This is a quick excursus pertinent to our recent discussions about complementarity. I’ve noticed that there are a number of complementarians who want to be egalitarians. They have sympathy for what looks like more grace and freedom in egalitarian circles. And when they consider their own circles, they’re sometimes dismayed by what feels like an overly restrictive ethos, an emphasis on prohibitions rather than encouragements to joyful actions. What holds them in the complementarian camp is their understanding that the Bible indeed teaches the equality of men and women both made in God’s image while simultaneously teaching that men and women have different roles to play in the home and the church. In other words, specific texts of the Bible are really clear to them and their consciences are appropriately bound by the word of God.
At present, I’m really enjoying James K.A. Smith’s little book, Letters to a Young Calvinist. I heartily recommend it for its warm corrective to so much grumpiness and narrowness in some Reformed circles. However, this morning I read letter 18, “On Grumpy Speculations,” where Smith includes an admittedly snarky comment about those “men” teachers his young friend listens to. Then in a postscript, he explains why he put “men” in quotes and begins a short discussion of complementarian vs. egalitarian understandings.
In the postscript, Smith reasons that the Reformed hermeneutic of Creation–Fall–Redemption provides a framework for egalitarian understandings of gender roles and relationships. He argues that distinctions in gender roles belong squarely to the Fall, and that in Redemption all that the Fall and the curse created are being rolled back. Hence, we may safely adopt an egalitarian position based on this hermeneutic.
I would be concerned that complementarians who have sympathy for what they perceive to be an egalitarian freedom and grace might be swayed by the approach Smith and others put forward. But before you put your teeth into that framework, realize there is one glaring and devastating hole in the argument: specific biblical texts. Do not replace specific biblical texts that teach truth about God’s design for the home and the church with broad frameworks and hermeneutical approaches into which we may insert anything (in the postscript, Smith cites Creation–Fall–Redemption as basis for cancer research, sustainable agriculture, and literacy training). Our hermeneutics should help us understand the Scripture, and they are only good so far as they help us understand the Scripture, the texts. We don’t want to be like the evolutionist waxing scientific about this or that “scientific discovery” while turning a blind eye to the straight forward text: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
My plea, and the hope of these posts, is that we would build our theology and practice from the texts of scripture, applying all that God requires but not going beyond the Scripture. If you’re a complementarian with egalitarian leanings, my plea would be to hold to the Scripture you love and breathe into our complementarian position new life, joy, grace, strength, hope, beauty, and holiness for both our sisters and brothers. The Spirit and the word go together. Don’t throw the baby out with the wash; keep the cleansed baby, love it, nurture it, and grow with it. All of God’s truth is meant for His glory and our joy and blessing. Dig into the texts afresh and live it with new life and we may perhaps see a revival in the land of healthy, flourishing, divinely-ordered marriages and churches.
