Authority by Hierarchy Is Wrong

Evangelicals believe that the Bible is the inerrant, inspired Word of God that is the final authority for faith and practice. Serious differences appear, however, in translating what the Bible says into practice. Hierarchicalists believe that the Bible says that God ordains separate roles for men and women as a part of the creation order, having been established before the Fall. Egalitarians believe that the Genesis 3:16 husband who rules over his wife is describing the consequences of the Fall. It is descriptive of those sinful consequences rather than prescriptive of God’s willful intent. So the husband that rules over his wife rather than jointly leading their family is in fact sinning. But it is God’s desire that human family relations long deeply marred by patriarchic, top-down force should one day once again display God’s glorious plan for gender relations through mutual submission and the interdependence of two equal, healthy, in-charge adults.

God does not limit His authority in the church by biology. God calls whoever He calls, and He calls both men and women to serve. Tying biology to authority given by God can get the Christian into problematic territory since the sciences, particularly sociobiology, while agreeing with the vast differences between women and men, also defend an atheistic, amoral scientism.

Putting the final say in disagreements between wife and husband always in the hands of the husband, even if he doesn’t always presume to implement it, puts the wife in a permanent state of inferiority and treats her like a child. When decision-making has no mutuality, the so-called marriage “oneness” is fake indeed – as well as demeaning. Continual repeating of the hierarchical mantra that women are equal in essence but not in function is simply unsatisfying. Her inferior status of always supporting never leading is based not on some function she can perform but on her female essence. So it’s like saying that women are equal in their being, but not equal by virtue of their being (Rebecca Merrill Groothius, “Logical and Theological Problems with Gender Hierarchy,” Priscilla Papers, (Spring 2000: 14:2), 3). It’s downright illogical.

There’s no doubt that the hierarchical ideal produces an excuse for wife abuse. Not only are men indirectly encouraged in the behavior, but women are encouraged to endure it. Psychologists James and Phyllis Alsdurf confirm this connection in their book, Battered into Submission (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1989), p. 84: “Over two-thirds of the women with whom we’ve talked said they felt it was their Christian responsibility to endure their husband’s violence. Fifty-five percent noted that their husbands had said the violence would stop if they would be more submissive; one-third of the women believed that their submissiveness could be the key to stopping the violence. Over one-third of the women in our sample said they felt pressure from their churches to submit to their husbands despite the violence.” This situation is both deeply disturbing and horrifying. The hierarchicalist response is more wifely submission and more husband loving leadership. We can do without that sort of “loving leadership,” thank you.

Thanks to Debra Bendel Daniels and her wonderful dissertation, Evangelical Feminism: The Egalitarian-Complementarian Debate, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2003, for leading me through much of this “authority” thought process.