Why I’m Not a Complementarian Part 1

One of the arguments still going around in Protestant circles, especially in Evangelical ones, is the nature of the relation between men and women. There's two major opinions on the issue, "complementarian" and "egalitarian":

Egalitarian: Men and women are equal. Everything one can do, the other can do, and they are of equal worth. (Think "Egalité")

Complementarian: Men and women are of equal value, but have different God-ordained roles. Most complementarians would prohibit women from being Pastors, for example (Think they "complement" each other).

 

I remember when I was about 16 years old, the Youth Pastor at my church introduced me to the idea of complementarianism. Of course, he didn't call it that, but during a phone conversation, he had me look up 1 Timothy 2:9-15. This reads, in the HCSB:

⁹ Also, the women are to dress themselves in modest clothing, ^(A) with decency and good sense; not with elaborate hairstyles, gold, ^(B) pearls, or expensive apparel, ¹⁰ but with good works, ^(C) as is proper for women who affirm that they worship God. ¹¹ A woman should learn in silence with full submission. ^(D)
12 I do not allow a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; instead, she is to be silent. ¹³ For Adam was created first, then Eve. ^(E)
14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and transgressed. ^(F)
15 But she will be saved through childbearing, if she continues ^[a] in faith, love, and holiness, ^(G) with good sense.

Paul writes something similar in 1 Corinthians 14:34-36:

³⁴ the women ^[h] should be silent in the churches, ^(T) for they are not permitted to speak, but should be submissive, as the law also says. ³⁵ And if they want to learn something, they should ask their own husbands ^(U) at home, for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church meeting. ³⁶ Did the word of God originate from you, or did it come to you only?

 

I was totally shocked to hear him teach me this. I had some real problems, too, because I had always been taught about equality – had I been fooled?

 

There's a big question looming here: Is Paul talking about the same thing in both places? There's some pretty good reasons why he might not be.

In Corinthians, that last verse is directed at men, so Paul was in a sense saying "did the word of God only come to you men?" And just a little bit before, Paul was talking about women praying and prophesying in the church (Chapter 11)! Paul's letter to the church in Corinth was a reply – here in ch 14, he quotes from the original letter to deny it: the position of the men-only crowd in Corinth is demonstrated to be false.

 

1 Corinthians 11, by the way, is a pretty good parallel to 1 Timothy 2, in this issue. So how do we deal with this?

The question to ask here is if Paul was prescribing how things should be or describing how they are. Timothy was in Ephesus, the cult-city of the goddess Artemis. Corinth was the center of Aphrodite worship. So there's good reason to believe that Paul is dealing with very time- and place-specific issues here. The other reason is this: If you want to believe that he was prescribing behavior, you have to take the whole package. No gold, no pearls, no elaborate hairstyles, no expensive clothing (Timothy) no short hair, no uncovered hair (Corinthians)….and worst of all, in the same letter, in 1 Timothy 6:1, you give slavery the OK.

 

So if Paul meant something else, how do we deal with the relationship between men and women? How about Galatians 3:28:

²⁸ There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, ^(A) male or female; ^(B) for you are all one ^(C) in Christ Jesus.

 

There's not differences between us, and we are all equal. Equal in value as well as in function.

Interestingly enough, Paul accepts this pretty clearly in Romans 16:7:

⁷ Greet Andronicus and Junia, ^[a] my fellow countrymen ^(A) and fellow prisoners. ^(B) They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were also in Christ before me.

What's the big deal here? Junia is a woman's name. Some say it's a short form of Junius, but there's no evidence for that, and there's hundreds of instances of Junia as a woman's name. Junia may well have even been a female apostle (there's some argument about the second sentence), but she was clearly a woman of some importance. Not enough? Look at Romans 1:1, where Pheobe is the diakonos of the church.

 

There's going to be a part 2 to this, in the next day or so.