De-Scandalizing Gay Sex?

From time to time I come across folks who claim to have seen the light on the LGBT thing. They “used to believe” that homosexuality was sinful and contrary to the Bible and the Christian faith, but now they have discovered “new scholarship” that corrected their formerly errant thinking and now they are fully affirming and “Faithfully LGBT”

Actually, that sounds a lot like my own path to egalitarianism. Because I rode in the complementarian cavalry for many years, till something came up one morning in my Bible reading that would set me on a course that ultimately led to my complete reversal regarding women and gender roles. And admittedly many folks that embrace egalitarianism ultimately become LGBT affirming as well. ¹

But not all egalitarians make that jump. This brother believes the difference lies in why the person became egalitarian in the first place. If a person becomes an egalitarian because their heart tells them that’s the right way to go, and then they go to the Bible and find reasons to support their desired belief, it seems likely they will also follow their heart to a desire to affirm LGBT. And then they will find a way to read the Bible that allows for that as well. But if their first love is the truth and the Scriptures, and they come to the egalitarian position through careful study and honest assessment of what the Bible really says, it isn’t likely they will also embrace the “affirming” LGBT position.

I can say that with a fair amount of confidence, because the Biblical evidence and support of egalitarianism has several very strong points, and it seems to me the arguments in favor of egalitarianism grow stronger every day. But on the other hand, the Bible is overwhelmingly negative when it comes to LGBT, and as far as I can see nothing has changed in the last 35 years.

Take this pro- gay article for instance: The Bible, Christianity, and Homosexuality by Rev. Justin Cannon. Recently I saw someone say it was the some of the best scholarship they had ever seen on the issue, and I have to agree with them. It is, without a doubt, an example of some of the best reasoning for the gay position that I’ve ever seen. It’s also nonsense. But I agree that it’s the best argument they have. This will be a review and critique of Cannon’s article, but it my comments can pertain to most material in the pro LGBT religious camp. As far as I can tell, they are all the same.

So let’s have a look, section by section:

Terminology

The author makes the point that the terms “homosexual” and “Sodomite or sodomy” are invalid terms, the former term not existing until the 20th century, and the latter being an inhabitant of Sodom and it cannot mean more than that. This is nothing but obfuscation. Both are English words with meanings that can be ascertained with precision in any dictionary. Modern translations use those words to describe the Greek and Hebrew terms found in the Bible because they mean what the translators understand the Biblical text to say.

Looking at the Bible

Rev. Cannon points to “six Bible accounts that have in recent years been used in reference to homosexuality.” As a point in fact, all six passages have been used since the foundation of the church to establish that the Bible teaches against homosexual practice. But Cannon attempts to negate each passage one by one.

The Sodom Account (Gen 19:1-9)

Rev. Cannon rightly points out that God had already decided to destroy Sodom before this chapter.

“Whatever the reason for the city’s destruction it had to do with the sin of Sodom before this event.” – Reverend Justin Cannon

Rev. Cannon is correct. Since that is the case,  why does he focus entirely on what happened on the night described in the passage? His discussion is aimed solely at the rape of Lot’s daughters and the poor hospitality shown to the town’s guests. Yet we know, and Cannon admits, that those were not the reasons for the destruction of Sodom.

God had decided to destroy Sodom long before the events of that night. We are told in the preceding chapter that the Lord said,

“How great is the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah and how very grave their sin! I must go down and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me;” Genesis 18:20-21 (NRSV)

The first time we are introduced to the men of Sodom is when they appear at Lot’s door seeking the visiting angels, who they believe are other men, in order to engage in homosexual sex with them.

“[A]ll the men from every part of the city of Sodom —both young and old—surrounded the house. They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.” Genesis 19:4-5 (NIV)

Are we to believe that “all the men of the city” did not regularly engage in homosexual acts before this night? That this was out of character for them? Of course not. And make no mistake, this story wasn’t told to describe their virtues. We are introduced to them in this way precisely to describe their sinful character. Sodom was filled with all kinds of sin. But the first sin of the people of Sodom described for us in the Bible is the demand for gay sex with what they believed were men visiting their city.

But Rev. Cannon does not mention this part of the story at all. Nor does he mention any of the other Bible references to Sodom that inform us of the rest of the story. ²  He rather focuses on aspects of the story that he had already acknowledged did not pertain to God’s judgement on Sodom, confusing his readers with irrelevant material.

Reverend Cannon wrongly believes at this point that he has thoroughly discredited the Sodom story and established that it has nothing to do with homosexual acts. Thanks to his omission of a few key details, it may seem so, but again, that’s only if you leave out the key facts of the account.

After avoiding important information and averting our attention to other aspects of the story, he then deflects to a discussion of 14th century Bible translator John Wycliffe to discredit his selection of “the synn of Sodom” to translate arsenokoites, the New Testament word usually translated as sodomite or homosexual.

Cannon’s complaint is that the sins of Sodom have nothing to do with homosexual acts, but as we’ve seen, his complaint is based on a false premise.  Based on that false premise, Cannon objects to the use of “the sin of Sodom” or “sodomy” to describe homosexual acts.

In addition to the false premise that underlies Cannon’s complaint, another problem here is that Wycliffe believed 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10 described homosexual sex and tried to reflect that in his text. But in Wycliffe’s time the word “homosexual” did not yet exist, and the word “gay” didn’t carry that meaning either. So without using “the sin of Sodom”, how was Wycliffe supposed to describe homosexual acts in English? Tell me if you know.

Cannon continues the discussion of arsenokoites into the next sections.

1 Tim 1:10 and 1 Cor 6:9

Here we find the word arsenokoites in the text. Reverend Cannon has established that arsenokoites is made up of two other Greek words, arsen and koite. Unlike Wycliffe, Cannon has no idea what arsenokoites means. But he is willing to guess that it has nothing to do with a proper gay sexual encounter.

He probably knows, but doesn’t want to tell us, that scholars point to Leviticus 18:22 and 22:13 as the source of arsenokoites, and that Paul probably coined the term from these verses. In the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible known as the Septuagint these verses read:

“And with a male (arsen) you shall not lie in a bed (koite) as with a woman. It is an abomination.” (Lev 18:22)

“If a man lies with a male (arsen) as in the marriage bed (koite) of a woman, both committed an abomination. They shall be put to death, for they are guilty.” Leviticus 20:13

The Septuagint was Paul’s Bible. These were the verses he read and studied. When Paul put the words arsen and koite together to form a new word, he didn’t do that at random.

That’s why the most authoritative lexicon of Biblical Greek, the Bauer Arndt Gingrich, makes reference to Leviticus 20:13, and says that arsenokoites means, “a male who engages in sexual activity with a person of his own sex, pederast.” The most authoritative lexicon of the ancient Greek speaking world, the Liddell Scott Jones, simply says that the word means, “sodomite” and also references Paul.

Reverend Cannon doesn’t want it to mean that, and therefore ignores the Greek language lexicons where they don’t cooperate with his intended outcome and attempts to redefine arsenokoites based on context. That isn’t good scholarship.

Romans 1:24-27

This is a very clear text that condemns both male and female homosexual acts. Reverend Cannon would have us believe that Paul here was not condemning homosexual acts per se, but only those homosexual acts done by heterosexuals. To take that to its logical conclusion, one would have to believe that God would condemn a gay person for engaging in heterosexual sex as well, but not for a gay person engaging in gay sex. Fortunately for bisexuals, that would mean God permits them to swing either way. And blessed are the pansexuals!

It is sad that people take this twisting of Scripture seriously. Let’s look again at the text:

For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error. Romans 1:26-27 (NRSV)

There shouldn’t be any question what Paul is saying here. Homosexual behavior is not the natural function of a man and a woman as God made them. They are exchanging natural intercourse of men and women for that which is unnatural for men and women. There is no pederasty or group sex in view here, it is simply men having sex with men and women having sex with women.

Reverend Cannon strains the text to find orgies when none are mentioned, and to connect Baal worship to the orgies he has thrust into the text, in order to miss Paul’s message about mankind’s Godless descent into sin. Because Paul’s message is not what he wants to hear.

Genesis 1 and 2

Reverend Cannon downplays Genesis 1 and 2. Though a book could be written on the implications he overlooks, I will pass for the sake of brevity.

Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13

Reverend Cannon attempts to downplay these verses in three ways:

First of all he says, we’re not under the Levitical law, so it doesn’t matter what Leviticus says. He writes several paragraphs and cites numerous passages to “prove” that we aren’t under the law, as if the law has no importance in our life.

But look at 1 Corinthians 5, when the church in Corinth had a moral issue that Paul had to deal with. In this case, a man had his father’s wife. Paul said that constituted sexual immorality. How did Paul know this? Because the Jews looked to Leviticus chapters 18 and 20 to define sexual immorality. Paul was applying exactly the same passage to the Corinthian issue that Cannon objects to as not pertinent to Christians concerning homosexual behavior.³ Therefore, Cannon’s first objection is invalid.

Second, he quotes the verses in an overly literal exactly word-for-word translation and then complains that they make no sense and the meaning is unclear. This is an extremely juvenile and/or deceptive approach. The Hebrew of these verses is not at all unclear, and those familiar with the languages have no problem at all in translating them correctly. To pretend that the meaning of the language in these verses is unclear is either a stunning display of ignorance or an outrageous deception.

Third, and unbelievably, Reverend Cannon appeals to patriarchy. Since the status of women in the culture of the time was lower than men, to “lie with a man as with a woman” would be to treat the other man as a lesser being, “reducing him to property and in effect defiling the image of God, which the man was considered.”

Apparently Cannon believed that defiling the image of God in a woman was quite alright. It is one thing to recognize misogyny in the culture. But Reverend Cannon here ascribes misogyny to God!

But setting that horrendous thought aside, Reverend Cannon would have us believe that this text, given to the Hebrews by Moses, does not prohibit gay sex, but is rather a commandment that gay sex be done well. He is saying that according to Moses, it’s fine if you have sex with the man next door as long as you don’t treat him like a girl when you do. Because that would degrade him. This is a ridiculous, misogynistic proposition that has no historical or exegetical support whatsoever.

Conclusion

Reverend Cannon may believe that he has neutralized the six passages above that speak against homosexual acts, but I have shown he has not done that at all. He has resorted to egregious scripture twisting that has resulted in outrageous and impossible interpretations.

But let’s assume for a moment that the prohibitive passages above were negated. What then do we have? Cannon says:

“Nowhere does the Bible talk about a loving and committed homosexual relationship. The only thing the authors of the Bible knew about homosexuality was that which they saw expressed in the pagan worship of Baal, the temple prostitution, et cetera.” – Justin Cannon

The problem that presents cannot be overstated. As egalitarian, I can point to numerous positive examples of women in leadership and teaching, in church offices and exercising spiritual gifts. My position on women’s equality defies church tradition, but I can show several Biblical cases of God using women in ways that subvert the traditional view and lend credence to my belief that patriarchy is not God’s plan.⁴ But Cannon admits that the Bible has zero positive examples of practicing homosexuals, and that the Biblical authors knew nothing about loving committed homosexual relationships.

But how could that be? Was the Holy Spirit not aware of the gay population of the early church and the difficulties they faced?

The US national average of those identifying as LGBT is now 3.8%.⁵ Supposedly our orientation is all genetic, so we should expect about 3.8% of the early church to have been gay as well. What would this have looked like in the early church?

Of the 3000 believers in Jerusalem in Acts 2:41, there would have been 114 gay people. By 4:4, 190 gay people. In 5:14, the church increased by “great numbers”. That happened again in 6:1, again in 6;7, again in 11:21, again in 11:24, and again in 12:24. If the gay activists are correct, by this point there would have to be thousands of gay Christians in the church.

Were none of them in loving, committed gay relationships? If there were, where are they? Either in the Bible or in church history, where are they? Or if none of the gay people were in loving committed relationships, would that not call for some apostolic teaching about how to express one’s gay sexuality in a sanctified manner? But we don’t see that in the Bible. We do see quite a lot about sexual immorality and the marriage relationship, but not one word toward the gay people. If gay practice is a gift of God to be celebrated, yet the Bible is supposed to be sufficient to guide us in faith and practice, it is woefully lacking in regard to addressing the needs of LGBTs.

It makes no sense that a divinely guided book so focused on sexual ethics could completely overlook such a large percentage of the population. The obvious inference is that Romans 1:27, 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10 is directed toward homosexual acts of all types as traditionally understood.

The Bible speaks unquestionably and irrevocably against gay sexual acts. Reverend Cannon makes an extremely poor case to negate that message in order to avoid that obvious fact. And the end result of his negation is a Bible that isn’t adequate to inform all Christians in faith and practice. Good students of the Bible will never buy what Reverend Cannon is selling.

This Brother’s Advice

If you want to affirm Gay Christians, then do it. But don’t say the Bible is OK with that. Just say you don’t believe what the Bible says about homosexuality. That’s a respectable position to have. I don’t agree with it, but I can respect it.

Some feminists do that. They think the Bible is against the equality of women, and the say they don’t believe the Bible, or they may say they don’t believe Paul. I like proving to feminists and others that the Bible is overwhelmingly egalitarian. That the backdrop of the Bible is patriarchy, but that was the result of the fall of mankind, and that Christ came to redeem us from that. That’s a coherent message. It’s a difficult sell, but it’s a coherent message. The truth wins out in the end when people are able to hear it.

But the big problem is when an egalitarian Christian fights for an egalitarian understanding of the Scripture and then says, “Oh, by the way, I believe the gay thing too.” If you say that to someone that knows their Bible, you are done as a Bible teacher. Whatever credibility you ever had about your egalitarian message is out the window.

Complementarians constantly tie egalitarians to homosexuality. I’ve seen them say that over and over. They say that of necessity we are on a slippery slope to gay marriage and full acceptance of gay sex. And they use that tactic against us because it works. It has legs. They can point to denomination after denomination where it has happened. We have to stop that. We have to take that argument away from them.

For women to be restored to equality with men in the church and the home, we need God to raise up an army of egalitarians who don’t compromise on the truth of God’s word with the LGBT issue.

I’m in. Are you?

 

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References

1. This connection is commonly used as a weapon by Complementarians to oppose Egalitalitarianism. See, for instance, Egalitarianism and Homosexuality: Connected or Autonomous Ideologies? David W. Jones; The Journal of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, Fall 2003  https://goo.gl/we5yGi
2. Primary passages are Ezekiel 16:49-50; 2 Peter 2:6-10; Jude 7. Sodom is prominently mentioned throughout the Bible as an example of great wickedness and god’s judgement, e.g. Isaiah 3:9; Jeremiah 23;14; Lamentations 4:6; Amos 4:11; Mathew 10:15
3. Paul’s knowledge of sexual immorality in this case was informed by Leviticus 18:8 and 20:11. Clearly then Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 are also relevant for defining sexual immorality for Christians.
4. See Marg Mowzcko, “Women Church Leaders in the New Testament” https://goo.gl/kQW2Cb
5. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_demographics_of_the_United_States

No More Compromise with Gender Injustice

What I learned from MLK

In the USA we honor and remember Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  every year with a national holiday on the third Monday in January.  And rightly so. Dr. King may have been the greatest champion of social justice in the world in my lifetime.

We should learn from Dr. King, and not merely about racial injustice and the fight for equality in that area. We can also be inspired by his wisdom, courage, determination, and other qualities of his character that were gifts bestowed on him from God to lead that fight at that time. Because we all have our battle to fight.  It may be racial justice, like Dr. King. Or it may be something else, like gender equality.  We can learn from Dr. King no matter what our fight may be.

I have a friend  who writes for gender justice in the church.  Last week she wrote a piece that generated quite a bit of anger from several complementarians- Why Gender Equality in the Church is no Longer a “Secondary Issue”

In one “Christian Bloggers” group it immediately generated harsh pushback and complaints.  “How dare she claim egalitarianism is a primary issue! The creeds alone define what is primary! We can agree to disagree!”

Things became very heated against her. Despite being very gracious in her disagreement, this time someone couldn’t “agree to disagree.” She was ejected from the group and blocked so she couldn’t even read their comments. Meanwhile, the discussion continued about her in several places. They continued to rake her over the coals about how out of line she had been, unwilling to listen to reason, that she alone bore the responsibility for her own ejection, and good riddance anyway!

So were they right? Did she bring all this on herself? Should she have backed down and agreed to disagree about gender equality in the church? Should we keep on attending our complementarian churches, pay our tithes regardless of what happens, and say little or nothing when gender injustice is perpetuated?

Let’s ask Dr. King.

It was April, 1963. The segregationist police commissioner, “Bull” Connor, had sought and won an injunction from  a state court that forbade all demonstrations.  Dr. King refused, and led a protest, for which he was immediately jailed.

From that jail in Birmingham, Alabama, Dr. King wrote the following:

~I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not . . . the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace, which is the absence of tension, to a positive peace, which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direction action.’ . . . Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection. . . . We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.~
Letter from a Birmingham Jail

 

To apply Dr. King’s wisdom to the gender issue, we must reach the regrettable conclusion that the woman’s great stumbling block in her stride toward equality is not the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and the Southern Baptist Convention, but the egalitarian moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than justice; who prefers a negative peace, which is the absence of tension, to a positive peace, which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action,’ …

Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection. . . . We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.

Those words seem to this brother to be as applicable to gender equality now as they were to racial equality then. Being moderate in our approach to gender equality, going along to get along, may make us a bigger stumbling block than all those patriarchal organizations combined. Because it shows we’re willing to do something Dr. King was not- accept things as they are.

 

 

If Complementarianism is New, it Cannot be True

I’d like to offer some help to my brothers and sisters on the complementarian side of the church. While I completely disagree with your doctrine of gender hierarchy, it has come to my attention that some of you have put even less thought into this than I previously believed. By helping you rule out versions of your story that won’t work, we’ll save time and perhaps all of us can get on with the business of the Kingdom.

Let me explain.

When I wrote The Complementarian Emperor is Shamefully Underdressed, I asked the question,  the question, that sounds the death knell for hierarchical complementarianism:

“If Paul and Peter were teaching male headship as complementarians say, where did this doctrine come from?”

Later in this post I will explain why the question will ultimately destroy hierarchichal complementarianism. But first, back to my story.

After posing the question, I went on:

“Logically there are only two options: they either started it as a new thing, or they got it from someplace else.”

I confess, I poo-pooed the first option. I didn’t take it seriously, and only mentioned it at all in order to cover all my rhetorical bases. After all, who would believe that Peter and Paul  were starting male headship as a brand new doctrine in the first century AD?  I didn’t think anybody would believe that.

Enter Truth in my Days, an online apologetics ministry.

Truth in my Days Director John Tors has written a blog piece criticizing my my reasoning. And he devotes 10 of his 31 paragraphs to prove that the Holy Spirit could have inspired the Biblical writers to introduce new doctrine whenever He wanted. And in fact, the Lord did introduce new doctrine throughout the Bible. As John mentioned in the comments, it’s called “progressive revelation.”

Well, yes. But I thought everyone already knew that. Seriously.

And I’m really sorry John devoted nearly a third of his blog post to state the obvious. No, scratch that- I’m not sorry. Because at the end of the day that’s just more proof that complementarians don’t have a very good answer for the question. But fear not, I’m here to help!

Yes, it is true. God could inspire the Biblical writers to introduce new doctrine at any time.¹

But the Bible, verbally inspired by an all-knowing, all wise, all powerful God, should be expected to have a coherent message. And the way this brother sees it, a view that says male over female authority was newly introduced by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 11 makes the Bible message incoherent, and so-called “complementarianism”² would become obviously untenable and very short-lived as a result.

And I don’t think I’m alone in this assessment. This is why all the top complementarians continually try to imagine that God introduced gender hierarchy in Genesis 1-2, because if it isn’t there, it doesn’t exist at all in the Old Testament, Gospels or Acts. Which would leave us with Paul introducing it as a brand-spanking new idea in 1 Corinthians 11:3, written in AD 55, some 22 years after the resurrection and the founding of the church. And that would raise far more questions than it answers. For example:

• Complementarians teach that men are to be leaders, and women followers/helpers, and that any departure from this divine pattern is sin. If that is the case, why did God neglect telling this to mankind prior to AD 55?
• It is said that Moses gave the Israelites 613 commandments, yet not one of them explains that leadership is God’s design for men, nor that respectful cooperation and deference to men is God’s design for women.  Did God not care whether the people of Israel followed this divine plan?
• If God waited until Paul to reveal the truth of male headship, at what point in history did “female usurpation” become a sin? Was it an unwritten sin prior to AD 55? Did God hold people responsible for unwritten sins?
• Complementarians teach that marriages consisting of male headship of husbands over wives are a type of Christ and the church to exemplify Gospel truth to the world, and that they are an essential witness to this truth. Why would God wait half a generation after Christ to introduce such an essential witness?
• First century husbands already had complete authority and control over their wives and households. How is it that the Holy Spirit inspired Peter and Paul to inject into Christian doctrine a “new” concept that was already prevalent in the secular culture of ancient Greece and Rome?

For these reasons, it is unthinkable that the apostles introduced male over female authority as a new concept. If complementarianism is new, it cannot be true. And so the only hope for complementarianism is to “find” it in the creation.

Either way, the question leaves complementarians in an untenable position. Because if their answer implies in any way that it came from the Old Testament, the follow up question is: “Where in the Old Testament do we find that?”

Inevitably complementarians will turn to the New Testament chapters of First Corinthians 11 or First Timothy 2 to try to show the Old Testament basis for gender hierarchy. (As John Tors did.) But assuming what one wishes to prove and then using that assumption as evidence for the assumption is a logical fallacy known as circular reasoning. That doesn’t prove anything.

Or they will point to examples of patriarchy in the Old Testament. (As John Tors did. ³ ) But again, everyone already knows that patriarchy was prevalent in the days of the Old Testament. Genesis 3:16 tells us that from that day forward we can expect men to rule over women.

But where in the Old Testament does God give a commandment or precept that establishes male rule as His design or his perfect will? It’s not there. Anyplace. Again, they have no scripture that supports their understanding of Paul and Peter. Which brings us back once again to the question.

And so our patriarchal protagonists peck around Genesis 1 and 2, like hungry chickens scratching the bare ground for food, trying to find some way to make the case for God-established hierarchy in Eden. It simply must be there, because without it, their case will fold like a cheap lawnchair. And they know it.

Eventually, the question will bring down complementarianism, because sooner or later people will realize the scant Biblical evidence and circular reasoning complementarians use to make their case.

But in the short term they can use the chicken scratch hypotheses and faulty logic to contend that complementarianism is from of old. They have to. Because most of them realize that if complementarianism is new, it cannot be true.

 

 

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Notes

1. In my initial blog post, I made the statement: “Every important biblical concept begins with the foundations laid in the first few chapters of Genesis.” John apparently misread this to mean, “no new doctrines were introduced in the Bible after Genesis 2.”Of course that is absurd and I would never say that. But to disprove the point I never made, John lists 4 doctrines which came up after Genesis 2: the priesthood, the Messiah, the church, and Jesus. But the Messiah (and therefore Jesus) was introduced in Genesis 3, and the concept of the priesthood in Genesis 14. So three of the four follow perfectly with what I said. As for the church, the need for the church was built upon the foundations laid in Genesis 3.The fact that the church itself wasn’t introduced as a concept until a logical point in the Bible story shouldn’t be surprising. And THAT is the point- 1 Corinthians is NOT a logical point in the story for the introduction of male rule as God’s design. Something else was clearly happening there, and there are much more viable alternatives. (e.g. see Phillip Payne, Man and Woman, One in Christ)
2. The confusing term “complementarianism” is used today by gender hierarchalists as a kinder, gentler name for their movement, which from time immemorial was known as “patriarchy”. It was chosen as their new, euphemistic moniker in 1988, co-opting a word that egalitarians formerly used for themselves. (Link)
3. In the comments section, in response to my point:  “You seem to have overlooked the tenth paragraph under “An Analysis of Hahn’s Argument,” in which I wrote, “a system of religious authority was instituted in the Mosaic law, a system in which authority was in the hands of the priests and Levites – and only men could serve.” To make this point more clear now, let me point out that the closest OT equivalent to church leaders were the priests and Levites, and they were all men. Only males of the tribe of Levi could serve, which meant that in the OT, religious authority was allowed only for qualified men, not women – the same as in the NT. So here is one clear “Old Testament reference” that I provided, and there are certainly other such references in the OT. The law, in fact, is suffused with this understanding (whether or not you consider them only “hints”). – John Tors

 

 

Gender in the American Church: Why the Racial Past Matters

I have to talk about slavery.

Of course, being from the USA, I automatically think of the slavery specific to my own country, when white landowners bought and sold black human beings like farm animals. In my own city there are horrifying reminders of our shameful racist history.

Sign in front of 209 First Street, Louisville, KY USA – one of many such signs.

To many black Americans, even the mention of slavery triggers a visceral emotional reaction which many white Americans, not to mention those from other parts of the world,  fail to understand.

Some folks would rather not talk about it, and I understand that. But it’s been said that those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it, and that’s surely true in some form or fashion.

And the fact is that we must talk about it. Because the parallels between the fight over human slavery in the church in the US, and the fight over women’s equality are strikingly obvious.

That’s why I was astounded by this 10 minute video on the Gospel Coalition blog of Justin Taylor.

Two Southern Baptist leaders discussed the issue of racial injustice in the history of the Southern Baptist Convention and why it matters today. They didn’t have to elaborate- it is well known and documented that the primary reason for the formation of the Southern Baptist denomination was their strong support for owning black slaves, and their contention that such slave-holding was fully vindicated and supported by God and the Bible.

That seems ludicrous today, of course. The two men, Dr. Russell Moore,  President of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and Matt Hall, VP for Academic Services at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary here in Louisville, Kentucky,  seemed humble and apologetic as they discussed the awful, racist past of the Southern Baptist denomination and what relevance that has for them today.

“Frankly, I think the number one reason is missiological,” said Hall. “If we are going to be serious about the Great Commission, in the United States and beyond, that we need to carefully and honestly think through where we’ve come from, and the things that have provided some impediments and some obstacles in our witness and our testimony in the culture.“

Of course, slave-holding was that impediment to the gospel preached by Southern Baptists in the nineteenth century. And I believe the oppression of women is that today, and that the detrimental effects of that oppression to the witness and testimony of the Southern Baptists and other gender hierarchist Christian groups will increasingly become a stone around their necks that they cannot bear.

Some folks, perhaps even many good Southern Baptist ladies, may object to my use of the word “oppression” to describe the gender based hierachy of the SBC. I’m sure a good many of these ladies don’t feel at all oppressed.

But then again, as Dr. Moore himself lamented, many of them are living in marriages that are functionally egalitarian. These couples may pay “lip service” to the gender hierarchy preached from the pulpit on Sunday, but  like many couples, they’ve found that a dictatorship doesn’t feel Christlike and doesn’t work well in their marriage. Following Philippians 2:3 and Ephesians 5:21, they consider each other more important than themselves, and they choose to submit to one another. That won’t feel like oppression to most women, even if the man carries a trump card that is seldom, if ever, played.

But a benevolent dictator remains a dictator, and for many Southern Baptist women, oppression is exactly what it feels like… and what it is… in their marriage, and in their church.

To say that one people group has less power than another people group based solely that person’s identity is, by definition, oppression. It was true for race, and it is true for gender.

And I was astonished that these men could discuss the one and not think of the other.

White Baptists in the south were so certain that their pro-slavery/ pro-segregation interpretation of the Bible was correct, they split their denomination, separated themselves from fellow Baptists, and formed a new denomination that favored racial hierarchy, segregation, and slave holding: the Southern Baptist Convention.

“The things that haunt me most is that how many people just like me could have been so wrong for so long,” said Hall. “In the Southern Baptist Convention we cannot afford, missiologically, to not be honest about these things….and we have a generation of pastors…who.. wonderfully and encouragingly…have a vision for what the Gospel calls from us in terms of the inclusive nature of the Kingdom, in terms of racial and ethic diversity.”

But what about gender diversity, Matt? When your churches are led exclusively by male pastors, teachers, and elders, isn’t a fundamental aspect of diversity missing?

And of course, Southern Baptists believe the Bible teaches it should be that way, just as they formerly believed the Bible taught slavery was normal and good, a belief they now decry, shaking their heads and wondering how people just like them could be so wrong for so long.

Really?

You are oppressing women in your churches. You are denying pastorates to female seminary students, denying leadership roles to qualified women, holding back able leaders who want to advance the Kingdom of God.

And that is evil. Not as evil as the slavery of a human being, but evil nonetheless, and detrimental to God’s Kingdom.  And these men don’t see it.

I’m sure they mean well, and these things are done with the very best of intentions.
Just like Jim Crow.

“One of the things I try to teach people,” says Dr. Russell Moore, “is that no one sees himself or herself as a villain. In the narrative of someone’s own life one is always the hero, the protagonist. So there are very few people that actually believe themselves to be plotting to do evil. They think they are doing something good, which of course is consistent with what Scriptures tell us, ‘there is a way that seems right to a man, the end thereof is death,’ Jesus says they will put you out of the synagogues and think they are doing service to God….. so when you think about people in the past who held to some really obnoxious views of white supremacy, who used levers of power of government and of the community and of the church to oppress people on the basis of skin color and ethnicity… what did those people think they were doing? How did they see themselvs as actually doing right?”

Matt Hall agrees.

“The irony and the tragedy is, I think, that Southern Baptists, out of often good intentions, thought they knew the way things really were around them. But they were blind and oblivious, often, to the world that black men and women inhabited in the Jim Crow south. And often they would appeal to the Bible….”

Yes. That. The irony and tragedy of the blindness required to use the Bible to oppress other human beings, who God created to bear His image.

But an even greater irony and tragedy is that these men could have this discussion and miss the heartache of the women who have seminary degrees but who can’t find a church that will hire them, who are the most qualified people in their churches to sit on the church board, but who aren’t considered because of their gender, or the women who are slaves in their own homes.

These things go on in their churches today because of their gender hierarchal doctrine, and these men are blind and oblivious to them.

Hall continues in the video:

“It’s a sobering warning to those of us who often see through our own blinders, and we don’t often see the world around us as other people, even often our brothers and sisters in Christ experience it. And I think that’s one of the great calls of the Kingdom of Christ: to see the world as others experience it.”

“Over and over again foreign mission board workers would appeal to Southern Baptists saying, ‘Please, please, stop this. You’re impairing the work of the gospel.‘ And that is one of the most heartbreaking things about this whole story.”

What’s even more heartbreaking is that these spiritual descendants of those racist Baptists of the south,  contrite and humble as they are over the blindness of their ancestors, fail to see the parallels between the racial oppression of the SBC of old and the gender oppression of the SBC today, often citing the same passages as proof-texts.

Just as their forebears separated from their fellow Baptists over the slave issue, Dr. Moore has separated from other Bible-believing Christians over gender hierarchy.

And just as the racist past of the SBC hampered their evangelistic efforts, the gender hierarchy they teach in the present impedes their witness and testimony today. To some degree all Christians are tarred and our evangelistic work also slowed by this false doctrine.

I do pray fervently, that Dr. Moore’s words at the end of the video come to pass.

“I hope that in the year 2065 a historian looking back at Southern Baptist life will write a very different chapter about the next few years to come.”

Amen, Dr. Moore. Amen.

 

Why This Brother Fights for Women

My friend Jory Micah wrote something nice today on Facebook about a group of Christian men that have impacted her recently. I was very gratified to have been included on that list.

The thing we did that surprised her so much is that we supported her in her fight for gender equality in the church. She’s very honest about the fact that she didn’t expect that from men, and was hesitant to include us in her target audience. But she said our little group proved her wrong, and  she wrote of us:

I have a tremendous amount of respect for men who support gender equality in the Church and want to see women flourish in Church leadership. At one point I had a bad taste in my mouth concerning Christian men. I thought most of them wanted me to sit down, shut up, and submit. I thought that most Christian men were OK with condescending remarks such as “Women are equal in value, but not authority;” but you guys have changed my mind forever and I just want to honor the guys today and express my heartfelt gratitude for each of you!”

I completely understand why many men haven’t signed on to this endeavor. Many guys look on it as women’s ministry. It’s pretty easy to think that the women can do this for themselves, that us guys should just focus on men’s stuff and let the Lord work it all out.

Besides, someone might ask us for our “man card” if they suspect we’ve been pushing for women preachers and the like. “How about that nice floral arrangement on the piano, brother? Did you pick the flowers?”

The fact is that, despite the kind words of Jory and a few other like-minded sisters, my popularity hasn’t exactly soared since I took up this cause. And that’s OK with me, because I’m not doing it for popularity.

I’m doing it because I want to impact this world for Christ. I’m doing it because I take the Scriptures seriously, and I firmly believe that the hierarchical complementarian interpretation of Scripture is completely wrong and that by embracing it, good people are doing the very work of the devil in the church. My conviction of this truth grows stronger each day.

I’m doing this because our Lord Jesus told us-

The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields.” – Jesus, in Luke 10:2 NLT

While hierarchical complementarians tell us-

…some contemporary evangelical writers appeal to the ministries of women in the Scriptures to support the notion that there should be no limits on women’s roles in ministry today. They maintain that women and men should have equal access to every ministry function and that any limits on women derive from culture and tradition, not from the Bible, which they believe supports the full inclusion of women in any ministry. – Thomas Schriener in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, page 211

Jesus: “Pray… pray, pray beseech the Lord of the Harvest- send more workers into your harvest!!

Complementarians: “Limits! We believe in limiting a woman’s ministry. Don’t let them do too much! Don’t let them soar too high! It’s not proper! It’s not right!”

Fifty. Percent. Of the church.

Fifty. Percent. Of the church.

Fifty. Percent. Of the church.

And John Piper wants to handcuff them. Wayne Grudem wants to hold them back. Thomas Schreiner wants to limit their ministry.

Are you kidding me?

So let’s think….  what can This Brother do to make the biggest possible impact for the Kingdom of God? Make biscuits at the next Men’s Ministry monthly breakfast?

You decide. I’ll be busy doing what I have to do.

Standing Up for our Sisters at the Men’s Retreat

I love men’s ministry. I do. Men’s events, be they campouts, retreats, monthly breakfasts, you name it-  are important to the life of a church.  Many men don’t feel at home in the formal atmosphere of many church buildings, and so find it hard to relax and be real. A men’s event often puts guys together in a more relaxed and natural setting, which help bring down the walls that we put up. Men’s events promote camaraderie and true friendship, something many men lack.

On the other hand, men’s ministry has its drawbacks. Women bring many talents to the human mix, and one of them is that they tend to be a mitigating factor against some of the worst behavior of men. Our bad behaviors are well known: arrogance, bravado, posturing, feeling the need to prove our manhood and outperform the other guy. Unleashed and unchecked, our quest for manly honor among our peers can venture into the darkness.

As I’ve already noted, guys like John Piper define manhood by their degree of authority and leadership over women.

Putting that kind of poison in a room with men trying to “man up”  on one another is a recipe for ugliness. The easiest way in the world to score some “man points” with a lot of other men is to engage in some patriarchal bravado. Sadly, this is all too common at men’s events.

And the degree to which the errors of  hierarchical complementarian theology has permeated our church is a good indicator of how badly men will behave in reference to women at times when women aren’t present.

So I was extremely proud of my pastor at the last men’s retreat in his choice of inspirational video. He always picks several clips for the retreat to fire up the men, to encourage us to not be complacent, to go deeper in God, to fight the good fight of faith for our families and others around us. Often they are clips from action movies.  And that first night, his pick was this:

Wow! I’d call that a win all the way around. It was a win for the men there, who needed to be reminded and inspired to not shrink back from conflict with the forces of darkness, as if the battle will pass safely over if we simply lie low. There is no neutral. We’re in this battle whether we like it or not, and we must stand up for what is right or we will simply let darkness descend.

It was also a win for the women and girls of our church, showing all the men that powerful words of inspiration can come from the female warriors among us.

And as far as I’m concerned, it was a win for my pastor, who was comfortable enough with his own manhood to show a clip of a woman leading to an all male audience at a men’s retreat. Too many guys would have avoided that clip simply to steer clear of any questions or controversy about manliness.

But the battle didn’t end with that video clip. There was still time for some brotherly interaction after the message that night. And there were still “man points” to be scored.

At the bonfire, a guy I’ll call Leon ambled up to me with a hand in each pocket and put a foot up on a log. Leon is a leader in our church, and so what he says and what he does has an affect on the entire body.  We watched the blaze together silently while a few embers popped and we discussed the meeting, and eventually the video.

“Yep,” said Leon. “That was a good word. It’s a shame it had to come from a woman.”

Leon probably thought he had just scored some man points and revved up the camaraderie. Yeah, well not with this brother.

“Why would you say that, Leon?” I shot back. “What is it about a woman that makes it a shame for her to say something wise and inspiring? Is she not made in the image of God just like we are? Can’t we encourage the men of the church to step up as leaders without requiring the women to step back?”

Leon knew he spoke up to the wrong guy, and at this point wanted out of the conversation. So we moved on for the time being. But that conversation opened the door for us to discuss it more fully after the retreat. And we did.

Full disclosure: I was ready for what came from Leon. I didn’t know who would be the bearer of the patriarchal spew on that retreat, but I knew it would come from somebody. It always does. So I made it a point of prayer before the retreat– that God would arm me and equip me to spot the patriarchal nonsense when I saw it, and give me the voice and the words to call it out effectively.

 Because here is the deal, guys: Left unchallenged, things like that enforce the patriarchal darkness left to us by the fall.

Would Leon leave the retreat feeling his misogyny confirmed? Or rather would he leave feeling it challenged? The answer to that question was up to me.

In the past we may have been content to let our sisters fend for themselves in matters like these. We’ve been thinking it’s not our fight. And that is why the church is still mired in patriarchal teaching 2000 years after Christ. Because if all our conversations are clean and pure whenever the sisters are around, there is nothing for them to discuss or oppose. If all the patriarchal speech is out of the sights and ears of the women, patriarchy continues to spread. And so it will be unless the men stand up for our sisters. And this is what we’ve got to do.

A complementarian friend of mine once prefaced a speech in a men’s breakfast, “I can’t say this everywhere but I can say it here in front of you guys,” before he spouted some misogynistic drivel. I let him get away with it that day, but never again. This is what we cannot allow to happen. Because this fight isn’t solely for our sisters to fight. It is ours to fight with them.

As Tauriel said,

It is our fight. “It will not end here. With every victory, this evil will grow! If your father has his way, we will do nothing. We will hide with in our walls, live our lives without light and let darkness descend. Are we not part of this world? Tell me, Mellon, when did we allow evil to become stronger than us?”

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. — Romans 12:21

 

Ancient Bible Scholars Weigh in on the Meaning of the Word “Head”

Hierarchical complementarianism rests on two pillars, which they hammer relentlessly. The first pillar is that the gender hierarchy they espouse is part of God’s good design and His original intent in creation. Therefore we should not merely accept it, they say, but in fact, “we should be rejoicing” over this awesome aspect of creation.  As I showed in an earlier post, their scriptural support for that claim is worse than inadequate.   But when a doctrinal position that you really want to be true rests on only two points, you can’t afford to surrender one of them easily. And so they continue to beat the dead horse and pretend they have a viable scriptural argument.

Their second, and only remaining foundational point is that man is the “head” of woman, (as it clearly says in 1 Corinthians 11:3), and the husband is the “head” of the wife, (as it explicitly states in Ephesians 5:23)….

And so there you have it, ladies and gents! Close your Bibles please, we’re done for the day. Now on to the potluck!” –Complementarian huckster

Eh…..not so fast, guys. This brother would like to take a closer at that. Tell me, what, exactly does “head” mean in those two passages?

Of course they bristle at that question, partly because “Man is the head of the woman” is their seven-word mantra which tends to be the “go-to” response to get them out of any theological jam relating to gender. Women preachers? “Man is the head of the woman.” Women elders? “Man is the head of the woman.” Should they serve communion? “Man is the head of the woman.” Equality in the home? “Man is the head of the woman.”

So don’t question the mantra, alright? Because everybody knows what “head” means!  Why…. it’s as plain as the nose on your face! The head of General Motors is the boss, right? He’s the one in charge, the one that calls the shots, the big kahuna!“

Well, sure, that’s definitely true in English, in which the word “head” literally means the body part above your neck, and metaphorically can also mean leader/ruler/boss. But the New Testament wasn’t written in English- it was written in Greek. And we always have to keep the original language in mind when we read the Bible.

The big question is- does kephalé ¹– the New Testament Greek word that literally means ‘head’- the body part above the neck- also metaphorically refer to leader/ruler/boss? In other words, if someone referred to the president of  GM as the kephalé of General Motors, would that make sense to the Greek speakers of the first century?  (Ignoring the fact that cars didn’t exist back then.)

Wayne Grudem of the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood argues emphatically,  ‘YES- this word refers to authority, just like our English word!’ And many other scholars have strongly replied, ‘NO- it does NOT mean the same as our English word, and does NOT refer to leader/ruler/boss. Ever!’ And this debate between a bunch of very smart people has been going back and forth now for more than 30 years.

I won’t presume to place myself on the level of these Biblical scholars. I must admit that reading their exchanges can become confusing and wearisome. It can be difficult at times to know who has the better argument. Can’t it?

Hey, you know what would be great? It would be great if we could have the testimony of some ancient Greek scholars from around the time of Christ, to get their input on the meaning of kephalé, and whether they thought  the word carried an implication of leadership/ rulership/ or authority. That, my friends, would be awesome. Then we’d know for sure, wouldn’t we?

Well guess what? We have that! As crazy as it may sound,  The Lord, in His providence, has given us practically that very thing- a group of 70 linguists from right around the time of Christ who tackled this very question!

Their expert opinion on the meaning of kephalé is recorded for us in the Septuagint, a translation of the Old Testament from the original Hebrew language into Greek, the most popular language in the known world at the time. This translation was done approximately 250 years before Christ by a team of 70 translators.

The Septuagint was extremely popular in the early church. Not everyone in the world spoke Hebrew, or even Latin. But owing to the conquests of Alexander the Great, almost everyone spoke Greek. And the early church used Greek widely. Most early church documents are in Greek, as is all of the New Testament. So naturally the early church made much use of the Septuagint. In fact, the Septuagint was Paul’s Bible.

And the Septuagint gives us overwhelming testimony about whether “head” can mean leader, ruler, or boss in the Greek language of the New Testament.

Because as it turns out, the Old Testament Hebrew word for head, “rosh”,  is a very popular word, occurring 595 times in the Biblical text. And  our English word ‘head‘ is the perfect translation for ‘rosh.’   What do I mean by “the perfect translation”? Simply this: the word is an exact match in every sense in which it is used, both literally as a physical head,  and metaphorically as a leader.

We must not fail to appreciate the significance of this. Most words don’t have a single meaning, they have an “area” of meaning”. So, for instance, the word “trunk” can refer to the front of an elephant, the middle of a tree, the rear of a car, or the entirety of a suitcase. If someone is translating from English to Spanish, it can take four or more words to cover all the meanings of our word “trunk” because none of the Spanish words is a perfect match for our English word.

Finding the perfect word to use for a translation is often a challenge and frequently isn’t possible. When the perfect word is available- an exact match that carries the full range of meaning from one language to the next- a good translator will jump at the chance to use it. To do otherwise would be to strip the text of depth and meaning.

Of the 595 times ‘rosh’ occurs in the Old Testament, most of the time it refers to the physical body part, and our English Bibles correctly use the word “head”. At other times the Hebrew word ‘rosh’ refers to a leader or authority. This occurs 180 times in all, or about 30% of the time. And again, our Bibles normally use the word “head” in those cases since our English word, like the Hebrew word, carries both meanings. It is, in fact, the perfect translation of ‘rosh’ in this case.

But that’s Hebrew and English. The question at hand is Greek, and what Paul meant by the Greek word for head, kephalé. How did our 70 ancient Greek and Hebrew scholars translate ‘rosh’ into Greek when they had the chance? Did they believe ‘kephale’ was the perfect translation of ‘rosh’ when it referred to authority? No, they did not.

When we examine the Septuagint, we find that whenever rosh referred to a literal head, such as in Genesis 3:15, “You shall bruise his head,”- they used the standard Greek word for head, kephalé. However, in the 180 times that the Old Testament uses the word “rosh” to mean leader or ruler or boss, they avoided kephalé like the plague!²  

The Septuagint translators weren’t ones to paraphrase. In fact, some have complained they followed the Hebrew text too literally.³  Yet when ‘rosh’ meant head as a leader, they almost always switched to a different word, one that did mean leader, but did not carry the meaning of ‘head’- the body part.

Moreover, the handful of times that the Septuagint translators did use kephalé to imply authority are the first times in recorded history that the word  was used that way. And in almost every instance it was either a case that they were forced to use it by a tough translation choice, such as a head/ tail metaphor, or it is questionable as to whether authority was really implied at all.

Let’s think about that.

If kephalé carries the meaning “leader” in addition to the literal meaning “head”, then it is the perfect translation of ‘rosh’ in every sense it is used. And it would mean the Septuagint translators intentionally avoided using the perfect translation in favor of another word that only carried half the meaning! And not just once or twice or a dozen times, but  one hundred and seventy-one times.

This is a powerful indication that these 70 ancient linguists did not feel comfortable with using kephalé to express that meaning. If kephalé could mean authority to these guys, they wouldn’t have switched to another word that didn’t also mean “head”. It makes no sense that they would have done that.

So when we read “head” in the New Testament where the underlying word is kephalé, be it First Corinthians 11:3,  Ephesians 1:22, 4:15, 5:23, or Colossians 1:18, 2:10, 2:19, or anyplace else- in all of them we need to take the idea of authority off the table as a possible meaning. ⁴ The word simply did not mean that to Greek speaking people of Paul’s day.

So the second, and only remaining pillar of complementarianism, a hierarchical interpretation of the word head, only works if the word is taken out of its historical and linguistic context. Just like their allegations of male rule as part of God’s good creation, this pillar of complementarianism also falls completely flat when the evidence is examined.

So when you hear that seven-word mantra in conversation, “man is the head of the woman”, said with the intent to limit a woman’s ministry opportunities or diminish her authority in the home, they are misusing Scripture.  You can come back with a seven-word mantra of your own:

“Head in Greek did not mean authority!” ⁵
“Head in Greek did not mean leader!” ⁶

The 70 translators of the Septuagint tell us so.

====================================================================================

References

1. Kephalé is pronounced keffa-LAY

2. The Septuagint translators use a different word approximately 171 times out of 180, or 95% of the time.  (Some people count 6 exceptions, some count 9, and some count 11. In any case, it’s a small number.) Good discussion on these exceptions are in articles by Michael W. Kruse, part 1 is here and part 2 is here.

3. Philip Payne- Man and Woman, One in Christ, footnotes 15-16 quoting Peter Walters: The Text of the Septuagint, and F.C. Conybear/ St George Stock: Grammar of Septuagint Greek.

4. In Ephesians 1:22 and Colossians 2:10 the idea of lordship/rulership seems an obvious fit. But we can’t give kephalé a meaning it didn’t have merely because it fits the sentence and our assumptions. The most prominent lexicon of ancient Greek is the Liddell Scott. In its entry it lists 25 metaphorical uses of the word kephalé, and none of them refers to authority. What does fit Ephesians 1:22 and Colossians 2:10 is the meaning “top” or “crown”. (See Payne, page 128)

5. In Matthew 10:25, 24:43, and Luke 12:39, 13:25, and 14:21, the expression “head of the house” does not use the Greek word for head, kephalé. Instead it uses a different word, oikodespótes.

6. Some translations have “head of the synagogue” in Matthew 9:18 and Luke 8:41. The Bible here does not use the Greek word for head, kephalé. Instead it uses a different word, archon.

 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:

Philip B. Payne, Man and Woman, One in Christ pp 119-121

Gordon D. Fee, First Corinthians pp 502-503

What about the Word “Head” in the New Testament? – Laurie Fasullo

Pascal’s Wager on Women in Ministry Leadership

Blaise Pascal, the renowned seventeenth century French mathematician, physicist, inventor, and philosopher, is perhaps best known for his Christian apologetic known as Pascal’s Wager.

Stated simply: Whether you believe in God or not, you’re either right or wrong. Pascal’s Wager analyzes both the benefits of being correct and the consequences of being wrong about the existence of God.

Believers have little to lose if they are wrong about God, because they will simply die and be gone. But for the scoffing unbeliever to be wrong about God is unthinkably tragic. There is much to lose by one’s unbelief, according to Pascal.

In short: If you don’t believe in God, you’d better be right. Because if you are wrong there will quite literally be hell to pay.

Now, I don’t know how Blaise Pascal felt about women in church leadership, but let’s apply his thinking to the Egalitarian/ Complementarian debate. What is at stake?

To an Egalitarian, gender has nothing to do with whether a person is suited for church leadership, but rather that determination is made based on a person’s giftings. An Egalitarian is just as likely to appoint a woman to  Senior Pastor as they would be to appoint a man to that position if they believe she is the more gifted of the two.

Complementarians, on the other hand,  believe that gender is crucial to the mission. They believe that God has assigned specific roles for each gender to follow, and given gifts that correspond to their assigned roles.  A Complementarian would never appoint a woman as Senior Pastor, because they believe God has not equipped women for that role.

So in Pascal’s way of thinking, what are the risks that result from error these two positions?

If Egalitarians are wrong, there will be leaders who shouldn’t be leaders, pastors who shouldn’t be pastors, and Bible teachers who shouldn’t be teaching the Bible. In other words, things won’t be much different than they already are.

I really don’t desire to trivialize disobedience, but the fact is, if Egalitarians are making a mistake, it tends to be an honest one. So it’s not really a matter of disobedience at all, but one of error, if in fact Egalitarians are wrong. And from my perspective, I don’t see grave consequences in the error.  Yes- some men may lose leadership, pastoral, or teaching positions, but one would assume that these would be the men who demonstrate a lack of giftedness in those areas.

If Complementarians are wrong, there will be people that could have been leaders, pastors, and teachers, people who had giftings and /or a calling on their life to be these things, but who were limited, prevented, or barred from reaching their God-given potential. And if that’s the case, let’s just call it what it is: The work of the devil.

Of course, no Complementarian that I know would willingly participate in the devil’s work. The point of their strong stand for proper “gender roles” in the church (and the home) is obedience to God and the Bible. I believe they mean well.

But it is the particular work of the devil to oppose leadership in the church. It is his work to discourage leaders, to raise up opposition to their ministry, to place limits on what they can accomplish for the Lord, and if at all possible to stop them from ever becoming leaders in the first place. That is exactly what Complementarian theology does to women who aspire to be leaders in the church.

In short: If you believe in Complementarian theology, you’d better be right.

There is No Such Thing as a Biblical Literalist

I’m somewhat of a grammar nerd sometimes, and a spelling Nazi to boot. So certain things just grate on my nerves a little bit to the point that I feel utterly compelled to jump in and point out the problem so they can be fixed. This is often to my detriment.

For instance, the overuse of the word “literal” is on my list of world problems to solve. And so when I saw a re-tweet on Twitter the other day where a guy said: “I am literally dead from the closing sentence tho”, I felt compelled to act.

I can mercifully let him slide on the “tho”, after all Twitter has a 140 character limit. But the man claims to be literally dead, yet he lived to tweet about it? This will never do! I must help.

I tweet @the guy: Do you know what “literally dead” means?

OK, perhaps I shouldn’t have done that, because yes, of course, he already knew, and it started a contentious exchange that I only salvaged by my wit, charm, and self-deprecating humor.

But since I seem to never learn, let’s extend this to another facet of the same argument: the so-called “Biblical literalist”. I would literally believe Sasquatch existed before I believed in the existence of a Biblical literalist. There aren’t any Biblical literalists in the world.  Yet we hear about them all the time, as if they were real.

Just today in an excellent Facebook post, someone posted about the spiritual journey we all have taken, and how we should be gracious and give people room to grow to see our point. It was a very anointed and powerful post. But one part jumped out at me:

“Rather than pointing out how they haven’t evolved enough, let’s celebrate the voyage they’ve begun. Because more than likely, they’re getting beat up by the resistance of religion… They’re getting tossed about by the flag bearers for biblical literalism…” – Matthew Paul Turner

Eh… say what? What is this “Biblical Literalism” of which you speak? We could turn to the internet to find a definition:

Biblical literalism is the theological view that the contents of the Bible should be seen as literally true, as opposed to being interpreted as allegory, literature, or mythology. –Rational Wiki

And that is spectacularly unhelpful. The fact is, all of us, all of us read the Bible as literal in some places and not literal in others. All of us.

For example- on the plus side, pretty much all Christians believe God literally created the heavens and the earth, and that Jesus literally died on the cross for our sins and literally rose from the dead. The Bible says all that, and we believe it is literally true. (We may disagree about how God created the heavens and the earth, or how long it took, but pretty much everyone believes the basic fact to be literally true.) The Bible is filled with many such things.

But the Bible says many other things that nobody believes are literal. For example:

“I have been crucified with Christ”, which Paul penned in Galatians 2:20. Does anyone believe that Paul was literally crucified with Christ? Does anyone think Paul could have been one of the two thieves crucified along side him that day? No. Every Bible student of any denomination or doctrinal persuasion understands this isn’t to be taken literally.

“Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.”  Is from Psalm 119:105. Does anyone therefore think they can use a Bible to light their way on a camping trip? “Who needs a flashlight, man? , I have the Word of God!” Nope- everybody understands the Bible is not literal at this point.

“The husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church.” – Paul said this in Ephesians 5:23. Is this literally true? Is the body part above the woman’s neck literally her husband? (If so, can we compliment him on his hair and makeup?)

 ^“Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life” – Jesus said this in John 6:54. Interestingly, Roman Catholics say this is to be taken literally. But ask any fundamentalist and they will tell you Jesus did NOT mean this to be taken in a literal sense.

There is no such thing as a “Biblical literalist”. Normally when one encounters the term it is being used pejoratively to label some person who believes a certain story in the Bible is a literal, historical event, typically the six-day creation.  But even though someone may believe in a literal six-day creation, he understands very many other Biblical statements in a non-literal way.  That does not make him a Biblical literalist any more than belief in social security makes someone a communist.

Christians tend to know this about themselves. Indeed- my definition of “Biblical literalist” in the opening paragraphs of this post came from a secular source- because I could not locate a credible Christian group on the internet which claimed to believe in biblical  literalism.

It is true that a few people claim to be Biblical literalists. It’s remarkable how often these people are going by a fictitious name, which makes one wonder how many of them are real people. However, some are indeed real people, and they honestly and sincerely believe that they are literalists. But it is my experience that these people have no idea what they truly believe on this issue, and one doesn’t have to talk to them very long before they change their mind. Just like my Twitter friend wasn’t literally dead, these people aren’t literally Biblical literalists. There’s no such thing.

 

 

Owen Strachan and the Gay Politics of Fear

I wish I could be on the same team as Owen Strachan of the CBMW, but his divisive political rhetoric makes it very difficult.

Case in point is this week’s post over at CBMW.org. For one, he implies that “the true church” preaches hierarchical complementarianism- an odd view given their utter lack of Biblical foundation for such gender hierarchy. But I realize such stone-throwing is part of their politics of denigrating egalitarians at every opportunity.

Thus Owen quotes Matthew Vines linking gay marriage with egalitarianism, and claims they are both born from the same hermeneutics. I’m sorry, Owen, but this brother has to call BS.

Just this morning I read the excellent new article at the Junia Project on Women Leaders in the American Colonies. If Doctor Strachan doesn’t know that godly preachers from the early centuries of the USA were preaching egalitarianism from the Bible and not from a godless humanistic cultural worldview perhaps he should take another class or two. Or maybe just read up on it at The Junia Project.

I don’t have to look it up to know that Anne Hutchinson, Margaret Fell, and Jarena Lee weren’t OK with gay marriage, because the Biblical hermenutics that led them to embrace egalitarianism has nothing whatsoever to do with affirming gay marriage and sexual practice.

Owen reminds me of Joe Friday from Dragnet. Does anyone remember this?

That kind of thinking was very common in the 60s and 70s. And you know what? We knew it was all a load of hooey. And once we figured that out, we didn’t listen to a word they had to say. I think the Joe Friday speeches turned more young people toward drugs than away from them.

Yes, Owen. You’re trashing the credibility of us all by your non-Biblical nonsense. And youre dividing with Christians like me who agree with you about the gay marriage concern, because you’d rather play the fear card as a political wedge for your pet issue.

It’s people like you spreading fear and division, and the Sunday morning all male revue advocated by CBMW and 9marks that has led us to the current confusion in the church over how to minister to gay folks without compromising the Word of God.

We could actually work together on that, but your doctrine won’t allow it. So I do agree with you on one thing: complementarianism matters a great deal more than many of us think.