The subject of the interrelation of men and women, and women in the Bible has been a matter of hot debate for some decades. It has been of hotter debate in the US and UK but recently the level of debate has been increasing in Australia too. It has centred (in Australia) around complementarianism and egalitarianism. You may not have come across these terms or the debate but it is founded on some key points of difference:
- Complementarians believe that men and women were created with equal value and dignity by God, but that we were created with differing functions. A key one being that men were tasked with a teaching and leading role in the church and in the home.
- Egalitarians believe that men and women were created with equal value and dignity by God and while we were created differently, men have no prescribed role from God to teach or lead and that both of those functions can be equally fulfilled by women.
While this point of difference seems small in many ways, it has tentacles through our whole lives. How should the theology of either position be applied in life? What should they look like in the domestic sphere? In dating? In marriage? What should it look like in church? In paid ministry roles? In lay ministry roles like Bible study groups, pastoral care, voluntary ministry and leadership? In secular workplaces?
Most importantly, what should it look like when the Bible shows us what God intended with his created goodness, and yet what we see and experience in the world is broken, unjust and painful? As a complementarian, this is an ongoing area of interest for me and I am passionate about being true to biblical convictions, and applying theology wisely in a fallen world.
Anchored in Genesis
Both Es and Cs’ positions are founded in Genesis. Part of the reason there was so much heat in the debate in the US is that it became bound up with the inerrancy of scripture. That is, the belief that all the scriptures are God-breathed and free of error – that doesn’t mean free from cultural contexts, free from error.
Reading #1 – Insertion of falsehoods into Genesis
Since the rise of second wave feminism, came the rise of what was termed first wave evangelical feminism and there was an increase of biblical scholarship that re-interpreted key texts via that lens.
Some of the arguments explored included that Moses wrote Genesis with a deliberate inclusion of patriarchal social categories of the time in order to help his reader understand the main point (ie that God created the world). This however pushes a ‘cultural context’ into error because the charge is that Moses put deliberate untruths into the text. What this argues is that patriarchy didn’t exist prior to the fall and what we read as male headship in Genesis was deliberately falsified by Moses for the sake of the reader.
Further, the argument went that Adam was actually not created first, and so denying any hint that there might be headship on the basis of created order. Again, this may seem like a small thing but there are many texts in Genesis that this would make false (eg that Adam was placed in the garden alone, God saying that it was not good for him to be alone, Adam naming all the animals alone, there not being a suitable helper found among them, the creation of Eve etc etc). That’s a lot of Genesis that we would have to take as deliberate falsehood – error – if we are to believe that reading.
If we follow that thread, we are in a position of denying the inerrancy of scripture. If that is the case, we cannot rely on the Bible as God’s full and true communication (and that the writers are more powerful than God in changing what was God-breathed to the extent that everyone believed the lies).
Reading #2 – Same observations, different conclusions
I find recent scholarship from the E camp more measured. I disagree with the conclusions but it is clear that we believe a lot of the same points.
In the recent book God’s Yes to Women which sets out the egalitarian position, the chapter written by Paul A Barker is very interesting. What surprised me is that in the Australian complementarian camp, we have long argued that male headship as described in scripture (which is an important distinction from how it has been sometimes poorly applied in the world), is about partnership. If men are to lead like Jesus, they are to sacrifice and serve like Jesus which decries an authoritarian reading of key biblical texts (even though some have taken it like that). Wives might be called to submit, but husbands are to be the men (like Jesus) that wives can voluntarily submit to. Submission that is demanded is not submission. And, while we do not believe women can teach or hold authority in the church, we believe that women can and should be involved in the leadership group of the church, co-workers in Christ, under the leadership of the senior minister (Graham Beynon & Jane Tooher’s book Embracing Complementarianism is extremely helpful in exploring what this looks like in practice).
What is surprising in God’s Yes to Women is that this partnership model now seems to be purloined by the egalitarian camp who position themselves as being sole proprietors of it.
What this continues to show me though is that there is more perhaps than we thought that we agree on. Here’s some more elements of Barker’s reading of Genesis that I agree with:
“Created differently does not require a difference in hierarchy.” I agree. Functional difference in Genesis is not ascribed any difference in value. The world has done that in its sinfulness, with ‘difference’ equated with ‘inferior’. This is not what is on show in God’s created goodness.
In relation to the marriage statement that a man and woman will be one flesh, Barker states that “There is an equality and unity-yet a similarity and not identical being-being highlighted here, a mutual kinship, with no sense of male superiority or authority.” In relation to the passage he speaks about, I also agree. The one flesh statement communicates the closeness of the marriage union. Male headship is not what I believe is being discussed in this passage.
“The word for ‘helper’ is about matching the man, not being under his authority. This is underscored by the language of ‘corresponding to him’”. Again I agree. Complementarians have long argued this point as the basis for partnership and the complementarity of the co-working (see particularly Women and God by Kathleen B. Nielson, The Good Book Company, 2018).
However, we differ in our conclusions in quite distinct ways.
First, Adam is given the command to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil before Eve’s creation. This means that Adam has to communicate that command to Eve and ensure that she understands and follows it. We might think that ensuring she understands and follows it is a bit of a long bow. But we are not talking about me telling my son to remind my other son to take the bins out. My elder will pass on the message but I don’t expect him to police it. But this was a command of life and death given to Adam by God and not given to Eve. It was incumbent on Adam to ensure that God’s word was followed. When taken in the context of other points in Genesis (again I point you to Nielson’s book as a great primer on this point as well as Clare Smith’s God’s Good Design), this responsibility on Adam is a logical conclusion.
Of this, Barker says “it is not necessarily the case that the man told her of this command (which some say is a sign of his authority over her). God himself may have told the woman separately-the text does not say either way.” No, the text does not say. As God’s word we are told what is important. And what was important was knowing that God commanded Adam. Arguing God may or may not have done other things is an argument from silence and can’t possibly be substantiated or tested by scripture.
Second, Barker argues that since there was no inequality and no male headship in creation prior, that the curse that Eve’s desire would be for her husband and that he would rule over her, was an inequality only introduced at the fall. For many reasons (too numerous to add here in what is already a very long blog) we disagree on this point. Largely because of one key point that Barker dismisses, but which I believe is of real relevance to this reading.
He says “Clare Smith [in her book God’s Good Design] says that in Gen. 2, the differences show there is an ‘order of the relationship’ and that the man ‘has a responsibility of leadership’ and that she has a responsibility ‘to accept his leadership’. This is reading too much into the text. Their argument depends on a particular understanding of Paul in 1 Timothy.” Here is the issue I have in the dismissal of Clare’s point: Paul in 1 Timothy is interpreting Genesis. As God-breathed scripture, we take our cue from Paul. Whole books have been written about differing interpretations about the words ‘teaching’ and ‘authority’ in 1 Timothy 2 but I remain convinced by Clare Smith’s careful scholarship and Paul’s apparent interpretation of Genesis as the basis for his assertion.
I would add to this that Paul is writing letters to the churches as the pastoral outworking of the teaching of Jesus. Paul was an apostle. He met the ascended Jesus on the road to Damascus. His teaching was tested by the apostles in Jerusalem who had known Jesus and sat under his direct teaching for his whole ministry. And while Jesus had elevated the position of women to be disciples and key witnesses and co-workers in his church, it does remain that none of the 12 Jesus chose were women. Those Jesus chose to guard the good deposit (ie teach and lead) were all men, which seems to be a through-thread from the complementarity on show in Genesis, and which we see in the pastoral outworkings in Paul’s letters.
I am encouraged by the increase in the level of debate in Australia. And I appreciate the level of measured scholarship of some of what we are seeing. And, although disheartened by some of what I am seeing that I believe is divisive and alarming in its approach to scripture, I do appreciate the opportunity to understand how much we have in common.
But I do not believe we have been reading Genesis wrong.
Egalitarians might argue that it is due for a fresh reading since complementarianism was created in the 1980s. The term was created in the 1980s to describe a position that previously had not been in doubt. And I strongly believe that it had not been in doubt because often the way it was applied was because it was indistinguishable from cultural treatment of women. Once the culture was questioned though, a term was needed to describe the position in relation to the alternate. So complementarianism as a theology was not a recent creation. It was a part of God’s created goodness.
Has the theology been applied poorly? Absolutely. From the earliest times, the treatment of women in the church aligned strongly to cultural norms over and above what was communicated in the Bible. And we have to face the fact that truly reprehensible things have been said and done that treated women as inferior rather than different. But that is not a reason to strike out the theology. It is a reason to examine what we believe and why we believe it. It is a reason to explore the ideal that God communicated in Genesis and recognise how far short of it we are and, within the bounds of our biblical convictions, to move closer to God’s ideal as we seek to grow in Christlikeness.