Sep 01
Complementing an egalitarian paradigm
I want to draw attention to an interesting post on a subject I find remarkably uninteresting. I tend to look with some bemusement on the whole egalitarian-complementarian debate about biblical texts dealing with gender roles. Just occasionally they furnish me with enlightenment, but as often as not they bemuse and baffle me.
David Lang comments rightly:
Whether we speak of paradigms, eisegesis, or presuppositions, the basic warning is always the same: if we are going to translate and interpret the text correctly, we must do our best to avoid being influenced by our pre-existing assumptions.
That’s easier said than done, of course. Like the proverbial log and speck (Matthew 7:3-5), we are very good at seeing when others are reading their presuppositions into a text, but often blind to the fact that we are doing the same.
I think the reason for my bafflement with this debate is twofold:
- I don’t share the presupposition that we can move directly from patterns of living reflected, commanded, or prohibited in the text to patterns today. (This seems shared by both sides of the debate) What we see in the text is the tip of the iceberg of Judean and Graeco-Roman culture, and we need to fill in far more information via historical construction than is present in the text to read it properly. (Take a look at Bruce Winter’s Roman Wives, Roman Widows for an example of (re-)constructing a “new woman” to interpret an old text.)
- In line with what we can construct of characteristic patterns of thought in the ancient world, and ways in which we can read them in, say, Pauline texts, it seems to me entirely unlikely that Paul would have understood the complementarian-egalitarian debate either. Both are modern paradigms, one pre-dating the 1960s and one post-dating them. (I use “1960s” with its not infrequent coded meaning as a metonym for a semi-mythical paradigm shift in our Western culture).
Debates about modern paradigms, presuppositions and the like, as David says, tend to impute them to our opponents while asserting our own understanding as that of the text. But we need to be aware not just of the diversity of our contemporary paradigms, and their influence on our interpretations, but even more so of their cultural distance from the paradigms of those who authored our texts. I suspect those caught up in this debate find it hard to listen to those of us whose initial reaction is “Duh? What.”, but perhaps a broader conversation about paradigms might yet find new ways forward.
September 1st, 2007 at 8:11 pm
some folks want to believe that scriptures authenticate, reaffirm, or condone their particular lifestyle, or world view, and often it just doesn’t. in many cases, the text says what it says. people are afraid, for a variety of reasons, to just say, ‘much of scripture holds a lot of meaning for me, but in this particular instance (say, masculine hierarchical worldview), it does not.’ there is no single scriptural worldview. it’s ok if you feel that there are parts that are meaningless or offensive to your paradigm. it doesn’t invalidate the meaningful parts. this approach would be much more honest than contriving an argument that reaches a conclusion you want it to reach, when the text really says something else entirely.
September 2nd, 2007 at 2:21 am
Doug,
I don’t think I am particularly interested in creating an egalitarian paradigm. However, someone needed to think over the inclusive lg issue in the first place. It has had a huge affect. Others responded to it by proposing something more masculinized than the KJV.
Since my own pastor, an Anglican, chose a Bible which corresponds to the Colorado Springs guidelines because he does believe in male authority, this has been a difficult issue for me. I was at first given a hearing, but eventually simply told that this is what they believed, male authority. So they chose a Bible to go along with it - a Bible which translates 2 Tim. 2:2 as,
and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.
because it means “men”. Men can teach and the Bible says so. The Bible does not say that women can teach. See it is in the scriptures. Sadly this church is the largest Anglican church in Canada, and I felt I had to leave.
September 2nd, 2007 at 8:50 am
Suzanne, I’m both sorry and surprised to hear that. I also noted Peter’s comment on David’s original post that this view is becoming popular among UK evangelicals. I find it baffling that it is so, and wish that evangelicals in Canada and the UK would look more at the Bible than at US conservatives hankering after the 1950s
September 2nd, 2007 at 12:51 pm
suzanne–
i am sorry that your (old) faith community chooses to justify it’s dogma (only men can teach) through scripture, and then chooses to enforce it’s dogma through hierarchical feudalism (our current configuration of ‘church’). i hope that you live in a place where you have other options to worship in a community where the dogmas are taken from the parts of scripture you find meaningful.
peace–
scott
September 2nd, 2007 at 11:43 pm
I certainly have other options, and most Anglican churches are not like this, but some are. I found that over the last few years this church has become more reactionary. Under the previous pastor I heard many women, visiting missionaries etc, from the pulpit. But not any more.
I was rather surprised to have the minister consistently tell me that a woman cannot preach. I admit, he tried to fudge and obfuscate at first, but finally it all came out. He is a real male headship guy because it is all in the first chapters of Genesis. There was subordination in the garden, don’t you know. Sorry, I do go on about this, but I had to figure out where my pastor was getting all this and why he now considers me one who has lost her way, and strayed from the scriptures.
September 3rd, 2007 at 2:18 am
suzanne–
again, i am sorry that a parish you have had a connection with no longer speaks to your community needs. it is very difficult to give up relationships over ideology. did the search committee and vestry condone this choice? can you just ‘hunker down’ and wait this fellow out?
peace–
scott
September 3rd, 2007 at 2:44 am
Nope. The story is a little bit more complicated than that in any case.
September 3rd, 2007 at 2:45 am
You know, I have to say that I find it odd that this is just called “ideology”. Treating half the church members that they exist FOR the other half. It is not just like different colours of curtains.
September 3rd, 2007 at 7:40 am
suzanne–
sorry to make it seem unfeeling–trust me, i am most empathetic about this. i don’t want to hijack doug’s thread; would love to talk about this at length here.
peace–
scott
September 3rd, 2007 at 9:06 am
I don’t really think you guys are unfeeling. Its not that. It is simply that when this topic comes up, it is really hard to describe to someone else what it is like to live in subordination. But there are absolutely no hard feelings here on my part.
Broken link, BTW. I do that kind of thing all the time. Thanks for the invite to talk.
September 3rd, 2007 at 10:30 pm
The correct link seems to be this.
Suzanne, I am also sorry to hear about your experiences, only in part for the first time. They mirror what is happening in some parts of the Church of England, such as (allegedly, the full story is not known) Wycliffe Hall in Oxford. But this is not typical.
September 3rd, 2007 at 11:10 pm
I don’t share the presupposition that we can move directly from patterns of living reflected, commanded, or prohibited in the text to patterns today.
I share your doubts about whether “we can move directly”. But this sounds a bit too like just rejecting what the Bible says. In my opinion Henry Neufeld has provided a better take on this issue.
September 3rd, 2007 at 11:11 pm
Suzanne, I think I must come back to this in another post and give it more thought. Your experience in ACC (which after all has had a woman as a diocesan bishop) and Peter’s note of encountering it in the C of E (Reform churches I wonder?) have both surprised me, and yours has saddened me. While I in no way wish to equate the interpretative issues involved in the debate about gendered language with those involved in debates over homosexuality, both seem to me to share at least a growing fear / concern / confusion / uncertainty about constructions of masculinity. I’ve no idea what to make of that theologically or hermeneutically, but I find myself wondering whether some have felt more driven to assert certain gender stereotypes relating to women and men because they have been made even more insecure by the pressure for gay rights and equality in Western society than they have by feminist and womanist pressures, and have treated them all as part of the same threat.
September 3rd, 2007 at 11:13 pm
Peter, the stress in that sentence was indeed on directly. I spend a great deal of my working and thinking life trying to see how we can move from one to the other, and hope that I help others to do so.
September 4th, 2007 at 12:55 am
i think some of this has to do with a ‘descriptive’ vs. ‘prescriptive’ approach to scripture. i grew up in a parish where the theology was more descriptive in literature, poetry, and tradition and less prescriptive in authority. the text often ’says what it says.’ but i do think we can choose to interpret it descriptively or prescriptively, and it is at least one possible path to move from ‘patterns of living reflected, commanded, or prohibited’ in the text, to patterns today.
peace–
scott
September 4th, 2007 at 7:40 am
Doug,
It is very related to the homosexual debate here in Canada. However, my pastor is also from the Sydney diocese, where he says that he is considered quite liberal. The problem is that being unequal is being unequal, whether one is only a little unequal or a lot.
September 5th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
@Suzanne,
Do you know in what ways he considers himself liberal?
I’m currently attending a large Sydney Anglican church, and there does seem to be a certain homogenity of beliefs over here; I’ve yet to find anyone else questioning the ‘complementarian’ interpretation.
September 5th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
Yes, Doug, probably in Reform churches although I am not quite sure who officially accepts this label.
On “directly”, of course this is an important caveat. But I do wonder if in fact people like David Lang or Suzanne really have “the presupposition that we can move directly”. It seems to me that their approach is a rather indirect one, although maybe not clearly set out as such. So your rejection of their approach sounded a bit too like the approach of some “liberals” who use words like “indirect” as a pretext for going against clear biblical teaching. I accept that that is not your intention, although the issue is not a trivial one.
September 5th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
Peter and Doug, I’m wondering if “directly” and “indirectly” quite gets it. For example, I often dispute with dispensationalists. They go very directly from a phrase in scripture to its application, yet to me it appears not to be so direct.
We are all applying a paradigm of what we understand scripture to be and how we believe it should be applied. The paths are all long, IMV, and perhaps should be called indirect. The question becomes which indirect path is better?
I think I am justifiably called “liberal” in my approach to Biblical application, but often the main difference I see between myself and fundamentalist interpreters is that I admit and explicitly state the indirection. There is a huge continuum between a fundamentalist and myself, and many, many different mixtures on how one approaches and states interpretation.
I’m just kind of playing with the terms here, so I’m not sure I’m being fair to other views, or to my own for that matter.
September 5th, 2007 at 5:20 pm
I think what I meant by “direct” was that in a direct approach it is determinative for today whether (e.g.) we read “faithful men” or “faithful people” in 2 Tim 2:2. I think I misread Suzanne as also thinking this, whereas her point was more in treating seriously those who had excluded her by thinking like this. But I do find that “direct” approach in her opponents, and I honestly don’t know of a better way of saying it without lapsing into some Gadamerian waffle about collapsed horizons.
September 5th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
Sam,
You ask a good question that I can’t answer. He simply did not want me to attribrute all teachings of the Sydney diocese to him, I guess.
September 5th, 2007 at 6:27 pm
Sam,
Thanks for pointing me to Martin Shields paper. It was great.
September 5th, 2007 at 6:28 pm
Doug,
Yes, I thought maybe you had misread me but it happens. I get it.
September 5th, 2007 at 8:52 pm
Suzanne, the benefit of conversations is I hope that we can say sorry when we misunderstand someone (as I do to you) and also understand each other better, as I think we are doing. But what’s this refernec to “Martin Shields’ paper” - I can’t see a link in Sam’s comments.
September 6th, 2007 at 12:49 am
Doug,
I happened on Sam’s blog a few weeks ago. If you click on Sam’s name, comment #17, then it will open his blog. About three posts down, he cites an article by Martin Shields which I wrote about at some length a couple of weeks ago. Then Martin turned up and commented on my post. Its a small blog world.
Hi Sam!
Suzanne