This post actually started when mulling over the concept of "mutuality" or the New Testament admonitions around the idea that all Christians within the body of Christ are to have submission to one another. The responsibility we have of considering one another's welfare, and the general spirit of humility we ought to evidence as we walk the path of this life with God. Some of these scriptures are :
Ephesians 5:21
submitting to one another in the fear of God.Romans 12:10
Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another;
1 Peter 5:5
[ Submit to God, Resist the Devil ] Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for “ God resists the proud,But gives grace to the humble.”
Somehow I ended up back in the Garden of Eden with Eve. Maybe because the principle of mutual submission was one that was held in conjunction with that of "headship" of husbands in the family. So I started thinking about the Fall, and fact that Adam had communication of some kind with God about the essential rule of the Garden:eat of any other fruit, but don't eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. This rule was also communicated to Eve, but it isn't clear whether directly from God or indirectly through Adam. What is clear is that Eve made an authoritative decision that didn't include consensus with her companion Adam... or with God. When Eve decided to make that fateful decision to try some knowledge of good and evil for herself, she acted alone.
I find this sort of interesting in the view of talk about authority. We are unable to escape the active principle of authority; everywhere we turn we have to submit to rules of conduct and arbiters of right, or at least appropriateness, of some kind. Everyone answers to others and to some ruling authority of some sort. It just is unavoidable, because that is how the world runs... and even the animal world has a visible pecking order. Whether loose or strict, there is a chain of command... the buck has to stop somewhere.
As Americans in our Democratic society we are acutely aware of authority structures (Law is King!) and are schooled in civics (or should be) about the reasons for a democratic form of representation rather than a pure democracy. Nothing works if you need unanimous consensus to move forward. So we have this hybrid of authority where we say the majority rules. The biggest number gets to say what is right and make the important decisions for the group. It pivots on consensus, but not a perfect consensus. It still is the concept of authority and chain of command at work, but in a way that is less linear and so less obvious in our thinking. There are rules for how we interact and who gets to make the decisions, nevertheless. The mistake we fall into in discussing authority is to rigidly ascribe exclusivity to the one who holds the authority- it is as if we have never heard of the word "delegate". When we say that "God has all the authority" we don't mean He micromanages all the decisions, and the same holds for men and women. I think we have to look at this from that point of view: God places men in authority over creation, not instead of, but by delegation. If men have authority in a position of "headship", they can delegate anything up to the final authority to their wives. This is real authority. That means wives exercising real authority in harmony as their husband's partner. But for many advocates of feminism that isn't enough.
In examples of delegation Pharaoh of Egypt says to Joseph, "Since God has made all this known to you, there is no one so discerning and wise as you. You shall be in charge of my palace, and all my people are to submit to your orders. Only with respect to the throne will I be greater than you." In light of this, what is the point of contention in recognizing Paul's listing of the order of the sexes? Not everyone is first... I think that is what Paul was saying. Furthermore, he is saying that by recognizing an order of authority we are giving our allegiance to God as the highest authority.
The question for a Christian at this point, when discussing authority, is whether God's Kingdom is one run with a system of consensus. We need to look at the defining application of the concept of "mutuality" as seen in those scripture quotes at the beginning of this post. The 'majority rules' principle has definite drawbacks in terms of moral accuracy in decision making. So, immediately, I would say that the Biblical type of "mutuality" of consideration has nothing to do with secular ideas of "majority rules". This applies to a conflation, or perhaps I should call it a "jump" from ideas of mutual submission in attitude to an egalitarian idea that we function without any real structure of authority.
Freedom and form are not mutually exclusive, and in fact, as Francis Schaeffer made very clear in some of his works*, they are tied inextricably together in God's Kingdom liberty. Form is what defines liberty in opposition to license, a perennial topic in the discussion of democracy and liberty. Form is given from the inner structure, the skeleton, of authority and chain of command. Freedom was to be the next topic for me in the quest of finding the balance of what scripture says to us on the roles of women in the Church. It proved to be such a large topic that it has not yet made its way into a series of posts, but I will say this in what I am finding: Freedom is a primary thread of what God desires for people throughout His dealings with and promises to mankind. I make the large letter distinction in this type of freedom because it is the "big picture freedom" of a biblical concept, not all the types of definitions possible for the word. I think this is what many of the scriptures direct us toward when encouraging a mutual concern and consideration and a specific type of egalitarian view that we find in Galatians 3:28. It is also this concept of God's will to free mankind which ties the subject of slavery to the women's issues concerning submission and authority. Oppression is proscribed in the New Testament, which as unbelievable as it seems to us today, was once debated by pro-slavery theologians. The matter to discuss here is whether the debate over slavery is point by point equal to that of the gender issues. I think their connection is mainly in the principles of liberty, but they have a connection within the stubborn arguments in support of traditional reasons to keep the oppressions and abuses of power in place .
So, in returning to Eve, we find that she exhibits neither the hierarchal type of recognizing authority to make her decision, nor the egalitarian form of consensus. She has become a loose cannon, wholly answerable to herself only. And that is why original sin is sin- it has not only edited out the idea of accountability horizontally, which is a mutual submission, but that of the vertical relationship with God, as well. That is why the temptation included the succulent seduction of " you will be like God". What also needs to be examined is the description of this process as deception. One of the reasons for using a base of multiple checks and balances in a consensus form of decision making is to work around the blind spots of individuals and the "optical illusions" of physical circumstances, and this is accepted in our egalitarian ideas of government, but is it necessary or desirable in God's Kingdom? For today's discussion: Does a rote form of egalitarian consensus add to or take away from our function as the body of Christ? Is there an argument for hierarchal authority structure in implementing "thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven"?
I'd like to move on from here and say, "now, what is the form of the structure to take?" but we haven't settled the debate yet. We are hung up at this juncture on the struggle between hierarchal and egalitarian ideology. Until we settle where each one fits in the equation, and what checks and balances are inherent in the gospel... we will have to continue on this talking point.
I would like to sum up the situation which the Genesis account leaves with us:
- Eve acted on her own without recognizing either Adam or God's authority to inform her decision
- this did not work out well for mankind, creating a rift between God and man
- this same erasure of men's importance and role happens in modern feminism
In the modern form of egalitarianism which is applied within feminism, the cultural question becomes " what do we do with men?" The answer behind the hand is the objectifying, biology-restricted answer in reverse, that women have historically protested. That is why the church is not able to move forward in this gender issue of a "Woman's Place in the Church". We get caught in the same same trap as the secular debate, because we follow the same arguments and thought processes.
This post dealt with examining Eve and her choice in light of our modern filter, it wades into the concept of Biblical authority order, but more needs to be said. Then I hope we are ready to discuss the place that egalitarian ideas do have in how we relate as Christians in, but not of this world.; A large burden of why we have gone so awry is on the shoulder of the traditional complementarians ( the hierarchialists) who have plainly mistaken and abused the offices of authority; and it is the egalitarians who provide the voice of reason in this part of the debate. It should take a few more posts to pursue this .
footnote: In "Christian Manifesto" Francis Schaeffer presents the thinking ... similar to this quote from an address by the same title.
...the view of the founding fathers of this country. They believed, although not all of them were individual Christians, that there was a Creator and that this Creator gave the inalienable rights -- this upon which our country was founded and which has given us the freedoms which we still have -- even the freedoms which are being used now to destroy the freedoms.
The reason that these freedoms were there is because they believed there was somebody who gave the inalienable rights. But if we have the view that the final reality is material or energy which has existed forever in some form, we must understand that this view never, never, never would have given the rights which we now know and which, unhappily, I say to you (those of you who are Christians) that too often you take all too much for granted. You forget that the freedoms which we have in northern Europe after the Reformation (and the United States is an extension of that, as would be Australia or Canada, New Zealand, etc.) are absolutely unique in the world.
Occasionally, some of you who have gone to universities have been taught that these freedoms are rooted in the Greek city-states. That is not the truth. All you have to do is read Plato's Republic and you understand that the Greek city-states never had any concept of the freedoms that we have. Go back into history. The freedoms which we have (the form / freedom balance of government) are unique in history and they are also unique in the world at this day.
