Roles vs Gifts

Would God create a system that doesn’t work? He apparently allows ways of living that are less than the best because of the hardness (sinfulness) of people’s hearts (Matthew 19:8). Maybe that is why God has (perhaps heavy-heartedly) allowed patriarchalism to run rampant. But the egalitarian argument that patriarchalism is a result of the Fall rings true to me. In other words, Genesis 3:16 is descriptive, not prescriptive; the husband will rule over the wife, because in his sinful state that is what he will degenerate to. So why do moral leaders teach that a sinful state is the goal of one of God’s most important systems?

Evangelicals and fundamentalists, who have more hierarchicalists among them than any other group, have extremely high divorce rates equal to the general American populace. Hierarchical marriages have three times the wife abuse as do egalitarian marriages. How could God create a marriage system that he saw as good turn out to be so bad? The answer instead is that conservative Christian churches have it wrong and are actively damaging Christian marriages with very bad advice. Let’s get back to what God intended: marriages with equal partners.

Can we get one thing straight? Leaders and followers are not equal. Subjects are not equal to the queen or king. Employees are not equal to the employer. It comes down to power, doesn’t it? Who has the power? All of us play different roles in different situations. Sometimes we may be leaders and other times we may be followers. That’s how a good marriage works, too.

Do women like to be taken care of? Of course. So do men. “Care” is another word for love. It’s one of the glues that holds marriages together. It’s also a spark maker. But the roles that people take on most willingly are those that align best with their talents. It’s as if religious leaders want to wish a whole category of people out of existance: women with leadership gifts.

Roles based on genitalia don’t make sense. Base them on God-given gifts instead.