Egalitarianism vs. Complementarianism: Evangelical Feminism -Modern America (Part 1)

I wanted to discuss a very serious topic that resonates very deep in my heart and I believe it is critical part of truly understanding the true nature of our roles and responsibilities. I use many points taken from Wayne Grudem and John Piper – who are both complementarians. I will also cross examine N.T. Wright’s theory (who is a radical egalitarian) and compare the two opposing sides.

But before we jump right in, let’s get you familiar with what these sides are.

Egalitarians – the doctrine that all people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities.

Complementarians- is a theological view in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, that men and women have different but complementary roles and responsibilities in marriage, family life, religious leadership, and elsewhere. The word “complementary” and its cognates are currently used to denote this view.

Just so you better understand, this is a current issue within the church, many people in our modern day church are egalitarians (CTK) and believe that we are all created equal, and therefore we are all equal in everything in this life- this includes all of our roles and responsibilities within the family, and the church. There is never an exception to this, and anyone that suggests this is a sexist and a bigot! Sound a little like the extreme left? Yes, sorta where this false teaching originated from.

The more accepted side, within a conservative background is complementarian. It suggests that we need to acknowledge our God given roles – which differ from men to women, we can see this in our both our biological predisposition and in our spiritual calling. This is in both our family commitments and in the church community. We acknowledge that both female and male roles are important in the view of God, there is no greater good.

And one stigma we need to abandon immediately is that, submitting to someone does not degrade you, nor does it make you irrelevant. We are constantly told to submit ourselves to God! Does that mean we are degraded in doing so? Some may argue that. We are all very valued in the eyes of God and Paul communicates that in Corinthians when he explains the body of Christ and how all body parts are equal, and none of more important than others. Although, some may want to be the head or the eyes, those parts are useless without the neck or the back. You need all parts to be able to function correctly. Even a foot becomes a necessity when you are running a marathon for God.

I recently talked to someone about this topic and they asked me, “why are you so against women, and their roles..?” I answered, this is more of a serious issue than meets the eye. Most people think that this is similar to the battle that is going on in society, the feminism culture is fighting for women civil rights, etc…..

But I will tell you this is much more than that. There is a term used in the world, often times certain things are referred to as a gateway or a watershed, meaning a gateway drug can be marijuana which essentially can lead to you doing and experimenting with other drugs. Similarly, often times in ministry when a subject is approached very loosely, it can have some serious repercussions.

Diving right in, I want to address the very first argument that is made by all egalitarians. I wanted to note, that egalitarians do not only exist in the religious world, but also in the common world – they often fight for liberty, true equality, extremely against chain of command, and is rooted from the word equality – We fashioned egalitarian from their égalitaire “egalitarian” (which comes from the Latin aequalitas“equality”), and then added our -ism to it.

So not from a worldly stand point but from a Godly standpoint, is there true equality? 

My  view is based on Biblical fact – Men and Women are equal in value in dignity (Grudem).

We read in the very first page of the Bible, that men and women are created “in the image of God”

This is a very important aspect of this controversy, because Complementarians will not argue the importance of man vs. woman. They do both absolutely agree that women and men are seen equally in the eyes of God, and the Bible quotes this in both the NT and the Old Testament. I think this is very comparable to us, as parents, we do not favor any kids in our family, we may have a little more in common with some, but they are part of us, and we love them all equally. Keep in mind, God loves us unconditionally, a bit different from human love.

This is a very serious pinpoint within egalitarianism because ultimately they believe that there is no female nor male, no Jew nor Greek (Gal 3:28). And I will agree to this, with exception, when God sees us as his children, he wishes the best for all of us. And he wants all of us to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven, not just the Jews or the Greeks, not just the females nor the males. This passage speaks on the importance of Gods sovereignty towards all human kind.

The Bible is very explicit about men and women having different roles in marriage as a part of the created order (chain of command). I know many people don’t like that expression – chain of command, but we have to understand that this entire world has a chain of command.

The husband and the wife are of equal worth before God, since both were created in God’s image. The marriage relationship models the way God relates to his people. A husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. He has the God-given responsibility to provide for, to protect, and to lead his family. A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ.

Egalitarians do not affirm such created differences. In fact, they published a statement (CBE):

The Bible teaches both man and woman were created in God’s image, had a direct relationship with God, and shared jointly the responsibility of bearing and rearing children. The Bible teaches that the rulership of Adam and Eve resulted from the Fall and was over, therefore, (not part of the original order). The Bible defines the function of leadership as the empowerment of others for service rather as the exercise of the power over them. The Bible teaches that husbands and wives are heirs together of the grace of life and that they are bound together in a relationship of mutual submission and responsibility. The husbands function as “head” head of the wife, is understood as a self-giving love and service within this relationship of mutual submission (Eph 5:21-33, Col 3:19, 1 Pet 3:7). 

I can bring up several examples of of a male headship in marriage before the fall of mankind – but that will not matter when debating with a egalitarian because he will claim that everything that happen before the fall is irreverent.

But I will skim some facts about the headship role that Adam was given anyway, as Complementarians believe that roles assigned by God never change – even if the world is crumbling beneath us, we believe that God is the same today, tomorrow and Forever.

When we read 1 Tim 2:12 “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man, for Adam was formed first then Eve.” Why would Paul see it as an important detail to add that in there. Was it truly important that Adam was made first?

The name Adam in Hebrew means Man – so the word man is definitely not a gender neutral term in the eyes of a Hebrew reader. So by understanding that Adam was named a Man, which is referred to as mankind- God names the human race Man, not “woman.” In the first four chapters of Genesis the word Adam was used 13 times to refer not to a human being in general but to a male human being. So there is a huge significance of Adam being named after humankind.

There is a very interesting notion that you will see right after the fall. Who does God speak to? God spoke directly to Adam after the fall. “But the lord called to the “Man” and said to him,”where are you?” Even though Eve sinned first, why did God not reach out to Eve, and say, look what you did? You caused Adam to stumble and fall. No, God did not communicate that, he summoned Adam to give account for what happen to his family (the primary accountability) Adam was the one primarily accountable.

Let me give you an example, you leave your house and tell your oldest to keep and eye on his little brother, upon your return you find the house destroyed – will you not scold the oldest for not doing his duty of being overseer of the house?

Here is the contrast of that analogy – the serpent spoke to Eve First, trying to get her to take responsibility for leading the family into sin, and inverting the order that God established at creation.

After the fall of man, to the woman God said;

     ” I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing, in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be fore your husband, and he shall rule over you.” 

Even though, we are not to us that as a form of coercive leadership tactics by saying, hey, God commanded me to rule over you! That is a not what this verse is about, it is for insight, because you will see throughout the Bible that this does not change, Women never change their role within the structure of the family. The restoration happens when the New Testament is written God, reaffirms the creation order.

But God is not unjust, we see him display this through Colossians 3:18 – “wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting to the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them”

You will see a constant referral of Christ to the church, or the Bride of Christ. God uses the relationship between the church as he uses it in the family between man and woman. He wants us to recognize the correlation between the two relationships.

“For the Husband is the Head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church.”

Remember this, it is a fact, that the relationship between Christ and the church is not a culture variable – meaning it is the same for all generations. There is a leadership or headship role that belongs to Christ that the church does not have. Similarly, in marriage as God created it to be, there is a leadership role for the husband that the wife does not have.

In practice, this works like this. We see men displaying this role in either 2 way – being passive (watching tv while the wife tries to discipline the kids, sitting back while someone insults his wife or kids and not doing anything) this is referred to in the real world as a wimp. On the other side we see the complete opposite, men acting like tyrants and taking control by force – constantly reminding their wife that they are the leader appointed by God. This may be through some sort of forceful or coercive behavior or through aggression. I often times battle with this myself – trying to find a good balance between being passive and being forceful.

Women on the other hand can be either passive, “yes honey”…”anything you say” making them without an opinion, or a doormat, or they can be the opposite which is usurper (a person who takes a position of power or importance illegally or by force.) Because naturally women will want to overthrow the man, its their natural tendency (because of the Fall of man).

We see this modern families, where the wife is usurping her role, she takes it by force, then threatens the husband by things such as divorce, withholding sex, or starting very aggressive conflicts. Often times, the husbands give in and would much rather see peace in the house then being the leader. For the sake of peace they are willing to compromise Gods command.

From another eyes view, we can compare the equality and differences between men and women reflect the equality and differences in the trinity. 

“but I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.”

This may be a little confusing, how can Jesus be under God, and yet be God? Can he be both? The answer is yes! We see this diagram:

Father ==>   Son  ==> Holy Spirit

This is the chain of command. You can see this chain of command in the family

God ==> Husband ==> Wife

We also see in Galatians Jesus referring himself under Gods command and leadership;

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant,being born in the likeness of men.

God is very clear about authority – he wants us to acknowledge that authority exists. The world we live in today does not teach this, in fact, the left teaches us that authority is just an opinion, and we have the freedom to say whatever is on our minds. We should rebel and stand up for our rights. We should question all authority no matter who they are, parents, cops, government….and lastly you would arrive to questioning God!

Schools undermine parents by saying you cannot discipline your children for speaking their mind, they encourage speaking out, and discourage discipline. This creates a sense of freedom without repercussions.

Growing up I was taught that, Love without discipline is abuse – and vice versa.

This truth about the trinity creates real problems for the egalitarians. They force people to choose between authority and equality. They say if you have a male headship then you cant be equal.

They even go as far to say, both Gilbert Bilezikian and Stanley Grenz, there is a mutual submission within the trinity. They say that the father also submits to the son. But so deep is the egalitarians commitment to view men and women equal within the marriage, they will modify doctrine of the trinity, and even remake the Trinity in the image of egalitarian marriage. This is where this truly becomes a slippery slope also referred to earlier as a watershed. When you will do just about anything to get your point across. Even if that means changing the scriptures to some sort of philosophical back story to explain your views.

NT wright  wrote: Egalitarian Philosopher

The Bible teaches full equality in the creation and the redemption.

False. We see that there is a big distinction between god addressing man and woman.

The Bible teaches that forming of woman from man demonstrates the fundamental unity and equality of human beings.

False, there was never a suggestion in the Bible that this was a display of equality.

The Bible teaches that man and women were co-participants int the Fall: Adam was no less culpable than Eve.

False. I addressed earlier, that after the fall, even though Eve sinned, God did not call to Eve, but to Adam.

The bible expression of the rulership of Adam over Eve comes as a result of the fall and was therefore not a part of the original created order. 

False. We see that the fall of man happen, however, that did not change the chain of command of man and woman.

These are some of the many arguments that have been made by Wright. You will notice that all of Wright’s work never has any references to the Bible, he doesnt actually use the text of the Bible to explain his position, he does something many heretics do. They generalize. They give you general propositions but will never dig deep into the bible, to try and argue their position. Also, he questions all doctrine based on orgin. Meaning, he starts to change all doctrine to mean whatever he wants it to mean. He will always say things like every reference made to this was typological not literal.

Conclusion:

This is the ending of my multiple part series, as it is just way to much to pack into one writing session. It will take me months to unpack the theology behind the doctrine. But I will say this, I do not write this for any personal gain, in fact, my wife 100% agrees with me on this subject and we talked about it for years. She understands that there is a chain of command and respects not only me by following it, but God. I respond to this by being loving towards her, and though it can be tough at times, even understanding. I struggle listening as I am very extroverted but i believe that we ultimately can be like Christ in our family. And display the perfect reflection that God wanted for his church.

Stay tuned for the next part – I will be unpacking NT Wrights theology and explain why it is not of God.

Wayne Grudem, Evangelical Feminism & Biblical Truth, (2004)