Headship / Submission: A Soft Complementarian Model

A second set of reflections by Marilyn Johnson, a complementarian, on a hot-off-the-press volume entitled Marriage at the Crossroads.

Here, I’ll focus on the soft-complementarian model. The Tracys (p. 66) state that the “essence of male headship involves initiation, protection/provision and honoring/empowering in the unbroken context of oneness and love.” 

This definition highlights the three aspects of the soft-complementarian model that are often overlooked by egalitarian critics.  First, the overarching theme is that the husband is to act out of love for his wife and with an awareness of the organic unity implied by the head/body metaphor.  Second, in contrast to older complementarian models that emphasize a husband’s authority over his wife, the emphasis in the soft complementarian model is on the husband’s exercise of authority on behalf of his wife.  His authority reflects the fact that God has given him a tremendous responsibility - to protect his wife and to provide for her.

She is to submit to him, because if she refuses to “yield to her husband in love, then his ability to care for and protect her can be significantly compromised.”  Finally, a husband is to honor his wife and to empower her.  Just as God calls him to Kingdom service, God also calls her.

Although a wife is to submit to her husband in love, the Tracys point out that her submission is not without qualification.  Here, the couple cites an earlier academic paper by Steve, which argues that a wife should not yield to her husband in “circumstances in which submission would violate a biblical principle (not just a direct biblical command), compromise her relationship with Christ, violate her conscience, compromise the care and protection of the children, enable her husband’s sin, and entail submitting to any type of abuse.”

I’m taken with the Tracys' presentation of the soft-complementarian model and any differences I mention below are primarily a matter of emphasis.  I want to begin by saying that I applaud theTracys for their explicit qualifications to submission!  Let me repeat that – I applaud the Tracys for their explicit qualifications to submission!  I also applaud the Tracys for emphasizing the importance of husbands’ empowering/honoring of their wives.  Had the Tracys left off at encouraging husbands to empower their wives, I would have reservations.  But the empower/honor pairing does a good job of capturing the nuances of the soft complementarian perspective. 

Like the Tracys, my husband and I are a two-career, professional couple.  My husband empowers me to serve outside the home.  Many wives, however, feel that their primary call is to serve in the home.  “Empowerment” language can leave these women feeling inadequate.  Here, the corrective is the Tracys’ dual emphasis on empower/honor.  Husbands are to esteem honor their wives for the difference their wives make in the relational realm.  Here, I would have preferred a more explicit discussion of the many paths that women feel called to take. 

I believe that I differ from the Tracys in that I’m comfortable with explicit use of the word “hierarchy” to describe my marriage.  My understanding of submission is that hupatasso is a military term with a hierarchical implication.  I am to voluntarily place myself under my husband’s protection.  I agree with the Tracys’ emphasis on “authority of love” and “authority on behalf of.”  I also agree that a husband is never to compel his wife’s submission.  Nonetheless, from the perspective of the wife, “authority on behalf of” implies acceptance of “authority over,” a distinction that becomes clear in the event of a stalemate.

Finally, although a minor point, I would have liked to have seen a stronger emphasis on the relevance of provision/protection in the contemporary context.  With respect to provision, even in a dual-career marriage, men and women tend to view work very differently.  As Emerson Eggerichs points out, husbands feel a burden to provide, whereas wives are more apt to see career as a choice. 

With respect to protection, we often acknowledge that it is rare for husbands to be called upon to physically protect their wives, thereby forgetting that a woman’s safety is daily dependent on the existence of a Judeo-Christian ethic that emphasizes the protection of women and children.  We find it easy to deemphasize the importance of protection and provision in industrialized Western societies.  But, when either is lacking, a wife’s anguished cry is a testimony to the fact that the world is “not the way it’s supposed to be.”

Bibliography

Emerson Eggerichs, Love & Respect: The Love She Most Desires, The Respect He Desperately Needs (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2004); Aída Besançon Spencer, William David Spencer, Steve Tracy, and Celestia Tracy, Marriage at the Crossroads: Couples in Conversation About Discipleship, Gender Roles, Decision Making and Intimacy (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2009)

Comments

[Jen]

Thank you, Marilyn. You have given a detailed presentation of the Tracy's position.

My concern is that in many churches women have been ordained for the last 30 to 40 years. The thrust of the complementarian position in this environment is to ensure that women are no longer recognized as formal Christian leaders.

How does this empower/honour women in general or individual women?

[Mike Aubrey]

Before I say what I'm going to say, I need to be clear that I appreciate the "soft-complementarian model." I've seen it in practice by a number of couples for whom I have the utmost respect.

But at the same time, I consider it less consistent in its approach to scripture than the "hard" complementarian model or the egalitarian model.

Where the Hard Comp seeks to interpret a passage such as Ephesians 5 at "face value" (whatever that means...), and the Egalitarian seeks to interpret Ephesians 5 in its socio-historical-cultural context (cf. Fee, "The Cultural Context of Ephesians 5:18–6:9," PRISCILLA PAPERS, 16(2002):3-8), I feel as if the Soft Comp is almost trying to have it both ways:

Ephesians 5:24 say, "As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything."

Key words in bold. Its less than clear to me how the Soft Comp interprets that phrase in light of their emphasis on "qualifications to submission."

[JohnFH]

Jen and Mike,

Thank you for your valuable contributions to this debate. Marilyn I know is very busy today and may not be able to respond until later. But I'm sure the wait will be worth it.

[Marilyn]

Hi Jen,

Thanks for your comment. I'm not sure that I have a satisfactory answer for you.

CBMW theologian Wayne Grudem points out that there are two types of complementarians: one-point complementarians and two-point complementarians.

One-pointers believe that the Bible teaches gender roles in marriage, but does not place gender restrictions on ministry roles. Two-pointers believe that the Bible gives gender-differentiated counsel on both topics.

I am a member of a two-point complementarian church. I’ve spent lots of time studying Bible passages on marriage and have read widely in the Christian marriage literature, but I’m not familiar enough with the Scripture or teaching on gender roles in ministry to contribute to a discussion here.

However, I can tell you this. Most soft complementarians hold their views on women in ministry more loosely than they hold their views on marriage.

For a grace-filled articulation of the two-point complementarian view, I encourage you to read the Women in Ministry Position Paper written by the Imago Dei Community in Portland, Oregon, www.imagodeicommunity.com.

[Marilyn]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for joining the conversation. In response to your question about the meaning of ‘submit in everything’, here is a quick summary of a couple of the key points that Steve Tracy makes in his article, “What Does ‘Submit in Everything’ Really Mean?”.

General principle:

“Due to human depravity, those with greater power will often abuse their power… Scripture records hundreds of instances of ungodly authorities who were not obeyed….All earthly authorities are penultimate; Christ alone is sovereign.”

Application to Ephesians 5:

“We noted earlier that in the Greco-Roman household codes, wives were expected to take their husbands’ religion…But the New Testament makes it clear that believers are never to obey a human authority who causes them to disobey Christ. Hence, the phrase cannot literally mean ‘every single thing’.”

The full text of Steve Tracy’s article is available on his faculty web page at: www.phoenixseminary.com.

[Jen]

Marilyn,

I have now some of Tracy's papers on his webiste, which you pointed out. Thank you.

First, he notes that submission intensifies abuse.

He also remarks that male clery are especially likely to downplay or minimize abuse. There was also an article on CBMW website to this affect.

In fact, removing women from clergy positions is not only hard on those women themselves, but, according to Tracy, it increases the liklihood that women's issues will not be addressed.

In reading further in Tracy's work, I see his concern about protecting women. In view of many missions and organizations which feel that providing women with equal contribution to decision-making is a way to empower and protect women, I am puzzled about why complementarians claim that removing decision-making prerogative from women empowers them.

I sense great sympathy from Tracy's writing and he correctly points out some of the terrible consequences to women of the complementarian doctrine.

I have just now gone back and read Tracy's seatbelt story. In my view, hierarchical arrangements between a father and a mother are completely inappropriate. This is what I get from reading Tracy. Perhaps that is his intent.

Would you say that Tracy is a hierarchical complementarian or not?

Thanks for mentioning his articles. He references some of the very distressing teaching that has enslaved many women. I pray that some day this teaching will no longer be acceptable.

[Marilyn]

Jen,

I honor you for your heart for the abused and agree with you that the Church has too often failed to protect the abused. I’m appreciative of ministries like the Tracys’ Mending the Soul, that both assist the abused and educate the Christian community.

I don’t think that the Tracys would say that “hierarchical complementarianism” adequately describes their position. Here’s a statement from p. 64 of Marriage at the Crossroads that captures my understanding of their views:

“To summarize, kephale does often denote some type of authority, but this must be carefully nuanced. When Christ’s headship is emphasized as authority, it is for the protection of all believers. When Christ’s headship is emphasized over the church, it is expressed in his sacrificial nurturing. This helps us understand I Corinthians 11:3, which teaches that the Father and husbands are respectively heads of Christ and women, emphasizing their role in protection and loving support. They have a measure of authority, but based on the texts we’ve looked at, this authority would be used more toward other individuals or forces that might threaten, than it would be used over Christ or wives.”

My own personal observation and experience suggests that a husband’s exercise of authority over his wife is not a laudable end goal. Commitment to it fosters a culture of entitlement that is a breeding ground for emotional and physical abuse. It is destructive of one-flesh unity.

Similarly, my own personal observation and experience suggests that equality in decision-making is not a laudable end goal. Commitment to it fosters a bookkeeping mentality (e.g., you got to pick last time, it’s my turn to pick this time) and leads to endless rounds of negotiation that result in a decision-making process that is also destructive of one-flesh intimacy.

I agree with the Tracys and Spencers that in making decisions, a Christian couple’s overriding focus should be on advancing the Kingdom. Husbands and wives with a humble commitment to that goal will listen to each other and stand in awe of God’s work in their spouse’s life and the community around them.

[Jen]

Any doctrinal teaching that one person has prior right to making a decision for the children based on the gender of the parent seems to conflict with safety. Who makes the decision should be based on numerous practical factors, not on simply assiging over-riding authority to one or the other of the parents based on gender.

I think first the issue is to establish whether marriage is a hierarchy where one person has final say or not. This is usually the core teaching of complementarianism as I have seen it described. Clearly the Tracy's are different.

If marriage isn't a hierarchy, then I am not sure how this differs from egalitarianism.

[JohnFH]

The Tracys make it clear that in their version of complementarianism, the husband has overall authority. The Tracys speak of this in terms of a husband's "unique responsibility" (132), the husband's "authority of love" (126), and so on.

But, as Marilyn points out, all authority and all love in the Tracys' model are goal-oriented in terms of Christ's kingdom.

That's *not* the same thing as being goal-oriented toward egalitarianism.

Little attention has been given to the Spencers' egalitarianism so far, which I think is an oversight. What I notice is that their egalitarianism is seen as the best means they know of to an end, that of furthering Christ's kingdom on earth. I will expand on this in a future post.

[JohnFH]

A note about safety. In my experience, sin and sickness are the chief contributing factors to the creation and subsistence of an unsafe environment for children.

Egalitarianism is impotent and easily overwhelmed by said factors. No less than complementarianism, egalitarianism becomes a tool in the hands of sinners at the expense of children.

In my setting, in which most parents with young children self-identify as egalitarian if defined for them generically, detrimental environments for children are created all the time, in the context of custody battles, or simply in the name of very equal individual rights that trump the right of children to a mother and father who relate to them and each other in unselfish fashion.

It certainly has been documented, among both traditional Jews and traditional Christians, that a traditional non-egalitarian marriage framework has sometimes led to an abnormally high rate of abuse. The opposite has also been documented, that in other traditional communities, increased rates of abuse are not in evidence. Which goes to show that some other factor is the killer factor.

It stands to reason that if studies were done across complementarian (neo-traditionalist) and egalitarian communities, a similar unevenness in rates of abuse would emerge.

I continue to wager that communities which have poor means in place to deal with sin and sickness are subject to higher rates of abuse.

Communities, for example, in which the extended family tends not to play a positive role, or communities in which there is an antagonistic attitude towards the resources and personnel of the state. Just examples.

[Jen]

You write,

"Communities, for example, in which the extended family tends not to play a positive role, or communities in which there is an antagonistic attitude towards the resources and personnel of the state. Just examples."

Yes, this is an excellent observation. I have seen marvelous extended families. But male hierarchy may enable or may destroy the extended family. I have seen both. This is why male hierarchy should not be promoted as helping anything, since it can equally destroy, We are on the same page on this.

Those for whom male hiearchy has destroyed the family will not take kindly to it.

[JohnFH]

On the contrary, I think that complementarianism, so long as it is based on an authority-differential anchored in love rather than raw power, is a defensible marriage arrangement from the point of view of scripture, tradition, reason, and experience.

I feel the same way about egalitarianism. It, too, is capable of redemption if anchored in 1 Corinthians 13. Otherwise, it is full of false promise.

[Jen]

Raw power is like any other kind of power. Some people are for stricter gun laws and some people are not. Just as it is better not to spiritualize the use of guns, male power is better off not being given special dispensation by the church.

I can accept male power, but not as something that has priority over anything else. It is the impetus for so much evil in the world that it is better to just let it be what it is, something that can be good or evil depending on how it is used.

[JohnFH]

Rather, "males" (though I hardly accept such a crude way of reasoning) need to be empowered, not disempowered.

The same applies to "females."

The question is how, to what ends, and in what context.

Complementarians sometimes preserve wisdom and insights on these matters that are lost in the shuffle among egalitarians.

I do not cease being an egalitarian by making a candid admission of this kind.

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