Patriarchal Worldview: Mimi Haddad

In the newest edition of Mutuality, a church-shaped magazine for the uplifting of women by egalitarians, Mimi Haddad, President of Christians for Biblical Equality, observes that there is one gospel but two worldviews (the topic of the most recent Mutuality).

By the way, I prefer to call my own view “mutualist” or “mutuality” instead of “egalitarian,” because the term egalitarians is used as an idea fueled by the Enlightenment more than the Bible. And the habit of the complementarians to call themselves complementarians is more about hierarchy, patriarchy and order than the complementarinism of two genders, which is why true complementarians (egalitarians) tend to call themselves egalitarian or mutualists. There’s a history of how this term “complementarian” came into use after a well-known (now) egalitarian was using the term “complementarian” without hierarchy, but that’s for another time. Just read complementarian literature and you see far more about hierarchy than complementarian working together, though Tim and Kathy Keller’s book on marriage is a grand exception.

Mimi’s concern is patriarchy at work in a Christian worldview. Is male-only authority a created order or the result of the Fall? On that question the divide occurs. She sees an analogy with slavery.

Worldviews, she contends, are shaped by four elements: knowledge, nature, purpose, and ethics.

For slavery.

Knowledge: the Bible is not against slavery, so God must not be opposed to it [SMcK: this was CH Hodge’s view.]

Nature: enslaved Africans were by nature inferior.

Purpose: God’s purpose for enslaved Africans was servitude, for European (mostly) males to rule.

Ethics: justice implements this worldview.

For Patriarchy:

Knowledge: the Bible is not against patriarchy, God must not be opposed to it.

Nature: Eve sinned; therefore the nature of females is not suited for ruling.

Purpose: God’s purpose for females is obedience; men are created to lead.

Ethics: justice implements this worldview.

If patriarchy, she observes, is God’s will, then societies with male patriarchy ought to flourish. 200 million girls are missing from the planet in patriarchal cultures. To change the world requires educating women, uplifting women, and empowering women.  Patriarchy, she says, does not advance God’s justice.

All from “President’s Message” in Mutuality, summer 2014, p. 22.