Arguments in favor of complementarianism

In an excellent post, Wayne Leman suggests that the strongest argument in favor of complementarianism is its conformity to the plain sense of Scripture. I don’t agree. It seems to me that the plain sense of scripture is set aside rather often by believers whenever they believe they have grounds to do so. For example:

(1) Holy kissing, (2) wearing headscarves, and (3) thinking that celibacy for the kingdom of God is preferable to matrimony are plain sense teachings of scripture. But I don’t see many people going for those things.

(4) John 13:14-15 almost certainly describes footwashing as an institution of Jesus he asked his disciples to repeat. Some early Christians made it into something they did regularly, and it is practiced in specific settings among more traditional Christians to this day. But other Christians ignore the passage and if they know it, brush off its literal observance as non-essential.

(5) 1 Timothy 5:3-16 has all kinds of things to say about what widows are supposed to do and not do, and how the church is to regulate the whole. I don’t know of many Christians who follow the plain sense meaning of this passage.

(6) James says the sick should be anointed with oil (5:14). A lot of Christians don’t do that either.

(7) Jesus says, “when you fast . . .” It’s clear he took it for granted that his disciples would fast. Still, many Christians are unconcerned that they never fast.

All of the above things are taught in scripture, but most Christians do not feel bound by the plain sense of the passages in question. Said Christians assume, and I think rightly, that the passages do not necessarily have to be followed to the letter. They can be adapted to a changed cultural situation, or, with respect to a non-essential detail, left to one side.

There are all kinds of other things that can be supported from scripture:

(8) Complementarianism, (9) slavery, and (10) the teaching that the giving and receiving of homosexual love is incompatible with being a believer.

On these last issues, over the last couple of centuries, Jews and Christians have gotten their knickers in a knot in a way earlier believers would have found quite surprising. What once was obvious, rightly or wrongly, is not obvious any more.

It is a stretch to say that in the above numbered examples, believers who upheld and in some cases still uphold these things do not have scripture on their side. On a basic level, scripture is on their side.

On the other hand, the application made in any of the above examples to current cultural realities may or may not be correct. There is, presumably, room for legitimate disagreement in all of the above cases - or not: all anyone can do is state an opinion on the matter.

So how does one decide which practices and teachings numbered above remain valid, and which do not?

One possible move is to suggest that Paul and Peter actually were abolitionists and egalitarians, and furthermore, had nothing against homosexuality per se, just the abuse to which it was subject in their day.

I don’t find these suggestions convincing. In a famous article in the Christian Century in which Walter Wink gagged on Robert Gagnon’s defense of the traditional understanding of homosexuality, he nevertheless admitted that Gagnon had the plain sense of a number of biblical passages on his side.

A few egals are intent on contending that scripture precludes complementarianism. However, many egals think otherwise.

According to these egals, Paul and Peter take steps forward in the direction of patriarchy qualified by Christian content, but what they advocate remains patriarchy. NT scholar Carolyn Osiek is an example of such an egal (go here and here).

To my mind, there are three principal existential/rational arguments that play into a decision in favor of embracing complementarianism:

(1) Personal comfort level. There are a lot of people, men and women, who feel that complementarianism fits who they are. I’m not talking about versions which are way out of sync with current cultural realities, but versions which are mildly rather than radically counter-cultural. Think Gary Thomas and Emerson Eggerichs. It is no accident that Eggerichs’ Love and Respect is one of the best-selling Christian books out there right now.

(2) Compatibility with scripture, which is not the same thing as a plain sense reading. Christians, evangelicals included, avoid a plain sense reading of scripture whenever it suits them, if by a plain sense reading is meant a reading that expects Paul, Peter, and James, in occasional letters to churches and individuals, to give Christians an eternally valid blueprint on how to structure everything touched upon. A little honesty, please. But if complementarianism is not precluded by scripture, and (1) is also the case, it begins to look very attractive.

(3) The church one goes to teaches it. The same church which nurtures you in a thousand other ways. BTW, this is how it works in my church, which is egalitarian. Once you have had the experience of seeing strong healthy egalitarian marriages with your own eyes, once you have had the experience of being blessed by the preaching of a female presbyter, it is hard to go back.

In my case, I have nothing to go back to. I grew up egal. I’m aware of the framework’s weaknesses, as well as its strengths.

BTW, plenty of comps find themselves in a symmetrical situation. They have nothing to complain about, except the usual things: complementarianism has weaknesses and not just strengths.

It is my understanding that if a person concludes that complementarianism fits him or her based on the criteria just outlined, his or her choice is to be respected.

I’m a suspicious egal, so I want to make sure that comps under my care are giving adequate play to 1 Cor 13, Rom 12, the principle of mutual consent, and so on. But I equally want to make sure that egals under my care are doing the same. Talking the talk and walking the walk are two very different things.

UPDATE

This post led Wayne to revise his original post. To be sure, I think his original statement, as I misunderstood it -  “[complementarianism] seems to be what is taught in the Bible if we take the plain sense of the words as we have them translated in our English Bibles” - describes the facts on the ground. Complementarians see this; so do many egalitarians. As Wayne comments below, it was nevertheless not his intent to come down one way or the other on the question of whether the plain sense of the relevant passages is complementarian in content or not. I would add that “our English Bibles” do a plausible job, all things considered, of translating the relevant passages, though a nitpicker like me will always find details to disapprove of.

Here are links to three posts in response to this one: Mike Aubrey; Damian Caruana; and Suzanne McCarthy. It's nice to see that Suzanne has recommitted to participation in biblioblogdom. Finally, I would point out that Mike Heiser has been going at these questions in his own way; for example, go here.

Comments

[scott gray]

john--

you said, "so how does one decide which practices and teachings numbered above remain valid, and which do not?"

a friend of mine got me a copy of 'teach like your hair is on fire' by rafe esquith, and he uses kohlberg's development model in his class of fifth graders. so one answer to your question is, authority goes to those passages, or 'voices' of scripture if you will, that validate your moral motivation at the particular kohlberg level you find yourself living, and loving, and having your being. and because there are so many voices in scripture, you can easily(!) find those passages that support one's own motivation for moral behavior.

peace--

scott

[Robert Holmstedt]

John,

"Plain sense" gets thrown around too much without definition. What's yours?

Rob

[JohnFH]

Scott,

That's interesting. Kohlberg's development model is unfamiliar to me. People's moral behavior and moral judgments, I think, have complex roots. Furthermore, anthropology teaches us that taboo systems, taxonomies, cognitive maps of the world, and eschatologies, often shaped by unreasonable paranoia, contribute to the process of moral reasoning in decisive ways.

Rob,

If you have a coherent definition of "plain sense" that has a chance of clarifying the issues, let's have it. I'm not sure I do, but I hope the sense I give to the expression in context is clear enough.

I have reservations with a common definition of plain sense. For example, the author of the epistle of James exhorts his addressees to anoint the sick with oil in the Lord's name: I'm happy to describe that as the plain sense of a part of the letter. It's an easy example.

However, as soon as one says that the epistle of James exhorts US to anoint the sick with oil, we are already beyond its plain sense. I would call that the canonical sense of the text, which quite legitimately might take another form: the text exhorts us to pray for the sick (with anointing seen as a non-essential).

In the same way, the command "to greet the brethren with a kiss" may be understood canonically, and usually is, to exhort us to greet each other with affection (with kissing as a non-essential).

(BTW, in my tradition we continue to anoint the sick with oil, though it is not considered a necessary element in the ministry of healing. So I am not against applying the plain sense of a passage "without change" to a changed situation.)

In short, I would carefully distinguish the plain sense of a passage from other senses the passage undoubtedly has. But I bet you I'm overlooking problems, and you are welcome to point them out.

[Mike Aubrey]

I don't care for "plain sense" arguments either. Appeals to the plain sense of scripture tend to either ignore or deny that what was the plain sense of a text for the original audience is not necessarily applicable to us today.

Appeals to the plain sense of scripture tend to forget that when it comes to Paul's letters, we are literally reading other people's mail. And thus any commands in Paul's letters do not directly map to the modern day. If we are going to describe our faith as being a faith grounded in history, we must take that history seriously when interpreting historical and contextual texts such as Paul's letters.

[Robert Holmstedt]

John,

My definition will likely not clarify anything in terms of the passages or issues at hand. All I can add is my own use of the concept. Growing up Lutheran, we always heard about the "plain sense" or the "simple meaning" of Scripture, but it was used as "the easiest reading" rather than a contextually plausible one. It wasn't until I went off to college and read quite a bit about dear M.L. himself, as well as most of his non-commentary writings, that I recognized Luther's own use of the concept: he interpreted Scripture will all the tools available to him.

Thus, the plain sense of Scripture, as I think Luther used it and as I like to use it, is the one that we arrive at after employing every appropriate historical, cultural, literary, and linguistic filter at our disposal.

In that light, your examples of holy kissing, foot-washing, etc. are irrelevant since you've haven't actually done any interpretation of the texts (or, at least you haven't finished the job of reaching a plain sense).

Without taking the time to trot out good examples of what I mean, I'll simply say that I do take the "comp" position to pass my tests for the plain sense. But since I don't expect to convince anyone even if I did flesh out an argument, I'll leave it at that.

Anyway, enough from me.

Rob

[Wayne Leman]

John wrote:

I don’t agree that its compatibility with scripture is the strongest argument in favor of complementarianism.

And I agree with you, John. It seems that so very often I am not able to communicate clearly enough what I actually am intending to mean in my posts. (Of course, that give you good fuel for blog posts, but I find it very frustrating not to communicate adequately.) I have just revised my post to make it clearer that I was not presenting "the strongest argument in favor of complementarianism," but, rather, was trying to present what the complementarians I grew up with consider the strongest argument in favor of complementarianism.

[JohnFH]

Mike,

I'm sympathetic to the direction of your argument, and find the post you put up on your blog in response to Wayne's and this one well-written.

Still, I think that when an author, ancient or modern, reaches historically conditioned, context-specific conclusions, said author often does so by means of arguments thought by him or her to settle the question by appeal to truths regarded as timeless - at the time!

That's the trouble: the truths presented as timeless in the New Testament - God is love, in God there is no darkness at all, the man is the head of the woman, woman is saved through childbearing - are, properly understood, timelessly true - at least that's what I think. But the specific application to which they are put in particular passages (like 1 Cor 11 and 1 Tim 2) is time-sensitive.

I don't think it can be otherwise. Then or now. The same applies to whatever application is made of other timeless truths such as "there is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female," "in the last days, I will pour out my Spirit on your handmaidens, and they will prophesy," etc.

[JohnFH]

Rob,

I'm not sure how we differ. The contextually plausible meaning of many, many passages is indisputable, for example, "greet with a holy kiss," or "anoint the sick with oil in the name of the Lord," or "in every place of worship ... I do not let women teach men or have authority over them" (NLT 1 Tim 2:8-11).

What I'm saying is that even when the contextually plausible meaning is not in doubt, it remains to figure out what to do with it in our context.

In other words, how are particular passages to be read in light of the entire biblical witness and in relation to a regula fidei (a creed) the elements of which are themselves derived from scripture?

If you are claiming that complementarianism coheres with a plain-sense reading in the sense of a contextually plausible construal of the contents of scripture, I would one up you and say, patriarchalism coheres even better (see my Carolyn Osiek posts).

But I think we both agree that the contextually plausible versions of patriarchy Moses and Paul supported in their day are not necessarily normative in our context.

[JohnFH]

Wayne,

I guess I tipped your hand in a particular direction whereas you wish to be like a referee who says, "these are my observations, you decide."

Like many others who are trained in biblical studies and remain confessional believers, I make a distinction between a text's contextually plausible meaning - its plain sense *in one sense* - and the meaning the same text may be taken to have for and in our context, in light of the entire biblical witness, a canon within a canon (a regula fidei), other faithful traditions, and things we think experience has taught us by the grace of God.

Personally, I do not think it speaks well of an exegete if the above distinction is overlooked. Everything is at stake when the distinction is made, but it cannot be otherwise. There is no shortcut.

I also do not think it speaks well of an exegete if the indisputable contextually plausible meaning of a given passage - for example, "in every place of worship ... I do not let women teach men or have authority over them" (NLT 1 Tim 2:8-11) - is not admitted.

I think your post as I originally understood it, in which you were willing to grant that the plain sense of a passage like 1 Tim 2:8-11 is indisputable and complementarian in content - or at least that it must be granted as reasonable that many think it so (something a large number of comps and egals agree on, but develop in opposing ways) - advanced the discussion.

Perhaps in fact that remains a fair description of your position. Perhaps you are willing to concede the plausibility of a complementarian reading of a passage like 1 Tim 2:8-11.

On the other hand, you seem not rule out the legitimacy of an egalitarian position which understands this text to be time- and context-specific on the basis of other texts and on the basis of the premise that a letter like 1 Timothy was not meant in the first place to provide a set of rules about pulpit supply valid for every imaginable cultural context until Jesus returns.

It's a complex position I happen to be comfortable with. Perhaps you are as well.