Culture And Complentarianism

Historians of American culture know that the “role” of women so important to complementarianism is as much a product of post World War 2 American cultural mores as of the Bible and of the history of women in society and church since the 1st Century. In fact, Lassie is one of your best examples.

In a recent article we are confronted with the claims that this understanding of male-female relations (anyone read Proverbs 31, anyone know about the American frontier, about farming, about post WW2 shifts in culture and roles?) is biblical, gospel and an indicator of faithfulness to the gospel and Bible.

So Beth Allison Barr! Worth reading the whole thing. Well done.

Today, the ideas we associate with biblical womanhood —you know, the ones you hear from Lisa Teurkherst on KLove’s Proverbs 31 Woman and Desiring God podcasts that emphasize women as submissive wives who prioritize children and home over career and who are content to teach children at church but remain under the patriarchal hierarchy of male teachers and pastors—are emphasized by modern American culture NOT because they are “biblical” but because they are culturally acceptable. We (as Evangelical Christians) have chosen to focus on these aspects of biblical womanhood (which also means we have chosen to ignore other characteristics associated with biblical women).

Yet this idea that “biblical womanhood” owes as much (if not more) to cultural invention than it does to biblical text has made little headway among evangelical Christians. Indeed, it often seems that the opposite has happened—rather than a cultural construction, “biblical womanhood” is viewed as integral to normative Christianity. In a 2012 interview, for example, John Piper, Denny Burke, and Tim Keller argued that male headship and female submission is not a secondary issue; it is a gospel issue. Keller argued that complementarianism, the view that God designed distinct roles for men and women in both biology and personhood, “indirectly affects the way we understand scripture and the way we understand the gospel.” Piper cut to the chase, stating the “men are wired to lead,” and if Christians “aren’t willing to stand against the tide” of culture on this issue (i.e. support complementarianism and reject egalitarianism), “you are probably going to cave on some other important issues.” …

Could it be that the complementarian notion of “biblical womanhood” (especially the claim that women’s distinct personhood makes no room for women as teachers and leaders of men) is not only more recent but also a more Western perspective? Could our modern notion of “biblical womanhood”, which confines women’s primary role to house and family and forbids women all leadership roles over men in the church, have less to do with the Bible and more to do with American Christianity?

Think about it.