Frank

I’m sure Cheryl and others will agree with me, that it was the logical fallacies and moral conondrums of complementarianism that led us to give up that understanding of Scripture and become egalitarians. For example, consider what the Apostle John wrote:

“So you must remain faithful to what you have been taught from the beginning. If you do, you will remain in fellowship with the Son and with the Father. And in this fellowship we enjoy the eternal life Jesus promised us. I am writing these things to warn you about those who want to lead you astray. But you have received the Holy Spirit, and he lives with in you, so you don’t need anyone to teach you what is true. For the Spirit teaches you everything you need to know and what he teaches is true–it is not a lie. So as he has taught you, remain in fellowship with Christ” (1 John 2:24-27, NLT).

In the context of this passage, there were false teachers claiming new revelations from the Spirit, which offered a superior relationship with God to that offered in the Gospel that John had “taught them from the beginning.” And he is warning his spiritual children, both women and men, against those who want to lead them astray. Yet, while he does not deny that either men or women can profit from good teaching from himself or others, he reminds them that they are not dependent solely on any human teacher to enable them to discern truth from falsehood, nor to keep them from being led astray. Why? Because the Lord Jesus himself gave all Christians the gift of the Holy Spirit as our Teacher and Guide, who “teaches us everything we need to know” to abide in that fellowship with Christ that is eternal life itself, and the Spirit never teaches us nor leads us to ever believe anything that is false and contrary to the Word of Christ and of God.

Now when someone says a person is more susceptible to deception because of either their race, social status, or gender–consider how slanderous and even blasphemous such talk is! First, it indicates that the Lord Jesus is foolish enough to believe that the Spirit alone can be trusted to equally teach and lead each disciple in the way that both he and the Father wish them to go. Secondly, it implies that either the Spirit is incompetent in the counseling and instruction of believers in discerning, with the aid of Scripture, between good and evil; that somehow he needs the aid of a more competent human teacher to accomplish his work. Thirdly, it implies that in certain cases, based on what I will call “prejudiced criteria,’ the spirit of deception has a greater power and ability to lead a person astray than the Spirit of truth has to lead them in God’s way? It boggles the mind that any Christian would even entertain such thinking. But these are some of the absurd, but logical conclusions I perceived in complementarianism which led me to give it up.