As someone (still barely!) under 30, I have to push this argument even further -- Boomers are uniquely unqualified to understand the world because of the economic and political bubble in which they have lived their entire lives. The logic which has governed their lives was one of constant 'line go up' because of the collapse of the rest of the world after WWII, the victory of America in the Cold War, and successive cycles of unsustainable economic boom. The world they lived in was predicated on a convergence of a very unique set of conditions, a set of conditions which no longer holds, and which we will likely never see again. When you're riding an economic bubble, you can afford to get a lot of things wrong and still come out okay because you've got the money and power to inflate away the consequences. We don't live in that world anymore, so the Boomer theory of the world was mis-calibrated by a lifetime of surreal conditions.
Piper's own introduction to "Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood":
Our vision is not entirely the same as a 'traditional view.' We affirm that the evangelical feminist movement has pointed out many selfish and hurtful practices that have previously gone unquestioned. But we hope that this new vision—a vision of biblical 'complementarity'—will both correct the previous mistakes and avoid the opposite mistakes that come from the feminist blurring of God-given sexual distinctions
Sounds like these "boomer" evangelical leaders were listening to others, taking the good and throwing out the bad, etc. All of which you praise, yet they are criticized for it. Very confusing.
"Piper and Grudem didn’t invent 'complementarianism.' They helped coin a new term to refer to what the Bible always taught."
If the Bible always taught what Piper and Grudem teach, why did they have to coin a new term for it in the mid-1980s? There should have been a well-established term readily available to describe the teaching.
Maybe because I became a Christian later in life (my mid-30s) after being initially raised as a Roman Catholic, I don't see the things Aaron sees. Coming to the Reformed Christian faith later in life, I have had issues with both Keller and Piper's view on several topics and have no trouble voicing them.
But I'm not a leader in the esoteric world of thought leaders and am just a ruling elder in a PCA church for nearly 25 years now. But I am a "boomer" (although I have issues with classifying people by generations) so I will give my "boomer" advice - stop whining about and just take charge. Do you think these so-called "boomer leaders" sat around and waited for someone to hand them the mantle?
Good piece. As an aside, the Civil Rights movement is a bit like Vatican II, there’s what it originally says which is often quite reasonable, then there is what was done in its name which can get wild (disparate impact in the original definition versus how we use it now). Perhaps the parents of the boomers intuited where some things were headed.
I think later generations have unhooked themselves from the Boomers because one of the fundamental faults of the boomers relates like you said to their self confidence. So many boomer projects have failed in disastrous ways, too disastrous to hide, yet for the boomer it’s eternally 1965 and the worst failure merely a temporary setback on the road to utopia. This is subjective on my end but it’s rare for one generation to seemingly hate and despise their heirs so thoroughly.
Their child was hungry and they seemingly gave him a stone and not a fish. And then called him names. I will honestly say not all boomers though.
Great piece, Aaron. This was especially enlightening: “They didn’t get the term “servant leader” from the Bible. That phase was coined in 1970 by a business executive named Robert Greenleaf. Greenleaf didn’t get it from the Bible either, but the essay where he coined it does cite people like Herman Hesse, Albert Camus, Machiavelli, and Paulo Freire (among others).”
I am disappointed in your post because you seem more interested in what religious movement (complementarianism, egalitarianism, or a successor) is ascendant than which one is Bibically normative. One even gets the impression you feel that God's Word is too unclear to be normative. Remember Satan playing that trick on Eve.
I grant you that sociological analyses of religious trends are interesting in their own right, but surely as a Christian commentator and influencer you would be critically concerned about accurately articulating Biblical truth, even if you are not a theologian.
Strong complementarianism is incontrovertibly the Biblical model as is made clear through proof texts, Bibical example, logical inference, and the dysfunctionality that follows when complementarianism is not followed. You are not helping anyone by implying that the spirit of the age should be the arbiter of Biblical truth. One can and should take cultural trends into account to shape the form of religious outreach but never the content. It's better to preach the truth to deaf ears than falsehood to eager listeners.
Go back 200 years and ask yourself if any preacher was teaching on gender what evangelicals are today. I think you'd find that the answer is No. Just because the Bible is complementarian in some sense doesn't mean the form of complementarianism taught by today's evangelicals is aligned with how the church traditionally understood it.
200 years ago there wasn't much need to preach on the subject of male-female relationships because Biblical roles were mostly accepted as correct. I'm not saying that today's complementarianism is perfect, rather that the Bible is clear on the relationship between men and women and we shouldn't abandon strong (thick) complementarianism, which correlates pretty well with Biblical principles, just because the boomers who advocate it are losing influence.
I think that one of the points Aaron has made, and you can follow many of the links he provided, is that most evangelical leaders have been advocating a thin complementarianism, not a thick one.
Oh I have one for you, read the Bible. Turns out women are human and it seems to say you shouldn’t let them take over. That’s going to please nobody, you’ll be surprised how much nobody will be pleased.
On one hand you have an almost Muslim version of women’s role which can’t be justified Biblically, on the other you have the idea that women must basically never be told no, because past injustice necessitates intentional blindness for some reason.
Which is ironic for me because one of the greatest spiritual influences in my life was a woman and the best thing she did was give me books I needed to read which were written by a man. Women have had a far greater scope of action and impact in the past than we realize (St. Catherine of Siena springs to mind) yet I can’t think of one of these women who basically didn’t love and respect men. There are women who changed everything and they would be sickened at the idea of inverting the sexes.
As someone (still barely!) under 30, I have to push this argument even further -- Boomers are uniquely unqualified to understand the world because of the economic and political bubble in which they have lived their entire lives. The logic which has governed their lives was one of constant 'line go up' because of the collapse of the rest of the world after WWII, the victory of America in the Cold War, and successive cycles of unsustainable economic boom. The world they lived in was predicated on a convergence of a very unique set of conditions, a set of conditions which no longer holds, and which we will likely never see again. When you're riding an economic bubble, you can afford to get a lot of things wrong and still come out okay because you've got the money and power to inflate away the consequences. We don't live in that world anymore, so the Boomer theory of the world was mis-calibrated by a lifetime of surreal conditions.
Insightful article but I have to say that Denny Burk’s response on X is quite persuasive and I cannot really disagree with his critique.
Piper's own introduction to "Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood":
Our vision is not entirely the same as a 'traditional view.' We affirm that the evangelical feminist movement has pointed out many selfish and hurtful practices that have previously gone unquestioned. But we hope that this new vision—a vision of biblical 'complementarity'—will both correct the previous mistakes and avoid the opposite mistakes that come from the feminist blurring of God-given sexual distinctions
Sounds like these "boomer" evangelical leaders were listening to others, taking the good and throwing out the bad, etc. All of which you praise, yet they are criticized for it. Very confusing.
This sentence gives away the game:
"Piper and Grudem didn’t invent 'complementarianism.' They helped coin a new term to refer to what the Bible always taught."
If the Bible always taught what Piper and Grudem teach, why did they have to coin a new term for it in the mid-1980s? There should have been a well-established term readily available to describe the teaching.
This makes me wonder if Evangelicalism's cult of personality that everyone likes to complain about, is the natural outworking of Boomer thinking.
Maybe because I became a Christian later in life (my mid-30s) after being initially raised as a Roman Catholic, I don't see the things Aaron sees. Coming to the Reformed Christian faith later in life, I have had issues with both Keller and Piper's view on several topics and have no trouble voicing them.
But I'm not a leader in the esoteric world of thought leaders and am just a ruling elder in a PCA church for nearly 25 years now. But I am a "boomer" (although I have issues with classifying people by generations) so I will give my "boomer" advice - stop whining about and just take charge. Do you think these so-called "boomer leaders" sat around and waited for someone to hand them the mantle?
Good piece. As an aside, the Civil Rights movement is a bit like Vatican II, there’s what it originally says which is often quite reasonable, then there is what was done in its name which can get wild (disparate impact in the original definition versus how we use it now). Perhaps the parents of the boomers intuited where some things were headed.
I think later generations have unhooked themselves from the Boomers because one of the fundamental faults of the boomers relates like you said to their self confidence. So many boomer projects have failed in disastrous ways, too disastrous to hide, yet for the boomer it’s eternally 1965 and the worst failure merely a temporary setback on the road to utopia. This is subjective on my end but it’s rare for one generation to seemingly hate and despise their heirs so thoroughly.
Their child was hungry and they seemingly gave him a stone and not a fish. And then called him names. I will honestly say not all boomers though.
Great piece, Aaron. This was especially enlightening: “They didn’t get the term “servant leader” from the Bible. That phase was coined in 1970 by a business executive named Robert Greenleaf. Greenleaf didn’t get it from the Bible either, but the essay where he coined it does cite people like Herman Hesse, Albert Camus, Machiavelli, and Paulo Freire (among others).”
I am disappointed in your post because you seem more interested in what religious movement (complementarianism, egalitarianism, or a successor) is ascendant than which one is Bibically normative. One even gets the impression you feel that God's Word is too unclear to be normative. Remember Satan playing that trick on Eve.
I grant you that sociological analyses of religious trends are interesting in their own right, but surely as a Christian commentator and influencer you would be critically concerned about accurately articulating Biblical truth, even if you are not a theologian.
Strong complementarianism is incontrovertibly the Biblical model as is made clear through proof texts, Bibical example, logical inference, and the dysfunctionality that follows when complementarianism is not followed. You are not helping anyone by implying that the spirit of the age should be the arbiter of Biblical truth. One can and should take cultural trends into account to shape the form of religious outreach but never the content. It's better to preach the truth to deaf ears than falsehood to eager listeners.
Go back 200 years and ask yourself if any preacher was teaching on gender what evangelicals are today. I think you'd find that the answer is No. Just because the Bible is complementarian in some sense doesn't mean the form of complementarianism taught by today's evangelicals is aligned with how the church traditionally understood it.
200 years ago there wasn't much need to preach on the subject of male-female relationships because Biblical roles were mostly accepted as correct. I'm not saying that today's complementarianism is perfect, rather that the Bible is clear on the relationship between men and women and we shouldn't abandon strong (thick) complementarianism, which correlates pretty well with Biblical principles, just because the boomers who advocate it are losing influence.
I think that one of the points Aaron has made, and you can follow many of the links he provided, is that most evangelical leaders have been advocating a thin complementarianism, not a thick one.
Maybe someone will write an updated gender theology here in the comments? 😀
Oh I have one for you, read the Bible. Turns out women are human and it seems to say you shouldn’t let them take over. That’s going to please nobody, you’ll be surprised how much nobody will be pleased.
On one hand you have an almost Muslim version of women’s role which can’t be justified Biblically, on the other you have the idea that women must basically never be told no, because past injustice necessitates intentional blindness for some reason.
Which is ironic for me because one of the greatest spiritual influences in my life was a woman and the best thing she did was give me books I needed to read which were written by a man. Women have had a far greater scope of action and impact in the past than we realize (St. Catherine of Siena springs to mind) yet I can’t think of one of these women who basically didn’t love and respect men. There are women who changed everything and they would be sickened at the idea of inverting the sexes.