taste and see

The other night I scanned through my entire blog archive, pulling a few articles here or there for potential use in a future project, and it was fascinating to see how much I have changed as a person and a writer and a student of the Bible over the last 7.5 years and 200+ blog posts. I started out a little naive, a little too sure, and twenty-two years old—a fresh-faced newlywed with no children, yet to experience profound loss, betrayal, despair, or sacrifice.

I am grateful that God does not give us a preview of our lives.

But being able to look back now, as I sit here 7+ years older, family expanded to four, and permanently altered by simply having survived the year 2018 (and its repercussions), I can see now the blessings He is crafting out of the pain.

There is softness in me where I once had only hard edges. There are questions where I once had too many arrogant answers. There’s prayer and surrender and release of control in some of the places I used to grip with white knuckles; there is color—not mere shades of gray, but brilliant, living color—in areas I could only ever see in black and white before.

And He has done it all so graciously, so gradually, that even though I look back from here and the difference is stark, I felt His shaping work as only the gentlest of touches in the interim.

Last week while I was standing in the customer service line at Costco was the first time in my memory that I ever desired, from a true joy and delight unadulterated by guilt, to talk about Jesus with total strangers. I have known the Gospel for my entire life, but only in the last few weeks has it become Good News to me—that my King has come, that He has conquered sin and death, and that He has set free those captive and oppressed into jubilee.

And that I, even I, count as one of the freed: Freed from the condemnation of self-righteous men, like the adulteress; freed from the invisibility of being female, like the woman who washed Jesus’s feet with her tears; freed from the deep pain of being unloved and uncared for, like the woman at the well; freed from chronic isolation and suffering, like the woman with the ongoing hemorrhage; freed from the grip of sin and death, like Mary Magdalene. And it’s not “freed” in the way I’ve sometimes heard the word used, as if this were only a metaphorical freedom from the spiritual burden of such circumstances while I wait to die and go to heaven where my freedom will become a reality. This freedom is a reality for today. Jesus, becoming human and knowing what it is to suffer a human life and death, sees us in our shackles of wrong and being wronged, and does not ask us to stay in them.

The news is good, and it’s good for everyone. Even for these women, even for today’s women, even for me.

I’ve tasted the fruit of the True Vine—and now, anything less, even if it’s produced within the Church itself, is acrid on my tongue.

Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.
Psalm 34:8

a poisonous doctrine

I recently asked a (male) proponent of complementarianism these questions: What is some beautiful, kingdom fruit you’ve seen complementarian theology bear for Christ? How have the women in your life, specifically, been blessed by it?

His answer was precisely the generic statement I expected: he talked about greater stability and less power struggle in the home, wives who were better loved/protected/contented, and children who had “strong guidance and a firm foundation.” Putting aside that I could point to dozens of examples of families who would fit that exact description from the outside while their members were suffering on the inside, I think his response reveals how utterly and completely the conservative Christian church has missed the point of Paul’s vision for marriage and family in the New Testament. In our service of the complementarian doctrine, we have killed and buried the kingdom ideal.

(Note: I use the pronouns “we” and “our” because I am currently, and have always been, a faithful attendee of a conservative Christian church. I was also until quite recently a complementarian. In writing this, I hope to acknowledge the ways I, too, have contributed to the problems I now see.)

A favorite passage cited by complementarians (including the one I was conversing with) is Ephesians 5:21-33. This is the famous “Wives, be subject to your own husbands” and “Husbands, love your wives” text that made books like Love & Respect by Emerson Eggerichs an unfortunate default for evangelical marriage and pre-marital counseling for an entire generation. The feeling for complementarians is, generally, that egalitarian thinkers are trying to argue with something Paul has very plainly stated. But is it so plain?

Countless incredible Greek scholars have already done the technical work in understanding the exact grammar and vocabulary Paul used in this passage (you can find one such overview here). I’m not here to throw around words like hypotasso as if I have any business doing so—rather, what I want to do is ask: What was Paul’s intent for the audience of Ephesians 5? And what, then, is the meaning for us?

We know that the Ephesian church existed in a highly stratified society. Men ruled the Greco-Roman world; women were a class beneath them, and children were lower still, followed finally by slaves. Everyone in the church at Ephesus knew where they fell on the spectrum of power and importance.

And then Paul said,

Be filled with the Spirit . . . submitting to one another in the fear of Christ.

- Ephesians 5:18b, 21 CSB

Greater stability, reduced power struggle, wives who seem to be more protected and contented, and children with firm foundations—it’s all exactly the kind of fruit I’d expect complementarian theology to produce. And I have two problems with that.

First, as I alluded to before, plenty of this fruit looks shiny, red, and juicy on the outside only to reveal a flesh of worms and rot when you bite into it. Of course there is more stability and less power struggle in a home where only one person—the husband/father—has the ultimate power. But is that a good thing? Are we looking for conflict-free marriages or for good marriages? I know from experience that they are not the same thing.

And of course the wives in these families appear “safe,” “protected,” and “contented.” They are operating under a religious requirement to defer to their men. If a wife felt unsafe with her husband, or even discontented within their relationship, what could she do with that information? Certainly not bring it to the attention of her husband or her complementarian church leaders!

And of course the children appear to be standing on a firm foundation. They have been raised on the belief that they are naturally evil and need to be emotionally (sometimes physically) beaten into submission. Do they dare even find out what might happen if they test boundaries, throw a tantrum, or assert their independence like developmentally normal children?

But my second problem is an even bigger one: This “fruit” doesn’t just miss Paul’s heart for Christian families and the church, it fundamentally opposes it.

Because in Ephesians 5 (and Colossians 3, and 1 Corinthians 7, and so on), Paul is not reinforcing the secular gender roles and power dynamics that have plagued humanity since the Fall. He is tearing them down.

Be filled with the Spirit . . . submitting to one another in the fear of Christ. Wives, to your own husbands as to the Lord, because the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, he himself is the Savior of the body. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. . . . In the same way, husbands are to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.”

Ephesians 5:18b, 21-25, 28

Can you see it? Can you pull away the haze of complementarianism, set aside the words that aren’t even in the passage (“lead,” “obey,” “follow,” “authority,” “responsibility”), and see?

See the Roman man on his pedestal, all of society existing several notches beneath him. See him touched by the transforming power of the Spirit of God and suddenly he steps down so that he can better reach the hand of his wife to pull her up. See her, likewise transformed, refusing to become corrupted by this newfound status.

Can you see them now? They are standing together, one flesh, on level ground.

They are equals. And not only equals in worth with unequal roles, as some complementarians have tried to parse, but one unit. One flesh, head and body, each dead without the other, both halves of the whole image of God. One.

This may be a tough pill to swallow for a certain population of conservative American Christian, but Paul didn’t write Ephesians 5 to shore up the image of strong masculine leadership over meek wives and well-behaved children. He wasn’t worried about how good your family looks on Sundays, or any other day of the week.

And he certainly didn’t intend for it to be used as the sacred text of patriarchy.

Instead, he paints for us a picture of marriages that can be defined by a unified pursuit of Christ rather than a paranoia of usurpation; of women who see themselves with the value Christ’s sacrifice places on them, which no one can remove; of men who, imitating Christ, set their rights and power aside to raise up the oppressed and powerless.

It is stunning—because it’s a reflection of the ministry of Jesus in the Gospels, a glimpse of the kingdom of heaven on earth. And that makes truly beautiful kingdom fruit.

But we are never going to taste it, let alone get to share it with the hungry around us, if we continue to spend our energy defending a poisonous doctrine.

it is not good for man to be alone

If you have been reading along these past couple of months, you know I have been wrestling with a doctrine that has thus far governed most of my life in some way: the doctrine of complementarianism (defined here, if you need a refresher). This struggle is coming to a head now as my church considers a new pastoral candidate who is, to put it plainly, a very hardcore complementarian. Here’s his complete “statement of belief” as it regards the roles of men and women:

I believe God has created men and women as equal in the image of God, thus they are equal of value and worth to God. Men and women also have equal access to the spiritual blessings found in Christ and are of equal value to the church. God, in creation, has designed men and women to fill and serve in distinct roles in the home and the church. Women are designed and ordained by God to follow and submit to the leadership of qualified men in the church, and her husband in the home as a willing helper. Men are designed and ordained by God to take on a leadership role in their family, being called as the head of their household to provide, protect, and lead their family. God has also called certain, qualified men to lead churches in the office of pastor/elder. God has reserved the office and function of pastors/elders to only men. The fall of humanity in sin introduced distortion to these God-given roles, as women became inclined to usurp male authority, and men abused their authority in leadership. Yet, through the redemption found in Christ, men should lead churches and their families with selfless, Christlike care and women should joyfully submit to the God-given authority in their home and the church, as both men and women seek to live under the supreme authority of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Ten years ago, this statement would not have raised a single red flag for me. I’d have agreed with every word of it and celebrated that our church was gaining someone who was clearly taking God’s commands seriously. I was ready and willing to be that “joyfully submissive” woman because that’s what I believed would make God happy—never stopping to question the logic, to test the facts, or to examine the fruit.

But when you have actually been forced to eat some of the fruit of hardcore complementarianism like this, as I since have, you do not soon forget the way your stomach roiled from its rot.

The taste of that rot is what initially sent me into the last half-decade of study—but it is no longer the only red flag I see. Yes, complementarianism’s produce has proved putrid in my life and in the lives of millions of other women (and men) left in its wake, but beyond that alone, I’ve found that this doctrine also crumbles when measured against the big picture of God’s Word or the good news of the Gospel.

🚩

Our pastoral candidate’s above statement includes the following sentence: “God, in creation, has designed men and women to fill and serve in distinct roles in the home and the church.” But this statement cannot be corroborated by the creation accounts of Genesis 1 & 2, and in fact, Genesis indicates the exact opposite. Men and women are very clearly designed in creation as equals and co-rulers over Creation, and given the exact same vision to carry out:

Then God said, “Let Us make mankind in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the livestock and over all the earth, and over every crawling thing that crawls on the earth.” So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Genesis 1:26-28

To get anything other than total equality of value, role, and design out of this passage, you must 1) read Genesis through the lens of Paul (which is a faulty hermeneutic—Paul was informed by Genesis, but Genesis was not informed by Paul) or 2) assume that Paul’s theology fundamentally contradicts the theology laid out in Genesis (which would throw into question the cohesion and inerrancy of the Bible). The only difference between the two created beings that Genesis offers is that one is male and one is female. All other perceived distinctions are inferences we make on the text through the lens of how we have interpreted later parts of the Bible or through the lens of our particular circumstances and culture.

As far as Genesis is concerned, all humans are designed to hold an identical role and fulfill an identical purpose: to image God, rule Creation, and multiply on the earth.

Could you say that they do so in different ways, because one is a male and one is a female? Of course—that’s why there are two of them, so that each can capture uniquely the male and female characteristics of God as they rule over and carry out His vision for Creation—together a complete picture. But these unique attributes do not inevitably lead to a difference or distinction in “roles” at home or in the church. The role is the same for them both: to image God.

It’s long been a flaw in our understanding of the sexes, I believe, to think of them as opposites. We are not opposites, we are counterparts. We aren’t made to oppose each other, but to correspond to one another. Therefore, it’s not necessary to put one in the place of perpetual leader and the other in the place of designated follower; the real vision is that of Ephesians 5:21: “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

Notice what God said when He decided to create the woman:

Then the LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper corresponding to him.”

Genesis 2:18 CSB

Much has been made of that word, “helper.” Whole books have been written using it to prove that women are “designed” (as the above complementarian statement claims) to follow and submit to male leadership. But we know Hebrew interpretation and translation better than this! A faithful understanding of the Hebrew word ezer recognizes that this term is used elsewhere in the Bible in two ways:

1. To describe military powers who sweep in as allies to help God’s people

2. To describe God Himself who intervenes to rescue His people in their time of need

Far from putting women into a position of divinely designed subjugation, this description elevates women to the role of godlike deliverer—one who is uniquely empowered to stand as an ally with those in need. And this isn’t about making dinner for your hardworking husband. When God says “It is not good for man to be alone,” He isn’t saying “Men are helpless and need wives”—He actually doesn’t even use the term for a man, but the term for mankind. It is not good for mankind to try to operate without the corresponding alliance of womankind, or for womankind to operate without the corresponding alliance of mankind.

Paul agrees:

However, in the Lord, neither is woman independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For as the woman originates from the man, so also the man has his birth through the woman; and all things originate from God.

1 Corinthians 11:11-12

We need each other. Only together can we represent God appropriately. And yet the leadership structure of whole churches and denominations is built on a requirement of men operating without the corresponding alliance of women.

No wonder the fruit of this doctrine is not good.

🚩

Another portion from this complementarian statement of belief that catches my attention is as follows: “The fall of humanity in sin introduced distortion to these God-given roles, as women became inclined to usurp male authority, and men abused their authority in leadership.” While I believe the intent with this statement is to introduce a better way through Christ, I can’t help but ask: Why are we, His Church, basing our doctrine on a reaction to the Fall rather than on the proactive building of the Kingdom?

The verse he’s referring to is Genesis 3:16:

To the woman He said,

“I will greatly multiply
Your pain in childbirth,
In pain you shall deliver children;
Yet your desire will be for your husband,
And he shall rule over you.”

In the deeply complementarian circles I come from, this verse was treated as a condemnation of women and a mandate for men. Something like, “Man, keep your woman in her place, or she will destroy you.” If you didn’t grow up in this kind of church culture (or if you did, but you’re not female), try to imagine for a moment what it would be like to have this verse spoken as truth against you. It breaks my heart to think of all the women who still, subconsciously, believe themselves to be innately dangerous and in need of pressing down to preserve the pride and position of men.

In my view, this verse is actually one of the most clarifying anti-complementarian passages in all of Scripture. It captures the new reality for women after sin distorts the scene, in which the ones who were supposed to co-rule Creation as equal counterparts with men become that which is ruled over instead. It’s not that men began to abuse their God-given authority, as the above statement claims; it’s that men began to claim rule and authority over women that God did not give them, and Woman would be left with an unmet longing for the proper position of dignity and equality she once held at Man’s side—a longing she would learn to weaponize against him.

But instead of setting their eyes on the Edenic vision and striving to replicate it, the complementarian church seems bent on reacting to the reality of the Fall—therefore, inadvertently, upholding it.

🚩

The question I’d most like hardcore complementarians to answer is, what is the Good News for women?

When Jesus came, He opened His ministry with a quote from Isaiah:

“The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me,
Because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor.
He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives,
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set free those who are oppressed,
To proclaim the favorable year of the LORD.”

And He closed the book, gave it back to the attendant and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began saying to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Luke 4:18-21

The “favorable year of the Lord,” or the “Year of Jubilee” as it was known in the Torah, is detailed in Leviticus 25. It came about after seven sets of seven years—every fiftieth year—and was marked by a complete rest for the land and its people, as well as a release of all debts and slaves. After 49 years of labor and toil, buying and selling, enslavement and indebtedness, God ordained a time for everything to be reset and made right once more.

You are to consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim freedom in the land for all its inhabitants. It will be your Jubilee, when each of you is to return to his property and each of you to his clan.

Leviticus 25:10

Jesus said that He came to bring the Jubilee. He came to proclaim freedom. He came to bring rest. He came to usher in the Kingdom.

And not just for heads of household, or for rulers, or for Pharisees, or for men. It was for everyone: Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female. Even those least valued or respected in society were invited to claim an equal share in this Good News. At long last, the Anointed One had come to reverse the effects of the Fall for good, to defeat the power of sin and death, and to make it possible for all humankind to share again in the vision of the Kingdom!

So why, oh why, are we trying so hard to keep this Christ-won reality from being true in our churches?

Why do we refuse to live fully by the truth that “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28)?

Why would the freedom proclaimed by Jesus in Luke 4 extend to everyone except women? Why would women be the only ones required to stay in the same position the Fall had left them in? Why wouldn’t the Good News be good for everyone?

I believe it is. And I believe that trying to make complementarianism work within the framework of the true Gospel demands that we bend ourselves into theological pretzels that God does not endorse. I’m not throwing out Paul; I’m asking that we place Paul into the larger context of the Scriptures he knew, loved, and believed. I think he would be horrified by where so many churches have landed on this issue, and by how little headway has been made in the last 2,000 years.

It’s time to proclaim freedom in the land for all its inhabitants, women included. Ultimately, whether in families or in churches or in public spaces, the fact remains: it is not good for man to be alone.