Guys, I love you. But even those of you who are deeply aware of women’s issues in the wider culture (and my friends all are, they have hearts the size of a whole continent), sometimes seem to be unaware of what it’s like to be a woman in a conservative Bible-believing faith community.
Which is as it should be, to some extent, I suppose, since you’re men.
But, my beloved friends, you have a charge to keep. I hope you’ll bear with me, and find some encouragement for your great responsibilities, and hold me accountable without dismissing my thoughts, and listen deeply.
Being the Majority
When I’m the white North American woman at the evangelical publishing conference, I’m oblivious to the challenges being experienced by the male minority. I’m oblivious to the challenges being experienced by the black and Asian female minority. I have only the slightest understanding, as a Canadian, of the challenges being experienced by the attendees from overseas cultures that operate very differently than the American business culture.
I have become aware of them because these people have spoken about it and written about it. But, left to myself, I look around and automatically just see people, all on an apparently level footing. I assume that since I see them as people like myself, the system which runs so smoothly for those of us fitting the majority mold must be comfortable for them too.
The men I love and respect most are not blind, they are seeing women as people, integrated into the social system just as they are.
But culture doesn’t work that way.
Function and Demographic Assumptions
One doesn’t run up against the functional problems of the cultural system in the same way when it’s optimized for who and what one is. The systematic assumptions have other obvious problems, of course. But the perspective is simply different.
I learned to listen and to speak of those invisible stumbling blocks at a very young age, because I had to. I was about 3 or 4 years old. The first time I ever picked up a pair of scissors — the child’s ultimate craft tool — they didn’t work for me. I’m left-handed.
Tying shoelaces is backward. Crocheting and running a sewing machine are backward. Handwriting is backward. Knife grips. Computer mouses. The direction of turn on a bottle cap. I am wired differently than the world around me.
We, as complementarian women, are wired differently than the defaults of the religious world around us, because it is built and run by men. This is why someone like Nancy DeMoss, whatever her mistakes and errors, can speak with such authenticity about the intense struggle to find a place as a strong-minded, publicly gifted female.
Now, let me be clear. One of the greatest gifts to me as a woman is this:
Opening my home to men of God’s Word. (Yes, they have some very serious faces on, don’t they? I believe Carl’s skeptical face was aimed at Dave. 
) That afternoon, the day after the Bible conference, these two hooligans tag-team preached in my home church, and then came here for lunch.
Submit Yourselves One to Another in Love
I don’t even hardly need to be part of the conversation at these times. It’s enough to sit there and listen, because they’ve stirred each other to thought and action. I love them, and the great thing is to feel their strength of mind and heart and know that they’re to rights with God in these moments. There is something wonderful about the strength of Godly men when they’re working together for the gospel.
These are my brothers. Because of the love of the brethren, I’m more honoured to bring them a glass of water while they preach than I would be to take a pulpit before them. Fellowship in Christ, serving God together, is a far greater thing than I myself am.
To me, the real power of complementarianism is not authority or submission. It’s giving according to the unique needs of the receiver, through the unique powers of the giver. Because I’ve seen it both ways, I don’t question that there’s a strength in the preaching and leading of men that’s simply different than a woman’s way. (The egalitarians can all be disgusted with me now. )
And, yes, I lead in other ways. In fact, sometimes I lead these very men, in non-ecclesiastical matters, but with Christian principles and doctrine at the forefront of our activities as writers and people of an evangelistic mindset. They treat me as an equal and a trusted advisor. (The hard complementarians can all be disgusted with me now. )
The fact is, there are times when the men that I love and respect, the men of my community, feel invisible and powerless before the world and the religious culture too. I stand in favour of a place God has given to them in the church out of sheer, pure grace and love for them.
Neither Jew Nor Greek
So, when we consider this great “culture war,” we must consider that God has called us to peace with each other as Christians.
When women are taught an unbiblical degree of submission, or when it’s enforced upon them, the autonomous right of free association with good men is taken from them in the name of God. An unbiblical environment does not make men good. But, neither does a biblical one. Only God Himself does that.
When women are abused, and the congregation’s trust is misplaced in a manipulative church member who is one of the male peer group — we can’t forget the law is made for transgressors. And we cannot argue “no true Scotsman.” There but for the grace of God go any one of our men.
The People are Not the System
When women question complementarianism, they’re questioning a community system that’s so often blind and deaf to the very nature of complementarity — the fact that people are different. They’re questioning why they’re unheard when they speak of the stumbling blocks in everyday theological discourse, in community interactions, in invisible doors that close in their faces. I am not even talking about pulpits here. Just everyday Christian life as I myself have lived it! Systems have no grace. Therefore, we must.
We must be wise as serpents, and as innocent as doves. We must cling to the repulsive truth of the Gospel – Christ crucified for our depravity, and the reality that not every man among us may be transformed by that truth, no matter how well he cloaks himself in light. A biblical environment does not make men good. Only God does.
We must remember that social systems are inflexible. The rules of conduct and the prescribed channels we create for our convenience, the shorthands facilitating smooth community interaction, are insufficient for the full spectrum of darkness in this world — the darkness in us.
Principle is Not Personhood
The problem of suffragism was that good men could not believe anyone would abuse a system that didn’t harm their own way of life (insofar as they could see). What man would go adultering and sell the house his neglected wife worked to pay for, knowing she had no property rights? What man would leave his whole estate to his son and not a penny of cash in support of his widow, though she worked the farm or the store alongside him as his equal?
These things, and subtler, more pervasive ones like full participation in society, went unseen because good men were decent and upright — not because they weren’t. A comfortable sense of our own benevolent principle can blind us.
So, we — both you and I — must vigilantly remember that we are not here in service to the social order. Not its complementarian conception, nor its egalitarian one. We are here in service to Christ.
Serve the True Master
I ask this of you: Don’t let the good Christian system be the primary guide of your thinking on any topic, for it is not truly good. Let your guide be Scripture.
Don’t let the abstractions of our theological systems achieve a supremacy that disconnects them from human realities, for they can’t truly be separated, except in our own half-dark minds.
I beseech you, my brothers, because you have a heart of love — I beseech you as the weaker vessel in a world built backwards to the natural turn of my hand — remember me.
I’d never have described you as sinister from your writing…the truth will out!
Thanks for this series! It’s been a good read, even from a male, non-Christian perspective. The first post was hard to find though, because it’s not posted in Christianity but in Uncategorized.
Ha! Yes, I am known around my household as the sinister one.
I very much appreciate the feedback from a male, non-Christian perspective. I have this ingrained dread of finding I’m writing on religion in a way that’s inaccessible and irrelevant to people at large…it destroys the larger part of the conversation.
Oh, rats, stupid category. That’s what happens when I write at 1am. That, and I should probably go back through and link them together manually.
I have really enjoyed this series and found my mind and heart resonating with what you have had to say, especially this post. Serving, loving, and God’s Word as our guide.
I am blessed to have a complimentarian relationship in my own life, and it is not because my husband and I follow a list of rules or guidelines, it is because we both follow Christ and His example.
Thanks, Morgan!
Yep — same in our house. I’ve never done well with lists of rules anyway.
Excellent thoughts all the way around and a plea that needs to be heard and heeded: don’t bow to systems but rather to the Word and the Christ of that Word! We can’t let the pressures of the world or the (religious) systems of others around us cause us to lose sight of what Christ calls us to do.
My wife and I saw complementarianism work in a recent elders and wives retreat with three other fine couples, none of which I would imagine know what the debate over such a word is. Though our church doctrine holds that only men should be pastors, there was no doubt the opinions, ideas, and leadership of our wives in other areas was not only respected but sought after.
A couple of matters of potential church discipline were brought up in the group because we men had to acknowledged we were stymied. So we asked for help from the ones we trust the most. It was an elder’s wife who offered the greatest wisdom and whose counsel was enacted. In my mind, that IS complementarianism as it should be.
Tim, that’s awesome. To me, that’s how it should be also. I think it does a huge disservice to men when a church separates them artificially from the women around them. We’re meant to support and uplift each other.
“Systems have no grace. Therefore, we must.” Egg…SACTLY!!! Exactly. This right here. I want to have a highlighter pen that works on the Internet. There – I wrote it down in my daybook.
I’ve been quoted! I feel cool now.
I understand what you’re saying–the system has no grace. That’s the primary problem I have with complementarianism. You seem to have found your way in it, a way to serve and lead with your personality intact. Many women haven’t found that because they don’t have your personality traits. There are biological differences between men and women, and then there are personality differences among humans. Many women don’t know what to do with the difference between the way God has created them and the way the church (or world) expects them to be. Even before our modern post-feminist age, these women popped up throughout history in the intellectual world because it’s impossible to silence all women at all times (see Christine de Pizan. Many women of the “wrong” personality types just never married. For a while there, while I was studying Christian proto-feminists from the 17th C, I began to feel a little down because these women were fiercely independent in a way I’ll never understand, not w/ my married-with-children status in the modern church world that really, really wants women to get back in their places. I love my husband and children–don’t misunderstand me. I don’t want to be single as these women were. I want freedom inside myselt, true independence from the system. I want to be the person God created me to be and not the one Nancy DeMoss says I should be. *Irony alert!* Nancy DeMoss is a single woman (why am I not surprised?).
Ohhh….only just now. Only just now, my friend. It’s more that in the last few years, I’ve become strong enough to put my shoulder to the world and hold my ground as needed, because it was that or let it run its wheels over me, and that was not going to happen yet again.
I have to say, too, it’s in good part because I don’t have to deal with American complementarianism. Because Canada’s a secular society, it’s only an isolationist church (read: run by an American fundie pastor) that can socialize its members from birth with a religious overemphasis on gender. We deal more with secular overemphasis–objectification of women, etc.
I know exactly what you mean. I’ve solved this in the past by maintaining an inaccessible internal space where I was blessedly alone with God. At least, that’s how it was until I made a very few friends of uncanny insight. These few good friends are about 50/50 men and women. And that has completed my humanity. To look in that inner mirror together and see both honest brokenness and sanctity, across genders, affirms that there is a purely human locale. People need all kinds of friends, without sex and social politics and public or personal roles warping things.
Nancy DeMoss…sigh. That would explain, in part, how she could endorse a wig-flip job like Stacy McDonald. Idealism untempered by reality and experience…
I don’t know much about Stacy McDonald (haven’t read her books), except that she has a blog called “women against feminism”, and I wonder how any woman can be entirely against feminism, since I, as a woman, take advantage of its successes almost every day.
Only recently, huh? Maybe there’s still hope for me (although I have a feeling I’m older than you are).
To everything there is a season…age has nothing to do with it, so no worries.
Stacy McDonald…oh, Stacy McDonald. What a bag of kooky fun times straight from the Victorian era. She once posted a most ridiculous and lengthy interview questionnaire full of suggestions for interrogating a daughter’s prospective suitor when he asks permission to court her. Blogged on it back here in 2010, and Quixote’s response on the courtship list’s effectiveness was a good one: “Rogues don’t pay attention to lists, except perhaps as a wedge to help pry a daughter away from a family.”
My opinion of her descended to a bare tolerance when she publicly went after Hillary McFarland (the author of “Quivering Daughters”) by trying to use Hillary’s sister against her. It was typically slimy, in a bright cheery tinsel-voiced-aren’t-you-the-deluded-heretic way.
Gosh, and my parents just invited my husband (when we were dating) to go camping with the family or to come over for dinner. They watched how he interacted with other human beings (he was always respectful) and, ultimately, when I decided to marry him (notice the “I”), they approved of him because they KNEW him. Yeah, I’m going to say Stacy McDonald is a little nuts. She apparently doesn’t know how to conduct human relationships.
Well, when autonomous thought is a sin…y’know how *that* goes.
It’s the vampire we “unfitting” girls are called to slay.
Crikey, I went and read that courtship list…to be fair they do have quite a decent explanation/disclaimer at the top. If they presented it as “things your Christian daughter ought to know about her husband” (whether before or after marriage), then it would be absolutely fine. If a girlfriend’s parents started asking me some of these questions, though, I think it would rather turn me off marrying her (with the implication that marriage would lead to further interaction with Them).
I see they stick to the conventional (mis)interpretation of 2 Cor 6:14. Have you blogged about that verse in the past?
I like the last question best: “List any characteristics or personality traits that would bother or irritate you in a wife.”
How about parents that ask nosy questions?
Sorry for the off-topic comment!
There’s no such thing as off-topic around here, I promise.
2 Cor 6:14 — I haven’t blogged on it, but that is one of the bigger problems with the more extreme elements in the patriarchy/courtship crowd. Some believe it’s an “unequal yoke” even to work for a non-Christian employer, and so they advocate that everyone either try to become an entrepreneur or work for one. (Or make a career of Chik-Fil-A, maybe?) That’s very destabilizing to families. Not everyone has the aptitudes or natural interest for business development and management, by any means.
Their list isn’t for daughters because the philosophy is that children/teens/single adults of the opposite sex should interact only minimally. I find the testimonials of 30-something singles letting their parents choose their spouses pretty troubling.
Now that a generation has been raised on this stuff, a lot of young women are getting vocal about the implicit but very real sexual harassment from community leaders who profess to be “policing modesty.”
Bahahaha! Perfect.
“Their list isn’t for daughters because the philosophy is that children/teens/single adults of the opposite sex should interact only minimally.”
But they did mention their daughters discussing these questions at length with their husbands-to-be, so there must be some flexibility. I’d agree though, I don’t think parents should be choosing their (well-raised intelligent discerning adult) children’s spouses.
The blog post you linked was interesting, though I thought there were a few places where her point got a bit mired in tangents. She trots out “patriarchy”, too, a very politically-correct misuse of that word which annoys me no end…
Loved the guy recommending naturism/nudism as a response!
“But they did mention their daughters discussing these questions at length with their husbands-to-be, so there must be some flexibility.”
Yeah, I’d assume there’s socialization occurring through homeschool groups or so forth, even if it’s highly monitored. It’s not bride-in-a-burqua, at least, unless she “rebels” and makes up her own mind independently. The thing is, my extended family’s experienced what it’s like to be the non-approved suitor, and it was freaky and abusive to the girl. In that case, the couple met at an American bible college, so the parents weren’t right close by.
“She trots out “patriarchy”, too, a very politically-correct misuse of that word which annoys me no end…”
Me too, to be honest. My friend Karen Campbell writes about this stuff extensively, and she’s coined the term “patriocentric” as a separate descriptor.
“Yeah, I’d assume there’s socialization occurring through homeschool groups or so forth, even if it’s highly monitored.”
More than that, they described the daughter and her suitor sitting down and discussing these questions at length. They have clearly presented it as more than just a parents/suitor quiz. Still…excessive is excessive.
“Me too, to be honest. My friend Karen Campbell writes about this stuff extensively, and she’s coined the term “patriocentric” as a separate descriptor.”
Mmm, but I’m not sure “patriocentric” gets the idea across any better. I’ve come across “patriarchy” a lot in online dating profiles of young women my age, for example, when what they really mean is just “sexism” (those sites are great for both deconstructing and reinforcing traditional Western gender roles, BTW! I’m sure Stacy McDonald would love ‘em). What’s wrong with “sexist”, anyway?
“Mmm, but I’m not sure “patriocentric” gets the idea across any better.”
It’s such a localized phenomenon that it’s really hard to come up with concise descriptors. And it’s a movement with plenty of shades to it. The McDonalds are certainly not the worst of the bunch.
I dunno: Extreme Victorianism?
Sounds like a reality show. 
“What’s wrong with “sexist”, anyway?”
Very possibly the fact that it can cut both ways.
My mother and grandmother were both feminist activists at various points in their lives, but they could certainly present an extremely thoughtful tirade on the double standards of the up-and-coming generation of Western females, when called for.