The Egalitarian/ Complementarian Debate Is Not Just an Intellectual Exercise

More thoughts on Preston Sprinkle's new book

Preston Sprinkle’s new book comes out in favour of egalitarianism!

I’m honestly so relieved. I heard about From Genesis to Junia a few months ago, and assumed the worst. He claimed that he was going to take an unbiased look at the scholarship about egalitarianism and complemntarianism, starting in Genesis and going through the Bible, and write the chapters as he’s researching, rather than writing them at the end, so that the readers can go on the journey with him.

Preston has been generous to have us on his podcast twice (the last one made quite a splash!), and I’m grateful to him. I was worried, though, that like most complementarians, when he did this exercise, he’d come out saying, “yes, complementarianism is right.” I figured it would be like another Mike Winger exercise. So I didn’t pay much attention to the book until I heard that he’d actually read the research and scholarship and realized egalitarianism was correct.

You can see the book here.

I’m so glad Sprinkle was honest and thorough and fair. He did a great job delving deeply into the scholarship about female leaders, and his scholarship is good here. I hope that his book convinces many, because he is a well-respected male, and that counts for a lot.

( Michael F. Bird wrote a great article addressing some of the complementarian critics of From Genesis to Junia too!)

Much online discussion has centered on the fact that women have already done this work.

Women have already written the books and put out the scholarship, but somehow women aren’t listened to. And instead it takes a man to say the same thing to convince people.

I completely understand the frustration. I’m not sure what else to do about it though. When people are completely in the comp camp, they aren’t likely to listen to women. That’s the whole point. However, I do think Beth Allison Barr brought up a good point: even if they didn’t listen to a woman’s book, they could have at least listened to women researchers. And in his book, Preston steered clear of most of the best female researchers and academics on the subject, quoting mainly male ones, even when women were more well-known in the field. I do think that’s an important and unfortunate oversight.

Personally, I wish it weren’t like this, but it is. And I’m glad that there’s a book out there that men may actually read, or that actually could sway some men. I feel a bit like Paul—as long as the gospel is being preached, that’s the main thing. And this is a win, and I’m glad.

But even though it’s a win, many women are still feeling deeply unsettled. That, in turn, has led to some pushback, because shouldn’t we just take the win? But I’d like to explain why, while we can acknowledge this book does benefit the fight for justice, there’s still something deeply unsettling happening. Beth Allison Barr mentioned it, and I’d like to elaborate on today:

For women, complementarianism vs egalitarianism is not an intellectual debate.

It is our relationship with God. It is our self-worth. It is our dignity. And of course it is our safety.

Given that abuse is higher in complementarian circles, for many women this is literally life and death. If fewer people were complementarian, fewer women would be abused or killed by their partners. And women would know that they don’t have to marry a man who is complementarian; they could wait for someone who understood their true worth.

One of Preston’s main points in the book is that because he’s a man, he’s unbiased in this fight. He wrote how he didn’t have a stake in its outcome, saying:

I don’t have external pressures—a job, a church, relationships—nudging me toward one view over another…No matter what I conclude in this book, I expect to keep all my jobs and ministry roles, make the same amount of money, and keep speaking at both egalitarian and complementarian churches. I won’t lose my ordination status (because I’m not ordained), and I won’t be kicked out of my denomination (because I’m not part of a denomination)…my study will be strictly exegetical in nature…I’m not going to offer modern-day applications, nor will I address the modern problems that sometimes develop in complementarian or egalitarian churches…My goal here is to provide an honest evaluation of the biblical arguments.

Think about what he’s saying here-–he has the ability to write about this unbiased because he doesn’t have a stake in it.

That’s basically saying that only the privileged, who benefit from discrimination, can honestly judge who is right and who is wrong, because those who are hurt are biased. By that logic, only men can write about sexual assault. Only white people can comment in an unbiased way on racism. Only the rich can talk about economic policy. And women can never really be trusted to write about this topic. Do you see a problem with that?

We assume the one who is being oppressed is the one with the bias. But why can’t we see that the one who is benefiting from the oppression is also biased–just in a different way?

Besides, those who have experienced the results of a viewpoint or policy are those who have been oppressed. Surely they should be seen as the experts, rather than viewed with suspicion?

But also, don’t we all have a stake in this outcome?

How can you be unbiased about the personhood of women? How can you see it as an intellectual exercise? Does he not see the immense privilege in that?

And Preston has daughters. How can he not see how this is so crucial for them?

I recorded a podcast a few years ago talking about my crisis of faith at the age of 16 over complementarianism. It’s the closest I’ve ever come to suicidal ideations–the idea that God would give me gifts, and then forbid me from using them, or telling me that I mattered less because I was a girl. How could I love and serve a God like that?

I know not everyone experiences this crisis of faith in the same way. But we talked with Anna Rollins in the podcast a few weeks ago about her book Famished, and many of the complementarian ideas were what prompted her to starve herself and develop an eating disorder. This affects us.

I just turned in the first draft of my new manuscript to the publisher. The tentative title is Fawn: How a Trauma Response Became “Biblical Womanhood”, and How Women Can Find Their Agency Again. Complementarianism has prompted women to act as if they’re in permanent trauma. It’s not okay. And it is not just an intellectual exercise.

I remember a conversation I once had with my pastor.

It was at one of the evangelical churches we attended, shortly after we left. The previous pastor had been technically complementarian, but had also encouraged women to serve at all levels in the church, including them in giving sermons/messages as well. The new pastor, however, believed that the denomination was veering too much towards women’s equality, and wanted to enforce complementarianism.

He came over to talk to Keith and me, and he was complaining about how egalitarians didn’t realize how hard this debate was on complementarian women. He said, “my wife feels like other people are judging her because she doesn’t want to lead.”

I sat there dumbfounded for a moment, before I said,

With all due respect, you simply cannot compare the “pain” of complementarian women with the emotional distress and anguish of egalitarian women who feel as if their God is being taken from them. When I was 16 I was so bereft because I felt like God didn’t fully love me because I was a girl. I’ve been in churches my whole life that told me that my voice should be silenced and didn’t matter as much as my husband’s, even on topics that I was far more knowledgeable about. I’ve been told that God arbitrarily doesn’t value my voice or opinions, and that I’m proud to think that anyone should listen to what I have to say. There simply is no comparison with feeling judged, like your wife may be feeling, and thinking that the God of the universe considers you second best.

The complementarian/egalitarian debate is a justice one.

There is no way around it. It is not a debate merely about the Greek for the word head, or about who should submit in marriage. It is a debate about whether women are fully made in the image of God, and whether our opinions, our very selves, matter to God and should matter to those around us.

When you realize that you’ve believed something that has held women back for millennia, and that has caused untold harm to millions upon millions of women, that should not just be a “oh, look at that, I changed my mind!” That should be a full rending of your clothes and sackcloth and ashes.

The enormity of the injustice that has been done in the name of God should move us to full repentance, and, yes, that should be an emotional response.

Justice is the main theme of the Bible.

It’s what NT Wright called the “upside down kingdom”, where Jesus defeats power by subverting it. Jesus wants us to stop living with power imbalances, and instead value others as ourselves. And throughout Scripture, this is what we hear about again and again. The powerful laying down their privilege to lift up those who aren’t as powerful, so that all can thrive. That’s what the kingdom is. That’s what Jesus modelled.

That’s how we do God’s will on earth, as it is in heaven.

When we fail to recognize the inherent injustice in complementarianism, I don’t know if we’ve really gone far enough.

Racism and greed led to chattel slavery in the United States, one of the greatest injustices in history. Its residual effects are still with us. When we look at the abolitionist movement in the 1800s, it was not just an intellectual exercise. It was a call for humanity, for justice, for compassion. It was a call, especially, for repentance.

I want to get to the point where the complementarian/egalitarian debate is a call for repentance

It saddens me that this wasn’t a prominent theme in Preston Sprinkle’s book. I’m so glad he wrote it, and I hope the book convinces many. But there can’t be any true healing until there is also a call for repentance and for justice. And at the end of the book, Preston says that he still has respect for complementarian scholars. He doesn’t think they all dehumanize women. Again–this is simply ignoring the data of the effect of complementarianism on women as a whole. (Read Beth Allison Barr’s whole article talking about this).

Yes, I’m sad that it often takes a man saying the same thing thousands of women have already said in order to get another man to listen, but I’m willing to concede that’s just the way the world works, and be grateful Preston wrote the book (and I truly am; please give it to your pastor!). But what I can’t get over is the fact that he wrote the book without a real call to repentance. I just don’t know how you can do that.

And you don’t need to be a woman to be passionate about this. Just listen to my husband Keith on the podcast, or read his last two articles! He’s awfully fired up, and it’s not because he personally has a stake in this. Just like Preston, his job and income doesn’t depend on this debate–he’s a physician. He’s actually benefiting from male hierarchy. But even so, my husband gets emotionally involved in this debate because he cares about justice and he cares deeply for his sisters in Christ.

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I know that if we want to convince people, we can’t lead with “how could you be so callous and evil and support such an unjust institution?” I get that strategy is needed.

But what we try to do at Bare Marriage is put numbers and data to the harm that is currently being done in the name of complementarianism. We can measure it. It’s bad. Real women are suffering, and real men are too. Future generations are being raised in such a way that their outcomes will be worse. That should matter.

And I pray that one day not only will people’s minds be changed, but their hearts will be broken over the harm that we’ve done to women.

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You may also enjoy:

• Our interview with Preston Sprinkle about our book She Deserves Better, where we talked to him about his daughters too!

• Why complementarianism is part of the bad marriage outcomes package (stats matter!)

• Our podcast on the complementarian Danvers Statement (Keith got passionate in this one about the 4 ways complementarianism can go wrong!)

• Our book The Marriage You Want, with a healthy look at what goes into a great marriage

• Our book She Deserves Better, about how to raise your daughters to withstand the complementarian arguments around them