Elastigirl

Hi, Ryan.

Hmmm. Does your “maleness” give you special access, special clout in the heavenlies? How’s that? Just feels very strange to think that I am in some kind of unique danger from “spiritual fallen angels”, moreso than my husband is. Truth be told, I’ve gotten him out of many a spiritual bind through my prayer of faith on his behalf. And I agree with you, what a feeling it is to feel Yeshua be tangible through me & touching my husband through me (a woman, gasp!). An honor indeed.

If your wife is a praying person of faith, I venture to guess she has done the same for you more times than you obviously realize. You need her spiritual influence in the heavenlies no less than she needs yours.

dogmadekate,

“The whole idea that comps believe the husband to be like God to their wives…I just really don’t even know what to say about that except, maybe, wow. I’m really not trying to sound snarky, but that’s just, whoa.”

No need for any concern whatsoever on being snarky, in my view. It is a repulsive idea (& ridiculous), and the negative reaction you have is nothing but logical and appropriate.

I feel in American christian culture, generally speaking, there is this pervasive belief that harmony and the feeling of that “sweet sweet spirit in this place” must be preserved at all times & at all costs.

Even at the cost of our natural reactions to something that is clearly wrong, harmful, unjust, etc.

The result is surrendering one’s conscience to the institution.

So frigntening.

To continue on even MORE:

if Paul, in the non-earthly realm of existence where he is now, is somehow aware of how things have been panning out on earth, I’m quite sure he’s rolling his eyes & saying,

“Guys, guys…. chill out. Why are you so obsessed with me and those letters I wrote? Yeah, some parts were pretty good — like the 1st part of my letter to the people in Ephesus — I think I really hit the nail on the head there. But not everything was really that good — I mean, you can stop hanging on my every word. It’s sweet, but, come on. Listen — I am NOT the star of the show. You want to focus on what really matters? Then read, think, and talk about what Jesus did and said. That’s the heart of the matter right there.”

Craig,

To continue on: I tend to see passages like this one as simply acknowledging the fact that groups of people automatically organize themselves into leaders and followers. This happens when a groups of friends goes out to eat or see a movie, at family reunions, even on Thanksgiving Day — it’s just how human beings are. Paul is simply giving good advice for the successful organizing of people who are about God’s business.

I think it’s kind of silly to diagram it all out as a specific patterned requirement for how to do church (“let’s see, we have overseers & their requirements, we have deacons & their requirements, and then of course women have their own set of reqirements & Paul lists each group separately so apparently each group is distinct…”). If one takes Paul’s every word as literal & binding on how we do everything, then logically only deacons have to be careful about their alcohol consumption. It’s therefore not so much of a big deal if overseers and presumably women are “given to much wine”.

Craig — just loved your last comment. Your explanation is just so reasonable. It’s so plain to see. And I think you’re just the greatest for caring enough about this issue to pursue honest understanding. It’s so touching.

Craig, #52

Your comment inspired some thinking. Quite mysterious, this concept of 3 individuals-in-one. To try to understand this, we naturally attempt to do so with our minds. As a result, I think we over-intellectualize it, and reduce this totally “other” kind of Existence into nice & neat compartments… imposing such simplistic definition onto something so transcendent.

I was at a Children’s Discovery Museum yesterday, & my kids spent a good deal of time playing with bubbles. Several different activities. Creating a long, vertical bubble sheet that you could gently blow into and see it metmorphosize into a convex shape out the other side, and then morph back into a sheet shape. Liquid that was completely solid, but when you blew into it, myriad tiny bubbles exploded everywhere, enlivening the place. Tools to create enormous round bubbles as well as giant bubble tubes that you could swirl around youself, encasing you in a doughnut of shimmering, undulating miraculous material. My son caught a large bubble on his hand, then by somehow moving his hands together a second bubble emerged and he suddenly had a large bubble in each hand. The amazing variety of this substance comprised several forms: one solid liquid that could become a shape, 2 shapes, lots of shapes, which stretched, expanded, duplicated, moved slowly, moved quickly, vanished, reappeared…. and then returned to one liquid. Everyone, from the kids playing with bubbles to the parents watching were genuinely intrigued by the beauty and seeming miracle of these changing shapes — giggles, oohs and aahs from all, regardless of age, intellect, or soul condition. I think the intrigue is largely in the fact that the beauty is so elusive: the more a person seeks to touch it so as to see it more, feel it, experience it, enjoy it longer, or understand it, the quicker it goes “poof”. Gone.

This is certainly overstating the obvious and being long-winded about it. But I suppose this “bubbles word picture” is how I see this mysterious 3-in-oneness of God. The same substance, separating out into individual shapes, moving back into its oneness, moving back out again into its unique parts, an elusive phenomenon so other that you can’t catch so as to dissect the meaning out of it. Not something to seek to break down in the intellectual laboratory (whether to seek to understand it for what it is, or to see if one can wring more truth out of it than is really there in the 1st place). But something to marvel at because it just is.

Kristen, in #14.

I was moved by your comment. Reminded me of this:

“Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.”
–Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin

Craig, 126

Yes, everyone misses out if half the world is not allowed to let the explosive power of the Holy Spirit infuse all of their amazing and unique potential.

A catastrophic loss, and a blow to the establishing of God’s kingdom. How can it seen otherwise?

Thank you, Gengwall and Craig, for your answers to my question as to how you have arrived at genuinely caring about this issue, which concerns primarily the welfare of women in general.

It is so kind (not that you are merely making an effort to be kind for its own sake), and utterly fair and just.

Very touching, and it means a lot. It’s the 1st time I’ve ever encountered this anywhere. Extraordinary.

I’m enjoying reading all of this. I must say I am quite floored at the humble, kind-heartedness of all the men here. You are so incredibly respectful and genuinely honoring of the women here. It’s extremely touching. And you seem to genuinely care about this issue, which in my observation men are generally incapable of caring about (regardless of how honorable they might be).

How is it you have to come to genuinely care about this issue?

Thank you, Gengwall.

“No more rhymes and I mean it!!” …………

Cheryl,

At the end of your post, you ask “where does the authority come from to command an application of a service to apply solely to the husband?”

I think elsewhere you’ve also asked something along the lines of “where in the Bible is this piece of information?”.

I’ve been checking the comments all day today and yesterday because I’m dying to know(!), but I don’t recall seeing an answer yet from a presumed complementarian.

But aren’t these the only possible answers?

(1) the authority comes from God
(2) it is implied in the text

This is, of course, totally unsatisfying. Aside from the standard exposition on the texts in which it is implied, have you heard any other kind of anwer to these questions?

Marg, in #85 above:

This friction comes down to being simply a war of words. Studying and analyzing words and their meanings, opinions on what they do mean and what they don’t mean and what they might mean but only under these conditions and maybe those conditions but never under those conditions over there but then it’s different if you have XY chromosomes and only XX chromosomes are allowed to…..

Certainly discerning the finer points of truth requires words, but i’m quite certain that truth in its purest form is rather plain. The buzz words of “mutual submission” in ordinary language is simply “treating others the way you want to be treated” — all humans (or almost all, at least) who have ever walked the planet know this just as surely as they know that what goes up will come down. As obvious as gravity — so plain it’s utterly ridiculous to argue about it. It is part of what has enabled human beings to successfully coexist at every level since the dawn of human life.

It’s when we start picking it apart and redefining it and putting limits and conditions on it that the plain truth of it becomes ridiculously constrained.

This is what it’s like: breathing. It’s something we do without thinking, because our bodies know it’s necessary to remain alive. Try this experiment: start analyzing your breathing, thinking about it — it ceases to be a natural reflex (needed for calm, relaxation, and to function optimally), and suddenly becomes more of a forced process. It is uncomfortable in every way.

This is how i see this debate at large. It’s imposing a minutiae of analysis on something so plain and simple and necessary to the existence of relationships (let alone the pleasure of them). And suddenly this plain and simple truth becomes legislated, forced into a mold. A mutated species of truth, so to speak (mutated = losing its orignal nature).

It’s unfortunate the debate was ever needed in the first place. Especially in the light of the fact that it’s being done in the name of God.

Greg.

Your comment caught my attention.

As far as doing everything “by the book” — sometimes I think christians feel that to be fully living their life for God, as much as is possible, requires embracing every word in their own Bibles (certainly the New Testament) as binding on their lives. For example, churches conduct baby dedications simply because that’s what Mary and Joseph did with Jesus. Does this make it necessary for us? Part of what it means to be a christian? I really don’t think so.

The intense pursuit of God can become the obsessive pursuit of words. Words in “the book” and phrases are parsed to oblivion to the point of losing the point of the message or idea as a whole. Kind of like arguing with someone for so long you can’t even remember what the issue was in the first place. Certainly this is done with many aspects of the complementarian and egalitarian viewpoints.

While is is good to be able to argue one’s point of view if it is being challenged, I can’t help but feel this is all much ado about nothing. We’ve twisted our brains tighter and tighter, impossibly convoluting what is so incredibly obvious and plain: human relationships are most successful when we treat each other the way we want to be treated. Every definition of love and God’s love boils down to this.

I tend to think that we’d all do a much better job of serving the common good on a macro and micro level if we relaxed somewhat and just kept this golden rule principle in the forefront of our minds. We’d certainly have more time and energy for it.

RE: Tiffany’s coment 566:
“…authority……However I still maintain that in a marriage where both are seeking Christ it is basically a non issue.”

But crucial for dicussion and understanding. John Piper, whose huge audience seems to consider as one of the primary voices for the complentarian position, has more or less stated that a wife’s submission to her husband’s authority includes her putting up with a smack or two from him. (post from August 21, 2009)

This is how one of the founding fathers of the current complementarian movement defines it for us.

Tiffany and others reading who embrace complementarianism, you may disagree with John Piper’s statement to some degree, you may be appalled by it. You may say this would never happen when the husband is seeking Christ. But the fact remains that this and other statements similarly downplaying violence toward wives from other famous complementarian voices are out there for all to digest.

If I and my daughters are expected to submit to this kind of authority, then it is an enormous issue.

Mark,

Concerning: “Where is one verse that tells husbands to submit directly to their wives? Since we know it does not exist, why the egal push to claim something the Bible never declares.

It’s plain as day. There was a comment above that articulated it all so well. Can’t find it — i’ll try to recapture it:

Ephesians 5:21-25

verse 21: Paul states “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Plainer than plain that all are included in this statement, husbands, wives, slaves, masters, friends, co-workers,….

verse 22: Paul tells wives to submit to their husbands. He doesn’t mention that wives are to love their husbands. Just because he doesn’t mention it are we to conclude they are excused from doing so? Of course not. It’s quite the given. Surely the least intuitive bone in the least intuitive person has to start tingling with recognition of the truth of this.

verse 25: Paul tells husbands to love their wives. He doesn’t mention that husbands are to submit to their wives. Just because he doesn’t mention it are we to conclude they are excused from doing so? Especially in light of verse 21, of course not. It’s quite the given.

Reading this as a whole as if for the first time (if only we could detox our brains), those least intuitive bones have to start tingling with recognition of the truth of this as well.

We can get so tangled and twisted in analyzing and dissecting parts of the Bible (and flooding our minds with the analyses of others) that it becomes too convoluted for common sense. We miss the fact of the forest, trying to figure out the meaning of lichen and drops of sap.

NN,

Concerning your question: “Rank clearly exists in relationships such as within the coastguard, parent to child, governor to citizen. If both people involved are christians, does this then negate the “rank” and authority intrinsic in the relationship?”

My view coincides with what seems to be the obvious answer. Legitimate authority is to be respected, and when at an impasse of disagreement authority is to be deferred to. Where legitimate authority exists, that is.

Perhaps it’s different with you, but with me and everyone I know, rank is simply not intrinsic to any of our personal relationships (except with our children, for their own good, of course) — our world of “hierarchy” is very limited [employer, government, court of law, police / fire fighters in an emergency, someone with expertise in saving lives,…(my piano teacher)…] I may be overlooking something, but truly this is about it.

If legitimate authority existed in a husband’s relationship to his wife, then yes she should defer to him. But its legitimacy is unconvincing. But beyond being intellectually convinced, if I turn off the compulsion to study, analyze, dissect so as to articulate a water-tight defense of my views of this subject, and simply step back and allow myself to untwist and feel what it is to be a human being who is lucky enough to find love with another human being, and to celebrate by loving each other freely…. the addition of this authority notion just seems so unnatural and non-intuitive for a love relationship. A relational stranglehold.

Besides, my husband and I are having too much fun being a onesome. Why complicate it with an org chart and suspect rules and more rules leading to questions answered by yet even more rules, and so on.

NN,

You posed the following question to Cheryl:

If two christians are in genuine dispute over the correct course of action on a matter and are unable to come to an agreement, what course should they choose?

If such a dispute were between you and one of your best pals, or your brother, what course of action would you take? You would have no “rank” to pull nor authority card to play. What do you do in such a situation?

I would hazard a guess that your approach would work just fine in your marriage, my marriage, or anyone’s marriage. The fact of the matter is our lives are full of relationships without any “additional constraints on proper conduct” beyond mutual respect and mutual submission. Tough disagreements can be worked through (surely not without compromise, sacrifice, some pain), but just as surely without any need to “pull rank” or play the authority card to reach the resolution.