- COMPLEMENTARIAN
kɑmp.lə.mən'tɛ.rɪ.ən adjective. Sexist: Believes men and women are inherently unequal in authority (to lead, teach, or parent) and rights. - 2. Believes men and women should adhere to [culturally defined] gender roles, and complement one another by fulfilling the unique duties of those roles.
- EGALITARIAN
ɪ.ɡæl.ə'tɛ.ri.ən adjective. Believes all people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunity.
Honestly, I really dislike the term “complementarian.” It’s what logicians call a weasel word: It’s one of those words people use instead of the proper word, ’cause they don’t care to tell you what they really mean. Or they’re in serious self-denial about what they really mean.
Bluntly, “complementarian” is Christianese for “sexist.” Because that’s exactly what they mean: Women and men aren’t equal; there are things men can do which women mustn’t; if women dare do them, they’re violating the social order which has kept men in power all this time God’s will. Because God supposedly wants his daughters to perpetually have a second-class status. That’s why he didn’t give ’em penises.
Jesus undoes sin and death; he undoes Adam’s curse of having to fight the ground to get food from it; and he undoes sexism. There is no male nor female in Christ Jesus.
In
But sexism is everywhere in our culture, and therefore is everywhere in Christendom.
And to be fair, not all of it is because of sexists. Some of that sexism has been institutionalized.
In the case of the Southern Baptist Convention, some of that sexism has been recently institutionalized. Baptists previously didn’t have a problem with women pastors; plenty of Baptist denominations have ’em. But sexist pastors have gained control of that denomination, and even though the independence of individual churches is supposedly a hallmark of the
Complementarians are willing to accept the idea women can be saved. (How kind of them.) But as far as ministry and responsibility and authority
Nope, complementarian men get all the plum roles in the kingdom, ’cause conveniently for them, their gender norms insist that’s their role. And
Yep, it’s a power thing. These men want to be in control, and wanna claim God made things this way even though many men lack good character, personal responsibility, and integrity. They want to deny women the ability to sharpen iron, to be an accountability partner, to be “an help meet for him”
The debate clubs.
First I should mention I’m involved in various internet discussion groups. That’s what we call ’em, but they frequently turn into debate clubs. Certain Christians are dead set on their points of view, and wanna fight anyone who says otherwise.
I admit I used to get that way myself. Certain topics are peeves of mine—like
Usually Christians are willing to fight to the teeth over such things because we were raised to think these things are true, right, and biblical. I know from experience; that’s how I was raised.
One of the benefits of growing up under false teachings, is once I learned what’s correct, I learned how easy it is to go wrong. Now I go out of my way to double-check myself. And I realize whenever I stumble into a debate with any closed-minded Christian who embraces a
At best I can only
Anyway back to the fight club discussion group. Based on the two words I defined at the beginning of this piece, you can kinda tell the debate had to do with sexism. The discussion group doesn’t take a stance one way or the other on the issue: Some of us are egalitarian, and some are sexist. Whenever sexism comes up, it can get contentious. The egalitarians are offended by the sexism, and the sexists are outraged at how we egalitarians dare insist
Their two usual assumptions:
- Our egalitarian interpretation of the scriptures is
“theological liberalism.” - And it’s the start of a slippery slope. Once you do away with gender discrimination, we’ll immediately fall into worst-case scenarios. Like no genders at all; everybody becomes androgynous and has sex with everyone else.
“Theological liberalism” is what Christians call it when your interpretation of the bible is less conservative than theirs. If they think the bible supports racism, saying it absolutely does not is “liberalism.” If they think it permits polygamy, insisting upon monogamy is “liberalism.” Yes I’m absolutely stating “liberalism” is
I’m involved with an egalitarian denomination,
Properly, theological liberalism means we interpret bible based on popular culture, rather than (properly) interpreting popular culture based on bible. I should point out
As for the slippery-slope fallacy: It’s every fool’s favorite way to try to shut down a discussion. You notice it doesn’t work though. Everybody immediately recognizes it as stupid. Everybody, that is, but the people who seriously do think the worst-case scenario is the inevitable result. Because they claim they know of people who do that, and it freaks ’em out to no end. Of course they’re too busy freaking out to do any actual thinking, which is the point.
Since our discussion group, as I said, doesn’t take a stance one way or the other on the issue, I figured it’d be relevant to say so—but make my own stance obvious.
- ME. “This is one of those areas where we’re free to disagree. I may vehemently disagree with complementarianism, but complementarians are still my brothers in Christ. As for my sisters in Christ on the complementarian side… well, y’all won’t let them speak up anyway.”
The problem with concluding your comment with a snide remark, is some folks will not let that stand.
- HE. “And many of our sisters in Christ are not egalitarians or feminists either. I’m sure they can speak for themselves.”
- ME. “Not to teach they can’t.”
- HE. “I wasn’t aware Facebook was a church.”
- ME. “The body of Christ is the church. I wasn’t aware Facebook is a loophole.”
- HE. “And who exactly is stopping women from contributing here?”
- ME. “I’m certainly not; I’m egalitarian. But if you’re gonna remain true to complementarianism, your women can’t contribute, correct, or otherwise deign to teach men. They have to remain silent—even if they wish to, and know enough to, defend that worldview. Priscilla may not take Apollos aside and explain the gospel more fully to him; she must submit to any blathering neophyte who takes the pulpit, and can only talk to Aquila about it privily at home.”
- OTHER GUY. “You completely, and purposely, misunderstand. That's ok though, you do you.”
- ME. “No, I’m staying consistent. I grew up strictly complementarian. We used to call such concessions “compromise”—and rightly so, because that’s what they are. But the dirty little fact is complementarians HAVE to compromise, because the bible doesn’t wholly support their view. God empowered far too many women within its pages to preach, teach, and lead.”
I’m sure he had plenty more to say, but the moderators shut down the discussion before he could.
Complementarian compromise.
Yes, I did indeed grow up strictly complementarian. Women weren’t allowed to teach in our churches. Except… they were.
Women taught my Sunday school classes. We boys were children, and therefore not yet men, so that’s a handy loophole. Although there are plenty of sexists who insist women shouldn’t even teach boys.
Women of course taught other women; our churches had women’s bible studies. Good bible studies; not just book clubs where they go through the latest feel-good Christian book. They studied the bible’s historical background, literary context, application, everything. These women were very knowledgeable about the bible. Frequently they were more knowledgeable than some of the men in the church, whose attendance at bible studies was nothing like the women. At the time, the men’s lack of knowledge struck me as quite stupid: If a woman knows more than a man, why can’t she correct him when he’s wandering off? Isn’t that exactly what we see in the scriptures, in that Priscilla and Apollos story I mentioned earlier?
Acts 18.24-26 NASB 24 Now a Jew named Apollos, an Alexandrian by birth, an eloquent man, came to Ephesus; and he was proficient in the Scriptures.25 This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in spirit, he was accurately speaking and teaching things about Jesus, being acquainted only with the baptism of John;26 and he began speaking boldly in the synagogue. But when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained the way of God more accurately to him.
They corrected Apollos. The both of them. It wasn’t just Aquila, with Priscilla standing beside him and silently affirming everything her husband said. She could confirm everything Aquila said, and he could confirm her in return. I should add it was customary in Greek literature for the man’s name to come first when a couple was mentioned… unless of course the woman took the lead, and more than likely that’s exactly what dynamic this biblical couple had.
In complementarian churches, we hear stories all the time—from the men!—about how they were gonna do some boneheaded thing, but their wives had second thoughts about the idea, warned their husbands, and the husbands wisely heeded their advice. And not just about practical matters; spiritual ones too. Even though these women supposedly weren’t meant to be teaching their men anything about spiritual matters. But in the complementarian church I attended during high school, women were expected and encouraged to use their intuition to warn their husbands and sons about stuff they’d be too dense to notice on their own. Me, I call this iron sharpening iron.
In one of the churches, women were voting members of the church. Which means they could stand up during board meetings and speak their minds. As they should!—especially when the board was about to do something dumb, ’cause sometimes it would. Again, this wasn’t just about practical matters, because the women would usually have a biblical reason for their concerns. True, not everyone in the church was all that solid about interpreting the bible (hence their complementarianism) but still.
Now if you’re gonna be consistent with complementarianism, none of these women should’ve been able to do such things. Not warn nor correct their menfolk. Maybe be church members, but not voting members; certainly not speaking up in board meetings. Because the woman’s role is to support her husband, and he does the teaching, correcting, voting, and so forth.
But the women did all these things—becaue the United States is functionally egalitarian. Even way back when I was a kid in the last century, in both the workplace and government, women were societal equals. That behavior leaked into the churches; even complementarian churches. The pure unadulterated sexism of the past (“you girls needn’t worry your pretty little minds about such things; let the men handle it”) looks even more wrong by way of comparison. So the sexists had been gradually compromising their sexism. They really do let the women in their churches speak up way more than their ancestors ever did. And if they’re gonna be true to the way they claim they interpret the bible, their women shouldn’t have any voice at all. They should be silent. Actually silent.
As it’s practiced, “complementarianism” is likewise a relative term. Don’t get me wrong; it’s still sexism. It just comes in different degrees. Sometimes it restricts women in every way, and they have no independent agency at all. Sometimes it functionally lets women be equal to men in every way but title: There are women in church leadership, working as full-on pastors, but because the church is complementarian, they can’t call these women “pastors.” They’ll be directors, leaders, principals, supervisors—anything but “pastor.” Because that title’s only for men. Yes it’s ridiculous, but that’s how compromise works.
But there’s no reason for compromise. God’s kingdom has room for shepherdesses. For women bishops, women priests, women elders and deacons, women prophets and apostles and missionaries, women to fulfill every role under Jesus that he empowers them to do. And he does empower ’em to do it.
