Complementarianism and egalitarianism (part 7): The future of egalitarianism (ii)
In this four-part series we are looking at some of the reasons why some egalitarians are likely to reconsider their commitment to women exercising authority in the church. This time around, we are looking at the pressure placed upon egalitarians by the gay lobby. The times, they are a changing, and yesterday's radical advocate of equality and liberty (for fighting for women's ordination) is today's muddle-headed conservative champion of prejudice (for not approving homosexuality). One of the biggest challenges evangelical pro-women's ordination advocates are going to experience is the growing move to approve of active homosexual lifestyles.
Thoughtful evangelical egalitarians are very uncomfortable about the pro-gay agenda. They can see how champions for women's ordination are often also champions for approval of homosexual relationship as well—consider Muriel Porter in the Melbourne Diocese of Australia. Or they see how high-profile champions of the gay agenda, like Bishop Gene Robinson in America, consider women's ordination the precondition for change on the church's teaching on homosexuality. Robinson has stated that he has advised priests in the Roman Catholic Church not to work directly for the approval of an active homosexual lifestyle, but rather to work for the ordination of women first as it is a necessary precondition. Robinson, himself an openly practicing homosexual, understands that women's ordination is a precondition for the acceptance of homosexual activity—so much so, that his strategy for advancing the cause of homosexuality is grounded in the promotion of women to authority roles first. He, like many other homosexual promoters, sees that only once a denomination or Diocese has endorsed the logic behind women's ordination is it even possible to discuss whether active homosexuality is legitimate.
Thoughtful egalitarians can see this connection, and it troubles them—when someone like Gene Robinson pushes the connection, not primarily to the world at large, but to a secret meeting of agitators for homosexuality looking for a concrete strategy that will work in their context, it is hard not to see that those in favour of homosexuality perceive a very real connection between the two issues. And so thoughtful evangelical egalitarians are defensive about this link between the cause they cherish, and the cause they repudiate. Some get angry about claims of the possible link, others are hurt at the suggestion, but many egalitarian writers are spending time now to try and show why the link does not have to be there—why ‘the women's issue’ can be hermetically sealed from ‘the gay issue’. I, like most of their critics, think their attempts have failed to this point, but the fact that this is a new cottage industry amongst egalitarian evangelicals shows that this is a pressure that is on them now—and is only going to get hotter in the foreseeable future as our society moves in an increasingly pro-homosexual direction. That very pressure, and the way that pro-gay activists will keep challenging the egalitarians to ‘go the whole way’ and join them will probably begin to push some back in the opposite direction. If they are left with a choice between what seems to be misogyny, but whose advocates claim is not, and approving a way of life clearly repudiated by Scripture, some egalitarians will take another hard look at whether they got the whole women in ministry question right after all. Others will continue to hold their approval for one issue with their rejection of the other, and still others (as appears to be happening here in the UK among moderate evangelicals) will indeed begin to shift on the gay issue. But some will be troubled by the link, and have a rethink about the various issues in play.
Hence, I think that within the providence of God, that there may be a movement back from within the egalitarian evangelical ‘camp’. Once women's ordination is established, it becomes the conservative position within a branch of evangelicalism that is always picking away at received tradition (i.e. open or broad evangelicalism—which is generally made up of people who are less conservative in their theology now than they were ten years before, or who like to see themselves as not just conservatively accepting received evangelical tradition). Moderate or broad evangelicalism thrives on being avant-garde—of being up with the latest cutting-edge innovations. But once women's ordination is in place, and women can attain the highest role in an institution, it ceases to be the great cause celebre to unite the troops against the terrible conservatives. In time, it will become simply the hang-up of ‘the old guys’—everyone over thirty-five. That is, once the view has won, it ceases to become the tool to challenge tradition but becomes tradition among a branch of evangelicalism that thrives on challenging tradition. Its attraction to some moderate evangelicals leaves as soon as it becomes reality.
In the meantime, some egalitarian evangelicals are going to feel increasingly horrified by where a more radical egalitarianism goes using the same arguments and presuppositions that they embrace—and at the moment that seems to be towards approving of homosexual behaviour. Other egalitarians of course will grow more liberal over time. But many may well draw back and look for something that seems to offer a secure theological basis to not follow their former friends and allies down the path into liberalism.
This tension some will feel will only be worsened as egalitarian evangelical leaders continue to find common ground with homosexual activists that outweigh their common ground with fellow evangelicals. A good example in recent years was the launch of Muriel Porter's book attacking the Sydney Diocese, especially over its opposition to women's ordination. Muriel Porter is a classic liberal, who supports changing the church's teaching on homosexuality (not mention a range of central doctrines). Yet, it was Charles Sherlock, a prominent Melbourne Anglican evangelical, who launched her book.
Such actions raise the question whether at least some egalitarian evangelicals consider themselves fellow worker with liberals against the threat posed by other evangelicals. Some egalitarians will likely ask, not unreasonably, “Why would you launch a book by a liberal attacking a predominantly evangelical institution unless what you have in common with the liberal egalitarian outweighs what you have in common with an evangelical complementarian?” In such cases, is the ‘egalitarianism’ or the ‘evangelicalism’ more fundamental to one's Christianity? Is there so much common ground between the evangelical Sherlock and the strongly liberal Porter that Sherlock finds her a more natural ally against evangelical Sydney rather than joining force with Sydney against Porter's liberalism? Could one imagine a complementarian evangelical joining forces with non-evangelicals to attack fellow evangelicals who practice women's ordination? Generally speaking, evangelicals only join with non-evangelicals to attack other non-evangelicals—evangelicals might join with Catholics of various stripes to attack liberalism, for example. But when evangelicals believe that they share the same gospel with someone else, that usually trumps most other differences. It's rare indeed to find an Arminian evangelical join forces with, say, a Roman Catholic to attack a reformed evangelical—even though both the evangelical and the Catholic repudiate the doctrine of election. The fact that the both the Arminian and the reformed hold to justification by grace through faith is considered more fundamental.
Such actions suggest that, among the leaders of egalitarianism, egalitarianism is often more important than whether one is liberal or evangelical. Women having authority over men is a fundamental aspect of the gospel. And for other egalitarians, that will be a step in one's self-identity that they may well wish to draw back from. They will want to not allow egalitarianism to become so all-defining to their Christian faith. And the struggle to step back may well result in them leaving it altogether. Seeing the link, some will do whatever it takes to not join in partnership with liberals or with those who promote homosexuality.
I once heard Gordon Preece on the subject - he appeared to me to be pro-woman’s ordination. He made the useful comment about this being a pre-cursor to the homosexuality issue:
“Its not a sin to be a woman - but being a practicing homosexual is”. (or words to that effect).
I don’t know whether you agree with that statement Hamish, but I think that’s a false logic. I would argue that a Christian can be homosexual in inclination, but celibate and seeking godliness, therefore not sinning. The sin lies in what the person chooses to do - therefore “practising” is a crucial word that makes comparing a woman and a practising homosexual a comparison of an apple & an orange.
Hi Jennie
thanks for your clarification - I agree the issue is whether you follow the inclination and act on it, or whether you choose not to.
I am inclined to all sorts of sinful things…the issue is whether I act (and when I do - whether I acknowledge my failings and repent of my sin).
I think part of Mark’s article gets to the issue of defining what is sinful - some people are trying to move the goalposts here!
Peter H. Davids, in his book “More Hard Sayings of the New Testament,” does a pretty good job of defining the basics of my hermeneutic:
“The author of each book of Scripture had somehing in mind when he selected the words to use in writing. Our assumption is that these words, when understood within his cultural context, accurately represent what he wanted to communicate. In fact, it is a good working assumption that what an average Christian reader in the first-century contest in which that book of Scripture was written would have understood by the words, fairly represents what the author intended to communicate. And this is what the church has accepted as the Word of God.” (emphasis added)
The other main point of my hermeneutic is expressed by Scot McKnight in his book “The Blue Parakeet”:
“God asks us to read the Bible as the unfolding of the story of His ways to His people.” McKnight summarizes the story of the Bible in terms of Creation, Fall, Covenant Community, Redemption and Culimation. “Until we learn to read the Bible as Story, we will not know how to get anything out of the Bible for daily living,” McKnight says. We can’t just lift individual verses out of the whole of the Story, and expect to understand what God is doing.
So there it is. Understanding the overall purpose of the Scriptures as one great Story. Understanding the words of the Bible in terms of authorial intent, which means that they have to be read in terms of historical and literary context.
I really don’t understand what is so dangerously liberal about that. In fact, I stand by this hermeneutic as the best way to hold the Scriptures in high esteem as God-breathed and authoritative for faith and practice. I am not afraid of where this hermeneutic will lead me. It has led me to understand God’s place for women in His story differently than the place long-standing church tradition has given them. If understanding authorial intent and the place of sinners in God’s story, leads me to better love gay and lesbian sinners as myself (who am a sinner too), and that means that I step out of line with the rest of the evangelical community (which has in general treated gays and lesbians horrifically), then so be it. I think the above hermeneutic is the best way to understand God’s Word, and the best way to live as a follower of Christ.
The point of hermeneutics is not to make sure you arrive at a certain pre-conceived conclusion (oh, no! whatever we do, we mustn’t change our views about homosexuals!), but it’s an ongoing learning process—to find out what God was really inspiring His vessels to write, what they meant by what they wrote, and how I am then to live. I will not apologize for that, wherever my studies end up taking me.
I’ve found William Webb’s Redemptive Movement Hermeneutic to be helpful in demonstrating that it is possible to be egalitarian AND not pro-gay.
I also consider that it’s possible to be egalitarian and recognize differences between Male and Female (Gen 1:27, Gen 2, 1 Pet 3:7). I don’t really have any enmity towards the Complementarian view except when it veers towards patriarchy (which has been clearly linked to a higher rate of domestic violence). In the end, one gender dominating the other is not Biblical (1 Cor 7:4).
Richard,
What exactly are you saying re Complementarianism and domestic violence? I think you ought to clarify your comment here.
Martin, just to clarify: I’m not saying that complementarianism is linked to domestic violence. On the contrary, a 2004 American study by William Wilcox found that the incidence of domestic violence amongst active conservative Protestants (2.8%) was less than those with no religion (3.2%). But nominal conservative Protestants had the highest rate (7.2%). Having a hardline authoritarian patriarchal perspective while being Biblically illiterate is not a pretty combination. I don’t have a problem with complementarianism, but I do have a problem with abusive authoritarianism.
Hi Mark,
It is difficult to see how your argument here is not an example of Non Causa Pro Causa or the slippery slope fallacy. By way of contrast I’d point to Shields’ Slippery Slope Axiom: “the truth lies half way down the slippery slope.” Of course, determining exactly where that truth point lies is rarely simple.
A similar phenomenon could be seen in reactions to the Charismatic movement in the 1980s. Many evangelicals sought to avoid the excesses of some parts of that movement by claiming that “miraculous” spiritual gifts no longer operated at all. The excesses of each position tended to polarise views and make it difficult to hold a moderate position, yet in time it has become increasingly clear that the extremes were equally unbiblical and the truth, indeed, lies half way down the slippery slope.
A more current example is found in Young Earth Creationism which argues that if you sacrifice a literal interpretation of the opening chapters of Genesis you ultimately concede the entire Bible.
Is this the case with the comp/egal debate? It seems to this point that the biblical data is not so perspicuous as many on either side would claim (just see the discussion that ensued on this previous post here on the SolaPanel as well as the subsequent posts on this topic!). If this assessment that there is insufficient exegetical warrant to maintain a position at either extreme is true, it seems that it is fear of the slippery slope that strengthens the divide rather than a quest to discover or uphold truth.
Hi Kristen,
Good to hear from you again, especially after our last conversation got curtailed (caught me off guard too - I was waiting for a warning from Rachel to say that there was just a few days to go).
Well, nothing at all. Nothing you’ve written there, as it stands, is being contested. Both of those principles are common ground in the debate.
Okay, a lot is going to depend on precisely what you mean here. But as it stands it looks like you’re reinforcing the argument of my post.
I said that there is a move to approve of active homosexual lifestyles, and that within the leaders of egalitarianism, there are people who are moving in that direction and do so for the same reasons why they are egalitarian.
You seem to have said, “Yes, I am changing my views on homosexuality. I think most evangelicals have treated them badly. I’m doing it for the same reasons why I’m egalitarian. And I’m not going to apologise for that.”
That’s fine, I’m not asking you to apologise for it. I’m not even (at this point) saying it is wrong - although it is clear that I think it is.
I was observing that within the ranks of egalitarians there are people who have no interest in changing their views on homosexuality and saying that it is okay in any sense. And that what seems to be a movement among egalitarians to ‘soften’ their stance on homosexuality will put pressure on some egalitarians to reconsider their commitment to egalitarianism.
People like you might be right, and we should all change our views on homosexuality. That’s a different debate.
The point here is more ‘political’ - some egalitarian evangelicals are going to hold that a homosexual lifestyle is sin. And as other egalitarians say that they’ve shifted on that view for the same reasons why they are egalitarian, some of them will reconsider their commitment to egalitarianism.
It’s an observation of a dynamic, that is likely to be the case whether we agree with it or not, but that is going to change the nature of the debate a bit in the forseeable future.
Hi Richard,
Welcome along, and thanks for the contributions.
Yes, many egalitarians have found contributions like Webb’s useful in that regard. And I’m not claiming that egalitarianism requires someone to be pro-homosexual or liberal.
My point is that a link seems to be appearing in the actual manifestation of egalitarianism in reality, whatever we think of the concepts at the level of ideas. And that link is going to put some pressure on some people whose commitment to egalitarianism isn’t indubitable.
And that issue is reflected even in the way you’ve couched things here. What you’ve found helpful is that Webb has shown that it is possible (my emphasis) to be egalitarain and not pro-homosexual. He hasn’t shown that the two are inherently incompatible, just that one can hold to one and not the other.
That’s useful, but it won’t ‘solve’ the problem for everyone. They’ll still, I predict, watch egalitarian evangelicals and institutions take softer lines on homosexuality, if not come out in qualified acceptance of it. And they’ll see no (or almost no) complementarians making such moves.
That creates a ‘political’ dimension to the issues that will have its own effect on the debate alongside the efforts of people like Webb to address the ideas at purely the level of ideas.
Some people are going to go - these guys are fighting a rearguard action trying to show that it is possible to be egalitarian and not pro-homosexual, but those guys don’t need to show that, because it’s inconsistent to be complementarian and pro-homosexual.
Whether that is right or, as Martin Shields claims, is a slippery slope argument, is somewhat irrelevant to my point. My point is that it is going to be a dynamic that is going to make egalitarianism problematic for some people, whatever arguments are going to be marshalled in its favour.
Hi Martin,
Welcome along, and thanks for the contribution.
Because there’s no argument here about the meaning of what I’m talking about.
I’m not saying ‘see this shows egalitarianism is wrong!’ - and so making a call on the meaning of what I’m detailing.
“All” I’m saying is, ‘there’s reasons to think that the homosexuality debate is going to put pressure on people who would otherwise like to be egalitarian in the gender debate’.
That’s all. And there’s no slippery slope there - whether true or false. It’s just a statement of ‘political’ realities. It makes no attempt to marshall that to say something about the truth of egalitarianism.
To Richard and all—
You might want to look at Brad Wilcox’s scholarly work- Soft Patriarchs and New Men: How Christianity Shapes Fathers and Husbands. (University of Chicago Press, 2004)
He demonstrates that, overall, men with traditional views of male headship and who go to church regularly are less likely to be abusive to their spouses than other groups. I imagine that this conclusion is drawn from studies of the U.S. population, but still it bears consideration. It’s not right to merely assume that conservative views on gender roles leads to abuse.
Regarding Brad Wilcox, a lot depends upon his definition of ‘soft patriarchy’.
Mark, it’s nice to talk to you again. The one thing that I wanted to say in our earlier conversation that I didn’t get to, is that I thought you were reading too much into Teri’s and my words. I think the distinction we were making had to do with semantics—what is was that we were defining as a “name,” on which issue we were merely following what the Scriptures actually say. Our words were not intended as a denial that the nature of God is “Father”—merely that God never said, “My name is ‘Father.’” He did say, “My name is ‘I Am.’” And that’s all, really, that we meant. The implications of that could probably be explored further, but this is a new thread and a new topic.
You said:
Actually, what I was trying to say was not that. What I was trying to say was, I think the focus of those who would draw back from egalitarianism because of the homosexuality issue, are putting the cart before the horse. The issue is, and must be if we are going to take a “high” view of Scripture, “What does the Bible actually say?” Instead, people are saying, “homosexuality is wrong, therefore my hermeneutic must result in that conclusion.” If they are going to back off from egalitarianism because they don’t like where the (non-liberal) hermeneutic as I described it above is leading them—then isn’t the problem that the issue of homosexuality is more important to them than what the story of the Bible actually teaches?
I’m speaking in terms of ideals, not realism. I don’t deny that what you’re talking about may happen. But I would consider that a sad thing.
As for where I stand on homosexuality itself, my views are in flux, and will be until I have researched enough of both sides of the issue to be clear in my mind on what the Bible, as God’s Story, and according to the principles of authorial intent, is actually saying about the matter.
To Tim:
I’ve been looking into the findings of Brad Wilcox, as far as I could in a short period of time—and it seems to me that the conclusions lead to the idea that marriages where husbands lay down their lives for their wives as Christ did for the church, are happy marriages. That model can exist in a marriage that calls itself “egalitarian” just as much as in a marriage that calls itself “complementarian.” The issue does not seem to be whether the husband leads so much as whether the husband takes responsibility to put his family first.
Mark,
It disappoints me when some egalitarian evangelicals support the liberal agenda of accepting/affirming sinful relationships. There has certainly been a trend in some left-of-centre circles in this direction since they see it as a ‘civil rights’ issue, but it’s more like Chamberlain’s appeasement policy. However most committed younger evangelicals are not on board with their program and are tending to be egalitarian when it comes to secular employment and church leadership, yet complementarian within the realm of marriage. That’s the situation as I see it in much of Victoria, both in charismatic and evangelical circles.
I am not very familiar with how people argue from the bible for an acceptance of homosexuality. I was wondering if anyone could possibly just briefly outline for me how the biblical arguments go, and how this is similar to accepting egalitarianism from the bible. How does an egalitarian approach to the bible lead toward an acceptance of homosexuality?
Thanks very much.
Hi Tim (and Teri and Kristen),
Welcome along, and thanks for the head’s up on Wilcox’s book, I was quite unaware of it. And welcome back Teri, as well.
Anyone reading the thread and interested in the book and, like me, would like a quick insight into it, here seemed to be the best place to go - the author explains his findings in a written interview.
I think I’d both agree and disagree with Teri and Kristen, picking up Kristen’s take on the issue:
In the interview, while Bradford Wilcox mentions examples of evangelicals talking about husband/father authority he doesn’t include that among his factors for identifying the “active Evangelical father” group. Maybe he does in the book. This would seem to support Teri’s observation that a lot depends on his definition, and Kristen’s that the things he’s identifying as causes of the good outcomes have no direct relationship to gender-based authority in the family.
However, if that’s the case, then the book is evidence for Tim’s final point:
At a minimum Wilcox’s book shows no difference in outcomes between actively Christian egalitarian families and complementarian ones. That in itself is a big deal given that there is often a whiff of the purported abusive potential of complementarianism hanging around.
But, I think Wilcox is claiming more than just that. In his interview with Albert Mohler he defines “Soft Patriarchy” as:
This suggests that he sees an indirect relationship between dads seeing themselves as a self-sacrificial leader of the home and better outcomes on several fronts (not all - less housework, and less time with children than egaltiarians, but at least slightly better in the other areas he looks at).
That is, he is saying actively Christian ‘soft patriarchs’ have better outcomes overall than egalitarians. But it’s not because they wield authority, it’s because they have a high view of fatherhood, invest heavily into it, endow it with strong theological weight and the like. And those things seem to be connected to seeing themselves as having a unique leadership role in the family.
Hence an indirect relationship between gender authority and outcomes - the relationship is mediated through a constellation of intermediatory convictions that could be adopted by egalitarians, but, at present, occur more regularly among complementarians.
Again, that doesn’t “prove” anything. But I think his conclusions are that compelementarianism is producing slightly (and it’s only slight) better results among active Christians than more egalitarian approaches to family life. And it’s doing so because it is doing a better job of incubating the network of outlooks that do directly feed into those outcomes.
That could be evidence complementarianism is right, or it could just be evidence that egalitarianism needs to lift its game in a few areas - like setting forth strong and clear and positive distinctive teaching to men about their role as father’s and husband’s.
So I think it’s an encouragement to complementarians (and a goad to keep focusing on the self-sacrifical aspect of our view of authority), and a challenge to egalitarians - suggestive that either their view is wrong, or at least isn’t being translated properly into life on the ground, and so is currently getting slightly worse outcomes than the wrong view.
Hi Kristen,
I’m happy to confess responsibility for that, and am glad that you and Teri were making a far more limited and semantic point than what it seemed to me (who might be just slightly hypersensitised to such matters due to sitting with the fourth century debates for a few years now). The Trinitarian dimension will likely (heh) make a reappearance next year, so you’ll probably get another crack at things to tease the issues out further.
As far as your point on homosexuality goes, thanks for the clarification - that’s far more what I expected from you given our previous interactions.
I take your basic point that our opposition to homosexuality has to be grounded in what Scripture teaches and so must be capable of being overturned by an appeal to the actual Scripture on the question.
But I still can’t agree with the way you seem to be putting that point:
Take ‘homosexuals’ out. Put in:
“whatever we do, we mustn’t change our views about the deity of Christ/the Bible is the word of God/the existence of God/the existence of a real world/the existence of objective truth”
or try
“whatever we do, we mustn’t change our views about murderers, paedophiles, liars, adulterers, the incestuous, pride, people who are driven by hatred, the existence of objective right and wrong”
Those sentences are as true as your version. As a Christian I should be open to Scripture challenging any theological or moral conviction I hold, no matter how fundamental it is.
But, I would want to say that it is quite valid for a Christian to say, “that God exists, that Jesus is fully God and fully man, that murder/adultery/pride/hate/homosexuality is sin is not ‘up for grabs.’ It is a settled part of the faith once for all delivered”. They should not feel the need to go back and work each and everything up from first principles before they can believe anything in some kind of foundationalist endeavour. We start with the tradition we are taught, and trust it, revising it as we need to in light of Scripture, but fundamentally positive towards it.
Now, when serious doubts arise, it is the right and necessary thing to then put that bit of tradition on the table as ‘up for grabs’ and work things through from first principles - as you’re doing now. And I think that as Christians we need to give people room and freedom to do that. Not giving that room, and making the doubts culpable creates an environment that is more likely to cause doubts in the long term among people. So I’m glad you’re doing what you’re doing, and think it reflects well on you.
But, I also think that the rest of us aren’t doing something wrong by not joining you in that activity if we don’t have those doubts. And that it is entirely okay for us to restrict you from speaking as a Christian leader on such issues until your doubts are settled and you’ve either come back to the traditional view, or persuaded our institution to change its view. The freedom we should offer to investigate doubts comes with responsibilities.
In light of that, I think there is some validity in people saying, “Hmmmn a surprising number of egalitarians seem to be revisiting the homosexuality question, and saying that that’s for the same reasons that led them to revisit the gender question, that makes me uncomfortable about egalitarianism.”
If it was reversed - if all of a sudden a surprising number of complementarians started to say, “Actually, I’m revising whether we’re really right to reject racial based slavery, and whether we were right to claim that Jesus Christ is fully God” then I really would be taking a hard look at whether complementarianism was as right as I thought it was. Nothing would be proved, but the “political” aspect of things would shift for me. And despite Martin Shield’s claim of slippery slopes, I find it hard to see how viewing that as an cautionary sign is irresponsible.
Hi Richard,
Thanks for this comment, was very informative.
This probably feeds into the discussion I had with Jareth in the previous series about Gen Y, and many of the observations he made as someone also living in Melbourne.
My first experience of this happened this year when, after being paid out on constantly by some other theolog post-grads over here for being opposed to the ordination of women, it turned out they were all ‘soft patriarchs’ when it came to marriage and the family. (And, being the exceptionally gracious and kind Aussie bloke I am, I of course in no way at all returned the favour when it turned out that they were also unreconstructed patriarchs
.)
While, for convenience, I generally in the posts set this up as a debate between two ‘sides’ - a strong complementarianism, and a strong egalitarianism - in terms of the ‘facts on the ground’ I think the situation is far more complex.
There’s a wide range of views out there, some of which seem inconsistent on a strictly ideas based level - such as saying that gender based authority is compatible with equality in the family, but saying that it isn’t compatible in public ministry in the Church.
Those of us trying to offer some kind of leadership on this (on both sides) need to come to grips with that and take it on board in our teaching, preaching, writing and the like. It seems like a lot of Christians are unconvinced by either of the two basic positions and are hungy for something else. That doesn’t give us any answers, as though we derive theology from the sociology of young Christians. But it’s an important factor to reflect upon and be aware of.
Hi Craig,
Welcome along.
Well, I’m going to try and work this up properly for a post or two next year, so I’ll give it a quick stab now. Two things though: I’m not saying that you can only be a consistent egalitarian if you accept homosexuality. I’m not passing any verdict on the merits of these arguments.
Most of the links have to do with approaches to interpreting the Bible. The arguments pro-homosexual campaigners use are structured in a way that has similarities to various egalitarian arguments:
First, people observe that there is only a small number of texts that speak directly to the question. Each of these is then very carefully picked apart to get at its real meaning to the original audience in light of the Bible’s story as a whole.
Second, it is observed that often the Bible reflects existing sinful patterns in the culture of the day, and is challenging them in such a way whereby Christians will, over time, come to embrace its radical message that overturns such a cultural conviction. For egalitarianism, that is patriarchy, for homosexuals, it is a view that says that sexual love must involve gender polarity.
Third, a lot of passages are seen to have a far less universal scope than is traditionally claimed. 1 Tim 2 is speaking about just one woman that Paul wouldn’t allow to teach. Romans 1 is speaking of people with a heterosexual orientation who take on a desire for people of the same sex. Levitical legislation against homosexuality would, when we do the cultural reconstruction, have been understood by the original hearers as forbidding male sex in the context of temple prostitution not universally.
Fourth, a lot is made of silences. OT laws against homosexuality don’t have anything to say about lesbianism – which seems odd if homosexuality per se is on view. In Ephesians 5 the husbands are never told to exercise authority over their wives, so wives submitting to their husbands can’t be anything to do with husbandly authority.
Fifth, both sides appeal to Gal 3:28 as fundamental to a biblical view of gender. Egalitarians say, “Leadership is about godliness and giftedness, not gender – in Christ there is no male or female.” Homosexuals say, “Sex is about faithfulness and love, not gender – in Christ there is no male or female”. Both remove gender from the structure of the institution, either church (egalitarianism) or marriage (homosexuality).
Sixth, both sides are grounded in a fundamental moral conviction that is quite prominent in the Bible that then shapes how particular passages are read. Egalitarians are committed to a robust view of equality, and, even before they go to the Bible, are convinced that equality means ‘access to authority is only on the basis of ability – plumbing is not a factor’. Homosexuals are committed to a robust view of love, and, even before they go to the Bible, are convinced that love is no respector of persons, ‘there is no law when it comes to love, for love fulfils the law – and so plumbing is not a factor in who someone can love, or how they can love them.’
Alongside that is another factor that interests me more and that has been less explored so far in the debates, from what I can see. Egalitarians argue that there are no gender-specific roles in family or church. The two genders are interchangeable – either can do anything the other can, they just do things in complementary ways. But there’s nothing that is specifically male or husbandly, or woman or wifely. The genders are interchangeable when it comes to how the marriage works and how church works. Homosexuals are taking that conviction the next step and saying, “If the two genders are interchangeable, and nothing is linked to either gender, then you don’t need two genders to make a valid marriage.” There’s nothing about the structure of marriage that requires two genders, because they’re interchangeable anyway. This is going to be A Big Issue in my view for egalitarians – the judge who ruled California’s Prop 8 referendum rejecting gay marriages as unconstitutional seems to have made precisely this kind of ruling. Modern concept of marriage is egalitarian, and an egalitarian view of marriage is entirely compatible with the practice of same sex marriage. Gender simply isn’t a factor in how a marriage is supposed to function.
That’s quick and sketchy, but it should give an idea.
”The arguments pro-homosexual campaigners use are structured in a way that has similarities to various egalitarian arguments.”
IMO you are really stretching logic to claim this. And you will have a very difficult time claiming that practicing womanhood is sin, as practicing homosexuality is. Equally difficult, you will have a problem claiming that a woman becomes sinful by teaching truth. And finally, so what. The arguments that comps use are structured in a similar way that slave owners used to justify slavery. Anyone can use a method, as a good method is just a tool. Whether they use it for good or evil, or in righteousness or unrighteousness, is the question.
Hi Teri,
Yars, so when Webb entitled his book Slaves, Women & Homosexuals he was clearly wrong to see any similarity at all in those three case studies and so link them together to show why they don’t have to be handled the same way . He should have entitled it “Slaves, Women & Hamsters”. And when guys like Richard Bath say
They’re also wrong to see that there is any need to demonstrate that it is possible to be egalitarian AND not pro-gay – because there’s absolutely no similarity that would require such a demonstration.
Yes, because people like Kirsten Rosser are saying that she knows practicing homosexuality is a sin but she’s re-examining the question to see whether it’s okay to approve something that is sinful.
The whole point of the argument about homosexuality is to say that the Bible, when understood correctly – in terms of the overarching Story, and in terms of what the words would have meant to the original readers – doesn’t say all active homosexuality is sinful at all. The Church has misunderstood the implications of the Bible’s teaching for two thousand years (with the odd exception here and there in history) in the same way it misunderstood the Bible’s teaching on gender.
Well the ‘so what’ is the question here (one I’m not going to try and address this year). Yes, good methods can be put to bad uses. But sometimes the badness of a method can be seen by how easily it supports very bad outcomes. That’s a question we have to address on a case by case basis.
I could see how, if I screw my eyes up tightly enough, a person can see some similiarities between complementarian arguments and those for race based slavery – argue that relationships are structured by race in the way that family and church is structured by gender, and that being a slave is analogous to being a wife, or being a pastor is analogous to being a slave-owner, and, yes, there’s some similarities that would need to be addressed.
If we were in a context where there was pressure on the church to endorse race based slavery, and some complementarians were saying, “Hmmmn, in light of my ‘equal but different’ view of gender in family, I am relooking at the question of whether it’s okay for whites to enslave blacks” then I think most of us would agree there’d be a big ‘so what’ going on over complementarianism. The fact that egalitarianism would be clearly and utterly incompatible in any sense with approving race based slavery would certainly be seen as a big ‘plus’ in its favour.
So to claim that the ‘so what’ just isn’t there in any way at all when an egalitarian approach to Scripture and to gender in family seems to be a precondition for a pro-homosexual position - not that egalitarianism requires a pro-homosexual position, but that you can only get there from certain basic principles that exist in egalitarianism seems strange.
If you’re right than Webb’s book is one of the biggest yawns in the debate to date – he tried to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.
”So to claim that the ‘so what’ just isn’t there in any way at all when an egalitarian approach to Scripture and to gender in family seems to be a precondition for a pro-homosexual position - not that egalitarianism requires a pro-homosexual position, but that you can only get there from certain basic principles that exist in egalitarianism seems strange.”
Didn’t say that.
Let’s try another approach. Humans have building block mentality. It’s a gift. We can take theories, mix and match them a bit until we can actually see a building in view. In addition we’ll claim that’s the only building one can get out of that set of blocks. I don’t think so.
That’s basically what I see you doing. As far as truth is concerned I do not believe that you have cornered much if any relevant truth in the process. IMO its just an exercise in what is another clever way to bash people who would dare to believe contrary to you, that women can be called and equipped in Christ to minister spiritual things to the same depth as men.
It seems to me you had better arguments when discussing how a husband should tend to seeing that he lead the family in holiness and tend to his responsibilities in providing and protecting.
”Egalitarians argue that there are no gender-specific roles in family or church. The two genders are interchangeable – either can do anything the other can, they just do things in complementary ways. “
I don’t see anyone claiming straight across interchangeableness. And FWIW I don’t think any individual can replace another in exactly the same way. IOW even among men, they all do the same jobs with differences. But I don’t consider being a husband or a wife, a job or a role.
As for church, there are no gifts that are gender specific. And of course, we are going to disagree that ministries (which use those non gendered gifts) are not gender specific either. Ministries may tend to be fulfilled by one gender more than another in different cultures, and sometimes in all cultures, but this does not mean we should cancel out the other genders contributions. God chose 2 men and 1 woman to lead the nation of Israel. But there is no reason to think that because God only chose one woman instead of two, that therefore, in the future there should be NO women leaders.
Mark, you said:
And when I said:
You replied:
<blocquote>Well, nothing at all. Nothing you’ve written there, as it stands, is being contested. Both of those principles are common ground in the debate.</blockquote>
In light of this, I think it would be helpful to the conversation if you would describe what is different about the basic complementarian hermeneutic that would make it avoid asking the questions I am asking with regards to homosexuality. If complementarians are, as I am, committed to the basic hermeneutic principles of Bible-as-Story and authorial intent, where does their hermeneutic differ? And why?
(BTW, I very much agree with Teri that husbands and wives are not interchangeable; simply that they are meant to be co-leaders in the home and not to exercise authority over one another. I also agree that egalitarianism needs to make it clear that both husband and wife have a separate, unique leadership role in the home and that each partner should consider him- or herself necessary and valuable to the marriage and the family. It’s simply that one is not over the other.)
Hi Mark,
Just wanted to say thank you for outlining @ #6678 the similarities that some may see between egalitarianism and accepting homosexuality.
This is very helpful in following the discussion and evaluating the issue.
And Kristen, #6683 -isn’t it annoying when you see you messed up the “blockquote” thing just by one letter and you can’t go back and fix it up :( . It seems you have to type it perfectly or it doesn’t work. I’ve done the same thing a few times as well.
Hi Mark
I wouldn’t mind clarifying something if that’s ok, because I am not following your argument in #6676
Kristen said this which sounds good to me
I would think that it would still be a correct statement if you substituted as you suggest, the “deity of Christ/the Bible is the word of God/the existence of God/the existence of a real world/the existence of objective truth”
You seem to not agree, and say
Are you saying that it is ok to have a belief, because it is settled church tradition, without being able to see how it is taught in the bible. And it is ok to continue to believe these things that are traditional and dismiss other views, without having to look into the bible and be convinced that the traditional view is correct and the alternative view is wrong.
I know that this is what many people do, but it doesn’t seem the ideal approach to me, so I am wondering if I have misunderstood.
I would think that a Christian ideally should believe things because they have examined the scriptures to see whether they are true, not just because they are “a settled part of the faith once for all delivered”.
Thanks Mark.
Hi, all, hi, Mark.
Mark, in my own fashion I’m enjoying following your posts, and the ensuing discussions.
You wrote:
“All” I’m saying is, ‘there’s reasons to think that the homosexuality debate is going to put pressure on people who would otherwise like to be egalitarian in the gender debate’.
And you also wrote this:
‘He, like many other homosexual promoters, sees that only once a denomination or Diocese has endorsed the logic behind women’s ordination is it even possible to discuss whether active homosexuality is legitimate.’
These two sentences set me thinking.
I’d like to suggest that the question how far the issue of women’s ordination and that of homosexual ‘liberation’ are connected via the Bible’s language is a relatively simple one.
It seems to me anyway that it is patently false for anyone to say the method of reading that makes the best case for women’s ordination entails the conclusion that homosexual acts are permissible. As far as I can see the intra- and extra- Biblical evidence we have on each subject is quite clearly radically different.
It doesn’t take much flair for language, surely, to realise that a doctrinal issue which primarily involves us in the consideration of a number of short passages in the New Testament addressed to various churches, and another doctrinal issue that primarily involves us in the consideration of fairly firm injunctions to Israel, and to the Christians in Rome, and also of the physiological condition of human bodies, are not on the same footing as each other with respect to evidence?
(I do not mean to be providing an exhaustive list of all items of worthwhile evidence—I summarise in the interests of brevity.)
Is it not abundantly clear that whatever our doctrinal views, we can neither read, ‘I do not permit a women…etc’, nor evaluate its meaning, nor draw inferences from it, in the same way as we do sentences as different from it as, ‘Men committed indecent acts with other men…etc.’?
Perhaps it is unduly optimistic of me to think that we will perceive this. After all, I readily concede that there appears to be nothing which so little burdens our discussions about the Bible’s passages concerning women’s roles as the facts regarding good language comprehension. How do we frequently behave over this issue? People with no genuine mastery of their own language, let alone of another, pontificate about the meaning of ‘oude’, while ultimately justifying their doctrine by airy and entirely unsubstantiated appeals to tools of sound reading like implication, deduction, induction, probability & etc.! And a plumber seems as likely to do these things as a theologian…
To my way of thinking many of the advocates of the traditional doctrines about women, and many of those in opposition (peace be with both sides) have as little assimilated the contents of Joseph’s Logic as they have flown to Neptune.
Presumably we might easily go on arguing ad infinitum that sentences which are plainly not direct statements of our views merely say what we think ourselves; that passages which as much imply our doctrinal opinions as they do the laws of thermodynamics allow us to deduce our notions; and that passages from which our conclusions can only be reached by inductive reasoning and probable arguments justify our ideas absolutely.
But still, perhaps eventually what will happen is that moderates will realise the very large elephant dancing about unnoticed in the middle of the room isn’t, say, any supposed relation between the methods of reading that favour of women’s ordination, and those that favour homosexual ‘liberation’—it is the quite bizarre and unjustifiable claim made by some of their more enthusiastic brothers and sisters to be responsible and knowledgable readers.
Perhaps moderates will begin to test the points where our teachers fudge in justifying their doctrine, and where their fudging is crucial—‘How does the passage support your view?’—‘It obviously says it’, or, ‘It implies it’, or, ‘Well, no other reading but mine is possible’, or, ‘All readings but mine are obviously improbable’, or, ‘You have to be wicked to read differently to me’ (to which answers almost nothing to do with good language comprehension is added).
Perhaps after all moderates will begin to ask our theologians and ministers to reveal candidly the best mark they received in late high school or at university in a formal comprehension test—and having learned this mark, will resolve to treat their teachers’ opinions concerning women’s roles with the measure of respect they deserve.
In closing I would like to propose a sixth ‘sola’—‘the facts about inference alone, rather than anything we pull out of our ears on that subject.’
Peace be on the heads of all…
Let me interject here that David Adams’ comment above appears to relate directly back to statements he made in the last 50 or so comments in “Equal But Complementarian: A Review,” which post is now closed for comments.
Hi, Kristen, hi Mark, hi all,
However, I don’t wish to continue or revive that particular discussion…
(Being a new ‘poster’ here, I haven’t yet grasped the sites’ etiquette on such things.)
What I wanted to do in my previous was to express objections to some of the ideas advanced by Bishop Robinson (which I know are also employed for their own reasons by some conservatives). And I also wanted to point out for the purposes of the discussion on this particular thread that moderates might end up thinking about the quality of their teachers’ reading (whatever views their teachers hold), rather than rejecting the ordination of women for fear that otherwise they will open a can of worms no-one can close.
It is true that I have thrown a leg over one of my hobby-horses, and galloped around a little; but I would much prefer to be understood to be doing so, in order to make the point that moderates are frequently, well, resolutely moderate…To me there are other directions they can take: many of them (I imagine) will neither move towards greater radicalism nor greater conservatism.
This seemed a point worth considering.
May God be with one and all!
I can’t help but think that the true trajectory started with married priests. Since priests have been able to marry it is all down the slippery slope.
There is no church that has celibate priests that also supporte homosexuality. Therefore no priests should marry. And since we are discussing how to respond to the situation we are presently in, perhaps the best thing to do is back up one step and say that a priest would be allowed one wife, and just one, but if she dies then no more. Or there is the practice of the early church in which a bishop lived apart from his wife. This would show solidarity with homosexuals who are to remain celibate.
My preferred option, however, is to treat a celiebate or married clery, the ordination of women, birth control, and homosexuality as separate issues.
Hi Mark,
I much prefer to read your thoughts on the arguments themselves, rather than this political punditry-cum-crystal ball gazing.
I don’t think it does anyone much favours to paint with such a broad brush in us-and-them terms, while naming just a handful of people (Porter). There’s a risk we build a fine, self-contained theory based on not much than a few continually-perpetuated stereotypes.
This is also somewhat myopic—I can imagine someone substituting issues/labels with regards to Sydney on lay presidency and sacraments, for example.
Plus, I think there’s a case that on the conservative-on-these-issues side you need to get your own house in order first. The conservative position has been on the wrong side of the argument on the social role of women—and homosexuality for that matter—not because they’re inherently linked, but because society has changed, and the conservative position has been changed by it. For example, should homosexuality still be illegal? Should we have Islamic-like laws regards to gays? What is the actual social argument? (Let alone what the nature of homosexuality actually is - another lost argument.) That the conservative position is now “It’s ‘wrong’ [whatever that means] ... but society can do what it wants” speaks volumes.
Ditto women—we get to enjoy the fruits of feminism while taking a limp, reactionary “Feminism is the Worst Thing Ever” position. I mean, really.
The fact that the conservative position has changed so much, and retreated so far just into the inner workings of the church, down to issues like the gender/practice of bishops, shows that it’s the conservative position that has—and will continue to—face pressure & change. The claims of “We’re upholding the bible” are a sign of weakness, not strength—having lost any pragmatic argument, that’s all that’s left.
PS still looking forward to your follow up from our conversation on your blog early in the year, haha :D
Hi Teri,
Yars, that’s what’s going on here - I’m outraged that people would dare to believe something different from me and so I’m finding some fiendishly clever way of bashing them.
Thank you for giving a text-book example of why I don’t want this kind of ad hominem observation in my threads – because so few people can do them in a way that is constructive.
Thank you for the feedback, and I’m glad that my suspicions that such an approach might help depolarise the debate (not necessarily end it) a bit between some of us looks like it’s got some potential. We’ll see how that goes next year when I try and articulate it more properly in a post or two.
But, from where I stand, I used the exact same ‘building block’ method there as I am here. It seems to me that I haven’t changed how I’m doing things between there and here. So if what I’m doing now is an expression of outraged pride that people would dare disagree with me, and a form of passive-aggressive intellectual violence against them, then it was then as well with that bit that you liked.
Hi Teri and Kristen,
Teri:
and Kristen:
I would refer you both back to my final two clauses in the italicised bit Teri quoted:
Those two clauses, together, were intended to define ‘interchangeable’.
‘Interchangeable’, as I used it, was not a claim that an egalitarian view of gender was androgyny – both are the same in every respect (except plumbing and reproduction). It was a claim that an egalitarian view of gender did not structure family (or church) around gender by assigninig some tasks or roles to one gender or another. Either gender can do everything the other one can, but they’ll do it in a different way – and that difference will add something positive to the life of that family/church. That is, your rebuttal of my claim here seems to be more or less what I’m saying your view is.
That is, complementarianism makes gender difference part of the esse of the family – you have to have two genders for everything to get done, lose one and you can’t really have everything you need for a marriage to work. Gender is part of the structure of how the family works.
That isn’t the case with egalitarianism, at least in terms of how it normally articulates its position when it’s fighting complementarians. Gender is part of the bene esse of the family – the viva la difference! of the genders brings two different contributions to family life, but you don’t actually need two genders to get everything ‘done’ – no roles or tasks are linked to gender. I take your point Kristen, that that doesn’t mean that egalitarianism can’t do better than it has at setting forth a vision of fatherhood and motherhood (and not just parenthood) - and it’s the fact that you see that is one of the things that means I really enjoy our conversations - but it’s also noteworthy that egalitarianism hasn’t done that so far (doesn’t prove anything, but it’s worth noting).
My observation is that that view of marriage and gender is a pre-condition for contemporary arguments for same-sex marriages. It’s a basic conceptual building block that means that those in favour of same-sex marriages think that those of us who disagree with it are guilty of a prejudice as though we were saying that blacks can’t marry whites.
I realise it’s an area where most of us haven’t put a lot of thought into it yet, but I don’t think my drawing attention to a link there is particularly controversial – as I said, the Prop 8 Federal Judge ran that kind of argument as part of his ‘findings of fact’. And the law fraternity and media seem to have generally thought he was speaking just simple common sense.
I’m not saying that egalitarians have to be pro-homosexual to be consistent. I’m saying that it would hard to get to an argument for same sex marriages from a complementarian view of gender in marriage. It’s not that hard to get there from an egalitarian view of gender in marriage. But it’s not the only position on that question that an egalitarian could conceivably hold either.
Given the strength of the push that seems to be happening from that side, I think we need to come to grips with that, as it is likely to be a factor in how this debate plays out. But I’m not saying that it directly proves one side or disproves the other.
Given the number of comments that have come in over the last couple of days on the three active threads, and that I currently have less time to field comments that earlier, I’m going to draw a line under this thread for the next day or two, and focus on the comments on thread three.
Depending on how things go this time around, I may not get to everyone’s comments (or even questions) and interact with them. I’ll do my best, but figured now was a good time to get that out there. I certainly read and think about every comment that people take the time to make, but I may have to triage a bit this time.
Hi Luke,
Great to hear from you again, welcome along.
Heh, well “rumours” of “unwritten policy” was because I can’t reveal my sources – would get people into hot water as the lines of information was tracked back. But in the previous series I did link to a post by the Ugley Vicar where he reported a conversation along those lines.
If you’ve been around non-Sydney Anglicanism much you’ll know that arguably one of the features of Anglicanism is to be into plausible deniablity – don’t say (for example) “no evangelicals will be ordained in this Diocese”, but just keep finding that evangelical ordination cadidates who keep their evangelical faith need more ‘spiritual formation’ and cannot be ordained ‘at this time’. Nothing is ever written down, you can’t challenge an unwritten policy, it’s just how things play out “in the specifics of the particular case, which of course I can’t comment upon.” It’s a game Anglicans play well - Yes Minister and Prime Minister are almost like a ‘how to be Anglican’ manual. (Except the Gafcon crowd and the radical liberals on the other side, who upset everyone by just speaking plainly), and I was doing a small homage to it in that phrase.
And where on earth did you get the idea that I was saying that us complementarians are the tolerant ones after all? Obviously we’re not tolerant. After all we’re clearly all against women and on a power trip!
My point is, and some people will recognise the phenomena as something they’ve experienced, is that there’s something extremely surreal about knowing that your view is righteous/patriotic/tolerant/orthodox (pick the superlative of your choice) simply by virtue of the ideas themselves but then finding that in practice you can see that it doesn’t quite work that way in practice. That homosexual couple has a really good quality relationship, that woman who chose to be a single mother and who sleeps around is a really good mother, these guys who are fighting for the Bible by standing up for a six day creation are a pack of thugs who hide behind anonymity . That kind of thing proves nothing, but can begin to make people ask questions.
Those who don’t ‘get it’ don’t get it, and usually get grumpy with those who respond that way as though they’ve slipped a cognitive cog or two. But I think some will be able to see that some people sympathetic to a plea for more dignity for women will become far more unsympathetic when it results in the departure of complementarians that they respect and have relationships with, who feel pushed out. And that’ll be the case whether or not clear eyed convinced egalitarians think that feeling has any validity or not – the group I’m looking at is generally as impatient with egalitarians telling people how they should feel as they are with complementarians doing that.
continuing
Yes, at the level of the State, it is tolerance to let people exercise institutionalised sexism should they wish, in those institutions that come under ‘freedom of association’. Even if the State thinks it’s bad, our liberal-democratic state has traditionally said, “some parts of social life must be allowed to do their own thing, and people be free to join and leave them with minimal oversight.” Without that principle in place we’ll find that what’s allowed in non-State institutions will be changed everytime a government is changed – a feature of more authoritarian societies.
But more fundamentally, this is a debate occurring among Christians who recognise each other (usually) as being Christian. And the debate is over whether it is or is not sexism. In such a context, to try and make allowances for the group you disagree with is considered ‘tolerant’ and to not do so is considered ‘intolerant’. Along the lines of what Teri accused me of on the other thread:
Another way of putting that is to say that Teri thinks I’m being intolerant of other views – because I’m trying to exclude them by argumentation because I think they’re wrong. If it’s intolerant to do that (and I’m happy to wear that), then what you’re proposing by saying ‘complementarians are sinful (because its sexism) and so therefore shouldn’t be permitted any life in the institution’ is certainly ‘intolerant’ as well.
I think sometimes it’s right and proper to be intolerant. And so (as has happened on this thread) egalitarians are free to say that that is right thing to do. That’s a question you will have to work out among yourselves – seems a bit odd for a comp to give advice on that.
My point is that some Christians hate anything that looks like intolerance and need to be really sure that the stakes are worth it before they’ll accept it. So taking the ‘full egalitarian embodied’ approach will have a cost on the ground. But if that’s the right thing to do, then that’s just a cost that can’t be avoided, life’s like that.
to be concluded
concluding
Heh, when this issue came up in the threads for the previous series and I claimed that some egalitarians consider complementarianism to be such a grave sin that any possibility of compromise or working together will be impossible long-term, pretty well all the egalitarians said, “Come one, Mark! Almost no-one thinks that - no-one says that it is that serious a sin.”
And then you offer us this.
Many thanks be on your head, for proving my point from the previous discussion. One that I took a fair bit of stick for at the time for painting such an ‘extreme’ picture.
I agree with you, Luke. Any egalitarian who sees this as analagous to apartheid the way you do has to not compromise for the reasons you are saying here. My point is that a lot of egalitarians (including pretty well all who made comments on the previous series) don’t agree with you about this. They take offence that your view is representative of egalitarianism at all.
And that’s part of my point in the post. Politics generally has winners and losers. Either you or they are going to have to be disappointed. The egalitarian institution will either compromise with apartheid in your eyes or lose its tolerance high moral ground in the eyes of other egalitarians who don’t see the moral question as that serious.
That’s just life, it’s a debate you guys have to have. My point is, the time is coming when you guys are going to have to have that debate inhouse as you work out how to make egalitarianism work institutionally in the real world. And there’ll be some costs there.
Just as there was for us comps – whether we went for ‘don’t license women preachers, ‘license women preachers but don’t ordain them’, ‘allow women rectors but not bishops’, or ‘allow women bishops but offer a conscientious objection’, there was a cost and our position seemed less plausible to some than it would have otherwise.
As, though, to to your strong analogy between race and gender, I think most egalitarian (let alone comp) evangelicals won’t accept it.
For the logic of your view is to also say,
“Saying that certain gender combinations can’t make a valid marriage is like saying that certain racial combinations shouldn’t be allowed to get married.”
That is, if race and gender are as analagous as you say, then there is no rational objection to same sex marriage either (or at least, one has to work very hard to establish one).
Which few egalitarian evangelicals are going to want to agree with (not sure where you stand on that?). And supports my case that egalitarianism is a necessary pre-condition for acceptance of active homosexuality.
Hi Mark,
Just a quick response before I head off (it’s late… or early : ), with a few random points:
- I wouldn’t want to be seen as representative of the broader egalitarian movement in any way/shape/form, I’d be fine if they all disagreed with me, so don’t let me prove your point ; )
- I should clarify (!) that the apartheid comment was meant as an extreme example (for the sake of the argument) of a moral majority who would have to consider the minority who are quite clearly in the wrong, but I don’t think it’s analogous to complementarianism ! Lazy comment on my behalf. For the record, I just think complementarianism is kinda dumb, and has retreated to the point almost of irrelevance, but I respect the good intentions of those trying to do the right thing.
- I do think the race/gender analogy is legitimate though to illustrate sexism—you’re resorting to slippery slope arguments trying to say it leads to acceptance of homosexuality (which is a can of worms in and of itself), which is neither here nor there. Seriously, how could you say with a straight face “Sorry, Mr Black Person, we believe black people are equal, but different and therefore it’s inappropriate for you to lead.” Say it to a woman though, and it’s fine!
There is a certain ‘ick’ factor (for want of a better term) that makes people uncomfortable with things they’ve been taught/told/otherwise believed are wrong—it happened with race, and it will happen with gender too. Some people never get over it, which is sad, and others (I guess) take years/decades. The question is how do you show people the sky wont fall in despite their gut telling them the black/female person leading (or even preaching to a congregation) is ‘wrong’?
“Thank you for giving a text-book example of why I don’t want this kind of
<em>ad hominem observation in my threads – because so few people can
do them in a way that is constructive.</em>
Perhaps, Mark, you are not aware that many of the things you say about egals is bashing and personal (ad hominem). I forgive you for that oversight, but it’s still uncomfortable to read.
Gender is indeed part of what makes a marriage and makes it work in a wonderful way.
However, what compism or rather patriarchalism does is make up rules that are not natural, that are not required or necessary for the husband and wife to live life well together. Particularly patriarchal is the idea that it doesn’t matter that the wife can do something better than the husband, the husband must do it. And rules are made up to determine what those things are. Some decide that it must be certain types of decisions that are to be reserved for the husband; and of course there a more and varying rules. Then this is romanticized as a vision of fatherhood or motherhood, roles of gender differences, the authority of husbands, or some such. The world is a big place with lots of different people in it. Some people can actually survive well within these types of boundaries. But in my experience and observations, most people suffer a little in having to play act life in marriage. Some people, primarily women, suffer a lot.
Since no one can be thrown in jail or even thrown out of church for not abiding by these varying assortment of determined roles, then there must be an incentive to contain and restrain people to these roles. The best incentive would be that Scripture admonishes it. However, in reality there is nothing and next to nothing to support the majority of the patriarchal rules of marital roles. Thus, is born fear mongering. Fear mongering is saying that if you don’t do what someone claims is the correct thing to do then such and such is going to happen to you. This is achieved by claiming that without the ‘proper’ gender roles established in marriage than someone is going to ‘slip’ into homosexuality. Another one is that living without these gender roles in place will allow someone else to use the example of your freedoms to do something bad. This is achieved by saying that the egal belief of mutuality is a precondition for a belief in homosexuality.
This fear mongering is a form of making good bad and bad good. In reality though what is good cannot be changed by someone using it as a stepping stone to do bad. As well, bad people use good people and good things in order to get their bad works accepted, all the time. But it’s not the fault of the good people or the good works, its the fault of the bad people.
Thus, my conclusion is that the fact that homosexuals would use the examples of good people as an avenue to support their sin, has nothing whatsoever to do with the good people or their good works. Those who would use the sin of homosexuals to try to claim that those good people and their good works must not really be good because homosexuals used them to get what they want are only following the bad example of homosexuals. It’s not a good argument.
This is just way too relevant to definitions to mean anything. Again, what are the components of ‘soft patriarchy’. Is the husband still the final decision maker? If so, then in the majority of cases even if the wives don’t say it, they are being damaged. Does the husband stand against his wife serving the body of Christ in leadership positions in church? If so, then in the majority of cases even if the wives don’t say it, they are being damaged.
Just because women are able to make do with whatever situations they are faced with in the men they love, does not mean ‘its all good’. As you said, Mark, it just doesn’t prove anything.
Also, FWIW, I’m truly sorry that your family had to go through divorce. Mine did as well. Yes, divorce for whatever the reason, almost always is hurtful to the children whose plane of reference and understanding is so small.
Hi, Mark,
I’m following the discussion with interest. I had no idea these blogs were in the ether. They seem an invaluable tool for discussion.
I wanted to mention, so you might have a feel for my own background regarding these things, that I was brought up a conservative Protestant; I have been a genuine ‘Mr Mum’ for the last fourteen years (I have this role in my family because of a serious spinal injury suffered in youth); I belong to the editorial team of Philament, which is a publication of the English Department at Sydney University; and I’m currently writing a doctorate on the neo-Thomist philosopher and theologian, Jacques Maritain.
Although I dislike defining myself or others, I imagine I would be classed as a moderate orthodox Protestant.
I remain puzzled as to why Bishop Robinson (or any conservative for that matter) might think that a serious analysis of the evidence to do with the two issues, women’s ordination and homosexual ‘liberation’, would because of the methods of analysis required, somehow justify the conclusion that homosexual ‘liberation’ follows from the embracing of women’s ordination.
The two problems of language that must be solved with respect to each issue are significantly different. Therefore, the methods of analysis we employ in each case should be significantly different. That being so, any respectable analysis which leads to the conclusion that women might be ordained cannot possibly imply by its methodology the conclusion that God has a permissive view of homosexuality.
I struggle to understand why our best response to Bishop Robinson’s and others’ opinions is not to point out that, from the point of view of the evidence we have, each of the two issues is on a different footing to the other. Which means that, while you might win both arguments in the political arena using similar methods, from the point of view of evaluating the significance of the primary facts according to which each case must be made, you can’t possibly win them both using the same methods.
As a moderate weighing up these things, it is my opinion that any attempt to connect the two issues in debate can only be made for purposes that are entirely political, and that anyone who seriously thinks the two issues are intimately related with respect to evidence and the analysis of evidence is simply mistaken.
I appreciate that you are concerned yourself merely to report what seems to be the state of affairs in the Church’s culture at present; but still, I would be interested to hear your views on this point…!
Cheers to all.
I meant to write—‘The problems of language that must be solved…’ etc; of course I did not mean to say there were two problems with respect to each issue.
This is a good article - in a thought provoking series. Mark’s observations here seem to fit with what I have personally observed happening around me over the years here in Melbourne.
Thanks for you work in writing these up - I look forward to the remainder.
Mark,
It seems to me that “thoughtful complementarians” would be very uncomfortable with the way the tactics of complementarian “champions” for male hierarchy follow the four processes identified by sociologists as central to the reproduction of inequality: othering, boundary maintenance, emotional management, and subordinate adaptation.
The term “othering” refers to the process whereby a powerful group defines into existence an inferior group. “Othering” commonly entails the overt or subtle assertion of difference as deficit. The symbolic tools used to accomplish othering include classification schemes and identity codes, which are the rules of performance and interpretation whereby members of a group know what kind of self is signified by certain words, deeds, and dress. Equally insidious are identity codes that define any adaptive or any “dissident” behaviors of subordinates as signs to discredit—thus turning acts of resistance into evidence that subordination is deserved and inequality is legitimate.
“Boundary maintenance” refers to the ways in which power groups and individuals protect their positions by ensuring that their resources and power are transmitted to only members of their own group. Boundary maintenance shows up in homes too. Husbands may “lend a hand” to their wives with housework or childcare. As long as they only temporary assistance they can keep intact the boundary between “men’s” and “women’s” roles. Men who do cross the boundary and engage as equal partners in family work may face pressure from other men.
“Emotional management” by superiors helps keep subordinates’ feelings of shame, anger, resentment, and inferiority under control so they won’t erupt and cause problems. Subordinates are given tokens of appreciation or “the appearance of status” to distract them from awareness of their very real lack of voice. This is often done through language. For example, wives are told that their role is noble and that they are queens of their households and Mother’s Day is made a big deal. Yet in that same home, a woman’s role exists only where permitted by her husband.
“Subordinate adaptation” follows due deprivations by the power group. Adaptations offer practical knowledge of how to get by, and alternate criteria by which to judge one’s self competent, worthy or successful. Sadly, these adaptations engender perceptions, habits and circumstances that virtually ensure the reproduction of inequality on a larger scale. (ie. “A Woman’s High Calling” by Elizabeth George, “Created To Be His Help Meet” by Debi Pearl)
Inequality it maintained by the implied possibility of people being “held accountable” as members of any of the hierarchial order’s categories. To be held accountable is to stand vulnerable to being ignored, discredited, or otherwise punished if one’s behavior appears inconsistent with what is prescribed for members of a certain category. Compliance is thus enforced. (ie. egalitarians charged with rebelling against authority)
<blockquote> In the meantime, some egalitarian evangelicals are going to feel increasingly horrified by where a more radical egalitarianism goes using the same arguments and presuppositions that they embrace<blockquote>
In the meantime, some complementarians are going to feel increasingly horrified by where a more radical hierarchialism goes using the same arguments and presuppositions identified by sociologists as the ones used by power groups to reproduce inequality of race, class or gender.
Hi Craig,
You’re welcome, glad it helped.
Well, I think if someone comes to the point where they think the Bible might not be teaching something that is part of tradition, then they do need to go to the Bible and work it out from first principles.
But that people shouldn’t be suspending belief in anything until they’ve worked each and every bit of the faith once for all delivered out at some (fairly exhaustive) level.
If that was the right way to go, we wouldn’t even preach the gospel to people, we’d just give them a Bible and train them in some of David Adams’ linguistic theory that is clearly just basic to be able to read the Bible meaningfully.
Part of the issue here is that one of the dynamics of liberalism at the moment in its debates with evangelicalism is to require a traditional evangelical beliefs to need justification before they can be ‘settled’ – and to keep coming up with new arguments, new perspectives that mean that the conversation has to be continued indefinitely. It can end when that traditional is seen to be wrong, but if someone continues to hold it, then the conversation needs to go on, and they need to continue to suspend belief in it.
Again, the dynamic with egalitarianism is similar – look over the last thirty years or so of the debate and the interpretations (and theoretical framework supporting) of the texts keeps changing. The latest one shown on this blog in comment threads is that 1 Tim 2 is speaking about just one woman. And each time a new interpretation is brought, some people speak as though the question is thrown completely up in the air again, and the new sits on the same level of plausibility as the old – as though coming up with a genuinely new interpretation of a text read for 2000 years needs some justification.
So, in no way at all querying that the Bible is the sole authority, not tradition. But am questioning that a person is only allowed to believe things that they themselves have worked out from the Bible on their own. Given that, until the rise of the printing press and widespread literacy, most Christians couldn’t do that anyway – they couldn’t read, and couldn’t get their hands on a copy of the Bible, it’s a method that privileges only the wealthy and educated as being able to believe things.
Hi Kristen
Well, I think you show a keen awareness of how our hermeneutics differ – you’ve made comments since then in these threads that put your finger on some of the points from an egal perspective. But I’ll do a quick run around the threads and give some quotes of basic principles that are often found in egalitarianism, are rarely found in complementarianism circles, and that are necessary preconditions for anyone to reevaluate the Bible’s teaching on homosexuality.
From you http://solapanel.org/article/complementarianism_and_egalitarianism_part_8/#6745:
Here is a one example – taking ‘the gospel will not be hindered’ to suggest that Paul was simply advocating a fairly pragmatic principle of just fitting in with a contemporary norm – even when, by egalitarian views, that contemporary norm was utterly incompatible with the gospel.
Complementarians generally disagree that much if any of the Bible grounds its teaching on such a ‘theology lite’ basis.
And it is easy to see how such a view is required to re-evaluate homosexuality. If the position on how the genders should behave in the NT was really just fitting into a contemporary norm, so as not to cause offense, then, now that society finds our take on homosexuality offensive, and it hinders people from taking the gospel seriously, then we should relook at that question as well.
And again from you http://solapanel.org/article/complementarianism_and_egalitarianism_part_8/#6754:
Here you mix together developments in salvation history with cultural change. What Christians would have traditionally considered changes that take place in the theological story of the Bible as it moves forward, and that culminates in the NT which is the full and final revelation, you see more as setting up a principle of cultural change that will continue into the present.
And the language of ‘always read His word with discernment’ and ‘Is the word of God static and fixed, or living and active?’ will be immediately recognisable to anyone who has done much reading in the liberalism of mainstream American denominations (or the Uniting church and some Anglican dioceses in Oz) as their language at the popular level for how to read the Bible and why. This is one of those things I was gesturing at last series in our conversation – a point where egalitarianism seems to share the same concepts as liberalism.
And again, one can see how this is necessary to reevaluate homosexuality. Yes, the Bible does, in certain cultures, forbid active homosexuality, but cultures change, the word of God is not static but living, and we can’t take for granted that it would say that same thing to us that it did to those earlier cultures. In the same way that what was wrong at one time (worshipping God any other way than by sacrifice) was right later (when David introduced dancing), so it is conceivable that what was wrong at one time (being sexually active any other way than in a heterosexual marriage) may be right at a later time (like, well, now).
to be concluded
concluding
And, from Luke Stevens http://solapanel.org/article/complementarianism_and_egalitarianism_part_8/#6740:
Some bits of the Bible reflect the best understanding of the world that they had back then, but we’ve since learned more about the world and know they are wrong. So Paul really did think that women were more deceivable, but we’ve since discovered that’s wrong.
Few comps will agree that the Bible is wrong, especially on anything that is to do with life and doctrine.
Take out 1 Tim 2 and apply it to Rom 1 and you can see the same argument. Yes, Paul reflects an ancient view that thought that homosexuality was unnatural. But we’ve since learned that people don’t choose to be sexually attracted to members of their own gender – sexual orientation is more innate than that. And that has to change how we read those texts.
There’s three good examples of where the differences lie in how egalitarianism and complementarianism approach the Bible, and a quick sketch of why I think that egalitarianism doesn’t have to be pro-homosexual to be consistent, but also that it’s approach to the Bible is a pre-requisite to change one’s view about homosexuality.
Hi Andrew,
Thank you for the vote of support in a sea of ‘nay-sayers’, much appreciated.
You’re very welcome, and I hope that the finish was helpful.
Hi Kay,
Welcome along, and a heartfelt thank you for what I think was one of the more lateral and constructive contributions to the discussion so far.
This is the opening paragraph in an argument showing how standard sociological categories can be quite validly used to classify complementarianism as a strategy to reproduce inequality.
And then you finish with the ‘pointy end’, showing how my argument in the posts works exactly the same way in reverse:
To your entire comment, I can only agree. I think it was a perceptive and helpful observation.
Some egalitarians will look at what I wrote (or experience it in their context) and some will say, “Hmmn, if that’s true that’ll unsettle my support for egalitarianism”, others will say, “Hmmmn, that’s just an abuse of something that egalitarianism does validly – but I can see how it might unsettle others so we need to take steps to close that ‘back door’ (and Webb’s book would be a good example of that), and others will say, “Pfft, only an idiot could think that – that is such a pathetic argument that it shouldn’t even be dignified with a response.”
So similarly, some complementarians will look at what you wrote (or experience it in their context) and some will say, “Pfft, complementarianism just isn’t about inferiority – so the whole presupposition is wrong and it’s just an appearance of similarity”, others will say, “Well, complementarianism isn’t about inferiority, but I can see how it could be used that way, or even perceived that way, so this is showing me what I have to guard against”, and others will say, “Yes, complementarianism is really about inferiority, I need to change allegiances.”
And, in both ‘camps,’ only ‘thoughtful’ proponents will be at all susceptible to such a re-evaluation based on reality.
As I said to Mike Taylor http://solapanel.org/article/complementarianism_and_egalitarianism_part_6/#6652, I didn’t opt to discuss the dynamics in both directions because I think that what you’ve described should be immediately recognisable to any egalitarian or complementarian – it’s been part of the story of why some comps have become egals for decades now. But that doesn’t make it any less true, and so it was worth saying again.
My point is simply that now that egalitarianism is getting an institutional presence a dynamic that used to go only from complementarianism to egalitarianism is now likely to work in both directions. And that could open up new opportunities for complementarianism that, up until now, only egalitarianism has enjoyed.
Mark, thank you for that thoughtful explanation of where a complementarian hermeneutic differs. I pretty much agree with what you have said are our differences. I would like to point out, however, that what you are characterizing as “theology lite” in Paul (where I maintain that he teaches some things pragmatically, in order not to give offense to the surrounding culture), I see as something that Paul himself admits to doing in his own letters. In 1 Cor. 9:12, Paul uses very similar words to the ones he uses in Titus 2:5. In Titus 2:5 he says to teach wives to be subject to their husbands “so that no one will malign the word of God.” In 1 Cor 9:12 he says that he and other servants of the Gospel will “put up with anything rather than hinder the gospel of Christ.” He goes on in 1 Cor. 9:19 and following, to explain his mindset towards ministry: “I become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.” (v. 22)
What I read is that Paul definitely did have a pragmatic outlook on some of the the things he did and said with regards to how they would be perceived by non-believers. In fact, his statements in 1 Cor. 9 appear to be statements of his overall view towards the gospel of being of primary importance, to the extent even of overriding his personal freedoms in Christ. I think it makes sense to apply Paul’s own philosophy in one passage, to other places in his writings where he appears to be doing or advising something similar.
This is not “theology lite.” It’s simple theology.
PS. I wanted to add that I do not subscribe to the type of hermeneutic that says that Paul could have been mistaken about something he wrote under the inspiration of the Spirit. In any event, Paul did not say, “women are more easily deceived than men.” He said only, “Eve was deceived, and Adam was not.”
Hi Kristen and Mark,
I hope I am not intruding to make a comment here on the question of hermeneutics. I have no formal theological training. I have been a comp for many years until I first really started to consider egalitarianism earlier this year. My change in thinking has had nothing to do with any life experiences, but only to do with endeavoring to understand the bible. The egal position that seems most plausible to me is a bit different to the way it has been presented in http://solapanel.org/article/complementarianism_and_egalitarianism_part_7/#6796.
Kristen said
Mark replied
I may be wrong, but there seems to be a suggestion here that for egals the submission of wives to husbands is appropriate just to the culture of Paul’s day for pragmatic reasons and therefore no longer applicable today.
I understand passages like Eph 5 and 1Tim 2 (not wishing to debate these individual passages Mark- just mentioning them as examples to illustrate what I am thinking) as applying very well today. He says wives are to submit and husbands are to love. He does not say husbands are to exercise authority. He says we are to submit to one another. He says a woman is not to teach and authentein a man. He does not say a man is to teach and authentein a woman.
There is nothing in these passages where I say “the bible said this back then, but it doesn’t apply today because our culture is different.”
And I certainly don’t think “Paul really did think that women were more deceivable, but we’ve since discovered that’s wrong.”
So I am questioning whether the things being said of egalitarianism are necessary ways of interpreting the bible if one is going to be egalitarian. So I am still asking what Kristen asked a while back. Is the hermeneutic (if I am understanding the term correctly) necessarily that different between egals and comps?
Thanks.
Craig, in an attempt to clarify:
I am not saying the submission of wives to husbands is only cultural. I’m saying that my best understanding of the texts shows that the right of husbands to have authority over their wives is only cultural—it is a human institution, not a divine mandate.
In Ephesians, I see Paul as addressing how husbands and wives in the Kingdom of God are to relate to one another—with the understanding that this cultural paradigm of husband-rule exists, but re-setting the wifely submission within a new paradigm of mutual submission. She submits, but not to his authority; she submits rather as all Christians are to be submissive to one another.
In Titus 2, Paul is talking about something else. Paul left Titus in Crete to “straighten out what was left unfinished.” Titus 1:5. In Chapter 2 he starts talking about how Titus is to teach the congregation members to behave. Three times he uses this kind of language: 1) “so that no one will malign the word of God” (speaking of wives being taught to submit to husbands); 2)“so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us” (speaking of young men being taught to be self-controlled); and 3) “so that they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive” (speaking of slaves submitting to masters). Paul is not talking about husband-wife relations or master-slave relations, but about people’s external behavior.. He wants people to behave in ways such that the neighbors don’t get a bad impression, and so that those who are already saying bad things about Christians will have no leg to stand on. Within the context of external behavior, then, Paul says it’s important for those under cultural authority, or those of lesser status (like “young men”) to behave as expected, in order not to give a bad impression.
Paul is very concerned about the way the world sees the church. He emphasizes it three times in Titus 2, as I have detailed above. But this is a different matter than the (internal) matter of husband-wife relations within the church.
But Paul’s focus on not giving offense to the surrounding culture in Titus 2 is still something I think we should keep in mind today. Husband-authority, I believe, is an ancient human institution that has passed away in the modern Western world. To act as if we must still live that way is causing offense to the surrounding culture. But this does not negate the loving mutual submission of the Kingdom, in which wives yield to husbands and husbands lay down their lives for their wives.
I hope that clarifies where I’m coming from.
Hi Kristen and Mark,
Thanks for elaborating further Kristen on your understanding of Eph 5 and Titus 2. Sounds good to me.
I’d like a bit of help please from you or Mark or others to check how I’m thinking about the hermeneutical issue and homosexuality and slippery slopes.
It seems to me that all Christians - comps and egals are on the slippery slope for some issues.
Comps often seem to call the egal hermeneutic a “liberal” hermeneutic and one that can lead to the acceptance of homosexuality. But comps and egals both seem to use the same sort of hermeneutic with their attitude to slavery today. If no egals existed, then the homosexuals could use the same hermeneutic as comps use regarding slavery. Should comps then be concerned that they had a liberal hermeneutic with regard to slavery and it could lead to acceptance of homosexuality?
On these issues, there are no commands for husbands or slaves to exercise authority. On other issues, some would say that there are definite NT commands, like foot washing and head coverings - so perhaps those who don’t wash each others feet or don’t insist on women wearing head coverings are even further down the slippery slope?
I’m thinking that the whole issue of hermeneutics should really be a non event for the egal/comp discussion. Homosexuality, slavery, foot washing, head coverings, egal/compism are all separate issues that need to be prayerfully studied and decided on their merits.
And Mark, you said
You seem to be doubting that Paul would “fit in” with a cultural situation that was not ideal, or even “utterly incompatible with the gospel”. Is not this what he did with slavery?
Let me know if I am on the wrong track. I probably need to read William Webb’s book, but these are just some things going on in my mind at the moment.
Thanks.
Is there a link between egalitarianism and acceptance of homosexuality?
The story of the Evangelical Women’s Caucus and the origins of Christians for Biblical Equality provides an interesting anecdote.
See here
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=syUupeVJOz4C&pg=PA203#v=onepage&q&f;=false
and here
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=EoJrHDirVQUC&pg=PA469&lpg=PA469#v=onepage&q&f;=false
Now that it looks like I’m finally coming out of this series of bouts of illnesses that has been going for almost three full weeks, I think I’m finally in a position to try and get ahead of the pack for once, and tackle this comment by Jereth:
I suspect this is the same thing that Mark Topping gestured at in his very good set of comments over in the thread for the third post in this series.
I think I agree that it is another (pretty big) anecdote that suggests that there is some kind of link between egalitarianism and approval of active homosexuality. That for all of the complaints of ‘slippery slopes’ that we’ve had, the better category for this issue is ‘the law of unexpected consequences’.
On the other hand, I think it is also important to note that the egalitarians divided on this issue. It’s not like all egalitarians decided homosexuality was okay, or have done so since. So, while I will continue to say that I think one has to be an egalitarian before one can change one’s mind about the morality of active homosexuality - one just can’t get there from a complementarian framework. I think it also shows that one can be an egalitarian and, with perfect consistency, not approve of active homosexuality.
I think both sides of that coin need to be kept in mind.
Egalitarians need to be aware of their flank and not deny it’s there - ‘cause they are going to have keep writing books like Webb’s to stop ‘their’ people going that way.
And complementarians need to be aware that some (many? most?) egals will never approve of homosexuality, and will do so quite consistently.
Hi Mark,
You said,
Just wondering why a complementarian can’t get to homosexuality via their understanding of slavery. Why does he have to go via egalitarianism?
It would seem to me that if complementarianism was an absolute slam dunk, and egalitarianism didn’t exist, then some comps would still find their way to accept homosexuality through their understanding of the bibles teaching on slavery. Any thoughts? Thanks.
Okay, looks like the conversation with Kristen and Craig at the end of this thread is still active, so…
Hi Kristen,
Agreed, the way you have put it here. Although not egalitarians put it as carefully as you have. But you have certainly put it in a ‘theology’ way.
In your case, I need a different way of describing this approach - like ‘thin’ vs ‘thick’. It’s theological, but it’s not a ‘normal’ theological approach to praxis. The way you understand the link between Paul’s practice and the theological reasoning behind it is a bit different from ‘love one another because God is love’ or ‘set your mind above where Christ is now seated’ that then begins the ethical component of Colossians. So, some kind of phrase to indicate that difference, but yes, ‘theology lite’ doesn’t correctly capture how you articulate that.
Sure. I’m sorry you feel the need to do that, but it is more a sign of where Evangelicalism is at, then anything about you. I made sure I gave the person and (IIRC) the comment where the quotes came from to flag that, as always with egalitarianism, there are a range of views within the movement and there can be some strong disagreements internally.
Not all egalitarians (or even most) will think that there are errors in the Bible’s teaching. But that view is found more often within egalitarianism than complementarianism. Again, both sides of that statement are important to get a sense of the two movements in relation to each other.
But not a hint of a suggestion was intended that that was the view of anyone in these threads other than the person who actually said it.
Hi Craig,
Thanks for your patience and persistance. I’ll try and tackle some of your questions in the order they’ve come.
That’s more than fine. I’m not trying to exile the Bible from our discussions. I’m just tired of, and bored with, egals and comps having exegetical battles that, to my mind, prove nothing except who had the best arguments on the day. It doesn’t have to be that way – I think Jereth and some others had a fairly decent discussion about Gen (IIRC) in the previous series. Bringing the Bible in like you have (and how Kristen did in explaining how her view wasn’t ‘theology lite’) are good models of how to do it, IMO – hardly the only possible ways, but certainly there.
I’m even happy for people to have a discussion (as long as it isn’t off topic) about texts as long as it isn’t just a battle. Just use your wisdom, and do it in a way that doesn’t seek to win points for your side, but to make sure a reader can see the issues in relation to each other, why you are convinced of your view and the problems you have with alternatives (even other egalitarian alternatives – actually voice your in-house disagreements as well). That’s more what I think makes for good conversation, and if we could do that more when we read the Bible together on threads I’d be less touchy about it. The way we do tend to do it now, for me, cuts against the grain of what Scripture is – it isn’t a resource to win arguments.
My short answer is ‘yes’. In this debate is two different understandings of the nature of the Bible and what is involved in listening to the Word of God. That’s not just my view – you can see some of Suzanne’s comments where she’s argued that egals and comps are moving towards having two different Bibles. I think that’s probably right (I hadn’t seen it that clearly until she said, but I think she’s seen something there), and that gives some indication of just how big the gulf is, because, as far as I know, that kind of division hasn’t really existed in evangelicalism before, historically it’s more of a feature of our disagreement with Catholicism and Orthodoxy.
My longer answer is, in this world very few things are necessary. Yes, I imagine it is possible for someone to go to every text that has anything to say about this topic and decide, on each and every one, that what is being taught, on simple exegetical grounds, is a view consistent with political liberalism – because that’s what egalitarianism is, when mapped onto standard political theories. And despite how controversial my statement about the Enlightenment basis of egalitarianism has been, Groothius (who is a respected figure among egalitarians, from what I can see) clearly says the same thing in that article Kristen linked for me in the previous series (the one in the Discovering Biblical Equality book). She makes an important qualification that egalitarianism didn’t get it from political liberalism, but from the Bible (I think that’s absurd, as I’ll explain down the track when I do some posts on this, but it’s important to note that she thinks that and that that is important to her). But she does clearly say that the Bible teaches a view that is basically identical to political liberalism.
Now, that’s possible. That a competent exegete, from any culture or period in time, should have seen that the Bible has always taught a view that eventually became articulated as political liberalism. And the Church, until about fifty years ago, consistently failed to read every text correctly at the exegetical level.
to be concluded
concluding
Is that plausible? I don’t think so. I don’t think most egalitarians think so either. Most egalitarian arguments don’t try and argue that the Bible was trying to structure all relationships in both the OT and NT along the lines of political liberalism (even if they never use that term - just use the framework without the label, they still don’t think that framework is there consitently). At some point most egalitarians state that the text in question was organising things in a way that we shouldn’t now.
And so, one of the things that normally is at work in these debates is a question of what the texts mean for today.
So, to take up your example, sure, in Eph 5 masters aren’t told to order their slaves and husbands aren’t told to have authority over wives. Men aren’t told to authetein women. So husbands and wives, men and women in church, were always supposed to eschew any authority relationships connected to gender, and the Bible has always taught that clearly.
But that reading becomes strained when applied to 1 Pe 2 and 3, where slaves and wives are told to subject themselves to their master and husband respectively, and where Sarah is held up as an example of someone who obeyed. I’m sure that can be read differently as well (almost any text is capable of multiple readings), and I’m sure as we tackle each and every text they all can be read in a different way.
But the issue is plausibility. These readings only convince egalitarians with a high view of Scripture. They rarely convince egalitarians with a low view of Scripture or complementarians with a high view, both of whom tend to agree with what the text is saying even if they differ sharply as to what to make of that. So most (the overwhelming majority) of egalitarian approaches have a strong hermeneutical component – that the texts can have different implications now than they had originally. How that is argued varies, but most forms of egalitarianism have some kind of mechanism where the authority of Scripture is honoured, but there’s a clear distinction between the letter and the spirit.
Mark wrote,
“My short answer is ‘yes’. In this debate is two different understandings of the nature of the Bible and what is involved in listening to the Word of God. That’s not just my view – you can see some of Suzanne’s comments where she’s argued that egals and comps are moving towards having two different Bibles. I think that’s probably right (I hadn’t seen it that clearly until she said, but I think she’s seen something there), and that gives some indication of just how big the gulf is, because, as far as I know, that kind of division hasn’t really existed in evangelicalism before, historically it’s more of a feature of our disagreement with Catholicism and Orthodoxy.”
I would like to clarify what I said. I do believe that there are now two different Bibles. However, I did NOT say that there are two different views about the nature of the Bible. So, I do not share Mark’s view on this at all.
I believe that complementarians and egalitarians have two different streams of interpretation, and do not share a common Bible.
In fact, I firmly believe that egalitarians hold to a traditional interpretation, one that has endured for two millenia. But complementarians have significantly reinterpreted the Bible.
For example, in the ESV look at
- the note for Gen. 3:16, that Eve’s desire is against her husband.
- Romans 16:7, that Junia is well-known to the apostles.
- 1 Cor. 11:10 that a woman has a “symbol” of authority on her head
- 1 Tim. 2:12 that Paul does not permit a woman to “have authority.”
In each of these verses, the TNIV, and the NIV 2011 is close to the King James version, and the ESV has a new interpretation, as we see above.
Phil 2:9 is another example.
Now that major spokespeople, (some are women) among complementarians have said that the NIV 2011 cannot be recommended, there is no longer any common Bible, since the KJV, that is accepted by both egalitarians and complementarians.
In the case that two Christians, one complementarian, and one egalitarian, are debating about the Bible, even though they may have the same views on the nature of the Bible, they cannot refer to a common English text that is accepted by both sides. This is greatly to be regreted. I can only recommend to you to either argue from the original languages, or agree to use the KJV.
Although I recognize the so called unisputed text in 1 Peter, I do believe that it implies that a wife is in much the same position as a much flogged slave. I do not believe that this passage in any way promotes the fact that a wife should be in this position. It is a commentary on society at that time.
I do not believe that this passage defends either slave labour or hierarchy within marriage. It is written to those who had no choice, either as slaves, or as wives, and no way of escape.
We need to be grateful today, that there is recourse to the law.
”1 Pe 2 and 3, where slaves and wives are told to subject themselves to their master and husband respectively, and where Sarah is held up as an example of someone who obeyed. “
Suzanne has accurately approached this in context. The subject is that new Christians had to deal with masters who didn’t believe and from which believers could not just leave. As well believing wives with unbelieving husbands (who probably had mistresses and concubines) who did not obey the Word and who likely believed that women were sexual objects and little more, needed to know how to live with their husbands. Peter gave them enough wisdom to survive. The part about Sarah was that she didn’t fear in a situation where she needed to heed what Abraham asked of her. The Jews of that day would have known the story better than most do today. The advice would be slightly different to believing husbands since they had legal power in those days to just throw out their wives, so Peter admonishes them to treat them gently.
The real wisdom is in the following verses in chapt. 3.
Hi Suzanne,
Sure. And just to clarify on my side: I said that I now agree with Suzanne that two groups are increasingly generating their own Bibles, and that I think that is evidence that there are two different views of the nature of the Bible.
I didn’t mean to imply by that that Suzanne either agreed with me that there are two different views about the nature of the Bible, or even that her point about two different Bibles is even evidence of that. Those are conclusions that I have drawn from a point that Suzanne and I hold in common, and those conclusions are mine, even if the evidence I mused over was something that I agree with Suzanne about.
Hope that settles that issue on all sides.
Okay, on the 1 Peter 2 and 3 discussion, I am now going to do the opposite of what I did with Kristen about the Father of God discussion and I’ll have the last word.
Suzanne and Teri have both taken a minor point that was an illustration in a broader argument and then sought to argue exegesis - more or less the kind of thing I explained to Craig I don’t want us to be doing: every time someone appeals to the Bible to make an argument concrete we have to stop and argue. That’s fine, there’s nothing inherently wrong with what they’re doing, but Tony’s asked me to work at getting these threads more on topic for the posts.
They’ve put their case. I’ll put my case in response and this time I’ll be having the final word. After this comment, the issue is ‘off-topic’ as moving rapidly off the subject of the post (and my discussion with Craig about hermeneutics and homosexuality). Craig can add anything he wants that pertains to our discussion, as this conversation is ‘his’, but any other comments will be deleted.
If Teri or Suzanne feel that I’ve outrageously misrepresented their position, (not if they simply want to rebut my argument - any alert reader should be in no doubt that they’ll disagree strongly with what I’m about to say) they can email/message me privately about it and I’ll be quite open to an addendum being added to clarify anything they said that I then made less clear.
Teri said:
The ESV (and those who don’t trust this complementarian Bible should check a few others) of 1 Peter 3:1-7:
Suzanne says that the passage implies that women are in the same position as a much flogged slave and from there draws the conclusion that the passage is commenting on society at the time and not defending hierarchy within marriage.
I disagree on both points. If the ‘likewise’ in vs. 1 puts the wife on the same footing as a slave, then surely the ‘likewise’ in v7 does the same - it puts the husband on the same footing as the wife, and therefore puts the husband on the same footing as a slave. ‘Likewise’ is showing there is a connection between the statements to slaves, wives, and husbands, but ‘in much the same position’ I don’t think correctly captures what that connection is. I can’t see any other exegetical evidence for saying that the passage implies that wife and the slave are in much the same position.
to be continued
continuing
On Suzanne’s other point that I mentioned, this is a good example of what I was saying to Craig. There is no evidence in the text itself to say that this is a commentary on society and not an endorsement of hierarchy within marriage. Personally, if it was any other text than about this issue, and the writer appealed to historical examples from a previous culture - as Peter does in verses 5 and 6, I would automatically discount any possibility that this is just a commentary on the current culture and not a trans-cultural norm. If he’s addressing the current culture and appealing to examples from a previous culture, then there needs to be some exegetical evidence to say that it isn’t a transcultural norm, otherwise we should (and usually do, I think) assume that.
Be that as it may, the decision as to whether this is commentary or endorsement has to be done at the hermeneutical level, and be based on considerations broader than the text on its own. That’s relatively straight forward for complementarianism – texts are normative and not commentaries unless there’s good exegetical otherwise is the basic rubric. For egalitarianism that’s often alleged to be a very naïve way to read the Bible (and I’m not saying that Suzanne personally thinks that, just so there’s no misunderstanding on that point). Hence, my argument to Craig that I think that hermeneutics is generally part of egalitarianism and that it doesn’t argue every text simply teaches an egalitarian structure to relationships that can be seen through exegesis on its own.
concluding
Turning to Teri’s comment:
I disagree that ‘the’ subject is that new Christians had to deal with masters who didn’t believe and husbands who didn’t believe. That’s far too narrow a take on the thrust of the passages.
In 2:18 Peter says:
‘The’ subject is dealing with masters. Whether or not they believe isn’t even mentioned in the passage – merely whether they are good or unjust. Unjust ones get far more attention, but is that because that is ‘the’ subject, or because that is a far harder test of faith than being subject to a good and gentle master and so needs more light from the Word shone upon it?
In 3:1:
This has better grounds for Teri’s claim because Peter gives conversion of unbelieving husbands as a purpose. But that has to taken with the opening of the sentence – ‘be subject to your own husbands so that even if some do not obey the word’. What is on view is being subject to husbands, not just unbelieving husbands. I’d suggest that unbelieving husbands are an important subcategory that causes extra problems for believers being subject to them, which Peter therefore spends more attention on. But the focus is broader than just the problem of being married to unbelieving husbands - the focus is being subject to husbands.
Similarly, I would argue that Teri’s take on how Peter uses Sarah misses the significance of the words Peter uses in 1 Peter 3:6. Much is made by some egalitarians that in Eph 5 that wives submit to husbands but aren’t told to obey them, and husbands aren’t told to exercise authority or give commands. Well here in 1 Peter 3 Sarah is not just an example of not fearing ‘when she needed to heed what Abraham asked of her’. She’s also held up as an example for obeying Abraham, and even for calling him Lord. Teri has correctly identified one way in which Peter uses Sarah, but not two others – two important others given that the silences seen to be important in Eph 5 are here not silences in the text but explicit statements, explicit statements that seem, exegetically, to imply a hierarchy within the relationship between Abraham and Sarah that Sarah did good to embrace.
I think a case can be made that the text isn’t doing that at all (I disagree that such a case is right, but I think it can be made). But I think such a case has to be done the way Suzanne was doing it – by appealing to hermeneutics, that this is simply commenting on the culture of the day, not trying to establish a trans-cultural norm for marriage. I don’t think we can take ‘Sarah obeyed Abraham and called him Lord’ and see that as holding up a fundamentally egalitarian vision of marriage at the exegetical level.
Hence my answer to Craig – I think most forms of egalitarianism draw on heremeneutics as an important part of their reading of Scripture. And involved in that in my opinion is a different view of the nature of Scripture than complementarianism’s view that obeying Scripture should be fairly ‘hermeneutic lite’ on the whole.
Just had one of those thoughts one wishes one had half an hour earlier. Having to moderate explicitly is a new thing for me and I’m going to have to learn a whole new skill set.
Teri and Suzanne (and I suppose anyone else) who’d like to, are quite entitled to write up their rebuttal of my argument over 1 Peter 2 and 3 somewhere else in cyberspace (like Suzanne’s blog) and put a link to it in this thread, with a brief statement as to what the link is for. I’m not interested in stopping that, and I’m sure some readers (at least) would be interested to read it. I just don’t want either one side to present their case on the texts, or for the debate to go beyond each side giving one expansive statement and one expansive response in these threads.
So rebut me elsewhere and link that here if you’d like to. I think that’s a good compromise.
“Hence, my argument to Craig that I think that hermeneutics is generally part of egalitarianism”
I am puzzled by this comment. It appears to me that you are suggesting that hermeneutics is not a part of complementarianism. Could you clarify this for me.
I have tried to make clear that I believe that comps and egals have a different interpretation for several key texts, which I listed. This is what I meant by two different Bibles. I did not intend anything more than that. In each of these diverging passages, it is complementarians who have introduced an unusual and heretofor unpublished hermeneutic, i.e. in Gen. 3:16 and in Romans 16:7.
I realize that Mark may delete this comment but I am concerned that a false impression will be left of what I was refering to.
I do think that Mark’s comment about hermeneutic is key to understanding this post, so I hope that Mark will respond.
Well, that’s an on-topic question, as the issue with Craig is about hermeneutics. Off-topic would only be to keep arguing exegesis about 1 Peter. It’s past midnight here, so I’ll try and cover it tomorrow (my time), unless I take a break for a day from commenting.
Thanks for the question Suzanne.
I feel that, on reflection, we do agree that the two sides are generating different Bibles, and I am curious about what you will say about this. My view is that there are two different hermeneutic traditions which affect the translations themselves, and that the egals stick for the most part with a traditional hermeneutic in their translations.
I look forward to your discussion of this point.
The “if” can be better translated as “when” as it assumes the condition in the Greek.
Hi Mark,
Thanks Mark for these helpful comments
Hi Mark,
Thanks for all the time and effort you are putting into these discussions. I am finding them quite thought provoking and helpful in understanding the issues involved in this subject.
As I have said before, I am just speaking from the point of view of the average member of a congregation. I am not a theologian. So I hope my comments or questions don’t seem too basic. I am just seeking to understand things better.
There seem to be several issues raised here.
1.Two different bibles. Is this referring to the idea that the translators are affected by their theology? So with one way of translating various passages an egal understanding is more readily apparent where as with a different way of translating these passages a comp view seems more likely? Do we all need to therefore examine both sides to see which renderings seem more accurate with less bias from their theological viewpoint?
Mark, is this idea of different translations leading to two different bibles what you mean by “different understandings of the nature of the bible”?
2. As evangelicals, we all see the bible as God’s word, and authoritative. The difficulty is in determining what God really said, what He meant by it, and how He wants us to apply it today.
3. Am I understanding you properly in this one Mark? With regard to the gender issue, comps and most egals have a different way of approaching the passages. Comps see patriarchy as a universal ideal from God and the biblical writers are continuing to endorse and apply it in various passages. Egals see the biblical writers as applying universal principles (eg mutual submission, love) to the cultural situation of patriarchy. These principles, if followed through can actually mean that patriarchy is not ideal or necessary today. Mark, you seem to be saying that egals are here drawing on hermeneutics, so that “the texts can have different implications now than they had originally”. In contrast, comps don’t do this on the gender issue.
4. With regard to slavery (foot washing, head covering etc), it would seem to me that many comps and egals use a similar way of interpreting the bible to what egals do with the gender issue. They see the biblical writers as applying universal principles to a cultural situation. If these principles are followed through, then they can actually mean that slavery (foot washing, head coverings etc) is not ideal or necessary today. On these issues, “the texts can have different implications now than they originally had”.
I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind clarifying the reasons why you (or comps in general) believe the hermeneutic should be applied to slavery (and other issues) and not to Patriarchy? What are the essential differences between Patriarchy and Slavery that would make them require a different hermeneutic? From your comments, I think there is the issue of OT historical references from a previous culture (Sarah obeying Abraham). Do you have any brief outline of the kind of things that help you decide if a text is normative as it stands?
Thanks very much Mark.
Craig wrote:
One difference in hermeneutic, generally speaking, is that complementarians are much more likely to hold an inerranist position on the Bible while egalitarians are rarely inerranist.
FYI
http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/category/complementarianism/
(see point 3)
By inerranist I mean people who hold the “total inerrancy” view—that the Bible is inerrant in all that it teaches, including the historical and scientific points on which it may touch incidentally. Egalitarianism tends to go along with the view that the Bible may be inerrant on matters of faith and doctrine but not inerrant on “lesser order” matters.
I’m willing to bet that if you do a survey of comps vs. egals on issues like the historicity of Adam and Eve, the historicity of Noah’s flood, the historicity of Jonah, the possibility of predictive prophecy in Isaiah 40-66, etc., you will find some statistically significant differences which would reveal different underlying hermeneutics.
There are also likely to be statistically significant divergences on other significant points of theology, as Kevin DeYoung notes. Again I think this reveals a difference in hermeneutics.
One of the differences in hermeneutics that I have observed is that comps tend to be more “miss the wood for the trees” or “bottom-up”, and egals tend to be more “miss the trees for the wood” or “top-down”. In other words, comps tend to appeal to individual texts and place less emphasis on overarching themes; egals place a lot of emphasis on overarching themes at the expense of individual texts.
Craig,
I think you are right, that there is a different hermeneutic, but IMO both sides use hermeutic of some kind or other.
However, when I originally spoke of two different Bibles, I was referring to translation. In that arena, comps include more hermeneutic in translating than egals, in my view. For example, in Gen. 3:16, the ESV provides the note “or against.” That is hermeneutic. It is also extremely recent hermeneutic. It does not have a history in the rabbinical tradition or in the church fathers, or the reformation.
We see the same thing in other passages which I mentioned. I suppose egals might have similar notes in an egal Bible, but I can’t think of an egal Bible, per se. The ESV is a comp Bible, but the TNIV and the NIV 2011 are joint efforts, with both comp and egal input and the NLT and RSV also had very broad input, not egal only.
So, if the ESV becomes the recognized Bible of comps, and it really has very little input from egals, then that is the parting of the ways. This is very recent because it is only in the last few months that the NIV 2011 has been published online and is NOT recommended by CBMW and other vocal comp groups.
So, in my view, there are no egal Bibles per se, no Bibles in which the actual translation has been altered in the direction of egalitarianism without the input of comps also on the translation committee. But there are Bibles with no egal input. That is my view at this time, but I look forward to hearing the other side.
Gender inclusive Bibles, are not per se, egal Bibles, as this has to do with the change in English from “men” meaning “people” in the KJV, to “men” meaning “men” in English today. That is why there is a shift from “men” to “people” and we see this in all Bibles to some extent. The only difference there is that the ESV has reserved many passages in which anthropoi is used for “people” and has inserted “men” instead. This is, once again, due to the use of hermeneutic, or interpretation on the part of the translation committee, that although the Greek actually says “people” it really means “only men.” I have discussed this with Jim Packer and he agrees that it could mean “people” but he said “we think it means men.” This is hermeneutic being used in translation. I did get Dr. Packer’s permission to publish my interview with him. There should be no problem with my making this statement.
I do know that Dr. Packer recommends the NLT, which is a gender inclusive Bible, but does not recommend the TNIV and NIV 2011. This is a very serious problem in my view, and is at the core of the disagreement between the two parties.
“One of the differences in hermeneutics that I have observed is that comps
tend to be more “miss the wood for the trees” or “bottom-up”, and egals
tend to be more “miss the trees for the wood” or “top-down”. In other
words, comps tend to appeal to individual texts and place less emphasis on
overarching themes; egals place a lot of emphasis on overarching themes at
the expense of individual texts.”
Jereth, I really don’t believe that this is true. Nor is it beneficial to try to pigeonhole comps and egals in that manner. We already have enough real differences without needing to create others.
IMO Christians whether comp or egal, Greek, Jew, Asian or African or whatever, should always start with the text including it’s cultural historicity, as well as context, original language meanings, grammar, etc. From there we can note overarching themes running through Biblical history.
OOps. Just noticed the formatting horror. I copied it from my email notice. Will have to watch that in the future. :(
“egals place a lot of emphasis on overarching themes at the expense of individual texts.”
I used to think that this was true, but recently I have noticed a different pattern, that comps place great emphasis on hierarchy or patriarchy as a general theme, at the expense of many individual texts. It just happens that egals and comps emphasize a different theme, at the expense of different texts.
Hi Teri,
It’s fine for you to disagree with me but please note I was talking in terms of general tendencies, not “pigeonholing”.
These are tendencies that I have observed. (You may have observed different—that is fine.) I have spoken to many egalitarian friends and read many egalitarian books and articles. The tendency is to start with overarching themes and systematic categories (eg. equality, justice, redemption), with reference to the overall direction and thrust of the Biblical story, and the broad trajectory from the Old to the New Testament. The exegesis of individual texts is generally done afterwards, in reliance upon the framework established by the broader treatment.
Pick up Discovering Biblical Equality, or Beyond Sex Roles by Gilbert Bilezikian, or any number of other egal books, and you’ll see that this is the method used. I’m pretty sure this is also how William Webb goes about it judging by reading one chapter by him.
This hermeneutical difference is parallel to the debate about hell. On one side, the traditionalists generally use individual texts as their starting point. Universalists and annihilationists generally use big biblical themes and categories (eg. God’s love, justice, victory) as their starting point.
Jereth
Jereth,
perhaps we are talking and thinking past each other. I’m thinking of how people come to their understandings. IMO and observations most all egals have come to their understanding from the texts themselves. You’d likely say the same of comps.
But when people discuss their understandings it is possible that discussion starts with what they see as a theme.
Jereth,
If I understood what Mark told me earlier, he said that egals and comps both share a belief that the Bible must be read first of all as God’s great Story of creation-fall-redemption. I had thought it was like you said, that comps focused on individual texts first—but Mark is saying otherwise.
So I’m confused that you now state this as a difference between the egal and the comp hermeneutic, when Mark had stated that we share this in common.
Reading the Bible as God’s Great Story is certainly reading it in terms of the big picture, the overarching framework. I don’t really see how focusing on individual verses, without keeping the Story and its themes in mind, is going to yield an accurate understanding of the text.
Hi Kristen,
Thank you.
I’m not saying that we ignore one or the other. It is a question of relative emphasis.
Again, I’ll use the analogy of the hell debate. Traditionalists are certainly interested in the big themes of justice, God’s love and victory, but for them the individual texts are ultimately decisive (eg. “they will be tormented day and night forever and ever” must be understood at face value). Our understanding of the big themes is adjusted by our understanding of the texts—eg. a traditionalist would say that God’s justice and victory are compatible with (indeed, enhanced by) the eternal torment of the unredeemed.
Annihilationists / universalists tend to process and adjust the text’s meaning by the big themes. So, they will argue that God’s victory is not a true victory if the unredeemed are still in existence; therefore “they will be tormented day and night forever and ever” must mean something other than the strict face-value literal meaning.
I cannot speak for Mark, but in the comp-egal question (as with other doctrines), my approach is to allow individual texts (eg. Eph 5) to control my understanding of the big themes (eg. “justice”, “equality”, “fairness”) and the broad overarching Bible story of redemption. Not vice versa. And in my view, this goes back to my own personal committment to verbal plenary inspiration and total inerrancy.
Jereth
Jereth, I see where you’re coming from, but I’m not sure the verse you chose was especially illustrative of your point. I believe you are taking it from Revelation 20:10 - “And the devil, who deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are. And they will be tormented day and night forever.”
When the same words are repeated in verse 15, about “anyone not found in the Book of Life,” the words “and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever” are not repeated. It is easy to assume that the intention of the verse is to say that these humans will also be “tormented day and night forever,” just as verse 10 does—but the text does not actually say this. The text also says in verse 14, “Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.” Since other scriptures say “death” is ultimately done away with completely, it is possible to infer that the “second death” means the complete elimination of Death and Hades. What exactly this means for human souls, however, is not explicit. Are they “tormented day and night forever,” like the devil, the beast and the false prophet? Or are they done away with completely like Death and Hades?
Where I stand on this issue is not important to the topic. But I think annihilationists (some of them, anyway), are paying more attention to what individual verses actually say and don’t say, than you might think. The same is true of evangelical egalitarians and other egalitarians who have a high view of scripture. It’s not that we say, “the overarching themes of the Great Story are against female subordination, so we are going to disregard or fudge over any verse that says otherwise.” It’s more that we say, “the overarching themes of the Great Story appear to be against female subordination. Let’s look closer at what these individual verses actually say and what they don’t say, and see if, when we drop the assumption that a verse HAS to be saying that females are born to be subordinate, the overarching theme of full functional equality is not actually borne out by the text.”
Kristen,
Woah I was not trying to start a debate about hell! Just using it as an analogy! (I just picked one among many representative verses.)
I’m curious to know what yourself and the other egals here mean exactly by “a high view of Scripture”.
Do you believe that every chapter, verse, phrase and word of Scripture is wholly an utterance of God that is intended for every believer in every age?
Do you accept the doctrine of inerrancy as it is expressed here?
http://www.bible-researcher.com/chicago1.html
cheers
Jereth
Heh,
I’m deriving some amusement at how we can have such staggeringly intelligent people (yes, genuinely so) on these threads and yet the basic ‘off-topic recognition and avoidance’ skill is so imperfectly mastered. This is off-topic.
I’m pretty sure that this comment is a reference to 1 Peter 3:1. I’ve left it up, rather than deleting it, as I think it might help make concrete some of what I’m going to say about hermeneutics and translation to Suzanne.
But, for the record, (given the terseness of the comment, I’m not sure what the basic thrust of the observation was), my observation that 1 Peter 3 is not just about unbelieving husbands, but husbands in general, with unbelieving husbands being an important subgroup – that observation had nothing at all to do with how one understands the phrase ‘even if’ (which I’d agree with Don about anyway). It had everything to do with the next word in the clause, ‘some’. My basic point is unchanged – unbelievers are a subgroup within his originally broader category of ‘wives be subject to husbands’ and so that passage is about more than just the issue to do with the subgroup.
That might be wrong, but if it is, I don’t think it hangs on how one takes ‘even if’.
Hi Suzanne,
Sure, I’ll try. I think it is more accurate to say that many complementarians in my experience claim that hermeneutics plays little role in how they read the Bible – it’s just exegesis. I’m not one of those, but sometimes I find it hard to clearly state the issues as I see them with the basic exegesis/hermeneutics categories we tend to use. I agree with what I think those complementarians are trying to say, but I think saying something like, “They do all this interpretation stuff, and we just do exegesis” captures something important for complementarians but in a way that is hard for others to understand. I’ll be trying to pick this point up in some detail in my response to Craig, but I think, if you look at some of what Jereth is saying, you can see some of the issues there, spelled out a bit differently.
Yes, I know, and when I reread what I wrote in preparation for these comments, it was very clumsily put, it did imply that you agreed with my broader point – not what I intended, but it was what I ended up implying in fact, I think. So apologies for that.
I was only agreeing with the ‘two Bibles’ part – that both ‘sides’ are coming to the point where they have little confidence in the translations preferred by the other. And that’s all I saw us having in common, I’m pretty sure that you and I will disagree as to why that’s the case. But I think we do agree that it is the case.
Picking up this:
Well, I’d make a distinction between a hermeneutical tradition and a theory of translation as the key difference. I don’t think it’s two different hermeneutical traditions driving the different Bibles so much as different philosophies about what makes a good translation. This is probably going to feel like a very wandering discussion, but I’m trying to make some connections that I think are important.
When I look at the NIV family and the ESV (and even more, the NASB) I don’t think “egalitarian and complementarian translations”. I think something more like “dynamic equivalent and word for word translations.” This is picking up Jereth’s comment at: http://solapanel.org/article/complementarianism_and_egalitarianism_part_7/#6943 which Teri disagrees with and says unhelpfully pigeon holes the general tendencies of people in the two ‘camps’ (although since I wrote that, the conversation has moved on), but which I think was both helpful and necessary, and is raising the broader issue that the egal/comp division is tied to.
And that’s the growing division within evangelicalism between the conservative evangelical wing and the moderate evangelical wing.
Most comps are conservative evangelicals, and most conservative evangelicals are comps. Most egals are moderate evangelicals and most moderate evangelicals are egals. There’s exceptions, but in my experience personally, and as I read the literature and look at the institutions, that holds true on the whole.
Now, the relationship between that is complex and varies from person to person. Some people are conservative evangelical because they are complementarian. And some are complementarian because they are conservative evangelical. (And then you get the ones who mess up the nice system who are conservative evangelical and egalitarian). And you can do the same drill for egalitarianism. Some people moved on the gender issue and that drove changes to how they approach a range of issues that are often markers distinguishing conservative evangs from moderate evangs, and for others they moved on those issues first, and then went ‘in light of that, egalitarianism makes far better sense of the Bible’. And if you listen to people’s ‘conversion narratives’ as to why they are now The Egalitarian Formerly Known As An Complementarian (with apologies to Prince) I think you can hear that range – there are different paths from either camp into the other.
to be continued
continuing
One of the issues that tends to separate the moderate/conservative groups is where they are on the inerrant/infallible spectrum – in what sense, and to what degree they think the Bible says anything about history, science, etc that is wrong factually.
What is often missed in that debate, IMO, is a different stance towards the text and where one tends to think ‘inspiration’ is located. For inerrantists, the actual words are inspired – God wanted those actual words, and those words are God breathed. For infallibilists (and this isn’t absolute, it is only in comparison to inerrantists) the words are more the shell that contains the word of God. The word of God is not the Hebrew and Greek words, but the message, the communication that those words serve. And a key piece of evidence for this is often held up to be translation itself – if it was the words that are inspired, then we couldn’t translate and still have the word of God. We’d all need to learn Greek and Hebrew (which is, I think, Islam’s view with regard to the Koran).
Where that is important, is that I wouldn’t say that the different translations are coming from different hermeneutical traditions directly. I would say that there are different interpretative traditions, and differing understandings of what makes for a good translation. Complementarians, because they are generally inerrantists (and that’s the important bit) usually prefer ‘word for word’ translations. As far as is possible, they want the details of the Hebrew and Greek expressed in the English text. They don’t want the translator to decide what kind of genitive is involved and then give an English equivalent, they don’t want ‘propitiation’ translated as ‘sacrifice of atonement’. They want all that left for the commentaries and the interpreter to decide.
In comparison to that philosophy of translation, more moderate evangelicals (or more infallibist views of Scripture) are happy for the translation to give the sense of the meaning for the reader. Hence, wherever Don stands on these questions, his statement:
The evalutation that that would be ‘better’ is a good example of this difference. Someone who prefers the ESV (or in my case, that’s too loosey-goosey, I prefer the NASB which, as a friend of mine likes to say, isn’t even in English, it’s in Hebrish) won’t think that’s better at all. Greek has a number of ways of saying ‘when’. For the inerrantist, the fact it said it this way, and not another way, is likely important, and so that particular detail needs to be captured in the translation.
Similarly, the fact that we think it means ‘when’ is simply ‘State of the Art’ for our understanding of how conditional clauses function in ancient Greek. Next year our grasp of that could be profoundly changed by some very clever NT boffin (as aspect theory is changing our view about how tense functioned) and then the translations will all be seen to be wrong if they simply had ‘when’.
So I think that’s the big difference going on. And it similarly reflects preaching practice. You can find highly exegetical expository and topical sermons in both conservative evangelical and moderate evangelical circles. But in my experience, there’s a link – people who see the words as inspired tend more to preach by commentating on the text closely. Those who see the message as more what’s inspired, tend to preach sermons that engage and expound the ‘big idea’ rather than the details of the text. Again, it’s not hard and fast, but that has been my experience across multiple contexts.
to be concluded
concluding
In all that, I don’t see any group as standing in an older translation tradition. The KJV was translated with a 16th C knowledge of how Greek and Hebrew worked, and a pre-modern view of how language and translation works. All of that is about as foreign to us as feudalism is – we can sort of get it, but only ever ‘from the outside’. Both sides (and other ones I haven’t mentioned) will find some things in previous approaches that they can take comfort from, and things they disagree with. The fact that the KJV is still a good translation shows that these things aren’t absolute-attention to the text ‘trumps’ theories in the abstract - but I don’t think anyone could reproduce the KJV now - our basic conceptual tools are quite different.
In terms of the issue you particularly raise – about complementarians adopting new translations at some debated texts, my take on that is a bit different. I’ll assume you’re right that that is happening, as I haven’t done the work on this myself.
For me, that’s not as simple as one side preserving an older tradition and one side doing something new. I apply the same kind of ‘system thinking’ that I did to the issue of how a group of loosely aligned commentators should work together on a thread when I did my ‘godly dummy spit’. I take your point here and think you are basically right:
But the extra thing I would say, is that that isn’t a ‘neutral’ change. The reason why it used to be the case that ‘men’ meant ‘people’ and now doesn’t, and why ‘sons of God’ meant ‘sons and daughters of God’ etc is because a few centuries ago society was more patriarchal. The change in language there reflects a conscious effort to make our discourse more egalitarian.
When that kind of change takes place at the structural level of language, it isn’t surprising that the group that sees itself as trying to uphold the traditional patriarchal/complementarian position, then sees the need to have to bring that sense out more explicitly in some texts than it had been done before. There’s no doubt, if you’re right and that’s happening, that that is a change in practice from the past.
But for me, it’s like Luther including the words ‘by faith alone’ in his translation of the Bible into German. The basic structure of people’s thought and discourse on justification had so shifted, that in light of that he felt the need to make it explicit, or else people would just miss it altogether.
Personally, not a fan – hence why I like the NASB. But I don’t kid myself that I’m ‘the normal case’ either and that all Bible’s should be translated with me as the basic target either. So I don’t like that practice, but I don’t condemn it either. I do think that inerrantists should be doing it ‘with fear and trembling’ however, and only to the absolute minimum that they think is absolutely necessary – cause it cuts against the grain of our basic philosophy of translation.
Hi Suzanne,
This is a bit of an addendum, and afterthought:
How I see this is part of what I meant by “systems thinking”. When English uses the same word (men) for both ‘adult males’ and ‘people’, then translations can just use the word and leave it for readers to decide whether it means one or the other.
But unless anthropoi can never mean “adult males” and must always mean “human beings” (and that debate really is off-topic here) then, when English moves to the point where two different words must always be used to indicate those two different concepts then the translator has to do the interpretation - he or she has no choice.
Unsurprisingly, committees with a good egalitarian presence will then see most/all of those references as ‘people’ and complementarian committees will see a greater number as requiring ‘men’.
I’m not sure that’s a change in hermeneutic traditions by either side. It is a change in practice because English has changed, and, as we all know, faithfulness is never as simple as just ‘doing what we used to do’ - sometimes faithfulness means ‘doing something new’.
Egalitarians use ‘people’ not ‘men’, that’s certainly a change (earlier traditions just had ‘men’) - but arguably one that is a faithful change - they use just the one word for most texts that have anthropoi.
Complementarians decide that some texts require ‘men’ not ‘people’ and so use two words to translate anthropoi, not one, depending on context. That’s a change, but again arguably a faithful one.
Which is really the faithful interpretative tradition, well that is the question of the hour. But it is also somewhat off-topic at the moment. At the moment we’re just trying to get a sense of whether we agree that there’s an issue here and whether we can agree on what that issue is. Who’s right is for another day.
Mark,
I only have a couple of minutes right now, but I would say that you have represented the current complementarian explanation for why there are two Bibles.
However, I am a little older, so I can attest to the fact that a few years ago the Bible favoured by egals was the NRSV and the Bible favoured by comps was the NIV. It was thoroughly accepted and recommended by comps. But on the appearance of the NIVI, and the TNIV, then this tradition was rejected by comps.
The main reason, that I have read, is that 1 Tim 2:12 reads “assume authority” instead of “exercize authority.” I can assure you that the negative connotation for this word is the traditional understanding in KJV, Calvin and Luther.
Also, in Gen. 3:16, and Romans 16:, as well as 1 Cor. 11:10 and a few other places, the ESV does NOT use a word by word pattern. In fact, in the translation of anthropos and aner as well, the ESV is all over the map, usually translating “men” for both of these words, and the NIV 2011 is much more word for word.
I will respond to other points later. Thanks.
Yes, my short “if” comment was in ref to 1 Pet 3. Peter is giving counsel to wives with husbands who are not God fearing.
Anthropoi can refer to a group of all females, a group of all males, or a mixed group. In 2011 English, this means the word to use to translate it is “people” UNLESS one knows some additional context that restricts the meaning. This is what comps claim (that they KNOW this additional context), but it is just a claim based on their interpretation of OTHER texts.
This is why Denny Burk objects to translating anthopoi as people in NIV 2011, as that word choice is not sufficiently masculinist for him.
Also, on grand scope being used by egals versus specific verses being used by comps, I disagree totally.
I think comps are misinterpreting specific verses as well as the grand scope. I have egal understanding for all the verses and I see Jesus, Paul, etc. as egals. Not primarily egals, as the gospel comes first and love is a higher priority, but egals nonetheless.
The gospels often have narratives about fig trees, and sometimes the fig tree is called a “tree” and sometimes a “fig tree” but it is the same story, we know it is a fig tree. But I have never seen a translator use the word “fig tree” when the Greek clearly says “tree.”
In just the same way, I do not know why the ESV translators decided that anthropoi, which clearly means “people” should sometimes be translated as “men.” Just because it refers to men, does not mean that one can simply alter the meaning of the Greek. But the ESV does this all the time, on the basis of what the translators “think.”
On the ESV translation philosophy, I think it is word for word EXCEPT for any gender related verses and then it is masculinist. That is, they had 2 goals and the top goal was to be masculinist.
I am getting tired of this.
Yes, Don and Suzanne, you feel strongly about these things.
I said that discussing the relative merits of which interpretive approach is off topic. All we were trying to do was work out if we agreed that there were two interpretive appraoches and then, if we roughly agreed about where that issue was.
What that means is that you are entitled to state how you think egalitarianism is doing it.
It does not mean that the two of you then post multiple short comments whose basic purpose is to indicate why you don’t like how you think complementarians are doing translating.
If you want to play it that way, fine.
The whole issue is now off-topic.
We’ll just run with Jereth/Teri/Kristen’s discussion and my discussion with Craig.
We simply are not going to have a repeat of the pre-Christmas constant chorus of ‘why I don’t like the other side’. I’ve had too many complaints about it by people who would otherwise like to read the threads.
So translation issues? No more comments on that topic, please.
I thought this comment by Suzanne, although cast in a one-sided way, had the potential to open up a genuinely important, and quite broad, aspect of what’s happening in the debate. It’s a shame to lose that in the midst of all the other polemics, so I’m making a limited exception to the off-topic,
What interests me here, is that, as I see it, and Suzanne seems to be confirming this - with a very different interpretation of the significance - we have two different movements happening on both sides that are interacting.
Go back in time, and egals tended to prefer the NRSV - a more literal, and quite egal for the period, translation. Comps tended to prefer the NIV - a less word for word, and more ‘masculinist’ translation.
Move to the present. Egals aren’t preferring another attempt to do an NRSV - a word for word, egal translation. They’ve moved to the NIV - a relatively egal, but not word for word, translation. That’s two different issues (egal and translation theory), and a shift in one (translation theory).
For their part, Comps aren’t trying to produce a complementarian equivalent to the NIV - they aren’t keeping to the translation philosophy of before and just trying to masculinise it. They are also shifting to a more word-for-word approach on the whole (when we move our eyes off the All Important Gender Debate, and look at what’s happening overall).
That’s a ‘double movement’ on both sides, and both sides seem to have swapped translation philosophies with each other from an earlier period.
That kind of thing interests me because it can sometimes flag bigger issues going on that the presenting debate is merely a signpost for.
My question for Suzanne, is, is that how you see it as well? Putting the gender issue to one side, is it the case that egals aren’t trying to do a modern NRSV and comps a masc NIV? They’ve swapped translation philosophies?
And if that’s the case, what do you think is driving that? I can’t see how it can be gender. There’s no reasons why being egal would automatically mean that egals prefer the NIV to an updated NRSV. And, as we’ve observed, comp practice in translation generally is in tension with its practice on a bunch of gender-significant texts - so that can hardly be driving the change to ‘word for word’.
That’s not a license for anyone to go off again on why comp translations are so bad. But there’s some questions there for Suzanne that I’d like her thoughts on, if she’s inclined to offer them.
I don’t think egals actually have a position on this. In fact, I think the gender wars are simply an attack by one side on the other. It is as simple as that.
Any egal church that has used an NRSV still uses that translation. No switching there. And egals that used the NIV, many had naturally moved to the TNIV. No switching there.
Some egals, that found the NRSV too liberal, like the ESV, because they don’t read the gender verses often enough to realize the difference. It actually takes a bit of study to put together what the ESV has done, and most people don’t see it right away.
I think that the switch has happened among complementarians. Because of the TNIV, and because that was a very good translation, those who came up with the statement of concern against the TNIV, needed a strong doctrinal basis for the boycott against this translation in the US.
So I believe that in order to provide a basis for the rejection of the TNIV, some complementarians came up with the explanation that complementarians are against dynamic equivalent translations as a whole, with the notable exception of the NLT, and the NET Bibles, which are both acceptable dynamic equivalent Bibles, because they are at least somewhat complementarian.
In my view, complementarians stand for complemenarian Bibles. Anyone who has been reading the discussion on Biblegateway would probably see it that way. The NIV was considered a complementarian Bible and the NIV 2011 is not considered a complementarian Bible. This leaves complementarians without a Bible in the NIV tradition which will continue to be published.
However, I strongly feel that the NIV 2011 is a mainstream Bible with much complementarian input, and is the Bible which most closely resembles the KJV and Luther’s Bible in its interpretation tradition.
I hope that helps.
Hi Mark,
Just thinking more about the hermeneutical questions. Hopefully, this is still generally on the topic of your post, because the differences in hermeneutic between egals and comps is purported to relate to the acceptance of homosexuality.
If I understand you correctly, you are saying that passages like 1 Pet 3 are difficult to arrive at an egal view without a fair bit of hermeneutics because it seems to endorse Patriarchy. I think you are saying that comps can apply it just as it reads.
I think I can understand this, but in my experience, comps do some hermeneutics as well, because the type of Patriarchy that comes across from a plain reading of some texts (eg 1 Pet 3:5,6) is stronger than is actually practiced by many of the comps I know. Comps seem to be strong on emphasising the Patriarchy in the passage, but would hesitate to characterise their own marriages as “my wife submits to me and calls me her master (or lord)”. It doesn’t look like that to people who see them interacting on a day to day basis. This may have characterised Patriarchy historically, and in some marriages today, but not as much amongst the comp friends I have.
So there seems to be some hermeneutics going on to get to the comp position my friends have. Any thoughts? Thanks.
Just noticed that this discussion on Part 7 began on 10th Dec so it will finish on the 10th Jan presumably.
Deleted a bunch of small comments from Don, Suzanne, and Jereth as, while they were innocuous, they were about translation issues.
Hi Suzanne,
Thanks for that, it does help.
It’s one of those things where, yet again, I can see almost no point of agreement between us.
I find your explanation for two reasons:
1. I don’t recognise your description of what complementarians have done in the discussions I’ve been part of over the last twenty years. Those discussions haven’t (for the most part) been, “Ugh, the NIV is too gender whatever” (although those statements are indeed often said strongly).
My impression has tended to be more of people wrestling with what to do when they keep finding that the translation has interpreted, for example, ‘love of God’ as ‘love for God’ and they’ve concluded that it actually meant “God’s love”. Do they just go with the translation, try to avoid that text in their sermon, or keep correcting the English in their sermons - and so undercut people’s confidence in the English? I remember a number of discussions where those were the issues, and much fewer where gender was the issue. And that seems to logically lead to preferring word for word translation.
Whereas, whenever I’ve talked with moderate evangelicals about preaching, or listened to their sermons, the impression I get is along the lines of, “What on earth are you doing in your preaching that level of detail in the text is normally going to matter?” (not angry, more bemused). And, what seems to be a preference of an ‘easy to read’ translation, over a stodgy one.
2. As far as shifting translation philosophy to justify rejecting an NIV. That doesn’t ring true for me as a psychological explanation. We’re speaking of groups like CBMW here - they don’t need some other justification other than gender itself to reject a translation that they think is bad on gender. That, in and of itself is, for them, sufficient grounds to reject a translation. And to try and justify rejecting a translation by claiming a different translation philosophy but then not using it on key gender significant texts, (so that the tension between their stated philosophy and their practice there is apparent for anyone to see) well that’s a simply herculean level of incompetence. And I usually need some convincing to believe that about people, whatever their views are.
But that’s all fine, that’s how you see it and how I see it. And it’s useful to get those differences, and the reasons why you disagree with my perception, and the reasons why I disagree with yours, out like this. So thanks again for answering my question.
Hi Craig,
Your question on 1 Peter 2/3 is fine, all your questions and thoughts have been perceptive and well phrased.
I need to be careful in answering it though, so as not to do the very thing I ruled off topic - and critique egal readings in favour of comp readings of the chapters.
My view, and when I finally get to your four-part question (I think it was) I’ll hopefully make this clearer, is that the difference is not that egals use hermeneutics and comps don’t, but that hermeneutics functions differently and has a different significance for the two approaches.
Almost everyone has to do some work at working how a concrete behaviour in the biblical text applies to a contemporary Christian.
The only groups that don’t have to do that are the primitivists - the ones who think the goal is to try and recreate the church as it was in the 1st Century. They try and discover the form of church government in the pastoral epistles and run their church that way: they give holy kisses, the sell all they have and give it to the poor, they have widow lists and the like.
The rest of us get that there’s sometimes going to be a difference between the exact form of behaviour in some texts and in the present day.
So, yeah, almost everyone has hermeneutics. The difference is how it functions in each system in comparison to the other. In my opinion, that’s where you see the difference, not it being in one and not in the other.
And that difference is that egalitarians (or more precisely, moderate evangelicals) see hermeneutics as an important aspect of interpreting the Bible properly, and write most of the books on it. And conservative evangelicals don’t give it much thought or attention, and write very little about it by way of comparison.
So complementarians, being usually conservative evangelicals, decide that 1 Peter 3 is upholding husbandly authority as a Christian norm, while focusing most of its attention on troubleshooting the problems that arise for Christian wives married to unbelievers. From there, all complementarians will see that the principle should be upheld, in my case someting like: wives submit yourselves to your husbands; and will also pick up the later material - let your adornments be your character not your jewellery, and don’t submit as an expression of fear of your husband, but as an expression of your hope in God.
How much of the particular forms that then takes - calling the husband ‘lord’, ‘obeying’ him, etc, well that’ll vary from comp to comp and from century to century.
But comps don’t see that as much different to how different conservative evangs might preach on ‘sell all you have, and come follow me’. Some (few) will preach the exact form of the words, others will scale back the form (don’t go sell all you have, just be prepared to if God ever calls you to), while trying to keep the fundamental intent. For conservative evangelicals, that’s a fairly straightforward, and not really interesting, step. Faithful reading and obeying doesn’t really hinge on that point particularly.
But when a comp looks at most egal readings of 1 Peter 3 and its implications for today, there doesn’t seem to be many (not saying that’s true - trying to get at the difference). The impression ‘we’ get is that, because the passage is either just looking at the problem of unbelieving husbands in the first century only and/or is commentating on society of the day, there’s not much it says directly to modern Christians trying to see how to live out a godly marriage. Some egalitarians might see 1 Peter 3:7 as being fairly directly applicable to the present, but I think few would apply much of 1 Peter 3:1-6 to how a modern Christian woman should relate to her Christian husband. They’re more likely to say what Teri said -
And she then quoted 1 Peter 3:8-18.
When comps talk about ‘hermeneutics’, that’s the kind of thing they’re getting at. For comps, all of 1 Peter 3 ‘is the real wisdom’, and all of it speaks directly to us today much the same as it did then, even if some concrete forms might change a bit.
For egals, some bits don’t speak as directly to us as other bits do - they’re more commentating on the society of the day, or have a very narrow focus (like unbelieving husbands in a 1st Century Mediterranean legal context) that doesn’t ‘spill over’ much beyond that focus. And the reason for that doesn’t seem to be grounded in what exegesis of the words can determine, but broader, hermeneutical considerations.
So both do it, but it plays a much bigger role in one, and when it does, it makes some very concrete passages have a more indirect, and less direct, implication for the modern believer.
Not sure how illuminating that was, I’ll try and explain things more clearly when I tackle the four-part question.
Well, Mark, it appears you are taking what I said differently than it was intended. What I said was not intended to infer that the rest of 1st Peter 3 had no wisdom. Rather, verses 8-18 are compacting the reasons behind why Peter has admonished slaves, masters, wives and husbands to act in ways that respect the other. He is going into greater detail for all of them to behave in ways that do NOT repay evil for evil or insult for insult, and so forth. We are all to seek to do good.
And then there is even further wisdom behind that, which is because it is what Christ did. There is a principle there.
Of course the whole Bible applies to us today.
But that’s another discussion.
Thank you for continuing discussion. I enjoy reading these threads.
Hi Teri,
Fair call, I was in two minds as to how helpful it would be to quote you at that point, as I suspected you mightn’t agree with how I was putting it. My head’s a bit sluggish today, and I couldn’t find the right words to nuance things.
A better form of words would have been something like, “It would be rare for a conservative evangelical to instinctively say ‘the real wisdom lies’ in the part of the passage that is talking about the qualities in the abstract than the bit that is spelling out the structure in the concrete”. I’m not trying to score points there, I’m just trying to get at the difference in relation to each other. The form of words you use there does illustrate a difference, I think, even if I got the nature of that difference wrong (which I’m happy to say I did).
And, yeah, I think the discussions are going fairly well now. A bit disappointed that your/Kristen’s/Jereth’s discussion seems to have run out of steam - I like it when the threads are conversations, rather than only Conversations With Mark. But maybe something will spark another conversation.
Mark,
“simply herculean level of incompetence”
On the contrary, I believe it is deliberate. First, the ESV makes the claim to be word for word, and then it introduces significant alternate translations in certain key verse. It is not incompetence.
Mark,
I have responded to you privately. I can respond in detail to each of your points, but I sense that you do not want me to do so on the blog. I would appreciate it if you would not delete this comment, so that other commenters would know that I have not conceded the point on this. Rather, I will make an attempt to show you some of the things that have transpired by email.
Yes, Craig’s observation about the closing date for comments is correct. Comments will close at 10am Monday 10 January, Australian Eastern Daylight Time (UTC +11).
Mark, I did not intend to let my conversation with Jereth “run out of steam,” but I was very busy yesterday. I’ll try to get back to that later today. For the moment, though, I have a question for you.
Since my education centered around English lit (which was largely about applying “hermeneutics” and “exegesis” in figuring out the meaning of non-sacred texts), I’m big on definitions. And I’m confused by the way “hermeneutics” seems to be being used in this conversation.
My understanding is that “hermeneutics” means “principles of interpretation” or “rules for proper exegesis.” “Exegesis,” in my understanding, means “reading in such a way as to bring out the meaning.”
Therefore, every time anyone reads a text, they are applying both, whether they do it well or badly, whether they apply hermeneutical principles that we agree with or not. A hermeneutic that says, “Everything in the Bible is to be read as literally as possible, and applied to our own lives as directly as possible (except in the event of strong reasons to do otherwise, such as a history of church tradition that counsels against reading a text literally),” then that’s just as much a hermeneutic as one that says, “The Bible is to be read first in light of authorial intent, as understood by research into cultural assumptions, and only once we know what it meant to people in that culture, can we apply it to our own lives” is a hermeneutic. I think you’re correct in saying “everyone uses hermeneutics,” but it doesn’t make sense to me to say, “But reading a text literally and applying it directly is not using hermeneutics.” Any set of principles or rules on how a text is to be read, is a hermeneutic. And I think that comps and egals do use slightly different hermeneutics, and that each thinks the other has not come to proper exegesis because of using hermeneutic principles that the other disagrees with.
Your thoughts?
Hi Suzanne,
Yes, I could see you were saying it was deliberate. My point is that that would involve a herculean level of incompetence.
Imagine the scene from the Secret Headquarters of the Great Complementarian Conspiracy to Alter the Bible:
That’s what I mean by herculean levels of incompetency. If you’re going to try and hide what you’re doing in plain view, you don’t do so by claiming a translation philosophy that you don’t actually use on the verses in question.
I think Don’s explanation is better (no surprises there, it’s just mine in different words) - there were two separate agendas in play, and when gender was involved that agenda often took top billing over word-for-word.
Yes, I’ve got the email and responded. I think alert readers wouldn’t imagine you agreed with my comment, but saying that that is the case is fine. As I said there, you can write your response elsewhere and link here, or, in this case, give more of your reasons, and I’ll give my critique of them and we’ll move on. I have no interest in giving the impression that I need to shut this down because ‘I can’t handle the truth’ (to paraphrase A Certain Movie). But I’m also going to stick to my rule that if one side is going to run an argument on the merits of one side over another, the other gets to do a substantial response as the final word.
Mark,
Since you have taken the time to parody me, I hope that you will allow me to respond. Here is a link to the conversation elsewhere.
http://powerscourt.blogspot.com/2009/07/grudem-and-esv-onlyism.html
In effect, I agree that both sides are driven by an agenda, but the NIV 2011, has ended up with almost identical wording to the KJV and Luther in the gender passages.
The ESV has ended up with divergent translations. Both are driven by a two-fold agenda, a) to support their view on gender, and b)to appear to follow traditional translation history.
It is because of the latter point, that many complementarians are involved in the NIV 2011. They really do support traditional translation history on these passages. But CBMW has decided to state that they cannot recommend the NIV 2011, for the same reason that they could not recommend the TNIV. This was an allout boycott. However, traditionally complementarians were great supporters of the original NIV 1984. So there is a complementarian organization which has an agenda to NOT RECOMMEND the NIV 2011. This non-recommendation is now published here and there in magazines and on the internet.
This is why it is so important to identify which version of the NIV is being discussed.
I can support my interpretation of this history with dates, conversations, letters and emails from many of the folks involved and you can see in my post that others identify that this is what happended as well.
Certain complemetarians decided to revise the RSV in response to the publication of the NIVI/TNIV, and later claimed that their interest in revising the RSV, and publishing it as the ESV, was unrelated to the publication of the TNIV. But documentation remains which verifies that it was specifically in response to the TNIV that the ESV was understaken. Yet, some complementarians continue to deny this and say that it was only a desire for a word for word translation which motivated them.
On the points which I have indentified, where the ESV uses divergent and nontraditional interpretation, there are supporting articles for each one, for Gen. 3:16, for authentein, for Junia, and for 1 Cor. 11:10, written by complementarians.
However, I have dialogued with Dr. Wallace, and Dr. Grudem on articles supporting the ESV translation choices. I have identified in each of these articles evidence which was used to support their conclusions, and I and others have identified that this evidence was not cited properly. These are facts, and Linda Belleville and Jake Epp have responded in print to these articles. I have, however, taken time to document the misunderstandings and miscitations on my blog, but a sifnificant understanding of Greek is required to appreciate these posts.
If you would like to ask me to illustrate any one of these examples in detail, I can certainly do so.
However, if you are not interested in the details, please do not mock me and hold me up as an object of parody. This is not helpful. If you wish to close comments on this issue, please to do not mock me as your “final word.” I have been significantly attacked by complementarians in the past, but I have never had anyone demonstrate that I have ever posted any false information on the internet, ever.
I would like to add that in private emails to me, both Dr. Wallace and Dr. Grudem have admitted that they have included misunderstandings in their articles due to not having all the evidence available at that time. Since then all more Greek literature has become searchable on the internet, and their misunderstandings are available for anyone to see, anyone, that is, who is educated in classical, Hellenistic and NT Greek; and Hebrew - as I am.
Getting back to Jereth’s last post directed to me:
Same here. I was simply taking the text you quoted and showing how it was possible for someone to have a “high” view of Scripture and still end up with an alternate reading than the one you gave.
I have read over the Chicago Statement of Inerrancy and its Amendment (which I have read before). I would say that for the most part I agree with it. The real issue is how to apply it. For example, when one says every Scripture is “intended for every believer in every age,” the question arises of how it is intended. For example, most traditionalists today do not insist on women wearing head-coverings, even though the verses in 1 Cor. 11 on the wearing of head-coverings include citations to the creation story, just as the verses in 1 Tim 2 about women not teaching do. So are all women everywhere and for all time to wear head-coverings? If not, then though the passage is for every believer in every age, it is principle the passage teaches, and not the external practic, which is considered to apply.
For another example, the Statement of Inerrancy says that we may take into account the type of literature each different piece of the Bible might be, in deciding how it is meant to be understood. I may differ from the authors of that statement on what genre a particular passage falls under—but I do agree that they are correct on that.
The problem I have with the word “inerrant” is that it tends to muddy the waters in ways that more traditional words (such as “inspired” or “authoritative”) does not. If I consider the Bible “inerrant,” does that mean I am required to read Genesis 1 as if it was an entry in a science textbook? Or am I allowed to take into account the different mindset of the ancient writer, to whom “science” was a concept outside of his understanding of the world? Do I still believe in inerrancy if I think the Hebrew author did not concern himself over whether a “day” meant a literal 24 hours?
These kinds of issues tend to fall by the wayside when we speak of the Bible as “divinely inspired” and “authoritative,” and don’t get overly wrapped up in what “inerrancy” means and what it doesn’t.
But what I mean by a “high” view of Scripture is this. An egalitarian with such a view will not tell you the understanding of a certain writer was “wrong” when he wrote such-and-such a passage. They will not question whether such-and-such a passage was actually written by its purported author, with a view to disregarding that entire book as not belonging in the canon. They will not decide that these words in the Gospels were probably the actual words of Jesus, while these other words were probably added later and thus don’t get to be counted as part of His teachings. They won’t decide that the miracles reported in the Scriptures constitute the accretion of myth into the passage, or that the Resurrection is important only as a symbol, and was not a real fact.
In short, a “high” view of Scripture treats the entire accepted canon as divinely inspired and authoritative for faith and practice. It considers that each author wrote exactly what was intended to be said, and thus the actual words and their order, as transmitted by the best manuscripts in existence, are very important. But it is not necessary for everyone with a “high” view of Scripture to agree on the particular application of the principles of “inerrancy” to each and every passage.
I hope that answers your question.
Sorry for my typos above—what I meant in the last sentence of my second paragraph was:
“It is the principle the passage teaches, and not the external practice, which is considered to apply.”
Hi Kristen, thank you for clarifying what you think.
No, inerrancy (as properly defined) just means that Genesis 1 is totally correct in whatever it intends to teach. If it is intended by God (via the human author) to be teaching us that the world was created in 7 literal days, then that is correct. If it is not intended to teach that, then we need not claim that it does.
Respectfully, I disagree. People will get into aggressive debates about Genesis 1 based around “divine inspiration” and “authoritative”. Look at the Answers in Genesis website, and you will find a lot of talk about the Bible being “authoritative”, not quite as much talk of it being “inerrant”.
Inerrancy says something important that “inspiration” and “authoriative” do not (at least explicitly)—it says that every verse, phrase and word of the Bible is true. People can (and do) argue that the Bible is inspired and authoritative on a kind of “bigger picture” level—eg. the overall thrust or message of a passage—while holding that there may be errors at the level of fine detail. Inerrancy says that even the fine detail of each individual word in the original texts are chosen by God.
I know that my argument appears arrogant without an example. Here is what Dr. Grudem wrote on the CBMW website,
I then emailed Dr. Grudem through the CBMW website, this information,
I included the following series of examples in which aner had a gender neutral meaning.
http://powerscourt.blogspot.com/2009/09/aner-either-male-or-female.html
Dr. Grudem replied that this information was not available to him at the time that he wrote his essay in response to the TNIV. But that is a strange comment because my examples are from Plato.
This is just used as an example that complementarians sometimes chose an alternate translation choice to egals, “men” instead of “people” and they believe that their decision is based on scholarship and they believe that it is a literal translation, but actually the egal translation is just as literal as the comp translation. But comps often continue to state that their choice is more “trustworthy” and more “literal” than egal choices.
I know from personal contact that the translators of the TNIV have been devasted and truly and deeply disturbed by this kind of thing. It is tragic.
Why can’t comps just say that they have made different choices from egals. Why do they have to make statements that the TNIV and NIV 2011 cannot be recommended? Why cast aspersions?
Hi Kristen,
It is interesting that you commented above at http://solapanel.org/article/complementarianism_and_egalitarianism_part_7/#6984
about the meanings of the words “hermeneutics” and “exegesis”.
When I was first taught how to read and study the bible, I was encouraged to use three steps:
1.Observation- What does the passage actually say?
2.Interpretation- what did the passage mean in its original setting? What was the author trying to get across? What would the readers have understood?
3.Application- how does the passage apply today- both generally and for me personally.
I have found these terms quite easy to follow.
I have never found the terms “hermeneutics” and “exegesis” to be quite as clear, so I am probably one of the guilty ones using them confusingly. I have just tried to use them as others seem to but may not be succeeding very well. I would find it helpful if anyone comments further on your comment, if they wouldn’t mind also clarifying how they see “hermeneutics” and “exegesis” fitting in with my “observation, interpretation, application” procedure that I am more familiar with. Thanks very much.
Each word, jot, tittle, and space in Scripture (original manuscripts) was inspired by God and is authoritative for faith and practise. However, God can and does accomodate to the original audience of each piece of Scripture. God used THEIR categories of thought and language to bring them step by step into the Kingdom, as God’s thoughts are beyond our ability to understand. And we need to understand how THEY would have understood the text which is exegesis, before we try to APPLY it to today.
Mark,
<blockquote>“”So, yeah, almost everyone has hermeneutics. The difference is how it functions in each system in comparison to the other. In my opinion, that’s where you see the difference, not it being in one and not in the other.
And that difference is that egalitarians (or more precisely, moderate evangelicals) see hermeneutics as an important aspect of interpreting the Bible properly, and write most of the books on it. And conservative evangelicals don’t give it much thought or attention, and write very little about it by way of comparison.””<blockquote>
It should also be noted that what the “conservative evangelicals” DO write copious books about is the “troubleshooting” which provides the “how to” adaptations for subordinates. In every Christian book dealer I’ve encountered, this type of book far outnumbers those on hermeneutics.
<blockquote>““So complementarians, being usually conservative evangelicals, decide that 1 Peter 3 is upholding husbandly authority as a Christian norm, while focusing most of its attention on troubleshooting the problems that arise for Christian wives married to unbelievers. From there, all complementarians will see that the principle should be upheld, in my case someting like: wives submit yourselves to your husbands; and will also pick up the later material - let your adornments be your character not your jewellery, and don’t submit as an expression of fear of your husband, but as an expression of your hope in God. “”<blockquote>
It is a near impossibility not to mix one’s own thinking with the perceived intention of the original author as your examples here clearly illustrate. And complementarians and egalitarians are both equally inclined. All interpretive systems must necessarily emphasize one of three factors related to written texts: the mind of the (human) author, the text (in isolation from author and reader), and the mind of the reader. In actual practice, no interpreter is able to exclude any of the three, but all interpreters favor one of them. “The mind of the author” has been the traditional approach of both complementarians and egalitarians.
<blockquote>“”For comps, all of 1 Peter 3 ‘is the real wisdom’, and all of it speaks directly to us today much the same as it did then, even if some concrete forms might change a bit.
For egals, some bits don’t speak as directly to us as other bits do - they’re more commentating on the society of the day, or have a very narrow focus (like unbelieving husbands in a 1st Century Mediterranean legal context) that doesn’t ‘spill over’ much beyond that focus.””<blockquote>
In my opinion, it appears that you are merely splitting hairs here. There is essentially no difference in these two. When boiled down the result is the same – neither side practices the verses exactly. So, the matter truly is just where each group sees fit to draw lines.
Hi Kristen,
Wasn’t a criticism, more a lament. Given how hard it has been this time around to have good conversations, and my desire for the threads to consist of the issues being made clear (sometimes the relative merits, sometimes not), it was nice to see such a good conversation take off, and then a small mourning when it stopped.
But that’s fine, this is very much a voluntary exercise, I’m about the only person obligated to be here as I’m the guy writing the posts to which people are responding.
As for the rest of what you said about exegesis and hermeneutics, how you’ve put it is far more how I think of it.
Exegesis and interpretation can’t be two separate steps. Indeed, exegesis, interpretation and application aren’t always separate steps either. Sometimes we begin to get a sense of a passage’s implications first and that begins to give us the clues as to its meaning. It’s all recursive and initial impressions can be strongly changed as we sit with a passage, but it’s not a simple “work out what the words are saying, then work out what the text means, then work out how to apply it.” At least, not always.
But, that’s often how it is conceptualised and articulated. So I try and find some way to stay true to how I see it, while being aware that people often talk in terms of three different and successive stages - a bit like what Don’s just said a bit earlier in the thread.
Hi Elaine,
Welcome along, and thanks for the contribution. It’s a bit shame we’re racing to ‘closing hour’ and final drinks have been called. I’ll have to keep this terse so I can make sure I have time to respond to Craig’s questions.
Yes. As I made clear to Craig, it’s not ‘one does it and one doesn’t’. It is that the same thing functions differently in both systems, and has a different value placed upon it. There’s a big difference from a Webb-style attempt to set out a systematic framework for interpretation, and D.A. Carson’s Exegetical Fallacies, even though if one just writes an abstract list of elements and checks it against both books one might see all elements in both books.
If anything, I’d see something like Carson’s The Gagging of God as the rough conservative evangelical equivalent to Webb’s Slaves, Women and Homosexuals - and that comparison should give some glimpse as to how differently these things function in both approaches.
Agree with this whole paragraph. I’m not sure how what I wrote generated this (and that’s not a criticism – I just can’t see the link), but all of that would be common ground between us.
I completely disagree. This is happening regularly today. Two groups disagree on the meaning and implications of Scriptural texts. One group says – this difference in how we read the texts is utterly critical to the integrity of the word of God and the faith once for all delivered. The other group says, “No, you’re splitting hairs. There is essentially no difference in these two. When boiled down the result is the same – neither side practices the verses exactly.”
Example 1: Creationists versus non-Creationists on the meaning of Gen 1-11. Non-creationists think that their rejection of six times twenty four hours to make the universe a few thousand years ago is fine. Creationists think it isn’t, and that there is a huge gulf between a creationist and a non-creationist. Non-creationists say – “You’re splitting hairs, there’s no essential difference, you guys don’t really ‘practice’ these verses exactly either.” (And on that side of things I’m not with the creationists, so I’m not saying ‘the traditionalist’ side is always right in this.)
Example 2: complementarian versus egalitarian. Your quote is a classic expression of this.
Example 3: the homosexuality debate. Again, as someone who has followed this debate as it has wound its tortured way through the Anglican Communion over the last decade, your words encapsulate what many who approve of homosexuality say to those who don’t. We (who disapprove) say, “This difference in interpretation really matters, and there’s a big difference in how we’re approaching the Bible, and we think it shows two different ways of relating to the Bible, indeed two different views of what the Bible is”.
And they say:
Whether we look at creationism, egal/comp, open theism, the new perspective on Paul, homosexuality, or a range of other ‘big debates’ the same dynamic repeats over and over. The ‘reforming’ group – the one advocating a new view on the substance of the question, claim that there’s no real difference between how they read the Scripture and their opponents – essentially it’s the same and it’s just as faithful. The ‘traditional’ group says ‘no. Both the content, and the way you are reading Scripture is a significant departure.’
So, comp saying ‘There’s a difference here’ and egal saying, ‘No essential difference here’. No surprises there, that, in a nutshell, is an element of every big debate occurring at the moment.
For what it is worth, I at least try to have a consistent hermeneutic and application process. I can fail and want to be corrected when I do so.
I do not see egal/comp as splitting hairs. But I do not tie it to the gospel either. I try to right size the concern.
Mark,
<blockquote> ”I completely disagree. This is happening regularly today. Two groups disagree on the meaning and implications of Scriptural texts. One group says – this difference in how we read the texts is utterly critical to the integrity of the word of God and the faith once for all delivered. The other group says, “No, you’re splitting hairs. There is essentially no difference in these two. When boiled down the result is the same – neither side practices the verses exactly.” <blockquote>
So, then egalitarians who believe “this difference in how we read the texts is utterly critical to the integrity of the word of God and the faith once for all delivered” should be considered acceptable as well, but those egalitarians who arrive at the egal stance from a different method of “reading” are not?
I’m sorry, but I find it difficult to see your example 3 using the homosexual debate as anything other than a red-herring. The Bible clearly states that it is a sin. And either one agrees with that or they do not. There is no way to partly practice that! The things comps and egals are divided over are never stated to be sin.
Thanks for your words, Mark.
What I was trying to get at (and I think you are on the same page), is that there are people who think that because they just sit down, read the text, and take what it appears to them to say as what it really does say, they are not actually exercising “hermeneutics.” And I’m saying that it’s impossible not to be using some sort of a hermeneutic, and that these kinds of reader are defaulting to a certain hermeneutic without realizing it. It’s the same as people who claim, in essence, “it’s only those religious people who have worldviews. We rational people are merely being objective.”
Craig, you asked how I could characterize the observe-interpret-apply process using the words “hermeneutic” and “exegesis.”
I would say that the first two—“observation” and “interpretation” are part of “exegesis.” “Application” is what follows “exegesis,” and I agree with the principle that it’s important to set that apart from “observation” and “interpretation” so that it doesn’t get confused with them.
But the process itself—“Observation, interpretation, application,” as you have defined those terms, constitutes a “hermeneutic,” ie., a set of rules or principles for how to properly do exegesis.
Does that make sense?
Hi Craig,
You’re very welcome, but when it comes to the discussions in the threads it is very much a group effort. The quality of the discussion is a reflection on the participants as a whole, not just one. So on behalf of us as group, you’re welcome, and glad you’ve found it useful.
Two things:
1. It would be okay if they were basic, that’s as legitimate on these threads as high-falutin’ discussions by people with specialised knowledge (i.e. both are legitimate)
2. You aren’t asking basic questions so much as putting your fingers on issues that I think are fundamental. Which is quite impressive for someone who claims no particular extra knowledge about these things. So I don’t think you need to give yourself the ‘lower seat’ any more, feel free to come up higher a bit and back yourself a bit.
I think I’ll tackle each of your questions with a different comment. Starting with:
Yeah, I seriously muddied the water there, and should have resisted the temptation. I like to link things. I especially like to link something I’m saying to something someone else has already said in the threads – draw on the resources already existing in the threads to make points, rather than go outside or create some ‘evidence’ myself.
But that was kind of thinking aloud and I did a bad job of explaining the link I saw.
My point was that the fact that we can’t even get an English Bible in common now to discuss from is symbolic of the divide. Historically, such a symbol has only ever existed in evangelicalism’s debates with non-evangelicals. The fact that such a symbolic divide is occurring now is big evidence to support my thesis from the previous series – we are heading to a massive institutional division along party lines on this issue. Which Bible you have will ‘place’ you as much as carrying the Jerusalem Bible used to.
But that translation difference is not ‘two Bibles’. By ‘two Bibles’ I’m getting at (and this is a big simplification to get the point across) the idea that the comps see the Bible as basically setting up trans-cultural norms with wide implications wherever it speaks (with a handful of exceptions, kind of). Egals see that much of the Bible – both OT and NT - reflects cultural values and systems that are utterly antithetical to how Christians should behave. That is two quite different visions of what the word of God is, and the relationship of the words of Scripture to the word of God.
Hi Craig,
Yes. I’m not saying that egalitarians don’t believe in the authority of the Scripture, nor that they sever the tie that connects ‘word of God’ and ‘words of Scripture’. But those fundamental commitments take concrete forms – inerrancy versus infallibility is only one aspect of that, but an important one – as to the details of what that means. And at the level of those details you can see different understandings of how things work.
To give a very small example. IIRC Kevin Giles in The Trinity and Subordinationism states that we cannot draw on the instructions to masters and slaves for instructions on bosses and employees – the two relationships are too different. For him those instructions no longer have any relevance (more or less) to us because there are no slaves. Not all egals will agree with him there. But I cannot think of any comp saying such a thing. Comps always seek to stretch the implications beyond the concrete situation it was originally speaking to.
That’s more the kind of thing that strikes me when it comes to how we look at texts and their implications.
One way I have put it when I have done workshops on this issue (not gender, but about how one sees the Bible as authoritative – as long as I don’t mention gender until after the categories are up, in my experience, a mixed group of conservative and moderate evangelicals that hang out together will immediately recognise this as capturing their experience – to about 95%. About 5% find it not that useful. Based on two samples.) is along these lines.
Conserve evangs see 1 Cor 9:8-10 and Heb 4:3 as the basic way in which the Bible speaks to us. A law about oxen in the OT is fairly clearly about gospel workers. The writer of Hebrews quotes a Psalm directly to his NT readers. The Psalm itself directly applies an incident to do with the Exodus and Wilderness directly to the people of its day. (And we could argue that the Pentateuch itself was written to apply the original words of God to the historical people to the original audience of the Pentateuch, who were presumably different, as the former group were all dead within 40 years of the incident occurring). A three-fold ‘direct’ application of the original word of God to three new situations – both in terms of where they are in the overarching story of the Bible, and in terms of culture. That’s a basic stance that says, “I sit where the original hearers sit, the word spoken to them is spoken to me”.
Moderate evangs place far more weight on things like the abolition of the ritual, sacrificial, and purity laws, and on passages like Mat 19:7-9. How is the authority of the instructions about ritual cleanliness, qualifications for priests, instructions on sacrificial practices expressed to modern believers? Only indirectly. It clearly doesn’t say ‘basically the same thing’ to us as it did to the original hearers. And egalitarianism’s tendency to see that a lot of what’s in the Bible is not endorsing a norm, but is simply a concession to patriarchy, and an attempt to ameliorate, could take its source from a passage like Mat 19 where divorce wasn’t the ideal but was because ‘people’s hearts were hard’. Conservative evangs see a passage like this as having fairly narrow implications – it basically only applies to the OT, and only where there is some explicit warrant for it. Moderate evangs approach the Bible more as though it is capturing a broader truth about the details of parts of Scripture in both testaments.
That’s not meant to pigeon hole (when I do workshops I do it the opposite way – describe the basic way ‘the Bible is authorative’ looks, and then give the label that tends to go with people who are drawn to that one as basically capturing their view of how the Bible’s authority functions.
The Bible was written in a culture of patriarchy, slavery and polygamy. This does not mean it endorses ANY of them, but it does speak about them and seeks to mitigate excesses of the more powerful over the less powerful.
Egals, in effect, take a few more steps in this direction than comps do, but we do it because we believe this is normative in what the Bible teaches, when read in context.
Hi Craig,
Basically right. My point is, there’s nothing in 1 Peter 2 or 3 that says “We’re applying our gospel egalitarianism to a narrow cultural problem here”. We just have words telling Christians how to deal with a bunch of hierarchical relationships.
A conservative evangelical will, under those circumstances go, “Without some clear reasons not to, this is a trans-cultural norm” – and so take on some kind of complementarianism. An egalitarian will go “We already know what equality, mutuality, dignity, love mean for these kinds of relationships. We get it from Gal 3:28 and from the fact that we are all in the Image of God.” (and you can see that when they tell comps that their view ‘simply cannot be consistent with the idea that women are equal and are fully in the image of God’). And that then seems to have a big effect on what many of them think a passage like 1 Peter 2 or 3 is doing. Others will end up in a similar place by another route - by seeing it as having a very narrow focus and minimal direct implication beyond that concern.
Hi Craig,
I’ll tackle this a bit differently from how you’ve asked it, feel free to ask again if you want to pursue it. You’ve asked why homosexuality can’t be a problem for comps too, given they also interpret the patriarchy passages (let alone the slavery ones), and end up with an application that isn’t exactly the same as it was for the original readers.
At one level, no reason why it can’t be.
The fact is that it isn’t. CBMW didn’t split over whether homosexuality was okay as it was being founded. There aren’t any complementarian leaders launching books written by people championing active homosexuality. Conservative evangelicals don’t see the need to write chapters in books (or whole books) on how a complementarian can consistently not approve of slavery, and yet also not approve of homosexuality. The first edition of RBMW didn’t have to be withdrawn because one of the contributors ended up in jail for trying to kill her pastor because she was having an affair with his wife. Conservative evangelicals in the Church of England aren’t ‘going soft’ on homosexuality (the moderates certainly are – there’s a whole spectrum of opinion among them now on the issue). All of those things are happening, or have happened, with egalitarianism. That’s just ‘a fact’. The homosexuality question is biting the two groups differently. That doesn’t prove anything. It may change tomorrow. But that’s what’s happening now. And it seems plausible that it’s connected to approaches on how to read the Bible, unless and until that changes. Those kind of things usually happen for a reason. Working out the reason is always an exercise in educated guessing. But part of being a thoughtful adult (let alone a Christian) is to humbly and prayerfully make the effort and try and “understand the times”.
As to why I think it’s less of an issue for comps, it’s because they don’t ‘problematise’ issues like slavery the same way egals do. Egals will often say comps are being inconsistent themselves for treating slavery one way and gender another and “it’s just about where you put the line”. Comps just don’t agree. They hardly give any thought at all as to why they don’t take slavery to be normative – that’s just ‘self-evident’ for them and so never becomes a precedent. But it is a precedent for egals. And that means that, in principle, anything else can appeal to that precedent now.
One might say that all that means is that egals are less naïve, more self-aware, and more sophisticated in their understanding of how one reads the Bible as an authority. Fair enough. My point is that even though both groups do the same thing – don’t see slavery as normative – that functions very differently in both systems. And that difference seems (to me) to shed some light on why some egals are reconsidering the homosexuality issue.
So it’s hard to answer your question. I can give it a go if you like. My impression is that comps just don’t have any Webb style list of things that mean we jump one way on slavery and the other on women. I can say why I do it. I’m not sure I can speak for complementarianism as a whole on this.
And the fact I can’t seems to be important. That difference in which way you jump on the issues of slavery and gender isn’t seen to be all that significant for comps. It is for egals, and so requires some substantial theory. And that difference in how they see it seems to be important.
”
To give a very small example. IIRC Kevin Giles in <em>The Trinity and Subordinationism states that we cannot draw on the instructions to masters and slaves for instructions on bosses and employees – the two relationships are too different. For him those instructions no longer have any relevance (more or less) to us because there are no slaves. Not all egals will agree with him there. But I cannot think of any comp saying such a thing. Comps always seek to stretch the implications beyond the concrete situation it was originally speaking to.</em>
IMO what Giles said has nothing at all to do with inerrancy and infallibility. And actually, I agree with him regarding verses on masters and slaves. This has to do with application. While some may legitimately see similarities between masters and employers, similarities are not the same. Thus, we can apply them when we see similarities with limitations. In addition, we speak as coming from nations who do not have masters and slaves. There are still nations that do have slaves and those admonishments will fit their needs exactly.
Hi Elaine,
Yes? No? Maybe?
How “acceptable” a particular egalitarian is to me is based on quite a large range of factors. I doubt whether an egalitarian agreed with me or not on the significance of our methods of interpretation would usually be a big factor.
And this is the irony for me.
A big part of me doesn’t want to change that one little bit. Full strength to your arm in seeing that issue that clear cut! And may God grant that if we must have egalitarians, may they all see that issue as clear cut as you do.
I’m not one of those who wants to win at all costs and so I’m not privately hoping that more and more egals will change their mind on homosexuality. No question that would make complementarianism’s tussle for the heart and soul of evangelicalism ‘easier’, but I’d rather it was harder and egalitarianism went in better directions than worse ones. I don’t want to give the impression that I think egals should be seriously considering changing their minds on this or they aren’t being consistent. Quite the opposite.
But, I would suggest it simply isn’t as straight forward as you suggest. There are no explicit statements saying, “This bit is a straight forward moral issue, it always applies irrespective of culture.” There are debates that can be had over the semantic range of the words, the cultic practice of same sex prostitution in paganism, of whether the Bible is simply addressing overwhelming heterosexualist cultures and using the same strategy that we agree it did with slavery, and that egalitarians claimed it did with patriarchy - simply applying egalitarian principles to a bad cultural practice.
I share your conviction. I think it is blatantly obvious. But I think that about the gender passages one way and the slavery passages the other way, and Gen 1-3 yet another way. So maybe I’m just being inconsistent all around.
The point is, the debate is happening in sections of evangelicalism - primarily those sections that exist in institutions alongside liberals. And if it is occurring, then it isn’t a red herring. Evangelicalism is quite interconnected, so while pockets (sometimes large ones) mightn’t ever have to have this debate. If some are, then possibly many will.
As I said before, if it’s just a red herring, then Webb’s book is a complete waste of time. He solved a problem that anyone can clearly see isn’t there - how to consistently read the Bible one way on slaves and women, and another on active homosexuality. If this issue is a red herring, his book should have been published and then sank without a trace because it was scratching an itch that wasn’t there.
Hi Teri,
I agree entirely. I possibly didn’t make it clear enough. Inerrancy/impassibility is not all that’s going on in the difference between these two types of evangelical, although it often is. And this example is a good example of that - ‘cause no-one is saying that there are any mistakes in the details of the text. That’s not what’s different in this case. And yet something clearly is.
Nicely put.
My observation is that, while I haven’t heard that from all egalitarians (because there’s a range of views in egalitarianism), I’ve only ever heard it from egalitarians (or more precisely for this issue, moderate evangelicals).
Conservative evangelicals will either just apply it to employees and bosses without much thought, or (occassionally) say something like, “If this is how slaves are to treat masters, then how much more you who are not slaves, but are free?” “And if slave-owners are to be like this, how much more you who are merely employers and managers?”
That’s a pretty big difference in one small set of texts, but I think hints at one of the differences going on ‘under the hood’.
My understanding is that neither side are monolithic. For egalitarians, the books that I have read outline 4 positions.
1. Biblical feminists who hold to the same hermeneutic as complementarians, but are reading a different English Bible, and do not see any statement in scripture that women cannot minister fully alongside men. Gordon Fee and many pentecostals would be among these. The best known Christian preacher in BC was Bernice Gerard, a conservative Christian TV preacher. I don’t normally like TV evangelists but she was exceptional and gained a lot of respect from non-Christians for her clear ethical stance. Florence Li Tim Oi, the first ordained Anglican female priest would also be a conservative, and many of the original ordained women were very traditional and evengelical, dedicated workers.
2. Evangelical feminists who read the narratives of scripture as having equal weight with the epistles and believe that women can have the same role in the church now as Phoebe, Junia, Nympha, Chloe and Lydia. These people are still very traditional in their hermeneutic abd are familiar with and dedicated to the witness of scripture, the whole of scripture.
3. Trajectory feminists, as I think, Mark is describing.
4. Liberal Christian feminists who are not so sure that Paul actually wrote the epistle to Timothy in the first place. They do not see the need to harmonize scripture, or they believe that it cannot be harmonized.
I also acknowledge that complementarians are not monolithic either.
However, first I had wanted to establish that there are two different interpretative traditions in Bible translation in order to establish that Bibical feminists are a significant group, and complementarians might be able to appreciate that there is a group of evangelical egalitarians who share the hermeneutic principles of complementarians. I think this point is important in fostering communication.
Mark said,
I think it’s worth pointing out here that this issue used to be not nearly so “self-evident” as it is now, and that the battle to change this was hard-fought. One generation’s self-evident assumption is an earlier generation’s major issue of contention.
Mark,
“”Yes? No? Maybe? How “acceptable” a particular egalitarian is to me is based on quite a large range of factors. I doubt whether an egalitarian agreed with me or not on the significance of our methods of interpretation would usually be a big factor.””
It seemed to what you were saying – that’s why I asked.
“”And the fact I can’t seems to be important. That difference in which way you jump on the issues of slavery and gender isn’t seen to be all that significant for comps.””
This is a puzzling statement considering the length and intensity of your posts here and the comments on the subject.
“”The first edition of RBMW didn’t have to be withdrawn because one of the contributors ended up in jail for trying to kill her pastor because she was having an affair with his wife. Conservative evangelicals in the Church of England aren’t ‘going soft’ on homosexuality (the moderates certainly are – there’s a whole spectrum of opinion among them now on the issue). All of those things are happening, or have happened, with egalitarianism.””
Every denomination has people in it with problematic lives. I’d ask to be enlightened as to exactly who you are referring to here and what RBMW is, but I really can’t see that the knowing the details here would probably benefit this discussion in any way.
There appears to be a claim by Mark, that among egalitarian authors, someone had an affair and someone murdered somebody. This is from Wayne Grudem, 2006, page 122.
Grudem is claiming that although both male and female preachers sin and commit crimes, the crimes of female preachers is due to the fact that they have gone against the word of God, and the crimes of male preachers are due to the sin of pride which is also against biblical standards. It is hard to summarize Grudem’s conclusion as he admits that this in, in fact, inconclusive.
I wonder if Mark’s comment is an invitation for commenters to contribute to this thread the crimes and failures of complementarian preachers and authors. I sincerly hope that it is not.
The original DBE (Discovering Biblical Equality) had an article by a woman who (apparently) tried to kill the husband of a couple she was living with. This was right as DBE was being published. So the book was pulled, and a different article used when it was republished. But of course it was possible to get the 1st edition.
My take is yes, we are all sinners and yes, I am capable of any sin and there but for the grace of God go I, with any sin.
On page 126 of that same book, Ev. Fem and the path to liberalism, Grudem documents the declining mebership of churches with women pastors. However, he did not record the declining membership of the Southern Baptist church.
Dr. Grudem’s argument goes like this.
Some female preachers have committed crimes. Some churches with female pastors have declining membership. And he gives examples of this.
He also admits that some male preachers have committed crimes and that he doesn’t have statistics for church membership for churches with male pastors.
I do not see Grudem’s remarks on this topic as invalidating egalitarianism.
I don’t think that these arguments of Dr. Grudem are any more valid that the comments in EFBT, page 54, that Dr. Grudem made regarding how egalitarian women were unattractive to men. I was not particularly impressed by this line of reasoning. If someone thinks I am unattractive now, they should have seen me when I was still a complementarian!!
Mark was referring to Judy L. Brown.
A neutral article about what happened is here:
http://www.worldmag.com/articles/10580
I presume that (judging by the context of this whole discussion) Mark was not trying to highlight the attempted murder committed by Brown, but the lesbianism.
It should also be noted that IVP was unaware of Brown’s criminal history when they published the original edition of the book, and they did the right thing as soon as they were made aware of this.
Another storm in a teacup.
Elaine,RBMW = Rediscovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.
Don Johnson and Jereth has the incident right. And Jereth’s comments about the focus and behavior of IVP are correct as well.
As to invitations to regale the threads with unedifying stories, or overarching theories by Grudem - look at what I said in context and stop making up
your own interpretations ex nihilo.
It was one element in a list of anecdotes as to whether the homosexuality issue is a red herring. In the context of a discussion of heremeneutics. That was the focus. It wasn’t a random collection of sins by egalitarians.
I have held off on mentioning the case because of the two things Elaine implies - it’s unedifying, and anyone’s life can rapidly descend into serious sin (so it doesn’t prove anything). But if we’re going to keep having people say every couple of weeks, “slippery slope” or “red herring” in the face of what I think is sufficient evidence to refute that, then I think it is reasonable to start introducing extra evidence that one would otherwise rather not.
For it’s not as simple as saying ‘we’re all sinners’ and the like either. Rediscovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and Discovering Biblical Equality are ‘flagship’ books for each movement. They are attempts to say something relatively definitive.
As such, the people chosen to contribute were (unless either group was being incompetent) not simply somebody who was thought could write a good chapter, but someone that the editors thought was a good examplar of what that movement stands for. Leaders of the movement, Christian leaders who could be looked up to for more than just a chapter. You shouldn’t be taking chances on a contributor with such a book.
Hence, what happened with DBE does count as anecdotal evidence in its own right. Not particularly large, and someone is free to weigh it and dismiss it. But it is valid to raise it and to not dismiss it.
But when other anecdotes have appeared, it becomes even more valid to raise it.
Imagine the rough equivalent the other way. The first edition of Rediscovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood had to be withdrawn because one of the contributors went to jail for trying to kill a nonwhite who was resisting his attempts to treat that nonwhite like a slave. Around this unedifying incident was a number of other things occurring: The Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood split because a large group of its members were supporting a move to bring back race based slavery, and the other group rejected that as valid. A complementarian leader launched a book by a Christian who has publicly campaigned that the Church should support the reintroduction of slavery based on race. Conservative evangelicals in the Church of England began to fracture over their stance on race based slavery.
In that situation would egals (and many comps I may say) go, “pfft, red herring/slippery slope argument - there’s no necessary connection between complementarianism and these anecdotes”.
Based on my experience of watching how moderate evangelicals in Australia spin out the most elaborate theories about the effects of “the Sydney Diocese’s” theology from flaws (often quite minor ones) they think they perceive in its senior leaders, color me extremely skeptical.
And polemical strategies aside, when a sin is associated asymmetrically with one side of the debate then it is time to ask hard questions. “No smoke without fire” is patently wrong. But “When there’s smoke claim that it is a red herring/slippery slope to suggest that there might be a fire causing that smoke” seems to be an error on the other side. The anecdotes should be ‘amber lights’; not red, and not green.
Hi Mark,
Thank you for your detailed response. I must say I do appreciate your tone in these discussions. It is conducive to thinking through the issues and leads to good dialogue.
Just a couple of thoughts before I’m off to bed.
I have not read this, but most egals I know would not say “those instructions no longer have any relevance”. They would look for the underlying principles and apply them where there are similarities, with limitations as Teri commented.
You mention 1 Cor 9:8-10 and Heb 4:3 to illustrate the basic stance of conservative evangelicals that says “I sit where the original hearers sit, the word spoken to them is spoken to me”. These passages do emphasise that all scripture is useful for teaching (2 Tim 3:16) but also emphasise that specific cultural baggage may not be applicable. For example, Paul does not use the passage about oxen to teach that grain must be trodden by an ox and not by some other method. He looks to the principles that are evident and draws on them for application to the present situation.
You said
Now I don’t know much detail about the history of the abolition of slavery, so I could be totally wrong. But as Kristen commented, I don’t think it was self evident when many Christians thought slavery was ok. There could have been evangelical, conservative type Christians who would have used the same types of arguments comps use for Patriarchy. Slavery had always been ok for “x” number of years, the bible accepts it as ok, it seems normative when you read the passages and we want to be able to just read and apply the bible as it is without too much hermeneutical stuff.
Other evangelical Christians however, could see that it is not that simple. There were things like foot washing, and head coverings that most accepted as cultural packaging. Perhaps slavery is similar? These evangelicals may have initially been considered quite radical, but the movement grew until after many years, most evangelicals agree that slavery is not one of the bible’s universal principles to be upheld.
Time moves on, and now the issue is Patriarchy. Conservatives again resist the change, and with similar reasoning. Over time, more and more evangelicals are seeing the connections between the slavery and gender issues and moving to see Patriarchy as cultural baggage. They are also starting to look at whether there are general hermeneutical principles that could help to decide these “normative” v “cultural baggage” sort of issues.
I am just wondering what things will be like in another two hundred years if the Lord hasn’t returned. Perhaps, the conservatives then will “hardly give any thought at all as to why they don’t take Patriarchy to be normative – that will be ‘self-evident’ for them”.
If you have the time, I would be interested in your own views as to why you see slavery as cultural and patriarchy as normative.
Thanks again Mark.
Hi Mark and all,
Just a suggestion if others wish to continue these discussions past 10am Monday. If you are agreeable Mark, they could be on topic for part 9.
You said in your post for part 9 that comps need to have good arguments for their position. These discussions give you and other comps plenty of room to make your case and help others evaluate it.
Or perhaps I have used too liberal a hermeneutic on your post?
“”It was one element in a list of anecdotes as to whether the homosexuality issue is a red herring. In the context of a discussion of heremeneutics. That was the focus. It wasn’t a random collection of sins by egalitarians.””
Mark,
It has been rather difficult trying to follow these comments. It sometimes appears that it is fine for you to slip in inflammatory comments, but other commenters have been reprimanded for doing so.
I did not come to an egalitarian by reading the books you mentioned. In fact, I have never read them, or RBMW. I came to my view through the opposite way via involvement in the Patriarachy church movement during the time I homeschooled my children. I have experienced first hand what compism taken at “plain reading” level of the Bible can produce. I can tell you about the suicide of a dear young woman who felt trapped in her arranged marriage and could see no other way out. She was the daughter of my friend and she was a childhood companion to my children. I would like to politely suggest that you do some reading on the “side” of your view called Patriarchy. It’s no prettier than some things you have linked egals with.
Hi Craig,
You’re welcome, glad you find it that way, and thanks for letting me know. As is obvious from comments by other people, mileage varies on that one.
Yes, I tried to flag it wasn’t all. It stood out in my head because it was so stark, and because it crystalised a difference in tendency I had thought I had been seeing between the two groups.
Yes, it was a quick paragraph trying to sketch the difference I think I see in comparison to each other. It wasn’t trying to be a chapter in a book on ‘how to read the Bible well as a complementarian” – a huge amount of qualifications, nuancing and the like was left unsaid.
Agreed. It wasn’t a defense, it was simply a description of how comps tend to think about the issue now. In much the same way that most Christians think that the Bible fairly obviously teaches that the Son is equal to the Father and yet is not a second god, and don’t wrestle with what kind of biblical interpretation led to that conclusion, but that was the subject of centuries of debate originally, so complementarians just don’t think about slavery much and the questions it raises. I wasn’t saying that’s right or wrong. I was just saying – it seems to be a difference about how the two groups relate to that historical debate. Complementarians seem to just assume the results and move on, egalitarians see the debate as raising important issues for how we read the Bible.
to be continued
concluding
And you demonstrated my point there with the following paragraphs:
This is precisely the thing I was gesturing at. I’m not saying you’re right or you’re wrong. I’m just saying that that way of seeing things is not unusual among egalitarians, and leaves complementarians, by and large, scratching their heads as to how you ever move from one to the other like that. You guys might be right, my point is simply, how you’ve linked the two here seems to be a big difference between the two ‘sides’.
And my point about homosexuality and why some egalitarians seem to be reconsidering it also fits neatly into how you’ve put it here. You speculate what might have happened in two hundred years. Those who have made the shift will say something like:
And, again, that’s not to say that any egalitarian has to agree with that. Just that if you’ve decided that the slavery debate set up a precedent, which egalitarians are being consistent with in their stance on patriarchy, you then have to have the debate about whether the next thing is also consistent with that precedent - and people will disagree and some (many? most?) will go one way and the others another. Because complementarians don’t see it as a precedent (whether rightly or wrongly doesn’t matter for this point) that debate doesn’t even begin.
My point isn’t about who is right about the significance of the slavery debates for hermeneutics. It’s about how it functions in the two groups and how that may shed light on why there’s a debate in one group about homosexuality and not really in the other. And as I said, the existence of the debate, in itself doesn’t prove anything. But it isn’t absolutely irrelevant either.
Well, we’ve almost run out of time, and I need to respond to Suzanne’s charge about complementarian translation practices. I’ll write something up and email you.
Heh, no, but it was certainly pushing that statement as far as it could go.
Old regime, I’d be fine. But I’ve been asked to keep things on topic. This isn’t really on topic for part 9, so it ends ‘today’. But it should be the subject of further posts in the future, so there’ll be chances to discuss it further, and even start discussing the merits of the approaches.
The SBC and PCA FORMED over the issue of slavery, that is they split off from others. Most of the denoms had southern versions that allowed slavery. This was becuase it was considered that obvious that God supported slavery. If you go back and read the arguments, they made, many of them are very similar to the some of arguments comps make.
The Bible links slavery and marriage is the so-called household codes found in the NT. These are commentary on the pagan household codes that were imbedded in 1st century pagan law and culture and Paul is showing how to live as a believer in such a culture.
The to-be members of CBE split from the EWC over the issue of homosexuality. This is the way things are in Christianity, there will ALWAYS be someone who sees things more loosely than you and more tightly than you, except perhaps at the extremes which most would not consider Christian.
The thing about comps and egals is that they can be very similar in other ways, except on this issue. And each claims the other is misreading Scripture. But it is a paradigm shift to change from one to another and this is not done lightly.
Hi Elaine,
That’s fine, I wasn’t criticising. That’s one of the ways I indicate that I can’t answer the question that’s been asked in the way it’s been asked without muddying the waters even further.
Heh. Well, I’m a long-winded and intense kinda guy. I dumped something like five straight “maximum characters allowed” comments in a row on my thoughts on Barth on natural theology in a discussion on impassibility because the other guy simply accused me of holding to the analogia entis as one minor point in his overarching argument. I hang out with, and read, academics most of the time, and it affects my way of doing things. I can take just a couple of sentences to put my main, and decisive, point across, and then take multiple long comments to discuss a tangential point simply because it takes that long to say what I think I want/need to say about that.
But, in this case, unless I’ve missed the reference, I think I have only ever discussed the ‘why do comps read slavery texts one way and women texts another’ issue when it’s been raised for me as challenge or a question. In those cases, the length and intensity more reflects either the strength of the challenge (either tone or substance) or the seriousness of the question.
I’m sorry you had that experience, and about the suicide of your friend’s daughter. I have no doubts that you’re right that the complementarianism in that church was a factor (even the key factor) leading to her suicide.
My observation about these kind of experiences is that it is complex. I believe that my parents’ marriage broke up in large part because they tried to run it along egalitarian lines. That’s had a huge cost for them, and me and my brother. Surely that needs to be factored in too. I don’t think that experience is in any way uncommon. As I look around the ranks of Gen X and our attitudes to relationships and marriage, I see a lot of people scarred by the cost that the egalitarianism of their Boomer parents had on them in their formative years.
On such matters, I think we need to look at broader sociological analyses of how both approaches seem to be going than just sharing the good and bad stories. And at the moment, the only attempt along those lines seems to be a recent book that Tim Keller mentioned on the threads. And its conclusion is that in the U.S. among active Christians, complementarian marriages are doing slightly better overall on most indicators than egalitarian ones. For me, that’s the best we’ve got until more studies are done to revise that opinion or nuance it further. But that is such a provocative and counter-intuitive finding for egals that I’m sure it’s going to be continue to be implied in these discussions that complementarianism has worse outcomes overall on these matters.
I’m not trying to capture your story of how you became egal. As I ‘ve said multiple times, there are so many differences within egalitarianism and so many different routes there, that all one can do is talk about the version you are currently talking about. If what I say doesn’t match your experience, all that means is that it doesn’t match your experience. It could still be a correct analysis of a different segment within egalitarianism.
Hi Elaine,
Yes that’s a fair analysis, sometimes that is what happens.
But if you read further you might see that it has been fine for other commenters to ‘slip in inflammatory comments’ and there’s been no reprimand for it. Off the top of my head, it’s been said that complementarianism can be seen as a classic example of a well-known sociological phemenoma of creating socially inequitable societies, someone’s views were said to be verging on Jehovah’s Witnesses, one theologian was said to be close to cultic in his views, it’s been said that a practice in complementarian circles that goes back to the Book of Common Prayer should be made illegal, it’s been claimed that complementarians only adopted word for word translation theory to justify their rejection of a particular edition of the NIV on other grounds than the real one, it’s been implied that complimentarians are motivated by a desire for power over others, that complementarianism simply is abusive of women by not recognising their equal ability to lead and serve, and that a particular complementarian view about the Fatherhood of God is insulting to women and egalitarians, and that conservatives (which seemed to focus on complementarians in the context) make basic errors in reading that a 1st year student doing language studies would avoid. All of that is ‘inflammatory’. And none of it got censure simply for being said. (In some cases I have forcibly challenged it, but there wasn’t a reprimand for saying it.)
The basic rules are:
Don’t say something inflammatory because you are hurt/angry/on a mission to save the world from the other view.
Don’t say something inflammatory just because you found something someone else said inflammatory and you want to ‘even the score’ – So my saying “here’s some anecdotes suggesting that some egalitarians are changing their stance on homosexuality” in no way authorises egalitarians to then complain about things Grudem has said on other topics, or about comp behaviour in general. And that goes in reverse. When the subject has been “comps abuse women in marriages more often, and when they do it’s worse for women than under egal” I would have jumped on any comp who responded to that by saying, “Yeah, but you guys have a problem with homosexuality” as their basic response.
Do say it as a genuine attempt to make a constructive contribution to the existing conversation.
Try and say it in as least an offensive way as possible.
Try and explicitly state as much mitigation as you can, or at least have other ways of doing that – so in the posts I indicated that I was just talking about ‘facts’ and wasn’t making any claims as to what value to place on it. With the homosexuality issue I’ve made it clear that I don’t think it shows that egalitarians have to approve of homosexuality to be consistent if they’ve changed their mind on the gender passages. Sometimes a person can’t find any mitigating things – Suzanne seems to genuinely believe that all (or the vast majority) of complementarians involved in the ESV were saying something simply as a smokescreen. Then you can’t, and that’s fine, no reprimand either if it seems to be a genuine belief.
The broader underlying principle is along the lines of: You have freedom to say what needs to be said. But use it responsibly, to make a constructive contribution to an existing conversation, not simply to vanquish the other side. Even when you say something inflammatory, keep in mind that you are doing so as the servant of those you are inflaming, and let that shape how you say it.
No one is perfect at it, but those are the kinds of things that shape whether I reprimand or not. I won’t claim to be perfectly fair or accurate either in those calls, but that’s what I’m trying to run these threads by.
Hope that helps. Freedom to say what you genuinely believe, however inflammatory, with the responsibility to be a constructive contributor, not just a partisan warrior, is the basic goal.
Dr. John Gottman has done a lot of serious study and statistics on why marriages succeed and fail. I think his results show conlcusively that what he calls the equal regard marriage has the best chance of success.
I think it is possible to have this kind of marriage in either model, comp or egal, but I think it is easier to do in an egal model, as we are all sinners with temptations.
Hi Suzanne,
Okay, here’s the final thing on the translation issues. If you feel that I grossly misrepresent your position in my response, then get in contact privately, and I’ll ensure that a correction is added to the thread, even after it is closed.
When you first made your claim you said:
You then said in a follow-up comment:
Putting that together, we get a ‘mixed message’. In the first paragraphs you say that those who came up with the statement of concern needed a strong doctrinal reason for it. There’s no suggestion here that you are speaking of a sub-group, the impression is that you are speaking of the group as a whole.
In the next paragraph you narrow the focus to ‘some’ complementarians who ‘came up with the idea’ of the switch in translation philosophy with the implication that it was a justification that they knew wasn’t true. You don’t say only they adopted, merely that they were the ones that came up with the idea.
Then in the addendum paragraph you state that this tension is deliberate, that the ESV makes one claim and does something else and that that is deliberate. This wasn’t meant to be a hostile reading, but if I had said that, I would consider it reasonable for someone else to conclude:
“Some comps came up with the idea but most/all comps grabbed it (especially those involved in the ESV translation) knowing it wasn’t true but that it could serve as an excuse for their rejection of an edition of the NIV on other grounds.”
That might not be what you intended to say, but I think it’s justified given that you only narrowed your focus to ‘some’ for the bit about coming up with the idea, and such a limitation was absent for the stating of the idea as the actual reason when those saying it knew it wasn’t. And that’s what I was responding to.
to be continued
continuing
You seem to have been offended at my response to that:
As always, there is a difference between a person and their views for me. Anyone, even someone as intelligent as you, who taught yourself multiple dead languages, is capable of coming up with a daft idea. It’s easy to come up with stupid ideas, even for smart people it’s hard work to come up with good ones. So parody of an idea should not be taken as parody of the person.
But the philosophy I run with on this is as follows. Everyone has the freedom to say what they think no matter how outrageous someone else is going to find it (within some staggeringly large limits). But they have to realise that if they say something that someone else finds outrageous then that person also has a large freedom to say what they now genuinely believe as a consequence of what you said.
If a complementarian said, “Most/all egal scholars involved in the recent NIV translations are knowingly translating the gender texts for reasons other than give” I would expect one of three responses from one or more egalitarians on the threads:
1. Ridicule of the idea as preposterous.
2. Strong statements about how such an attempt to look into the heart of other people and guess at their motives is fundamentally unchristian.
3. A similar accusation going back – takes one to know one.
And people with experience of thread conversations and their dynamics might recognise what I’ve just said as describing conversations they’ve read/been part of.
So yes, I ridiculed the view. Options 2 and 3 don’t fit my perception of you. I think you’ve said something highly implausible that you genuinely believe. I don’t do the ridicule kind of thing often (unless I’m talking with friends and there’s a lot of trust. Then I do it to add colour and hope they return the favour). I only did it because, after I tried to state my disagreement relatively politely, you came back and restated it even more bluntly. I did, and continue to find it utterly unconvincing as an explanation, and that increduility is genuine and so was expressed with about the same force as your statement ‘on the contrary it was deliberate’.
On these threads what I said in such a situation is fair comment. The only way to avoid such things is either: 1) convince everyone that you’re right 2) Don’t say things that strongly even if you think you’re right. I’m not advocating either, but if you say something very strong (something which seems to imply that all/most comps are being knowingly dishonest) you’ll need to expect the possibility of a very strong response. That’s the freedom and responsibility ideas working together.
When I mentioned page 122, in EFPL, 2006 by Wayne Grudem, I was referencing the way that Grudem used the story of Judy Brown, in order to attempt to discredit egalitarianim. I don’t think that it was ex nihilo. Perhaps I was wrong but I guessed that it was from this book that Mark may have gotten the story and thought that it should be used in this way. I had eanted to provide the context of how the story about Judy Brown was used by Grudem.
That is why I wanted to review the kind of argumentation that Grudem uses in attempting to argue against egalitarianism. And I think that it is important to also mention that Grudem specifically says that egal men and women are unattractive to the opposite sex. This is fair background for his later sociological arguments about egalitarianism.
Since Mark brought these things up, it seems to me that he wants to use lifestyle and physiological characteristics of each group to assess the two positions. I am assuming that he does not actually want to do this, so I won’t mention unedifying details myself, except that I feel that published comments by complememntarian leaders are intended to be made public.
I had actually not wanted to mention Judy Brown’s name, because I thought that perhaps Mark would not want that done. That is why my commemt may have seemed off topic.
concluding
So let’s turn then to your added evidence for the thesis:
This has nothing to do with whether or not comps are knowingly claiming to be interested in word for word translations when they have no such interest. It is an observation that a complementarian organisation actively does not recommend the TNIV and the NIV2011. I’m not surprised or scandalised by that. Every organisation has the responsibility and right to determine its view about a translation.
This is much more nuanced. If you’d said this in the first place, we wouldn’t have had the debate. I can believe this is true – that some comps have said that it is only the word for word translation that prompted the translation when it is actually more complex. But I genuinely can’t get this from how you originally put your case.
Here we have an analysis of the merits of the translations. Clearly off topic, even for the exception I made, which was to discuss why there was a shift in translation philosophy. I can’t see any relevance to that question at all here.
And this seems to be the same. Dr Wallace and Grudem made some mistakes because (like most biblical scholars today) they lack an exhaustive knowledge of Hellenestic Greek, when they became aware of it they agreed that that was the case – good scholarly behaviour. How this proves that they or anyone else claimed to be interested in word for word when they weren’t really, I cannot see.
So I reiterate my position. If you’re saying that some complementarians are claiming that interest in word for word was the only thing driving the ESV translation and that’s bogus, then that’s fine, I agree. If you’re saying (and I think you were, but you might think that your words were intended to say something different) that the all/most comps (and particularly the ESV translators) claimed to be interested in word for word but only did it to justify their translations on the gender passages, then I still find that just as implausible for the reasons I gave earlier. The CMBW crowd and their allies don’t need such a convoluted strategy. Gender itself would be sufficient reason. If someone produced a word for word egalitarian translation they’d not recommend that in a heartbeat.
So I still think that what’s going on is two separate moves – a move to word for word, and a move to making the complementarian nature of some texts more explicit. You seem to disagree for the reasons you state. Let’s leave it there.
Hi Suzanne,
Thanks for the extra information about Grudem and Brown. My apology for the statement then. In light of what you’ve said, I think your comment was ‘fair comment’ on the whole, although it’s probably worth noting for the future that what Grudem says isn’t necessarily going to be a good guide to what I’m trying to say.
Hi Don,
Yes, and that would seem logical and intuitive. But that’s one of the reasons why sociology can be valuable, it can throw up counter-intuitive realities.
Wilcox uses different language, but I think his ‘new model man’ would relate closely to Gottman’s ‘egalitarian’ marriage.
Wilcox observation from a fair sized survey is that, in the U.S. ‘soft patriarchs’ were doing better at being ‘new model men’ as husbands and fathers than either egalitarian Christians or secular men.
Now, you could be right, and the view, in of itself, should make it easier for men to be that way than complementarianism does.
But if that is the case, then that means that there are other factors going on that means that while complementarianism is inherently less able to have those outcomes, it is still slightly outperforming egalitarianism in practice.
That’s a possibility that sociology can’t answer easily. But even if that’s true, it raises further interesting questions - not answers, but certainly questions.
Just wanted to throw out one comment (which Don also made). The best reason to consider the issues of slavery and patriarchy together, is that they are linked by both Paul and Peter in the “household code” sections of their respective letters.
Homosexuality references pretty much all appear in sections relating to various sins, not in the household codes. That is one good reason to treat the issues differently.
The NIVI came out in the UK and was promoted as being a “gender inclusive” translation. I think it “spooked” many of those soon to be known as comp and it was seen as caving in to culture. I personally think it went too far in their attempt to be inclusive, but they had good intentions to spread the word to unreached groups.
The comps requested that no “gender neutral” Bible be published in the USA. And there was a meeting where some people from IBS and Zondervan signed a paper to that effect. However, they had not been authorized to do any of this, but they were trying to address concerns from this segment of their readers.
When the signed paper got back to the translators, they objected to the proposed changes, as they effectively removed some known entries from the lexicon. So they went ahead and did the TNIV, which was promoted as being “gender accurate.”
For the comps, this was seen as being betrayed, as going against what they thought was an agreement. For the translators, they had never agreed to what was in the letter and would not compromise on the issue of what they saw as accuracy.
Then the rest happened and the comps fought the TNIV.
Deleted some comments by Suzanne and Don for continuing a discussion on translation history I had indicated was off-topic now.
I don’t think I was clear. In private, they acknowledged that this was the case. For example, in private Wallace and Burer agreed that there needed to be a defense of the hypothesis that Junia was only “well-known to” the apostles. Two years later, Burer publicly commented that their hypothesis was fine and did not need a defense. He said this even though the main piece of evidence cited in their article was not evidence for their conclusion, because they had misunderstood it.
If you check the NET Bible notes, and the ESV, and the HCSB, for Romans 16, you will find that no ajustment has been made to acknowledge that Pss. of Solomon 2:6 does not support the choice of “well-known to.” See the NET Bible notes on this. They have not been corrected as far as I know.
There is no acknowledgment of a fact which they have agreed to in private. I don’t understand this. This is just used as an example. I don’t want to discuss the details. But there is an inconsistency between what is known as fact, and what appears in the ESV, NET and others regarding Junia. This is not scholarly behaviour.
Suzanne, I don’t want to have to keep deleting comments. Let that be the final thing on this topic, please.
Mark,
You ridiculed me and then you deleted every comment that I made to prove that I was stating facts and not simply assuming things.
Sigh. No I didn’t.
You continued to discuss the merits of a view when I said you could do that once more and then I would have the final say. You had the option to talk to me privately to get any misrepresentation of your view fixed. You weren’t given the option of continuing the debate to keep trying to strengthen your case until you felt it was made. You had the option of putting your case once more and then I’d respond, or you could have made your case and linked it and I wouldn’t respond. You took the option to make it here, I responded. That’s the end.
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