I appreciate this post because it appears that I had a wrong understanding of complementarianism. I was operating under the assumption that the term complementarianism covered a range of views, from a Biblically-sound form of patriarchy to near egalitarianism. It would seem from this post and Aaron’s earlier one that I was incorrect. Patriarchy is excluded from complementarianism and is covered under a traditionalist heading. If that is the case, I find myself agreeing with Aaron. That leaves complementarianism as a shifting pattern of views that is moving ever closer to becoming indistinguishable from egalitarianism. As such, it is not viable since it is not based on sound principles.
I maintain that patriarchy is the correct model for society, even if it is rejected by virtually everyone today. The Biblical model of a patriarch is not an unloving martinet, but rather a man who understands his authority and responsibility, as well as his obligation to be loving and considerate. There is no inherent inconsistency there. God himself is both powerful and loving. Authority and love can be in tension at times, but if so, it is only because the man experiencing this tension needs more discernment about the right frame of mind and right course of action.
Reading such things... such overwrought concern for the details and specifics of how men and how women do or should behave and a "deep" exegisis of previous standards and practices... is, well, bizarre and a bit hilarious. It sounds like dog owners talking about how they believe their dogs used to be trained and cared for and may have had better training regimens or not now.
Skip religion... or, take from it: be nice, be careful with people's emotions and specific lived experience, pay attention both to who you desire and why. And accept failure.
The challenge, as I see it, has less to do with the boomer nostalgia and defense (although that is a significant challenge) and more to do with how to help these young Christians who are embracing a more traditional approach in their marriage and in the world after having been raised by boomers. In some marriages, the husband (or wife but less common) comes to a place of settledness about the more traditional view and the spouse is not on the same page. This can lead to a great deal of friction.
It's the same concept as the chapter Doug Moo wrote in the same Big Blue Book, where he stated that what he was teaching was new to the church. It was that women were ok to teach women theology, which the church had never done on any large scale. Another new concept with no historical backing that just happens to align closer with culture.
I was raised Catholic, became a Mormon at my husband's insistence (turned out he only liked the husband as boss concept, he left me and the church at the same time, I left the church later), then a Presbyterian, now I'm unchurched. I've never been an evangelical.
I enjoy your writings, because I enjoy ideas and discussing them. Unfortunately (for you perhaps), I have subscribed and can now comment.
I think part of the problem of discussing complementarianism or, in fact, to try to define pretty much anything about male-female relationships is that you are lost in the thicket about three steps in. And it cannot be discussed in a "pure manner," as the outside forces of the times you live in must, by necessity, encroach.
I did read Newsletter #33 and found it very interesting, but wanting. Let me say I used to be a liberal feminist and would have argued that woman could do anything a man could do. I've grown up since then. I'm still a feminist to the extent that I believe men and women have equal rights under the law, but the idea that women should have more rights is ridiculous. (My son phrases it thus: feminists want to be able to do everything a man does, without having to everything a man must.) And men's and women's roles within their families is simply not my business.)
Anyway, on women in the military. Often, arguments against allowing women in the military or in combat are based on protecting women. As an explanation, this is hogwash. Women have never been protected in war. In medieval times, knights went off to fight the war, leaving women home to raise the family and deal with whatever problems come along. If the war is in her homeland, her lands may be raided, her crops stolen or burned, her home may be burned, she may be raped or killed, her children may be raped or killed. If the war is not in the homeland, she will be fulfilling every role within the family, including the traditional male roles, all the while being restricted in what she can do because she is female. But somebody needed to go to war and somebody needed to watch the home front; and men were more suited to war and women were more suited to the home front. No one had to say this, it just was.
In the modern military, and in modern business, women are successfully carrying out roles that used to be reserved for men. The old arguments that women aren't suited have been proven false.
But, and this is a big "but," it is the children who have taken the hit. I'm not going to be the one who says that women should stay home and take care of the kids, though I believe it should be easier for women to do so. I'm not going to say that children can't thrive when both parents work outside the home, because we all know adults who raised with two working parents who are doing just fine.
But I believe we have lost is the focus on the family. In a traditional family, there is a wife on the home front caring for children and a husband to go out into the world as provider and, as needed, protector. If a modern, family still has someone to carry out these roles (regardless of who does it), I believe the family is still being served.
But, as a society, we are now outer-directed. How the children are cared for often falls out of the needs of the adults. My brother (whose wife did not work outside the home and whose children went to parochial school) told me about a conversation with a neighbor. The neighbor said he wished they could afford for his wife to stay home and for their children to attend private school. My brother told him, "I don't make any more money than you do. Having a mother at home and a Catholic education for our children is our priority. We don't have two cars, we don't take vacations, our furniture is old. It's all about priorities.)
My own personal belief, especially in our times, is that home is sacred and how a man and woman negotiate their roles in marriage is up to them (acknowledging that if they are evangelical or in an orthodox religion, they are likely to assume the prescribed roles).
But having said that, it seems to me that discussions and disagreements over complementarianism and traditionalism and modernism and whether they are old or new is too much like arguing about the number of angels who can fit on the head of a pin.
Who is the head of household and who is the helpmate is far less important than what happens in the family when the door is closed and it just them.
I believe is fundamentally correct. Most of the people that I have spoken with about this issue try to steer the conversation toward what it is technically right and wrong. The issue is not whether Christians have historically allowed for women to operate in a pastoral role or whether men are the head of their household. The issue is an absence of certain truths in complementarian culture. The most foundational one in my view is that manhood is conferred by other men – I can’t tell you how often I have been to a lecture on manhood, where the speaker asks the women in the audience what they think a real man is. There are plenty of things that can and should be deferred to women. Manhood is not one of them.
"I can’t tell you how often I have been to a lecture on manhood, where the speaker asks the women in the audience what they think a real man is."
Thing is, I actually wouldn't mind that (because, let's be real here, women are affected by how men behave, so they do have a stake in the matter) if--if--it were paired with an equal willingness to ask men what they think a real woman is.
It sounds like you are pointing to the double standard where women get a say over men's behavior, and men must be silent over women's behavior. Fair enough. Double standards do often exist.
But my point is not that women should not have a say in how men behave, this is a fairly obvious aspect of living in community, especially a democratic one (aka other people get a say in how you behave). My point is that a women is not capable of telling a dude how to be a man. I likewise suspect that men are not capable of telling a women how to be a women. There is a reason that "older women are to teach the younger women." We both recognize one in the opposite gender when we see it, but we don't have the capacity to guide the other gender into becoming it.
Good stuff. In light of this what resources and places do you think we should look for a better answe in regards to Christianity and the differences between men and women?
I'll check it out. While a full blown account is probably something you don't want to get into I think your nuts and bolts early writing men for men might be worth returning in light of the good things you share here. I also find Jordan Peterson an interesting guide on this as his insight is based off of pyscological differences that show up continually between men and woman while acknoleding exceptions exist (women low in compassion, men higher etc.)
That excerpt is an incredible illustration of your point, Aaron. Hunter hits on the loaded, ideological language and assumptions derived from the political moment of the mid-to-late 20th Century and how they fundamentally inform complementarianism.
Any power as domination, authority leads to abuse, hierarchy as fundamentally dehumanizing - all of these assumptions are essentially products of that time period and of a discrete set of post-WWII left-wing philosophers. By taking the entire political and cultural frame of the 1960's for granted, complementarian thinkers blindly import a swath of assumptions that are never grounded, never justified, and entirely unbiblical. This summary is an excellent illustration of why mainstream Evangelical Elite defenders of complementarianism are off base.
The question, now, is the way forward. I'd point to the fact that post-Boomer generations have made strides in understanding the psychology and social dynamics of intersex relations. For example, we have a greater understanding and respect for the truth of Genesis 3:16 because of our ability to articulate phenomena like hypergamy and the psychology of attraction. The complementarian view rests on not just a naive psychology, but an absolute refusal to engage in questions about intention and desire, as well as a borderline-heretical denial of female agency and sometimes sinfulness. You're absolutely right that it's time for our generations to begin shouting out the truths we've discovered and pushing the dialogue forward.
It seems that you are saying that recent (1980's or so) evangelical complementarianism is a thin complementarianism that is a recent invention, and thick complementarianism is the one with a long pedigree. Am I understanding correctly?
I wouldn't say it's limited to thin complementarianism. Listen to John Piper - a thick comp - talk about women in combat. It's clear he is way off. (I wrote about this a bit in newsletter #33 and elsewhere if you want to look it up).
He doesn't believe in it, but 1) he puts 100% of the blame for it on men, in an incredibly vicious way 2) he declines to state whether women who enlist into combat roles are sinning and 3) he declines to affirm that men are better suited than women to be combat soldiers. To be fair, this is a series of web articles, not a formal essay. But still.
I appreciate this post because it appears that I had a wrong understanding of complementarianism. I was operating under the assumption that the term complementarianism covered a range of views, from a Biblically-sound form of patriarchy to near egalitarianism. It would seem from this post and Aaron’s earlier one that I was incorrect. Patriarchy is excluded from complementarianism and is covered under a traditionalist heading. If that is the case, I find myself agreeing with Aaron. That leaves complementarianism as a shifting pattern of views that is moving ever closer to becoming indistinguishable from egalitarianism. As such, it is not viable since it is not based on sound principles.
I maintain that patriarchy is the correct model for society, even if it is rejected by virtually everyone today. The Biblical model of a patriarch is not an unloving martinet, but rather a man who understands his authority and responsibility, as well as his obligation to be loving and considerate. There is no inherent inconsistency there. God himself is both powerful and loving. Authority and love can be in tension at times, but if so, it is only because the man experiencing this tension needs more discernment about the right frame of mind and right course of action.
Reading such things... such overwrought concern for the details and specifics of how men and how women do or should behave and a "deep" exegisis of previous standards and practices... is, well, bizarre and a bit hilarious. It sounds like dog owners talking about how they believe their dogs used to be trained and cared for and may have had better training regimens or not now.
Skip religion... or, take from it: be nice, be careful with people's emotions and specific lived experience, pay attention both to who you desire and why. And accept failure.
The challenge, as I see it, has less to do with the boomer nostalgia and defense (although that is a significant challenge) and more to do with how to help these young Christians who are embracing a more traditional approach in their marriage and in the world after having been raised by boomers. In some marriages, the husband (or wife but less common) comes to a place of settledness about the more traditional view and the spouse is not on the same page. This can lead to a great deal of friction.
It's the same concept as the chapter Doug Moo wrote in the same Big Blue Book, where he stated that what he was teaching was new to the church. It was that women were ok to teach women theology, which the church had never done on any large scale. Another new concept with no historical backing that just happens to align closer with culture.
I was raised Catholic, became a Mormon at my husband's insistence (turned out he only liked the husband as boss concept, he left me and the church at the same time, I left the church later), then a Presbyterian, now I'm unchurched. I've never been an evangelical.
I enjoy your writings, because I enjoy ideas and discussing them. Unfortunately (for you perhaps), I have subscribed and can now comment.
I think part of the problem of discussing complementarianism or, in fact, to try to define pretty much anything about male-female relationships is that you are lost in the thicket about three steps in. And it cannot be discussed in a "pure manner," as the outside forces of the times you live in must, by necessity, encroach.
I did read Newsletter #33 and found it very interesting, but wanting. Let me say I used to be a liberal feminist and would have argued that woman could do anything a man could do. I've grown up since then. I'm still a feminist to the extent that I believe men and women have equal rights under the law, but the idea that women should have more rights is ridiculous. (My son phrases it thus: feminists want to be able to do everything a man does, without having to everything a man must.) And men's and women's roles within their families is simply not my business.)
Anyway, on women in the military. Often, arguments against allowing women in the military or in combat are based on protecting women. As an explanation, this is hogwash. Women have never been protected in war. In medieval times, knights went off to fight the war, leaving women home to raise the family and deal with whatever problems come along. If the war is in her homeland, her lands may be raided, her crops stolen or burned, her home may be burned, she may be raped or killed, her children may be raped or killed. If the war is not in the homeland, she will be fulfilling every role within the family, including the traditional male roles, all the while being restricted in what she can do because she is female. But somebody needed to go to war and somebody needed to watch the home front; and men were more suited to war and women were more suited to the home front. No one had to say this, it just was.
In the modern military, and in modern business, women are successfully carrying out roles that used to be reserved for men. The old arguments that women aren't suited have been proven false.
But, and this is a big "but," it is the children who have taken the hit. I'm not going to be the one who says that women should stay home and take care of the kids, though I believe it should be easier for women to do so. I'm not going to say that children can't thrive when both parents work outside the home, because we all know adults who raised with two working parents who are doing just fine.
But I believe we have lost is the focus on the family. In a traditional family, there is a wife on the home front caring for children and a husband to go out into the world as provider and, as needed, protector. If a modern, family still has someone to carry out these roles (regardless of who does it), I believe the family is still being served.
But, as a society, we are now outer-directed. How the children are cared for often falls out of the needs of the adults. My brother (whose wife did not work outside the home and whose children went to parochial school) told me about a conversation with a neighbor. The neighbor said he wished they could afford for his wife to stay home and for their children to attend private school. My brother told him, "I don't make any more money than you do. Having a mother at home and a Catholic education for our children is our priority. We don't have two cars, we don't take vacations, our furniture is old. It's all about priorities.)
My own personal belief, especially in our times, is that home is sacred and how a man and woman negotiate their roles in marriage is up to them (acknowledging that if they are evangelical or in an orthodox religion, they are likely to assume the prescribed roles).
But having said that, it seems to me that discussions and disagreements over complementarianism and traditionalism and modernism and whether they are old or new is too much like arguing about the number of angels who can fit on the head of a pin.
Who is the head of household and who is the helpmate is far less important than what happens in the family when the door is closed and it just them.
I believe is fundamentally correct. Most of the people that I have spoken with about this issue try to steer the conversation toward what it is technically right and wrong. The issue is not whether Christians have historically allowed for women to operate in a pastoral role or whether men are the head of their household. The issue is an absence of certain truths in complementarian culture. The most foundational one in my view is that manhood is conferred by other men – I can’t tell you how often I have been to a lecture on manhood, where the speaker asks the women in the audience what they think a real man is. There are plenty of things that can and should be deferred to women. Manhood is not one of them.
"I can’t tell you how often I have been to a lecture on manhood, where the speaker asks the women in the audience what they think a real man is."
Thing is, I actually wouldn't mind that (because, let's be real here, women are affected by how men behave, so they do have a stake in the matter) if--if--it were paired with an equal willingness to ask men what they think a real woman is.
It sounds like you are pointing to the double standard where women get a say over men's behavior, and men must be silent over women's behavior. Fair enough. Double standards do often exist.
But my point is not that women should not have a say in how men behave, this is a fairly obvious aspect of living in community, especially a democratic one (aka other people get a say in how you behave). My point is that a women is not capable of telling a dude how to be a man. I likewise suspect that men are not capable of telling a women how to be a women. There is a reason that "older women are to teach the younger women." We both recognize one in the opposite gender when we see it, but we don't have the capacity to guide the other gender into becoming it.
Good stuff. In light of this what resources and places do you think we should look for a better answe in regards to Christianity and the differences between men and women?
Someone needs to write that up. But a starting point would be Stephen B. Clark's "Man and Woman in Christ" from 1980.
I'll check it out. While a full blown account is probably something you don't want to get into I think your nuts and bolts early writing men for men might be worth returning in light of the good things you share here. I also find Jordan Peterson an interesting guide on this as his insight is based off of pyscological differences that show up continually between men and woman while acknoleding exceptions exist (women low in compassion, men higher etc.)
That excerpt is an incredible illustration of your point, Aaron. Hunter hits on the loaded, ideological language and assumptions derived from the political moment of the mid-to-late 20th Century and how they fundamentally inform complementarianism.
Any power as domination, authority leads to abuse, hierarchy as fundamentally dehumanizing - all of these assumptions are essentially products of that time period and of a discrete set of post-WWII left-wing philosophers. By taking the entire political and cultural frame of the 1960's for granted, complementarian thinkers blindly import a swath of assumptions that are never grounded, never justified, and entirely unbiblical. This summary is an excellent illustration of why mainstream Evangelical Elite defenders of complementarianism are off base.
The question, now, is the way forward. I'd point to the fact that post-Boomer generations have made strides in understanding the psychology and social dynamics of intersex relations. For example, we have a greater understanding and respect for the truth of Genesis 3:16 because of our ability to articulate phenomena like hypergamy and the psychology of attraction. The complementarian view rests on not just a naive psychology, but an absolute refusal to engage in questions about intention and desire, as well as a borderline-heretical denial of female agency and sometimes sinfulness. You're absolutely right that it's time for our generations to begin shouting out the truths we've discovered and pushing the dialogue forward.
It seems that you are saying that recent (1980's or so) evangelical complementarianism is a thin complementarianism that is a recent invention, and thick complementarianism is the one with a long pedigree. Am I understanding correctly?
I wouldn't say it's limited to thin complementarianism. Listen to John Piper - a thick comp - talk about women in combat. It's clear he is way off. (I wrote about this a bit in newsletter #33 and elsewhere if you want to look it up).
How is agreeing to have women in combat compatible with thick complementarianism?
He doesn't believe in it, but 1) he puts 100% of the blame for it on men, in an incredibly vicious way 2) he declines to state whether women who enlist into combat roles are sinning and 3) he declines to affirm that men are better suited than women to be combat soldiers. To be fair, this is a series of web articles, not a formal essay. But still.
1 and 2 are just typical white knight weaseling.
But #3 is not consistent with thick complementarianism. He can call himself whatever he wants.