Kristen

NN said:

“let us say that two christian’s are both serving in the coast guard and are in disagreement over the best course of action to take. The higher rank gives an order than the lower rank does not think is the best idea. Should the lower ranking officer follow the order (as is required by their relationship as officers in the coast guard) or does their relationship as christians change this? Or when a father tells his son something that his son disagrees with – does this mean that the son is free to disobey his father? (that would certainly change my perspective on some rebellious actions of my teenage years…)”

With regard to this kind of comparison, or to an employer-employee, or policeman-citizen, or any other such comparison– here’s the difference.
My employer has authority over me in a limited sense, based on the fact that he is the one paying me, and I am the one doing the work for which he is paying me. But if I meet him at the grocery store after work, he has no authority over me. He can’t tell me to buy one product and not another, he can’t tell me to come back to the office and take a letter. And his authority over me is not due to his nature or my nature, but only to the contract we entered into. He was not born to bosshood, and I was not born to employeeship. If this were a feudal society, that would be the case– but in a free economy, it is not so.
A coast guard officer has limited authority over his subordinate based on their association in that organization. Once the subordinate has finished his tour of duty, the officer has no authority over him. And the authority is not inherent to the officer, but is a product of his training and appointment as an officer. He was not born with the right to be an officer.
A policeman has authority over a citizen only while that policeman wears the badge. If the policeman is fired or quits, he has no authority. And the policeman’s authority is based on his training and expertise, not on anything inherent within himself. He was not born a policeman, born to be in authority over those who were born private citizens.
But in a complementarian marriage, the husband has authority over his wife at all places and at all times. She has no choice in the matter– her only choice is whether or not to get married. If she does marry, the question is not if she will be under authority, but only whose authority she will be under (who she will marry). If I started my own company and hired employees of my own, there could be a case in which my employer might work for me and call me boss. But in marriage, there is no case in which it is possible for their roles to be reversed. She MUST marry into the subordinate role. And her husband’s authority comes not from training, but from something inherent in him at birth. By being born a man, he was born to be in authority in marriage, and by being born a woman, she was born to be under his authority.
So– in what way is that comparable to any other authority structure in a free society? Other than the parent-child relationship (which the child gets to grow out of, while the wife never does), a free society does not allow for authority-by-privilege-of-birth. We have no aristocracy, no divine right of kings, no white masters and black slaves, any more. We don’t because these privilege-by-birth relationships were eventually understood to be fundamentally unequal.
Even so is the authority-subordination model of marriage fundamentally unequal. Giving lip service to its equality will never make it so.
People used to think that God granted kings divine right; that God created the aristocracy to rule the peasantry; that God gave the white race supremacy over the black. These used to be vehemently upheld by those who used scripture to support their position– but no more. These things were eventually seen to be contrary to the Biblical picture of the kingdom of God, where we are all equal in His eyes. Scriptures about men and women that are interpreted in contradiction to this basic principle that all who are in Christ are “kings and priests,” need to be re-evaluated.