb might be playing off CJ Mahaney’s comments on the matter.
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elastigirl and Dee,
I am very blessed in my marriage, and I am so grateful for my wonderful husband. There is more truth than exaggeration in my previous remark.
My motherly advice to my daughters is:
Marry an egalitarian Christian man like your dad!
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Imbi and I are back on this side of the pond. In recovery mode from an enjoyable, but very busy trip. I hope to blog on this topic and others very soon.
BTW. I think I’ve figured out why we can’t understand SGM. The Sovereign in their title actual refers to Ceej, eh!
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Bill
Touche on the Ceej! Welcome home!
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It’s good to be home!
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Hi, Deb.
That’s great about there being more truth than exaggeration to your statement. My husband is a real winner, but life has enough different terrains that my temperament’s response to it would rarely consider the word bliss for any part of it.
(Except for maybe a day at the beach all by myself on an 80 degree day, with a Wilbur Smith book, a blanket, a comfy beach chair, & a cooler of drinks & snacks.)
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Dee – I think one of the big reasons that people are afraid of differing viewpoints is that they can be threatening to those who are locked into particular beliefs and interpretations.
Free dialogue really doesn’t have to be threatening! I think God would like us to use the brains we were given, and not let them go stagnant or turn anti-questioning. That said, I also can appreciate the “side” (in reality, many “sides”) of those who get upset about questions and whatnot, if only because I’ve been there. (And because so very many people in fundagelical circles are told that doubt is a sin… very sad.)
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seeker,
I’m in the process of compiling a page of the books, articles and blogs that I have found helpful. You might look to see if there is something that catches your eye.
If you scroll down, you will see a link for Philip B. Payne. You might find his website to be what you are looking for.
http://sallieborrink.com/women-in-the-church/
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LOL. I just read the rest of the comments and see Philip Payne was already recommended.
It’s a sign! It’s a sign! LOL!
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Another thing…
If people want something lighter, I just got a review copy of Ben Witherington’s “A Week in the Life of Corinth” from IVP Academic. I’ve only glanced through it, but it looks really good and accessible. It is told in story format with lots of sidebar information that gives background. The back says “A story of the social and cultural context of Paul’s ministry.”
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For an overall view of why so much of it is tradition instead of spiritual, read Barna/Viola’s Pagan Christianity and John Immel’s Blight in the Vineyard.
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I highly recommend Scot McKnight’s “The Blue Parakeet”. It’s non-technical and interesting.
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Numo
Plus, it is lots of fun to meet people, like you for example. That is what brings me the greatest joy.
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Sallie and others,
I go to school with Dr. Payne’s son. Wonderful man of God! Fun fact, D.A. Carson uses Philip Payne as an example of an exegetical fallacy in discussing headship in his book “exegetical fallacies.” When I read the book, my first reaction: “Of course he would.”
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What bothers me most is the butchering complementarianism does to the Body.
Why are they so concerned with how God uses me? Even if it is in a way that they didn’t expect, based on their own reading of Scripture…if I am operating as God instructs, then everyone in the Body is going to be edified by it.
It seems that their entire understanding of women is that they, as men, are supposed to control us.
Even Russell Moore’s comments on braided hair suggest this underlying attitude of control: If a woman is sexual, she has somehow “submitted” to the men in her culture. It suggests that a woman’s sexuality is a kind of “submission” to the “boss.”
Huh?
It just seems an arrogant way to view the world IMHO.
I agree with Wade, that this is about authoritarianism, and it does not glorify God.
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Dee – Likewise!
‘Twould be a dull world indeed if we all thought alike, no? (Kind of like the Borg…)
Also, I loved your “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” example.
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I haven’t read the comments or many posts here so forgive me if this has already been asked and answered, but how do men like these view Rahab and Ruth? Ruth in particular is quite independent and I’d go so far as to say feminist. She doesn’t submit to the expectations of how a woman should act, and does so in a time and place where that was a much bigger issue than it is now. Yet we praise her for it, and God used her through it. So how do complementarians square Ruth with what the think women should be like?
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If you look at the lineage of David (and therefore, according to the Gospels, Jesus), you find a number of interesting women who seemed rather independent and strong.
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Pam, even the woman held up as a model of virtue in Proverbs 31 would come under complementarian censure if she was alive today!
16 She considers a field and buys it;
out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.
17 She sets about her work vigorously;
her arms are strong for her tasks.
18 She sees that her trading is profitable,
and her lamp does not go out at night. (NIV)
She just goes out and buys real estate! Without consulting a man! With money she made herself! o.0
The words/phrases used to describe this woman and her actions in Proverbs 31: “noble character”, “worth far more than rubies”, “her husband has full confidence in her”, eager, vigorously, “her arms are strong for her tasks”, profitable, “no fear”, strength (again!), dignity, wisdom, “faithful instruction is on her tongue”. I know I’ve missed some points.
In the past, I read this passage in a shallow way and just saw an impossible pile of expectations for women. What I see now is a description of a full-bodied woman with TONS of authority and independence. And she uses this independence to bless and serve her family. I can aspire to that.
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Note: Excellent blog post about the word “Gospel” and all the current book titles with that term.
https://donbryant.wordpress.com/2012/04/28/are-the-neo-puritans-calling-us-back-to-the-gospel-or-is-there-another-agenda/
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” Ruth in particular is quite independent and I’d go so far as to say feminist. She doesn’t submit to the expectations of how a woman should act, and does so in a time and place where that was a much bigger issue than it is now. Yet we praise her for it, and God used her through it. So how do complementarians square Ruth with what the think women should be like?”
Good point. Ruth is bigger than many think. Carolyn Custis James does a whole exegesis on the Book of Ruth that everyone should read. This book has been taught as a great love story and it is something totally different.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Gospel-Ruth-Loving-Enough/dp/0310263913
Look at the subtitle: Loving God enough to break the rules.
And Ruth, a widowed forienger, not a Jew, is in the lineage of Jesus.
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No matter what they say, they believe that women are accessories for men. Men are to have the ‘lead’ role in life (see what I did there). Comp men have far more freedom than is given to women, mostly because there isn’t nearly as much pressure to be self-sacrificing as there is for a woman to be submissive. Plenty of pressure to exercise authority though. Complementarianism/patriarchy is, by its very nature, the opposite of self-sacrificing. These guys are the ones defying scripture, not egalitarians. Clipping the wings of God’s daughters; giving them yokes and chains and telling them that it’s God’s plan for them; shutting out the voice of God in their hearts because apparently female hearts are sinful and any words that don’t match those of their pastors/fathers’/husbands’ are from Satan; well I don’t think God is very pleased at all. Jesus hated the Pharisees for putting burdens on the people that they didn’t live by themselves. It’s exactly the same story here.
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DB, True Words, and others who may have referenced Calc. The Calculus is one of the greatest intellectual achievements in the history of humankind. — Muff Potter
Then that achievement is lost on me. (And I have a Y Chromosome.) I almost flunked Calculus in college. That and Statistics.
Algebra? No prob.
2D Geometry? No prob.
Advanced Algebra? No prob.
3D Geometry? No prob.
Trigonometry? No prob.
Calculus? Fell flat on my face.
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Comp men have far more freedom than is given to women, mostly because there isn’t nearly as much pressure to be self-sacrificing as there is for a woman to be submissive. Plenty of pressure to exercise authority though. — Anne
“Exercise Authority” as in “Throw My Weight Around”?
“ME MAN! ME WANT SUPPER!
YOU WOMAN! YOU! SHUT! UP!”
— Excedrin commercial of the 1960s: “Excedrin Headache #135”
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HUG: Exercise authority as in, make decisions and make everyone follow them.
“ME MAN! ME WANT US TO EAT DINNER AS A FAMILY, AS SOON AS I GET IN FROM WORK! YOU WOMAN! YOU SUBMIT TO THIS DECISION! DINNER ON TABLE, SIX TWENTY-TWO PM SHARP!”
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HUG and others re calculus.
Calculus is the second most badly taught subject that involves numbers, second only to statistics. As a former prof who taught statistics and who has tutored people in statistics and calculus, the issue is that few people teach the concepts and ideas behind it, which is the marvelous part and actually fairly easy to understand. Rather, they either teach as if they are teaching people who will develop the field, as in derivations and proofs.
When I was a college student, there was a marvelous math prof at Michigan State, last name Hamelink, who figured out that most people who need to understand and use math do not become mathematicians, so that only a very small number of people need the ability to derive and prove. Most need to understand the ideas that underlay the utility of calc or stats and how to choose and use the right formula.
I taught a stat class that did not emphasize crunching numbers (the computer will do that) nor deriving formulas or doing proofs, but understanding the idea behind the statistic, when and how to use a particular statistic, and how to use the computer to do the calculations. Got very high teacher evaluations — so high that the tenure committee refused to believe that I did not fake them! But all semester you could see the light dawning on student faces in the classroom.
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Pam
My guess is that they believe that she repented of her lifestyle and went on to become a homeschooling mom, being sure never to be alone with male spies again, since that would be outside her purview as a woman.
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HUG – “Excedrin Headache #135” – LOLZ!
’tis true, though…
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Rene, Anon1, Anne, dee – thanks for responding. I hadn’t thought about the Proberbs 31 passage, Rene, but you are right, she’s an incredibly strong woman and is both independent and totally devoted to her family.
Anon1, I’ll have to get hold of that book, it looks great.
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Muff Potter, Trina, Deb, everyone,
Thank you for the warm welcome! I have been encouraged and enlightened by the articles and comments on this site so far. I may be incommunicado for a few days (renovating an apartment before I move in), but I intend to stick around! Dee & Deb, you’re doing a great thing with this site. The insightful & reasonable articles that you write are sorely needed and you’re providing space for an online community where people can have important discussions that the North American church does not (generally) seem interested in having.
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Caleb and Caleb W are both me, btw.
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Clipping the wings of God’s daughters; giving them yokes and chains and telling them that it’s God’s plan for them; shutting out the voice of God in their hearts because apparently female hearts are sinful and any words that don’t match those of their pastors/fathers’/husbands’ are from Satan… — Anne
Isn’t that the same justification in Extreme Islam for FGM, burqa, and honor killings?
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HUG: Not quite the same, but similar. The Taliban’s Deobandi teachings claim that women are half as intelligent as men.
Burquas are based on the Islamic idea that women should be modest, but they take it too far. Mind you they’re enforced with vigour because it’s considered that women are, in their hearts, round the clock temptresses who would become prostitutes in an instant if anything more than eyes were allowed to be shown. After all, affairs and rape are always the woman’s fault for tempting the poor, poor man. Didn’t stand a chance against the power of her naked wrists, unfortunate chap.
‘Honour’ killings are a retarded idea that removing your daughter/wife/sister from the picture will restore the family honour that she ‘lost’ by engaging in an affair/marrying against her father’s wishes/running away from home/being raped (because it was her fault)/mingling with Western males etc. Wikipedia refers to one story where a husband murdered his wife because he DREAMT she was having an affair.
As for FGM in Islamic states, I’m not sure what the justification is aside from it being a cultural one. There is mention of Mohammed approving of the practice in one of the quran books, but some scholars say that that book isn’t a legit part of the quran. These are the moderates, who also believe that it is not truly Islamic to cut any part of anyone. Others however, use the verse to justify FGM. Some even believe that removing the clit will actually increase sexual pleasure in the woman!
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Anne: “Wikipedia refers to one story where a husband murdered his wife because he DREAMT she was having an affair.”
Oooo. Yuck.
That is surprisingly close to Mark Driscoll having a dream that his wife was having and affair.
So he goes on to soul-murder her in ‘their’ (really his) book because, though she NEVER had an affair while they were married, she had the nerve (THE NERVE!) to sleep with another guy whenever they were first getting together and they were both sexually active teenagers in the liberal, sex consumed, Seattle culture in which they lived.
Driscoll’s honor was at stake (in his own mind). Though he could not physically murder her, it was well within his rights to drag that dark past out into the open for all the world in a best selling book.
Yep, masculinists, whether Muslim or Patriarchal Christian, they are cut from the same cloth.
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Headless Unicorn Guy –
Don’t feel bad 🙂 I have a degree in mathematics. I did well until analytic trig my junior year of college. I made a D, but the prof felt so badly for me since I was an honor student and came to her office every week for office hours, she passed me with a B- 🙂
So what lesson did I learn in advanced analytic trig? BE PERSISTENT!!! 🙂
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This entire article chapped my hide!
Can you even believe these men have taken so much of their time to write this?
If anything this article fanned the fires of misogyny.
They didn’t even consider a woman point of view in their article. Or I didn’t see one.
They have proved their point without a doubt with their very article that men think they are superior to women with this stinkin article.
I was raised in the Catholic Church and it was clear to me at the age of seven that the men in the church had their thumb on the women.
In more ways that one.
Nuff outta me, best stop before ……
Victorious said,
“Have you ever read so much nonsense in your life? I find it actually funny the lengths these grown men will go to to maintain their perceived power. I wonder how long before they designate his and her drinking fountains. lol
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In the church it (wives submitting to husbands) is the pillar and bullwark of the Gospel? What does the Gospel mean to these guys – submission? — Bridget2
You do know the Arabic word for “Submission”, don’t you?
ISLAM.
(With the same “slm” consonant core as the word for “Peace” (Salaam), indicating the two concepts are closely related.)
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HUG: Exercise authority as in, make decisions and make everyone follow them.
“ME MAN! ME WANT US TO EAT DINNER AS A FAMILY, AS SOON AS I GET IN FROM WORK! YOU WOMAN! YOU SUBMIT TO THIS DECISION! DINNER ON TABLE, SIX TWENTY-TWO PM SHARP!”
— Anne
How much distance between that and “WOMAN! DO AS I SAY OR I BEAT YOU!”?
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@ Ian:
Hear, hear! I guess men understand the life milestones, emotional journeys, and desires of women better than we do ourselves!!! That still doesn’t explain all the comments I hear in sermons from a male pastor saying, “Who can really understand what a woman wants, men? Amirite? Hardyharhar.” as if 60% of his congregation weren’t women who are more than capable of just telling him if asked, no complications involved.
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@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
This hits close to home for me. I married into a family where my husband, thankfully, is a new convert to Christianity (by new, I mean 10 years – I was raised in the church). My inlaws, though, are all very devout muslims. It’s both humbling and terrifying. Humbling because the sacrifices and dedication they show to their religion far, far surpasses my own on many occasions. Terrifying because it is the ultimate religion of female supression in so many ways. To come back to the U.S. and start to hear so many echoes of that perversion of women’s worth and abilities in my own church has been torture. Interesting story: shortly after returning, happy to be back in clothes taht don’t restrict my movement, field of vision, cause me to overheat in the summer, etc., my husband and I trotted into our church’s weekly bible study for couples. For context, our church is a relatively open, non-traditional church in a very liberal city in the southern U.S. It’s large and many of the women there hold advanced degrees, are too well-mannered to create substantial challenges to the status quo, etc. The pastor led off the evening by pointing out that they’d hung a long, floor-to ceiling black curtain down the center aisle, from the back of the room to the front podium. He told all women to go to the other side of the curtain, so that we wouldn’t make the mistake of acting like we had any insights or awareness or expectations around our husbands’ sexual expressions or actions. We did. He then spent an hour talking to the men about their sexual failings in the most sympathetic tone – I’ve never heard a woman’s sexual failings addressed so leniently in the church. We women stared at the side of his face for an hour as he talked to the men. He did address one command to us, “Ladies, being faithful is hard for men. Just because he is supposed to be, doesn’t mean you can sit home on the couch stuffing your faces with oreos, haha! You have a duty to your husband to maintain your looks.” I look around me at the very polished, well-groomed women (most of the men had pot-bellies, and clearly hadn’t seen a gym or diet in years). I was having flashbacks to the culture of islamic countries. We have not returned to that church, despite attending for years and being married there. I can’t bring myself to go back.
I also feel that churches haven’t quite caught up with societal trends. Women now often earn almost as much as their husbands. Women – at least in households I’ve seen – often drive tithing. When churches ostracize women, and women leave, their husbands also leave. And where the women are PhDs, J.D.’s, M.D.’s, a substantial tithe from the wife is walking out of the door as well. It’s crass, but I find that lot of church motivations are, from what I’ve seen. churches are, after all, made up of just people – and people are all flawed (including the men). 🙂
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@ Anne:
Assault rates in countries where women wear burquas are often higher than areas of the U.S. where women wear bikinis. The problem in the heart of a man who thinks he can treat a fellow adult human being as nothing more than a thing to be used for his own wishes. Covering the “thing” up isn’t going to help. Any woman can attest that she gets most of the catcalls, whistles, groping, and innapropriate comments (starting around age 10 for most girls) when she’s wearing sweats or no makeup, or baggy workout clothes or looks – in her opinion – as undesireable as possible. Too bad women weren’t asked what solution they’d like to employ to avoid being hit on by unattractive, coarse, rude, disgusting, out-of-shape men – we all have a lot of ideas, and I know from experience that the women in India, Saudi, Jordan, Bangledesh, Burma all do too. So much for the temptress theory.
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@ Rae:
Your experience at your church was just horrible. Who did this minister think he is, segregating the congregation and then ignoring half of it, only to then insult you all? What a horrible person.
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Rae, what a sad and yet frightening experience! Frightening because of the similar treatment of women in our country to those in Islam. It’s difficult to imagine how believers can resort to oppressing women and be totally oblivious to the fact that they’re doing so. And if they are not oblivious, that makes it unconscionable.