Dr. Richard Howell, an East Indian pastor and theologian, spoke at the CBE conference, piercing the hearts of the 250 or so brothers and sisters present as he delivered an exceedingly important, and exceedingly uncomfortable, truth:
Patriarchy and hierarchy make oppressors of men.
I think the initial reactions of most of the attendees, all committed egalitarians, was one of dismay. After all, most complementarians — those who believe the Word teaches the permanent subordination of women to men, with Church leadership denied women because of their sex — are pretty decent people. It’s true that some traditionalists have hijacked the fundamental doctrine of Christianity, the Trinity, to justify their hierarchical approach to relationships between men and women, and others have sunk into a morass of obnoxious masculinity and reckless derision of women and the men who support their full service in the Church. That’s as true as it is tragic.
But in the pews of more traditional churches and in the portable seating of “relevant,” outreach-oriented ones, complementarian men are not ogres. The men we see generally don’t advertise or exhibit a viciously masculinist swagger in their day-to-day actions. They don’t cause gender rebellion and warfare in the workplace, they don’t generally assault women (although instances of domestic violence are at least as high in Christian homes as in non-Christian homes), and they interact pleasantly with their sisters in Christ. It’s hard, then, to hear Howell say that their beliefs — their embrace of patriarchy and hierarchy — make them oppressors of women.
But Howell speaks the truth. Patriarchy and hierarchy cause men to believe, however they act out that belief, that women are to be permanently subordinated to men in the three areas of our interaction — home, society, and Church. The relative, painfully slow, genesis of women’s equality in society leads men to tighten the reins at home and in the gathering of believers, denying the gifts of half of the Body while catapulting many ungifted, unqualified men into positions of leadership they either abuse or serve ineffectually.
Gender hierarchy requires men to choose to not see the manifold gifts and wisdom of the women around them, and it permits them to achieve success in the world or positions of influence in the Church that come to them rooted not in the Bible, not in the gifting of the Holy Spirit, but in the Fall and the injustice it birthed. And when men not only perpetuate gender divisions in the Church but embrace the benefits they receive from it, they become more than complicit in injustice. They become instigators, and it deadens the soul just as surely as gender oppression deadens the soul of the women suffering from it.
And so I continue to write and to pray and to act in every arena so that the good and decent men around me would come to see that complicity in women’s oppression is as much a sin as an addiction to pornography, cheating on taxes, or taking the LORD’s name in vain. The hierarchy and subordination of the Fall isn’t Yahweh’s ideal for us, and if we cling to the victory of Jesus over the consequences of the Fall in every other area in our lives, we have to extend the benefits of that victory to ending hierarchy between men and women — or between any human beings. An honest study of Scripture will show that the harmony and mutuality and dominion mandates of Genesis demonstrate the will of God for men and women. There is no “order of creation” doctrine in Genesis, there’s no “Adamic headship” found in Genesis, and there’s no “women’s created subordination” verdict men can unearth in Genesis. What is in Genesis is sacrificial love and mutuality ruined by the Fall. We can embrace one or the other, created mutuality or the Fall, but only one reflects God’s will. Only one leads to obedience to Him.
Truly noble, truly brave, truly masculine men will search the Word honestly, praying that the Spirit would remove the lens of privilege and power they see through and reveal a fresh, living Word of victory over sin. They will do this however much their hysterical, potency-obsessed masculinist pastors howl, and in doing so, they’ll discover a masculinity less Wilsonian and Driscollian and more Christian and Godly.
It’s up to them to choose, and I pray they choose wisely.