questions for hard complementarians (and hard egaliterians)

The problems with rigid complementarian and rigid egaliterian hermeneutical models

Tom and Donna Petter

In reading the recent literature by espousers of the complementarian viewpoint on biblical manhood and womanhood, a certain rigidity in interpreting key texts has settled in so that interpretations have evolved into indubitable facts.  In other words, a certain viewpoint is put forward as ‘exegetical’ and ‘biblical’ fact.  To take an opposing viewpoint, therefore, is tantamount to being ‘unbiblical,’ swayed by the waves of anti-Christian culture.  In this climate of heightened rhetoric, we need to remember the adage that while Scripture is inerrant, our interpretations are not always so.  In moving forward in this protracted debate, the central hermeneutical question remains: when do texts have a legitimate universal application for all times and when do texts do not.  These have always been complex issues.  Historically, evangelicals have not always been adept at discerning these correctly; arguments in support of slavery are probably the most significant and sad example. To be sure progress has been made in many areas, but we fool ourselves if we think that we don’t fall for culture-bound exegesis ourselves.  No one can claim 100% objectivity in our exegesis and biblical analysis and we need to be constantly looking for the Truth to change us and our false presuppositions.  The following observations therefore apply to both groups who have ‘dug in their heels’ over the years.   

Issues to consider for hard complementarians:

1. A woman can actually have better insights into the Biblical text than you do

1a. When a woman is smarter than you are

1b. When a woman exercises better judgment than you do

1c.  When a woman is more qualified than you are to do your job

(and so forth)

This is a little tongue-in-cheek, but there is truth to this statement.  In recent years, gifted evangelical female teachers have flocked to the Academy because they intuitively know that they will be received and accepted without conditions and reservations in the classroom.

2. The Bible also teaches that your wife is an equal partner in teaching your son (Prov. 1:8)

The idea that the husband is the “priest” or “discipler-in-chief” goes beyond the witness of Scripture, even in the patrimonial social context of the OT.

3.  Some of your conclusions might be based on poor exegesis of the text.  Grammatical and lexical data, literary setting, historical context may not be fully considered in arguments to limit or to expand the application of some key texts.  In other word, your approach is not indubitably more “exegetical” or “biblical” than opposing viewpoints at all times and under all circumstances (see 4.)

The one example is the way Deborah (Judges 4-5) is handled.  Complementarian commentators can go to great length to argue that she was not a judge in spite of the exegetical evidence to the contrary, particularly lexical and literary (the parallels between Deborah and Samuel, the judge and prophet). 

4.  Your hermeneutical system is sometimes influenced by emotion and pragmatism rather than empirical data.  Some examples:

4a. You do accept and receive the teachings of a woman but only when they support your views of hard complementarianism.

4b. What age should a man stop listening to the teaching of a woman? After they reach puberty?  When they go to college?

4c.  Since matters pertaining to the ‘Gospel’ are first-order doctrines and thereby authoritative, why should a woman ever be allowed to preach the Gospel to anyone?

4d.  Hard complementarians really should not be reading commentaries written by women (or any theological topic).

The points raised here are to demonstrate that in the real world of church life today, no one is really ready to apply fully Paul’s prohibition in 1 Tim 2.  It’s one thing to argue man has inherent authority over woman, but it’s quite another to apply it in all circumstances at all times today.  If we really wanted to be biblical, then our wives should call us ‘lord’ since Peter suggests that wives should emulate our matriarch Sarah when she called Abraham ‘lord.’   In other words, we intuitively allow some contextualization of even the most rigid texts for our time.  A glaring and delicate example is Ephesians 5.  The part that deals with husband and wives should be applied across the ages and at all times (especially the emphasis of wife submission in ‘everything’).  However in ch. 6, complementarians are quick to say (and rightly so!) the slavery texts are obviously contextually bound and should not be applied today.  Of course the husband-wife relationship is not at all like master-slave relationship in Ephesians.  But the hermeneutic of Galatians 3 cannot be selectively applied to some text and not to others in Eph 5-6.  It’s especially important in Ephesians itself since unity is the prevailing theme of the book. Husband and wives are united in Christ, children and fathers are united in Christ, slaves and masters are united in Christ.  Eschatologically, the image is one of unity, not ranking, for all these groups. (see 5. For more on the eschatology)

5.  Your biblical theology of manhood and womanhood has reductionistic and, in some cases, outright heterodox eschatological foundations.   It’s essentially based on life on this earth (see 6.)

This is the largest problem of hard complementarian hermeneutics.  It’s essentially a “this world” approach to human relationships.  The Bible teaches that in the Age to Come we are not given in marriage, so marriage is not an eschatological category and the Gospel upholds this eschatological view of manhood and womanhood in Gal. 3. We’ve all become ‘sons’  in Christ = the first-born who receives the whole inheritance.   The sense of authoritative hierarchy of the first-born who gets it all has been redefined to include man, women, slaves, free, Jews and Gentiles. The prevailing image is one of eschatological unity. 

6. Do you really want to promote a heterodox view of the Trinity in order to support the eternal functional subordination of woman to man (based on the heretical view that Jesus is eternally subordinate to the Father)?

Jack Davis (our colleague in theology at Gordon-Conwell) has written on the problems of this view of the Trinity, as have others.  The idea that Christ is somehow functionally subordinate forever is plain heresy.  I would never want to support a view of marriage that forces me to take such a stance on the Trinity. 

7.  On the Last Day, who is going to judge your wife before the judgment seat of Christ? You or Jesus?  Will Jesus ask of a wife, ‘did you follow and obey your husband in everything’ or ‘did you follow and obey me in everything?’

It all goes back to the eschatological nature of our identity.  We are accountable before God.  God’s law never says in the OT that a woman is not accountable for her actions.  “The soul that sins shall die.”

8. Pastors and leaders, how many female co-workers do you currently have on your staff?   Name six of them (and then count how many female co-workers the Apostle Paul names in his writings).

8a.  Pastors and church leaders, when was the last time you went to consult a woman for instruction in Scripture and for guidance in matters pertaining to the Church?  Ancient Israelite tribal leaders didn’t seem to be too bothered by it. 

A little tongue-in-cheek here as well, but Paul was very comfortable calling some of his closest associates “co-workers” that included females.  Priscilla, Junia, Phoebe are real persons who were fully invested in proclaiming the Gospel.  Here the reductionistic exegesis of these passages by hard complementarians mirror the approach of OT scholars who refuse to assign the title of judge to Deborah in Judges 4-5.  Furthemore, Barak, and the rest of the Israelite leadership at the time didn’t have any problems consulting Deborah on matters of the Law (or Priscilla teaching Apollos in Acts). If we are putting restrictions on ourselves that the Scripture itself isn’t putting on itself, we need to name the problem for what it is: it’s called legalism.

9. Ask yourself, which is the greater sin?  A woman in the pulpit OR a prideful, undisciplined pastor?

Oftentimes, hard complementarianism is associated with organizations who claim the mantle of the Gospel of grace alone and faith alone that are Reformed in perspective. These groups rightly teach that if there is repentance, there is no sin that the Lord cannot cover.  We are all sinners saved by grace.  We are all ‘always righteous and always sinner’ in God’s economy.  Furthermore, God plays no favorites in electing people unto Himself.  In other words, election trumps bloodlines (Romans and Galatians are the key texts in defining the Gospel). 

Thus, the Jews/Gentiles divide is dealt with directly by Paul in Galatians/Romans.  Freedom is the word.  However, legalistic standards of who belongs to the club and who doesn’t are routinely applied as to who can do what in God’s kingdom.  Standards that even OT saints didn’t feel bound to follow themselves!  (e.g., 2 Kings 22-23 and King Josiah:
“should I go to Jeremiah or Huldah to find out what these curses mean?”)

10.  Are matters of church governance now an essential part of the Gospel? Are organizational matters discussed in 1 Tim 2-3 that important in defining the Gospel?

In looking over the Danvers Statement on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, the texts to prove the affirmation keep circling back to the same passages, the pastoral epistles being chief among them (along with Gen 2 and Eph 5).  What is missing in this view of the Gospel is the central texts that affirms that the Gospel is an eschatological declaration of freedom for everyone who would come to Jesus.  Acts 2/Joel 2 is essential to understand the eschatological Age of the Spirit, an Age in which man and woman, young and old prophesy (in the Reformed sense of the word: ‘teaching God’s Law’).  As stated earlier, the goal for man and woman is not marriage but eschatological unity in the presence of God forever.  

10. If you really want to be a hard complementarian, you really shouldn’t quote Maggie Thatcher anymore

Ok totally tongue-in-cheek here!

10 Observations and Questions for hard egaliterians:

These propositions are more “self-evident” so we are not providing a commentary.

1. Women are different from men.

2. Not everybody should minister just because of their gender.  The ministry is not an equal opportunity affair, it’s a matter of calling and election.

3. The overwhelming majority of leaders in the Bible and in Church history are male.

4. Male primacy in Genesis is real

5. Headship and submission are real categories in discussing man/woman relationships

6.  God is Father; Jesus is Son; there are 12 tribal heads and 12 apostles, and none of them are female.

7. Paul did prohibit women from teaching in 1 Timothy 2.

8. The two list of qualifications for elders in NT are all male, e.g,  ‘husband of one wife’

9. The Trinity is “God is Three Persons;” it’s not one giant blur.

10.  Scripture is normative, even the hard texts.  You can’t pretend the “clobber texts” are not there or to be re-interpreted as ‘positive’ texts. 

Persia on my mind

When we lived in Toronto, some of my closest friends were from Iran (and Afghanistan).  When our son Marcus turned one on September 28, 2001, we celebrated the event with them, just a couple of weeks after 9/11.  A significant and influential part of my doctoral studies focused on Iron Age Iran.  Some of my favorite professors while in graduate schools were born and raised in Iran who had an intimate knowledge of the area (Christy Wilson at Gordon-Conwell, Bill Hutchison at Harvard and Cuyler Young at the University of Toronto).
However, in spite of my love for the land and its people, I cannot quite bring myself to joining in the  jubilation and celebration coming from the general direction of 1600 Penna. Ave.   The Islamic Republic of Iran is still a terrorist state and an active sponsor of terrorists.  An adoring press will be tempted to make comparisons with the Nixon/Kissinger deal with China, but the analogy breaks down so fast so as to make it quite meaningless.  In recent months, cool heads including Dr. Kissinger in a great essay co-written with George Shultz,  have warned of the folly to sit down with the "ayyatolahs."
I am also reminded of an old movie, The Heroes of Telemark where the Norwegian Resistance put an end to Nazi hopes for nuclear power during WWII.   From a strategic standpoint, for Nazi Germany to go nuclear was simply unacceptable in the eyes of the Allies and no cost was spared to stop the production of "heavy water."  We are such a long way from such determination by the Great Powers.
So let's keep Persia on our minds and in our prayers.  The world just got a little more dangerous as a result of this agreement.

New Age of Heresies

This is a brief post that could swell into a monograph pretty quickly (I don't have the time to write such a book maybe someone will feel the call!).
A new age of heresies not unlike what the Early Church faced is upon us.   It's now not unusual to see scholars and pastors who claim evangelical roots that have moved from orthodox understanding of the faith to new ideas (justification; inspiration of Scripture; historicity of Adam; deity of Christ; to name a few; and now we can add sexual ethics to the list).  What is also troubling are those who are concerned with these movements are viewed as intolerant extremists.   In this new era of the evangelical movement in North America,  Early Christian documents will become more and more important as guidelines on how to deal with false teachings and false teachers.  1, 2 Timothy; 2 Peter/Jude; Revelation, 1-3 John are great texts and will provide a much needed corrective to more extreme forms of the missional and liberation/social justice movements.  When I read this part of God's Word, it seems to me the inspired writers are clearly guilty of circling the wagon and they don't seem to be wringing their hands about it.  What they saw was the need to protect the Church from the lies of the devil and those who were deceived by him.  NT writers in the General Epistles (and other texts, of course) felt like the OT watchmen whose responsibility it was to alert the town of impending danger.  In NT terms, it's the danger of the impending wrath of God against ungodliness and the proclamation that Jesus is the One who delivers us both from the wrath to come (1 Thess 1:10) and this present evil age (Gal 1). As Paul puts it in 1 Tim. 3:15, "if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth."  
Maybe what we need to do is emulate the Early Church, shed some of the overemphases of the missional movement,  and recover a robust view of the Church as "bulwark" (or in German  "Festung") of the Truth.  

Time to go dark

There were many good responses to  SCOTUS' decision this past Friday by evangelicals and I personally liked a lot of them. In terms of what to do next, so far, my favorite has been John Piper  with his motif of lament and mourning (maybe it's because I'm working on the Nehemiah part of our NIVAC Ezra-Nehemiah commentary).  While we need to be careful to set the context in the Persian period for Nehemiah, there are points of applications for us nevertheless.  Upon hearing of the calamitous news from Jerusalem in the province of Yehud in chapter 1, Nehemiah becomes a mourner and goes "dark" for a few months, praying and fasting and interceding for the king of Persia to revert a decree he had made (recorded in Ezra 4).  Again, we can't have a direct application to the US situation, but maybe it's time for us to "go dark" too and to have a posture of prayer and repentance for our sins and the sins of the people. The idea that "nothing has changed" after Friday is ok if by that we mean that God is still in control and that the nations are mere drop in a bucket (Isa 40) etc. etc.  However, it's not ok if we mean disengagement from the situation.  We are to pray actively for our government, Scripture teaches us.  We ought also to feel the weight of what happened and lament and weep over this decision that so blatantly goes against the will of God (as so many other SCOTUS decisions before). We should also pray that we might not be hampered in proclaiming the Gospel, esp. those of us involved in Christian higher education.
So, maybe it's time for us to go dark too and while we're there also to weep and mourn for the tragedy in Charleston, the persecutions of our brothers and sisters in Africa, the Middle East, China, and many other unknown places.  Finally, and not least of which, let us weep and mourn also over our own personal failures and shortcomings, as Nehemiah prays, "even I and my father's house have sinned" (Neh 1:6)

Lex, Rex

Samuel Rutheford in the 17th century was a Scottish Presbyterian minister who penned this idea that proper governance is predicated on the rule of Law, rather than on absolute power residing in one individual ("the Law is King").  History is replete with countless leaders who have disregarded the Law to advance their own political agenda.   Some do it more skillfully than others and in varying degrees.  After all, the mark of a skilled politician in modern democracies is one who "gets things done" by using the law to his/her advantage, and by enlisting the help of others to carry out their agenda.

Theological liberalism, with its situational interpretation of Biblical Law provides a fitting counterpart to the secular political realm.   The norming norm of Scripture resides within the flux of the human experience, which means that normative ideals shift accordingly.  What the text might have meant in the past may not necessarily be what it means today.  Here also, a cursory survey of History will serve abundant helpings of the idea that Lex, Rex  is easily bullied and trampled upon.

The immigration debate in America has taken a sudden turn these past few days with the President taking the notion of Executive Order to brand new levels (which until very recently he didn't think were actually legal). However, it is argued,  now the situation has changed and we need to act on a situation that every one agrees needs fixing, i.e., the status of millions of undocumented residents in the US [BTW, not all come from our southern borders.  Many undocumented foreign-born residents simply overstay their visa].  So the need for immediate action overrides the sense that we should have laws in place before action can be taken.  But this is the post-modern, post-foundational world we now live in.  Expediency must prevails over Lex, Rex.

The implication of this action are profound for the Church as well.  If the chief executive in the land feels he can disrupt the (fragile) equilibrium between the three branches of our government and pretty much disregard existing laws, what would prevent other leaders to feel the need at some point to override by-laws, elder boards, boards of directors, trustees, governance documents, etc. to carry out their own purpose?  In the world of higher education,  where grading, student handbooks, faculty handbooks, governance documents are our "Lex, Rex,"  what if we disregarded our own standards based on expediency?  Any university that would engage in shifting standards (F last year is now a B this year) simply won't survive, we know that.  However, with this new precedent being set, I wonder how long it's going to take before we see the implementation of blatant instances of post-modern shifting standards beyond the Beltway.   Am I sounding too alarmist?  I sure hope so.

The Lord Jesus Himself upheld the constancy and perennial nature of Law when he re-affirmed OT Law by fulfilling it.  Compassion to the poor and needy in the OT becomes love for enemies in the NT. The prohibition against bearing false witness in the NT takes a much simpler, but equally profound dimension: speak the truth because He is the Truth.  So, in this confused age, the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7 becomes again a magisterial and powerful counter to a deceived culture, which wants to compromise and undermine Lex, Rex at every turn.  Let's make sure we as followers of Jesus, those who continue in His Word (His Law), don't fall for expediency and compromise in our own lives and in the institutions we serve.

PS on the question of Mosaic authorship

In the debates among evangelicals who are seeking to re-define inerrancy, even non-inerrantists are flagging the problems related to moving away from a traditional understanding of inerrancy.  You can't have a Chicago Statement viewpoint on inerrancy (which is based on written texts) and then turn around and be committed to a primacy of orality that is followed by a long process of literary/written production of the texts.  You lose too much in the process and it makes the traditional inerrancy claim that the texts are historically true and reliable sound very hollow.  This is the point made by this reviewer below (hardly a friend of the evangelical doctrine of Scripture)

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2014/01/review-of-the-lost-world-of-scripture-walton-and-sandy-by-carlos-bovell/

Say it ain't so Moses

There is a new storm brewing in OT evangelical scholarship:  Denial of Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch and the resulting validating of classical liberal historical criticism methodology.  The blog posts are up, the books are being published at a steady rate by well-established figures both in the publishing world and in evangelical academia.  In the months and years ahead, more OT scholars with roots in the evangelical tradition will align themselves with this newly found historical-critical consensus in the same way it overwhelmed European universities in the 19th century and American mainline seminaries in the 20th century.

However, before we join this call to freedom from the shackles of "pre-critical" and "fundamentalist" notions of Mosaic composition, it is important to take a look in our rear-view mirror.   In both Europe and the US, a skeptical stance toward the Scripture, among other factors, has resulted in devastating losses in terms of church growth.  One anecdotal story will suffice. In my home country of Switzerland in the French-speaking part, I was told that a couple of years ago, the faculty of theology in Neuchâtel had no new theological students matriculating.  The other two universities that are training pastors in the State Reformed Church, Lausanne and Genève, now share classes because of lack of students (this is Calvin's seminary we're talking about here).   In the US, the narrative is similar: mainline seminaries are struggling too, though not as severely as in Europe.

The approach contains many well known liberal arguments concerning the formation of the Pentateuch: the authorship of the Pentateuch was a long-term literary process.   Moses, while an authority behind the core texts, was only one part of the process that led to the text in its final form.  Tradents (= editors/authors) are credited with substantial responsibilities for the production of the Pentateuch. So, nothing new under the sun here. This sort of long-term processual scheme to factor in the multivariate dimensions of the Five Books of Moses has been a critical mainstay for 200 years.   But now, the arguments have taken a sort of evangelical idiosyncratic identity, an "in-house" feel: Since the Holy Spirit superintended the process, we need not fear this methodology.   God must have inspired the tradents just the same way he inspired Moses.

 It appears the OT and NT writers receiving these Pentateuchal texts didn't seem to share modern critics' confidence in this "gap theory."  When OT and NT writers said "Moses said this," the most reasonable assumption is that they meant he also wrote it (Nehemiah 8, etc.).  To argue otherwise seems a hard case to make, especially when the production of texts in the Ancient Near East is also factored in.  Orality (oral tradition) and literacy (texts) work hand in hand on many occasions (see Exodus 15 and Judges 5; the 9th century Mesha Stele [a Moabite text]).  The fact that it's very hard to recognize precisely when the oral traditions are put to writing (especially in Genesis) cautions us from being overly confident in assuming this was inevitably a long term process.  On the contrary, in the ANE, what the king says becomes binding authority (e.g., the code of Hammurabi) and it would be difficult to imagine scribes taking great liberties altering the accounts, especially much later on, when the king/authority is dead.  In fact, it's better to assume just the opposite happens.   Even today, people want their words recorded for posterity while they are alive.  This was certainly the case for Nehemiah in chs 1-6, 13: "Remember me, O God."  How much more so when these documents become codified and binding upon the community while the authority (Moses) is still present in their midst (Ex 24; Deuteronomy).

So, for evangelicals committing to this approach, the question becomes,  how historical is the text? For those who have dropped the "inerrancy" language from their vocabulary, the hermeneutic of suspicion is in full effect and the answer is quite easy to handle: the authors of the story of Adam, the Exodus, and Conquest narratives have all badly flunked the course "Israelite History 101" as taught in modern universities.  With this historical-critical grid, real Israelite history was quite different from what is recorded in the biblical text.  For those who are hanging on to traditional definitions of inerrancy, the answer to this question is more complicated. What is more plausible? To believe the accuracy of an eye witness account based on an oral tradition? Or to believe that some unknown scribe, perhaps as late as a half-millennium later would put to writing a tradition passed down to him orally, down to the last details?  I'm not doubting God could inspire these tradents, but does the text require us to believe in this long compositional process?  Of that, I am not convinced at all. This is why many evangelical OT scholars still don't find compelling positive evidence to counter the case for both Mosaic authority and authorship of the Pentateuch.