Complementarity and Evangelical Feminism
3 Comments Published by Lally on Wednesday, April 30 at 11:00 AM.
In any case, for my final paper, I am doing an investigation on the notion of "complementarianism," a belief among many conservative evangelical Christians about the Biblically hierarchical nature of gender. Complementarians believes that men and women are equal in the eyes of God with respect to salvation, but are meant for different but "complementary" roles on Earth. This generally means that men are meant for headship (kephale) and women for joyful submission.
Long story short:
In the late 1980's, the feminist evangelical group Evangelical Women's Caucus granted rights to homosexuals, causing an uproar and a subsequent schism, creating the Evangelical and Ecumenical Women's Caucus (EEWC, the liberal evangelical feminists) and the Christians for Biblical Equality (CBE, the conservative evangelical feminists). Of these two, the latter is more popular (300 and 2000 members, respectively). Nevertheless, each pales gravely in comparison to the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW). According to surveys by an academic named Sally Gallagher, over 90% of self-described evangelicals consider themselves to have "traditional" views of gender. For well over 83% of this group, this means that men are the primary spiritual leaders of the family.
The most interesting part of this research has been a better understand of what it means to be accepted as an evangelical in America today. Through reading the movement's history (I recommend everyone research George Whitfield, Charles Finney, and D.L. Moody, what I consider big three icons of the major protestant religious movements in U.S. history!) it has become clear, especially through the CBMW watershed publication Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism that CBE is only feminist organization that CBMW actually thinks is evangelical - everyone else has a hermeneutic (theory of interpretation) of Biblical meaning which does not take the Scriptures to be authoritative enough to be labeled evangelical.
What makes CBE an acceptable level of evangelical? Well, I think this can be summarized by the following belief in their statement of faith: "We believe in the family, celibate singleness, and faithful heterosexual marriage as God's design."
In other words, though CBE reads the Bible to be gender inclusive, they still take it to be inerrant. CBMW thinks that this qualifies them to remain in the category "evangelical."
As a way to conclude, I'd like to highlight some of the ways that these two groups are different using on the one hand their respective interpretations of key biblical texts and on the other selective quotes from their web sites and publications.
From CBMW's Danvers Statement:
In the family, husbands should forsake harsh or selfish leadership and grow in love and care for their wives; wives should forsake resistance to their husbands' authority and grow in willing, joyful submission to their husbands' leadership (Eph 5:21-33; Col 3:18-19; Tit 2:3-5; 1 Pet 3:1-7).
In the church, redemption in Christ gives men and women an equal share in the blessings of salvation; nevertheless, some governing and teaching roles within the church are restricted to men (Gal 3:28; 1 Cor 11:2-16; 1 Tim 2:11-15).
From CBE's Men, Women, and Biblical Equality:
11. 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 (1Cor 7:3-5; Eph 5:21; 1Peter 3:1-7; Gen 21:12). The husband's function as "head" (kephale) is to be understood as self-giving love and service within this relationship of mutual submission (Eph 5:21-33; Col 3:19; 1Peter 3:7).
6. The Bible teaches that Jesus Christ came to redeem women as well as men. Through faith in Christ we all become children of God, one in Christ, and heirs to the blessings of salvation without reference to racial, social, or gender distinctives (John 1:12-13; Rom 8:14-17; 2Cor 5:17; Gal 3:26-28).
There is a lot there. But briefly let's focus on two passages they both seem to mention here, and how they differ in their exegesis.
Here are two passages from the Bible that both CBMW and CBE think support their respective claims about gender:
Ephesians 5:21-33 (New International Version)
Wives and Husbands
22Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.25Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26to make her holy, cleansing[a] her by the washing with water through the word, 27and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— 30for we are members of his body. 31"For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh."[b] 32This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
Galatians 3:28 (New International Version)
28There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.Briefly speaking, with respect to the first passage, an evangelical feminist is tempted to say it must be read in the greater context of scripture, that is to say, in light of (among other passages) Galatians 3:28. As such, those passages are directives for "mutual submission" as opposed to hierarchy, ont heir view.
Complementarians, on the other hand, use passages like Ephesians to show that an inerrantist reading must take hierarchy into account, even though Galatians 3:28 shows that men and women equally share in salvation, even though not in earthly leadership.
So, what's the point of all this? Well it has serious implications for: the ordination of women, social support for female career aspirations, gender-inclusive Biblical translation, and many many other issues of every-day import to all people and families. CBMW publishes semi-practical advice for their adherents; I'd like to post some of it here for concluding amusement. Thank you!
Complementarian Singles: Who Should I Marry?
Walt Alexander
April 17, 2008[Single female readers of Girl Talk and single male readers of Man Speak are regularly encouraged to prepare for marriage. Then the challenging and intoxicating process of discernment can begin (whether called courtship, rescued dating, or whatever) to answer the question posed in the title of this post. Walt Alexander is a regular contributor at Man Speak and provides the second part of a two-day challenge for single complementarians. — David Kotter]
If we become the "right" person who is prepared to marry, who should we "court" with the intention to marry?
This is a list to consider:
1. We should court someone who is a Christian. Because we — as Christians — are forbidden by Scripture to marry a non-Christian (2 Cor 6:14-15), we should not court one. This is a no-brainer. If you are courting/dating a non-Christian, break up with them.
PS - I might repost this on my blog, or a link to it, if anyone starts to care to generate more discussion.
Labels: evangelicalism, feminism, history, religion
Considering the present state of family law and no-fault divorce in America, I counsul my single male friends to either forgo marriage completely right now or court a Christian woman who doesn't believe in divorce, especially if they want to have children. The damage that divorce does to children cannot be overstated.
It might also be possible for them to get a nice wife from some overseas country where the cultural poison has not yet destroyed the concepts of marriage.
Tom
Oh I don't know Tom. I think you and I both know full well what it is to be in an absolutely terrible marriage. I'm not all for seventeen consecutive marriages, but divorce under no or extremely limited circumstances is just as unreasonable.
Oh, I'm in favor of divorce, if one of the three "a"s are involved--adultery, abuse, or addiction.
I'd like a situation where marriage was out of the hands of the government completely, of course, and in which the various religions had a lot more say about how gets married.
After all, there are limits on what a church can do without breaking the laws of God.
Tom