{"id":55236,"date":"2015-03-02T00:20:06","date_gmt":"2015-03-02T06:20:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?p=55236"},"modified":"2017-08-01T15:34:53","modified_gmt":"2017-08-01T20:34:53","slug":"revisionist-history-on-the-term-complementarian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2015\/03\/02\/revisionist-history-on-the-term-complementarian\/","title":{"rendered":"Revisionist History on the Term “Complementarian”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

One of the more relentless students of the history of women in ministry among evangelicals, and especially of the history of how egalitarians and complementarians have framed their arguments and used their terms, is Kevin Giles of Australia. Because of the social and ecclesial force among conservative evangelicals on the side of so-called \u201ccomplementarians,\u201d one would have to say Giles has to go on the defensive often just to clear up the argument.\u00a0His most recent study is called \u201cThe Genesis of Confusion: How \u2018Complementarians\u2019 Have Corrupted Communication,\u201d Priscilla Papers<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a029 (2015) 22-29. [All citations below are from this article.]<\/p>\n

One of the more interesting elements of this history is how the term \u201ccomplementarian\u201d was originally a term used by egalitarians but that became the fixed term by the so-called \u201ccomplementarians\u201d for their own view! One of Giles\u2019 observations is that what we now have \u2014 in the reality of this debate \u2014 is hierarchical-complementarians (those who use the term \u201ccomplementarian\u201d today) and egalitarian-complementarians (those who are called \u201cegalitarians\u201d today). \u00a0Both believe in complentarity of the sexes:<\/p>\n

Because God made humankind man and woman (Gen 1:27-28), virtually all theologians agree that man and woman complete what it means to be human; the two sexes are complementary. Man alone or woman alone is not humanity in its completeness. Since the earliest descriptions of the evangelical egalitarian position in the mid-1970s, egalitarians have unambiguously affirmed the complementarity of the sexes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At this point the discussion gets very interesting in the capturing of a term. The capturing of a term for one side results in a revisionist story of what complementarians believe and what they mean by the term.<\/p>\n

First, Grudem and Piper gave the term \u201ccomplementarian\u201d to their team and were unaware (evidently) that it was used by the group they called \u201cegalitarians\u201d or \u201cevangelical feminists.\u201d Perhaps most important, the term \u201ccomplementarian\u201d for them was about \u201croles\u201d and the man was to rule or lead and the woman was to submit or follow. Complementarian meant male leadership in the home and church, and for some in society as well. Here\u2019s Giles:<\/p>\n

Grudem, in his 2006 book, Countering the Claims of Evangelical Feminism<\/em>, tells us how his side came to use the words, \u201ccomplementary\u201d and \u201ccomplementarian.\u201d He says the first time those arguing for a hierarchal relationship between men and often used the word \u201ccomplementary\u201d was on November 17,1988, in the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood\u2019s founding document, the Danvers Statement. He says, that as far as he knows, \u201cit had not been previously used in this controversy.\u201d It had indeed, as I will show below. In the Danvers Statement, the stance taken is not<\/strong> called the \u201ccomplementarian\u201d position. Grudem tells us that he and John Piper, in editing the 1991 symposium, Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism<\/em>, \u201ccoined\u201d the term \u201ccomplementarian\u201d as a self-designation of their position. In other words, they invented it.<\/strong>\u00a0In this book, the editors admit that, in designating their understanding of what the Bible teaches on the sexes the \u201ccomplementarian\u201d position, they were seeking to establish a new term for what had hitherto been called the \u201ctraditional\u201d or \u201chierarchical\u201d position<\/strong>. From this point on, virtually every book written by an evangelical in support of the creation based subordination of women<\/strong> has designated the stance taken as the \u201ccomplementarian\u201d position and constantly spoken of the man-woman relationship as \u201ccomplementary.\u201d [Bold added.]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Second, the facts are that Grudem-Piper did not \u201ccoin\u201d a term but used a term used by egalitarians. Here is the evidence Giles trots out.<\/p>\n

Paul Jewett, in his seminal 1975 book, Man as Male and Female<\/em>, argued for \u201ca model of partnership \u2026 where man and woman are properly related when they accept each other as equals whose difference is mutually complementary in all spheres of life and human endeavour.\u201d In my 1977 book I argued that the church needs for its well-being both men and women in leadership, for the church is impoverished when more than half of its members are excluded from leadership. I did not explicitly use the term \u201ccomplementary,\u201d but I did speak of \u201cthe distinctive contribution that is made by men and women\u201d in the church and in marriage. What is more, I repeatedly described ministry in the church and marriage as a \u201cpartnership\u201d where each sex adds to what the other brings. I was surprised on re-reading the book that I had not explicitly used the word \u201ccomplementary,\u201d for the idea was presupposed in all that I said. However, in my 1985 book, Created Woman: A Fresh Study of the Biblical Teaching<\/em>, I explicitly wrote of the \u201ccomplementarity of the sexes\u201d and constantly described their relationship in this way.<\/p>\n

In 1983, the English egalitarian evangelical scholar Mary Evans, in her important study, Women in the Bible<\/em>, continued this trend, using the term \u201ccomplementary\u201d to designate what the Bible teaches on the sexes. In 1985, another English evangelical, Elaine Storkey, in What\u2019s Right with Feminism<\/em>, similarly spoke of the sexes \u201ccomplementing\u201d each other. From this time on, the word was commonly used by egalitarian evangelicals<\/strong>. Thus CBE\u2019s 1989 \u2018Statement on Men, Women, and Biblical Equality,\u201d now available in thirty-four languages, implies the complementarity of the sexes throughout and speaks explicitly of their \u201ccomplementarity.\u2019 [Bold added]<\/p>\n

Moving forward, Ronald Pierce and Rebecca Merrill Groothuis named their 2004 scholarly egalitarian symposium, Discovering Biblical Equality: Complementarity without Hierarchy<\/em>. They well support the claim that,<\/p>\n

From the time of the first wave of the modern women\u2019s movement at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, many have argued that women should participate equally with men precisely because they bring complementary gender qualities to marriage, ministry and society.<\/em>\u2018<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So what is this all about? Giles:<\/p>\n

I suggest the debate is actually about power\u2014who rules over whom and who determines doctrine.<\/p>\n

Faced with these facts [women are good leaders; subordination harms our culture] and ever-growing opportunities for women to become leaders in the church and society, \u201ccomplementarians\u201d have desperately sought euphemistic terminology that will help them win the day. The day has come for plain speaking!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That plain speaking means we need to say that the reason they chose \u201ccomplementarian\u201d was because \u201chierarchical\u201d and \u201ctraditional\u201d were too clear.<\/p>\n

Who\u2019s accommodating now?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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