Conclusions on the Egalitarian vs Complementarian debate

I did briefly consider writing a whole series about the gender issue following on from my debate with Rachel Held Evans and Owen Strachan, as well as two other recent posts here on my blog:

• Gender Roles – A Complementarian and Egalitarian Spectrum
• Bible verses that speak to gender roles or complementarian vs egalitarian spectrum – what do Scripture Passages say?

I had wondered about dealing in detail with the arguments of Rachel Held Evans in her series entitled Mutuality 2012.  However, I decided instead to post a single post listing my own conclusions having read her series, reflected again on my spectrum post, and re-read the list of key Bible passages that I put together (so far hardly anyone has suggested I missed any vital passages for discussion, interestingly)  I suspect few people will agree with everything I say here, and it is possible that I may annoy some on both sides of the fence!

• The Bible is clearly not an anti-woman book. In the context of a patriarchal society throughout both Testaments, women are honored, valued, liberated, and praised.
• When God described Eve as a helper suited for Adam, it was never intended to denigrate her, quite the contrary it teaches that man without a wife is incomplete, and indeed needs help.
• Abraham is not to be held up as an example of how to relate to women (indeed nor are most of the Patriarchs!)
• Jesus himself took every possible opportunity to honor and dignify women, teaching them, speaking with them (even “sinners”), having a group of women who followed him, and perhaps most of all in appearing to women first and sending them to be the first proclaimers of the gospel of his resurrection to the men!
• Despite Jesus incredible scandalous disregard for many of societies norms he did not appoint even one women as an Apostle.  If he had, this would have settled the argument for every complementarian I know.
• The Bible does hold out all kinds of leadership roles for women. In particular, prophecy, evangelism, leading Bible studies, and various other ways of helping the church, including it seems deaconesses. The man some egalitarians reject as a mysogynist, Paul, praises many women for being partners with him in the gospel. Is seems very likely that many complementarian churches today have not followed Paul’s personal practices as closely as they think!
• There is no evidence, however, that women in New Testament churches were ever appointed as elders.
• There seems to be an assymatry prescribed in the relationship between a husband and wife, and that is intended to reflect a similar assymymatry between Christ and the Church, and for that matter between God and Christ. In other words, if a woman submits to her husband, it does not devalue her, any more than Jesus is devalued because he submits to God.
• Women, however, are to be treated with incredible honor, and a husband who is called to lay down his life for his wife should never get the warped idea that he is meant to oppress, dominate, or demean his wife in any way.
• The abuses of patriarchalism over centuries cannot be simply airbrushed out of history, and men today must ensure we do not repeat the mistakes of our forefathers.
• On a similar note, I will say it again: none of this should ever provide any excuse or cover for any form of abuse. See for example  my post “your authority ends at the bedroom door“)
• I can find nothing in the Bible that suggests a woman must not work outside of the home, even if she has children. (See Proverbs 31!)
• Egalitarians and Complementarians often approach the Bible very differently, and use different translations. Thus it is immediately apparent in Rachel’s first post in her series she uses a translation which removes language form Genesis 1 that many complementarians believe supports male leadership.
• It is wrong to be overly wooden and literalistic in Bible interpretation and use that literalism to also reject other passages.  For example, some claim that the Bible commends polygamy, when in fact it merely truthfully reports that it was going on, and in many places demonstrates its massive weaknesses (eg the rivalry seen in the family of Faith in Genesis) and elsewhere does make clear that the ideal for marriage is one man, one woman for life.
• Egalitarians who confess to having a bit of a problem with the Apostle Paul do little to reassure those of us who worry that they do not see the Bible as inerrant and authoritative.
• It takes exegetical gymnastics that make my eyes water like this to remove some of the key passages from relevance to us today.
• There is, however, need for great discernment in precisely how to apply the Bible today, and which verses like “greet one another with a holy kiss” prescribe a culturally bound behavior which nonetheless is the expression of a culturally independent principle, so that today we are to apply the same principle in a different way, ie to perhaps hug one another or shake hands if that is more comfortable in our society.