Alright, post two in the six post series on gender and sexuality. So the first big gender and sexuality topic I’m hitting is patriarchy. Honestly, I could do a whole series on just that (and might do later on). Why did I start the series (after the intro) with patriarchy? There’s some themes in conservative Christian views that we’re going to see running throughout other gender & sexuality topics, themes that some use to justify anti-LGBT stances. Patriarchy in my opinion is actually the most convenient issue to directly introduce them and bring them out and start laying out my theological views that support more progressive stances.

Now that I’m on the other side of resolving a lot of questions about my faith, parsing this topic theologically has been… kinda bizarre. Why? Well, I’ve mentioned before that I was raised as a conservative evangelical, but the one thing we were relatively progressive about was patriarchy. Both my grandparents were evangelists; my grandma was up in the pulpit preaching and teaching with the best of ’em. I might have been raised with terribly toxic homophobia, but not sexism. So writing this series of posts has made me wonder; if some evangelicals can get past certain interpretations with regards to women, why have LGBT issues been such a problem???

But, I digress. Lots of Christians are sexist and do explicitly support patriarchy, though they call it “complementarianism.” Before I get much further, what precisely is patriarchy? We can separate patriarchal structures into three relevant realms for this post, male authority in the church, male authority in the household, and male authority in society at large; Christian complementarians focus on the first two, and at least claim they don’t support female submission in society at large (Barr 2021, 13–14; Bennett 2006, 55–60; Moore 2011).

I’m an egalitarian, which simply means I’m not in favor of sexism, and I definitely don’t think we should use our faith to justify sexism. To me, it should be obvious, for (at least) three reasons: it violates Jesus’ commands to love each other as ourselves (Matthew 22:35-40) and treat others as we would want to be treated (Matthew 7:12); it goes against several passages stressing equality in Christ, such as Paul’s proclamation, “there is neither… male [nor] female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28); and there are multiple recorded instances in the early church of women doing great works and holding leadership positions (see Romans 16:1-3, 6-7, for example). But, as far as I can tell there are at least some complementarians who aren’t using Christianity to justify sexism, but rather feel compelled to hold to certain views (and may struggle with it, with their conscience telling them it’s wrong!) because of how certain “texts of terror” (Trible 1984) have been taught to them. So first I’m going to do a brief explainer on complementarian theology, then I’ll briefly explain how these passages have been misinterpreted and why Christians should be egalitarians, or why egalitarianism rules and complementarianism drools. (When I say brief, I mean it, at least relative to how much could be said; several whole books have been written on the topic, and in fact a lot of this post is informed or inspired by a recent book, Barr (2021), which is excellent and you should buy it!).

Complementarianism (Drools)

Before I get into the broader theology of complementarianism, I want to go over these “texts of terror,” the passages that for some imply some quite specific patriarchal stances. (The term “complementarianism” didn’t even appear until 1988 (Burk 2019), and for many these passages were used to silence and subjugate women even without complementarianism’s broader theology).

Ephesians 5:21-33 presents “Instructions for Christian Households,” also called the “Christian household codes.” It includes commentary on several household relationships, but many focus on Ephesians 5:22, “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.”

Other texts deal with women in the church. 1 Timothy 2:11-12 reads, “A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.” 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 says, “Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.” Furthermore, complementarians read 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9 as precluding female leadership in the church, though these passages are not nearly as (apparently) explicit.

“Well okay, Potato,” you might be saying, “these seem pretty clear-cut! Seems like your God is mandating patriarchy…” Not so fast! You gotta read the next section ya doof! But before we get there I want to expound on the broader theology that has been built to back the application of these passages over the last three and a half decades or so (a recent book typical of this line of theology is Strachan and Peacock 2016). This is where the term “complementarianism” comes in. They teach that there is a divine order of creation, where men and women have equal worth but different roles. (The discerning reader may draw parallels between this and the “Separate but Equal” doctrine (see Plessy v. Ferguson) the U.S. Supreme Court used to justify segregation until the 1950s with Brown v. Board of Education).¹

Genesis 1:27 says, “So God created mankind in his own image… male and female he created them.” To the complementarian, man and women together reflect the image of God, or at least man and woman together in a certain way (i.e., where the woman submits to her husband and men lead the church). Paul’s reference to the Garden of Eden / Adam and Eve narrative (Genesis 2:4-3:24) in 1 Timothy 2:13-15 underscores this for them, so that the woman is in the submissive role because she was made from the man and/or deceived by the serpent (or in some tellings, women’s “rightful” submission is not due to these things but evidenced by them).

Egalitarianism (Rules)

So what’s the egalitarian answer to the complementarians’ claim that several passages seem to demand female submission and male leadership, and this is mandated by divine order in creation? First, their interpretation of those passages ignores the broader context of the New Testament. Second, their interpretation of those passages ignores the historical context in which they were written; the way complementarians read these passages is probably not how the recipients of these Pauline letters (that is, letters attributed to Paul)² would’ve read them. Third, the complementarian interpretation ignores early church history. Finally, particularly in light of the first three points, complementarians have likely misinterpreted Paul’s reference to the Adam and Eve narrative from Genesis 2 and 3.

How can we say that women must serve a different (lesser) role than men when there is no male or female in Christ and we are all equal (Galatians 3:28)? How can we say that women must be silent in church because of 1 Corinthians 14 when 1 Corinthians 11 allows for women to pray and prophesy in church? Who anointed Jesus on Holy Wednesday? A woman! (Mary of Bethany; John 12:1-8). Who witnessed the resurrected Christ? Women! (Matthew 28:1-9). Throughout the New Testament, a consistent and important message is that all are equal in Christ, and the marginalized and the outcasts are no less important than the powerful. Throughout the New Testament, women play important roles, even leadership roles (Romans 16:1-3, 6-7). So taking the statements in passages like 1 Corinthians 14 without further thinking, according to the so-called “plain reading” that a modern reader would see is just not a tenable position given the broader context of the New Testament if we really want to discern the will of God in my opinion.

So how would the members of the church in Corinth have read the first and second epistles to the Corinthians, or the members of the church at Ephesus have read the epistle to the Ephesians or the epistles to Timothy (whose ministry was at Ephesus)? Barr (2021) provides great historical context for these writings. It’s important to understand the Greco-Roman patriarchy in place at the time. Aristotle justified Greek patriarchy by saying women are fundamentally and intrinsically less valuable than men. Greeks considered female bodies simply deformed male bodies. In the he Roman world, “male guardianship was Roman law. Wives legally had to submit to… their husbands; unmarried women had to submit to… their fathers… women could not own property or… conduct legal or financial transactions without a man acting on their behalf” (Barr 2021, 46). Under this backdrop, texts complementarians use to justify female subjugation take a radically different meaning, which Rachel Held Evans called a “Jesus Remix” of Roman patriarchy. Whereas to the modern reader, the stress of Ephesians 5:21-33 is “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord,” to the contemporary reader the parts of that passage that would’ve jumped out at them were probably beginning the section with “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” and an entire passage requiring husbands to “love his wife as he loves himself,” even “[giving] himself up for her.”³ Wives were already submitting themselves to their husbands! It was the law even! What was new here was calling for a more equal relationship, which is much more in line with the broader view of the Gospel. I have so much more I could say about how the historical context changes how we read these passages! But I want to keep this post to a reasonable length. (Like I said, I may do a whole series later just on this topic alone).

Moreover, we know women were not meant to be locked out of church leadership because of what we know about the early history of the church, including instances of female leadership in the early church spoken of approvingly by Paul. There was a female apostle, Junia, “outstanding among the apostles” even (Romans 16:7, emphasis added). There was a female deacon in the early church spoken of by Paul, Phoebe (Romans 16:1); the early church father Origen says this shows “by apostolic authority that women are also appointed in the ministry of the church” (Barr 2021, 67). In fact, there are over 100 historical references to female leaders in the early church (Barr 2021, 68).

Finally, how do we deal with this broader theological grounding of complementarianism though? Well first, as I’ll speak to more in next week’s post about gender identity, I don’t believe God’s image is reflected by a simple complement of men and women for the simple fact that mankind contains more than just men and women! Rather than patriarchy reflecting a divine order in creation, as evidenced in part by its pervasiveness in recorded human history as some complementarians would have you believe, it makes more sense to consider it just another result of “The Fall”; historians’ consensus is that patriarchy seems to have risen alongside the development of agriculture (Barr 2021, 28–33), and God curses Eve to be under the rule of her husband at the same time He curses Adam to work the land for food (Genesis 3:16-19). And Christ came to save us from our fallen (i.e., imperfect) nature! He taught us to live differently, in love. What about Paul’s reference of Eve being formed from Adam and being deceived by the serpent? As Foster (2017) explains, this is better read as an analogy and a warning (a rhetorical device used multiple times by Paul) regarding a specific problem in Ephesus: a heresy had taken hold among a group of women in Ephesus, and so they shouldn’t allow these women to teach the heresy to the larger group (as Eve persuaded Adam to follow in her deception).⁴

So: Complementarianism ignores the context of other parts of the New Testament, ignores the historical context in which these passages were written, and ignores early church history to subjugate women, while egalitarianism reads these passages in their textual and historical context ensuring equality and freedom in Christ. Egalitarianism rules, complementarianism drools.