On the one hand, I’m encouraged when Christians can have more honest, open dialogue about sex and sexuality in the public forum.
On the other, I’m more than a little distressed when the matter at hand is about “Biblically-based” sexual submission.
Rachel Held Evans
For those unfamiliar, there are (at least) two camps in the Christian conversation about gender roles, one of which we can call “egalitarian,” and the other calls itself “complementarian.” The implication of the latter is that, though we are not the same, we males and females fit together in many ways like pieces of a puzzle, one complementing something the other lacks, and vice-versa.
And if the definition of complementarianism stopped there, I would be on board; but in truth it’s a thinly veiled case for women submitting to men. Sorry, but this isn’t complementary; it’s authoritarian.
In a recent post, Rachel Held Evans explained the troublesome issues with complementarianism well:
…For modern-day Christian patriarchalists (sometimes called complementarians), hierarchal gender relationships are God-ordained, so the essence of masculinity is authority, and essence of femininity is submission. Men always lead and women always follow. There is no sphere unaffected by this hierarchy—not even, it seems, sex.
Her post was in response to a recent post by the Gospel Coalition on their blog, which, in turn, was responding to the popularity of a recent novel called Fifty 
Shades of Grey. The book deals with some tantalizing – disturbing for some – aspects of human sexual expressions, including acting out fantasies of various kinds.
The Gospel Coalition responded to the popularity of this book with a post called “The Polluted Waters of Fifty Shades of Grey, etc.” Basically, the vast majority of the post is a large block quote from a book by Douglas Wilson called Fidelity: What it Means to be a One-Woman Man, released in 1999. The book outlines in detail the “complementarian” case, citing Biblical passages to support the argument. Though contemporary Christian leaders like Mark Driscoll and John Piper speak for themselves, one can detect much of Wilson’s ideas in the blog posts and sermons they both have delivered on many occasions about men being heads of their households and women submitting to their husbands.
I have linked to the Coalition’s entire piece, so as not to fall into a trap of “cherry picking” from another’s article. I encourage you to click through and read the whole post for yourself. But there’s are a couple of passages in particular from Wilson’s book that has drawn the most attention in recent days. He says:
Because we have forgotten the biblical concepts of true authority and submission, or more accurately, have rebelled against them, we have created a climate in which caricatures of authority and submission intrude upon our lives with violence.
…however we try, the sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party. A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts. This is of course offensive to all egalitarians, and so our culture has rebelled against the concept of authority and submission in marriage. This means that we have sought to suppress the concepts of authority and submission as they relate to the marriage bed.
But we cannot make gravity disappear just because we dislike it, and in the same way we find that our banished authority and submission comes back to us in pathological forms. This is what lies behind sexual “bondage and submission games,” along with very common rape fantasies.
So in short, the argument is that, because we don’t keep men in a proper position of authority/dominance and women in a position of submission, we corrupt our sexual identities, which come out in deviant ways.
I’ll forgo the typical responses in defense of egalitarian gender relationships; Rachel Held Evans did far better with this than I could anyway. But aside from the brazen misogyny of this perspective, it seems to miss a couple of important points worth noting.
Back in “Biblical times,” and as recounted in the Bible more than once, sexual deviance was not absent from that patriarchal culture. Of course, there are the commonly cited passages about Sodom and Gomorrah, suggesting that it was the moral decay of that culture, giving in to lust and hedonism that led to their downfall. Perhaps, but what about David? He sent a man off to die at war so he could sleep with his wife. From what I can tell, he’s the very picture of Biblical manhood. And of course, there’s the bit about ihm dancing naked around town in praise of God. Wonder if Driscoll would approve at his next Mars Hill service?
How about Noah passing out drunk in his ten with his naughty bits exposed, and then trying to cover up his humiliation by throwing his patriarchal weight around and punishing those who found him that way?
Fast forward a few thousand years. If this complementary family structure is the model that eschews deviance, why did Ted Haggard solicit sexual favors from a male prostitute? Why did Jim Bakker have an affair with another woman? Why did Jimmy Swaggart hire prostitutes? And the list goes on.
Is it possible – just maybe – that the rigid, hierarchic model of gender relationships plays into the real issue at hand in cases of most sexual deviance? Is it possible that rape, adultery and many other forms of indiscretion are actually more about power than sex?
If so, it seems to me that an egalitarian power dynamic, rather than being the cause of sexual deviance, is truly our only opportunity to level the field, empowering women to cease seeing themselves as less-then, subject-to and somehow deserving of the power men lord over them, in bed and elsewhere. Put another way: we’ve lived with the patriarchal model for thousands of years, and in all of that time, we’ve seen no shortage of rape, sexual abuse and harmful sexual deviance in the world. So so argue that the fact it still exists today is a symptom of some other way of thinking about the role of men and women smacks of willful ignorance.
And lest we forget, Jesus himself is a champion of egalitarianism, not just in sexual relations, but across the board. He sought to flatten the pyramid, tear down the hierarchy and even actively empower women to the shock and dismay of patriarchs around him. And unless there are scandalous stories about Jesus and his disciples I’ve missed, that egalitarian model seemed to work out pretty well for them.
About Christian Piatt
Wow. What a distorted view of complementarianism and Biblical text you have. First, the way in which most, if not all, humans are displayed in the Bible is not always one of positive example. David is condemned for his actions, and rightfully so. Anyone who reads the Bible as it ought to be read should see this, especially as God sends Nathan the prophet to deliver God’s opinion on the matter.
As for complementarianism and the role of authority, you fail to mention the fact that we are all called to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ (Eph. 5:21), and it’s from this framework that the commands follow. What you think of as submission and what the Bible speaks of as submission (a decision to bring yourself under someone) are different.
I know I’m going to get pilloried for this comment, but I think you have put forward a distorted view of complementarianism and I needed to say so.
“The Bible”, as you call it, is a library that has been translated, mistranslated, censored, and edited for over three thousand years now. For instance, in the Latin translation of Exodus 22:18, the word “venefica” was used to approximate the Hebrew “kashaph”, referring to a kind of assassin who would make use of poisons. How does one get “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” from “Put poisoning murderers to death”? Thousands of years of language barriers and the vested interests of the powerful. How, exactly, do you propose it “should” be read, and who defines this “proper” interpretation?
I know you’ll have something disparaging or high-handed to say, but I think you have put forward a distorted view of an historical document, and I needed to say so.
Given that the definition of “witch” has often been “someone who brews potions to harm other people” it’s not all that hard to see how the connection could be made.
And there is the problem right there. You might as well translate that as, “Anyone who interprets the bible as I think it should be interpreted…”
Much has been written about Ephesians 5:21-33 but the idea is also represented in Colossians 3:18-19 as well as Titus 2:3-5 and 1 Peter 3:1-7. In the end, it’s all about how far you want to take your interpretation. Some see it as a mutual duty, to show love for each other as does Christ for the church, while others take it all the way to Christian Domestic Discipline. Complementarians attempt to strike a middle ground here, but ultimately everyone is interpreting the passages according to their own world view.
Sorry, but when the Bible itself condemns David’s actions, it’s pretty clear that he isn’t to be admired in this:
Nathan said to David, “You are the man! This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul.
8 I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more.
9 Why did you despise the word of the LORD by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.
10 Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.’
11 “This is what the LORD says: ‘Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity upon you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight.
12 You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.’ ”
13 Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” (2Sa 12:7-13 NIV)
Not meaning to Bible bash, but we’re not talking about my opinion or interpretation. The passage gives no wriggle room. David messed up massively and it can’t be understood any other way, can it?
The words you read in the Bible are words in the English language. Was the Bible written in English by its original authors? Please wiki “language barrier”, “oral tradition”, and “telephone (game)”. Strict, literal interpretations are silly because of these three things:
1) You can’t even verify if what’s written in your idea of “the Bible” is what was actually written by the authors of “the Bible” because your notion of “what the Bible is” is of a book rephrased and edited in Modern English from Middle English from various Latin sources that in turn translated it either from earlier Latin sources, Greek, Aramaic, or Hebrew.
2) “The Bible” existed as an oral tradition for a few millennia before it was committed to record. That’s several thousand years of people passing these stories BY WORD OF MOUTH, which brings us to the last point …
3) Play a game of telephone with a group of kindergarteners and watch how long it takes for the sentence “I ate chocolate ice cream with my grandma yesterday” to morph into the sentence “I swam in green Jell-O with my cousins at my grandma’s house last week”. This is the same method by which “the Bible” was preserved. For thousands of years.
1. Nice way to try and distort the issues at hand. See the end of point 2.
2. I am a theological student, and have studied the original languages. I can tell you that most, if not all, modern versions are directly translated from the Hebrew and Greek (plus about 4 chapters of Aramaic) manuscripts that are available. No one translates from the Latin, because as much as Jerome tried to do a good job, there are glaring errors. No one doing a proper translation only uses previous English translations. The men and women who take on the arduous task of translating the Biblical texts, most (if not all) will have Ph.D’s in either Biblical languages or Biblical studies with a major need to have a comprehensive knowledge of the languages.
Your comment above is to be noted, but your definition is not what many agree with. Both the original Hebrew and Greek translation describe a sorcerer/ess, as one lexicographer puts it “One who prepares and uses drugs for magical purposes or ritual witchcraft”.
Besides, what you put forward is not actually what is in play. We’re not debating one word here or there, and if we are, we’re talking about words in the New Testament, a piece of writing that has equal from its time in terms of quantity and quality of manuscript evidence, let alone extra-Biblical texts which help us understand what the words mean.
3. Where do you have evidence for your theory that what we have in the Bible was orally transmitted “for a few millenia”?
4. Your understanding of the oral tradition is a little skewed. First, when you have people telling the same story time and time again, it’s not the same as a bunch of kids spreading a sentence they heard once and once only. Let alone the fact that these people prided themselves on maintaing the traditions and accounts their ancestors passed on. I’m sure you would be able to tell me stories you’ve heard time and time again from your grandparents, and be able to tell me everything important. You might change your wording, you might have a different emphasis, you might accidentally leave something out, but it is the same story.
Before getting all condescending and dismissive on everyone, Mark, I think that some of us would appreciate hearing about your credentials to speak on this matter. Some of us actually HAVE studied the original languages, know the text and the issues surrounding it pretty well, have read up on the debates, and have advanced level theological education (I am currently doing a PhD in Theology).
Yeah, I don’t see how posting big long bits of hebrew and aramaic would help. Not many people here speak those languages.
Is the story of David and Uriah really what Complementarianism is all about? My point was in relation specifically as to how people interpret the bible with regards to sexual submission by women. I claim that a great deal of the bible is interpretation, and within its broad language there is room to find support for pretty much anything you want to do. You can read the bible to provide a warrant for female sexual submission just as you can find in it a warrant for genocide.
The bible doesn’t say that women always submit to men, it say that wives should submit to their husbands. But this is assuming that the husband is submitting to Christ. It’s not license to control or abuse, it’s supposed to be a deal, a partnership where the wife trusts that the husband will lead well. It doesn’t mean that wives never get their way. It doesn’t mean women should submit to male co-workers or friends, it doesn’t mean that girls have to do what boys say. It doesn’t even mean that girls or women should submit to their boyfriends or guys they hang out with. Wives. Husbands. Period.
Having followed this thing more or less from the start, my sympathies are largely on Wilson’s side. I disagree with Wilson’s position, and raised lengthy concerns with him in the comments of the original post. However, Wilson has been seriously misrepresented here. His daughter Bekah defends him quite ably. I find it hard to imagine how anyone who can raise such a spirited, witty, good humoured, accomplished, and confident daughter could really be quite the abusive misogynist that he is presented as being.
Rachel Held Evans is an offence troll, who consistently misrepresents her opponents’ positions, painting them in an especially bad light in order to trigger the outrage of her community. I’m sorry, but people like her are just about the worst thing for reasonable and respectful discourse. She uses calculated offence to derail debate and provoke kneejerk reactivism, rather than careful response. All debates start to be oriented around people’s heightened sensitivities, rather than around the truth.
Let’s challenge people like Wilson on their views, but let’s do so with cool heads, receptive ears, and open hearts, in a manner that shows respect and isn’t polarizing.
“Rachel Held Evans is a feminist egalitarian who, among other things, refers to God in the feminine, is defensive of homosexuality, and whose forthcoming book involves her taking all the biblical commands to women, following them as literally as possible and then showing how ridiculous they all are.”
She lost me when she implied that defending LGBT rights was a bad thing, or anything that counted against her.
In my simple minded opinion, this is the same old blah blah blah where it’s again okay to pick Christianity apart and blame Christianity for societal problems. “10 clichés, now 10 more clichés” Issues with parenting where it relates to Christian teaching …. Blah blah blah. It never freaking ends, does it? Should Christianity continue to exist? ENOUGH already!
Talk about stereotyping? Yup, here we go again, Don’t generalize women/feminists or even men UNLESS those men and women are Christians? I know a lot of people, most all are Christians and none of them that follow anything that remotely resembles “sexual submission.”
Christianity has its flaws but all in all, Christianity as well as other faiths, when put into context is not harmful and in most cases have positive results.
Wanna campaign something that negatively affects society or more importantly youth? Take a look at the secular main stream media, the liberal entertainment industry that not only provides a venue of discourse, disrespect and negative behaviors, it promotes and encourages it. Realistically, that wont happen because the liberal entertainment industry is out for the $$ and $$ talks.
But by all means, take a small percentage of so called Christian idiots that believe in sexual submission and write about it as though it’s the norm … let’s continue to shed a negative light on Christianity and make blanket statements …. Of course, if we generalize women and feminism, the responses would be “edited.”
I’ll tell you what the problem with Christianity is:
1) For some reason, Christians have a persecution syndrome in the US. Any challenge to Christianity gives rise to the claim that Christians are being oppressed. It’s quite laughable.
2) Christians (generalizing here, but not a “small percentage”) are blind to the double standard they hold. It’s perfectly fine for them to legislate their beliefs (teach the controversy! what’s wrong with prayer in schools? the ten commandments should be in every courthouse) but as soon as a Muslim wants to discuss their religion in a public setting there’s outrage. Well, this week just being an arab in government will stoke outrage among some (see Huma Abedin).
3) Christians rarely, if ever, call each other out for their hypocrisy. Where are the moderate and liberal Christians calling out the hateful rhetoric of more extreme elements? For some their silence amounts to tacit support, and so they’re lumped all together. People aren’t going to make distinctions between the hateful Christians and the loving Christians if they don’t make those distinctions themselves.
“1) For some reason, Christians have a persecution syndrome in the US. Any challenge to Christianity gives rise to the claim that Christians are being oppressed. It’s quite laughable” … Are you kidding? It’s open season on Christians. What bugs me is that people like you have no problem critiquing Christians yet completely ignore other faiths that follow the same beliefs. In so far as “persecution syndrome” based upon what I’d said, I guess you see women, men or any other group who addresses such things as having the same syndrome?
“2) Christians (generalizing here, but not a “small percentage”) are blind to the double standard they hold. It’s perfectly fine for them to legislate their beliefs (teach the controversy! what’s wrong with prayer in schools? the ten commandments should be in every courthouse) but as soon as a Muslim wants to discuss their religion in a public setting there’s outrage. Well, this week just being an arab in government will stoke outrage among some (see 2) Christians (generalizing here, but not a “small percentage”) are blind to the double standard they hold. It’s perfectly fine for them to legislate their beliefs (teach the controversy! what’s wrong with prayer in schools? the ten commandments should be in every courthouse) but as soon as a Muslim wants to discuss their religion in a public setting there’s outrage. Well, this week just being an arab in government will stoke outrage among some (see Huma Abedin)” ……… Isn’t Huma Abedin Anthony Wieners wife? No sure what this has to do with anything? “Blind to double standard they hold?” Judging from the rest of what you said here, I have to question your knowledge, that it’s no more then knee jerk reaction to what I said.
“3) Christians rarely, if ever, call each other out for their hypocrisy. Where are the moderate and liberal Christians calling out the hateful rhetoric of more extreme elements? For some their silence amounts to tacit support, and so they’re lumped all together. People aren’t going to make distinctions between the hateful Christians and the loving Christians if they don’t make those distinctions themselves.” …. We do make those distinctions but secular society doesn’t care about them. It doesn’t stir the pot, so ignore them, right? Some people don’t want to make those distinctions simply because when they do, the myths and stereotypes fall apart and that’s no fun, is it?
Question away on my knowledge.
It’s open season on Christians. QED.
See, the thing is that many religious adherents think that somehow their beliefs should be immune from critique and ridicule, and are deeply offended when it happens. This is not exclusive to Christianity; Conservative Islam and Ultraconservative Judaism are just as guilty. (Yes, I criticize them as much as I do Evangelical Christianity)
Isn’t Huma Abedin Anthony Wieners wife?
Huma Abedin has been accused of being a secret plant by the Muslim Brotherhood. Who accused her of this? A sitting member of Congress. Or take the story of the GOP in Tennessee attacking the Republican Governor for hiring a muslim staffer, Samar Ali, for being muslim.
We do make those distinctions but secular society doesn’t care about them.
What is this secular society of which you speak? You realize this is still an overwhelmingly Christian-identified nation, right? The idea of “secularism” is that the State, its actors, and its actions should be separate from the Church.
Take something like marriage. It’s a State contract, and many people believe the State shouldn’t discriminate in the administration of that contract. And yet, people oppose it not for secular reasons but religious ones. If we were truly secular we would take the sensible tack of saying the State should not discriminate in marriage but the Church is free to continue to discriminate, because what the Church does should have no bearing on legal contracts between two people who don’t associate with that Church.
So, where are the liberal and moderate Christians on this issue? If they’re out there, it’s awfully difficult to see them.
One last thing. Ramadan started yesterday. In the past 14 years I’ve worked in a residential treatment center, we’ve had the benefit of having Muslim clients during Ramadan. Currently have three. We adhere to their religious beliefs and in the past 14 years I’ve gratefully learned much about them. I currently have three guys on the unit who are adhering to Ramadan and I’ve made sure that they have what they need.
In the past 14 years, we have had many Catholics and with one exception where I went behind management back, we don’t accommodated Lent or any other tradition related to important times in their faith. To quote management “These guys put themselves in this situation (residential treatment ordered by the courts), they should have thought about that before they did what they did.”
I don’t agree that men and women are fundamentally different, and I’m not a christian, but I don’t think this is a fair representation of the views of people who see value in traditional gender roles.
I’m sure *some* of them think that women belong in the kitchen (just as some egalitarians think the opposite gender is scum) but it’s hardly the main point of the thing.
Thanks for pointing this out. It’s not about barefoot and pregnant or master and slave, it’s a partnership. But instead of trying to steer a ship with two captains, there’s a captain and a first mate. The first mate doesn’t have veto power, but her opinion and satisfaction still count. She also has to be on board for the destination. Poor leadership invites mutiny. (Captain/first mate analogy stolen from Athol Kay of Married Man Sex Life.)
We can talk about captain and mate structures, talk about their effectiveness, the trade offs, and carve out some direction. What we cannot do is entertain the notion that captain and mate structures are ordained on us by a God, with the sole evidence being a moralistic cookbook that talks about itself in the third person. Reminds me of a joke:
“I’ve read the brain is the most amazing thing in the universe (but look what’s telling us that).
Your comment suggests that you’re a nonbeliever. From a biblical complementary standpoint, it takes two. That is, both have to accept and work toward maximizing the potential of the framework. In other words, we’re not talking subjugation. But, if you’re truly interested, Athol, from whom I borrowed the analogy, is a staunch atheist. (I’m not offering a link because I don’t want to be caught in moderation. You can Google him.)
But why are the captain and first mate roles designated by gender? THAT is the problem with complementarianism. Egalitarians believe in partnership, too. But the captain and first mate roles change with the situation and those roles are designated by actual criteria (i.e. who is more knowledgeable about this situation, who has more experience, who cares more about this issue, who has the best concept/idea) – not designated by gender. No set of private parts carries the power to make decisions, so they, in themselves, should not be designators of leadership.