Undermining Tolerance of Egalitarianism

Lig and I were recently at a gathering of 40 or so pastors.  We had a great time there.  Wonderful fellowship.  Much theological agreement.  However, when the question of complementarianism–there are gender roles in home & church that are culturally expressed, but some gender roles are actually rooted in and mandated by Scripture–when this question came up, though there was large agreement on theological substance, there was dramatic disagreement on strategy for presentation.

The core of this blog entry is simply this–>it is my observation that those older than me who are complementarian generally want to downplay this issue, and those younger than me want to lead with it, or at least be very up front about it.

SKIP THIS PARAGRAPH UNLESS YOU’RE INTERESTED IN THE PURITANS [I think I see a parallel between the Elizabethan puritans--Sibbes, Gouge--and their more radical sons in the faith--Goodwin, Cotton, Owen--on this issue.  The older generation had known fruiful ministry in the established church.  The younger generation saw the direction in which things were moving.  They had few differences of theology, they had great differences in assessing the significance of various matters, and therefore of the strategies for faithfulness which they should adopt.  Probably parallels to SBC inerrantists who were politically moderate in the Southern Baptist Convention, and the more radicalized following generation, but that's another blog!]

Why is this?  Is it because the older group is theologically unfaithful, or the younger group culturally insensitive?  I don’t think so.  I don’t know, but my guess is that there are at least a couple of factors playing into this difference.  The two groups have different personal experiences, and the two groups have different theological assessments.

First, the two groups have different personal experiences.  Normal for the older group is evangelicals as upstanding members of the society.  They are mayors and bankers and respected persons in the community.  The tendency is natural to do what would be culturally acceptable, as much as is possible (parallel to John Rawls and his idea of publicly accessible reasons).  Normal for the younger group is being shouted at publicly, being told that they’re narrow, intolerant hate-mongers because of their opposition to homosexuality or abortion or false religions.  The tendency is to advocate biblical mandates in an unvarnished, open fashion, and yet to do this with an eye to explaining and demonstrating them as winsomely as possible.  Both groups want to be faithful to Scripture and sensitive to culture, and yet their ideas of where the right balance is, differ.

Second, the two groups have different theological assessments.  The older group is among peers who see women’s ordination as an extension of civil rights for people of different races.   The younger group is among peers who see women’s ordination as a precursor for creating legal categories of gay rights.  But having a certain skin pigmentation is to the glory of God; having a sexual partner of the same gender is sin.  The younger group is more alarmed not simply by the egalitarian position, but by what it is assumed that will eventually entail, either in those who allow it, or in those who come after them.

There are, of course, many evangelical feminists.  Some Christians whom I most love and respect and have learned from are in this category.  Just to take one example, I think of my beloved professor at Gordon-Conwell, Roger Nicole, who is a father in the faith to me.  My respect for him is huge.  My debt to him is great.  I was his teaching assistant for two years at Gordon-Conwell.  He and his wife were and have been incredibly kind to me and my family. He prayed for me publicly at my installation at CHBC.  I got a letter from him just last week!  However, on this issue, after years of being taught feminism at Duke then at Gordon-Conwell, I had to come to disagree.

"Well then" you might say "why don’t you leave this issue of complementarianism at the level of baptism or church polity?  Surely you cooperate with those who disagree with you on such matters."  Because, though I could be wrong, it is my best and most sober judgment that this position is effectively an undermining of–a breach in–the authority of Scripture.  As Lig the paedo-baptist has often said "If there were a verse in I Timothy saying ‘I do not permit an infant to be baptized . . .’ we wouldn’t be having this conversation about baptism!  There is such a verse about women serving as teacher/elders!"

Dear reader, you may not agree with me on this.  And I don’t desire to be right in my fears.  But it seems to me and others (many who are younger than myself) that this issue of egalitarianism and complementarianism is increasingly acting as the watershed distinguishing those who will accomodate Scripture to culture, and those who will attempt to shape culture by Scripture.  You may disagree, but this is our honest concern before God.  It is no lack of charity, nor honesty.  It is no desire for power or tradition for tradition’s sake.  It is our sober conclusion from observing the last 50 years.

Paedobaptism is not novel (sadly).  But, on the good side, evangelicals who have taught such a doctrine have continued to be otherwise faithful to Scripture for 5 centuries now.  And many times their faithfulnesses have put those of us who may have a better doctrine of baptism to shame!  Egalitarianism is novel.  It’s theological tendencies have not had such a long track record.  And the track record they have had so far, is not encouraging.

Of course there are issues more central to the gospel than gender issues.  However, there may be no way the authority of Scripture is being undermined more quickly or more thoroughly in our day than through the hermenuetics of egalitarian readings of the Bible.  And when the authority of Scripture is undermined, the gospel will not long be acknowledged.  Therefore, love for God, the gospel, and future generations, demands the careful presentation and pressing of the complementarian position.

Remembering for the Future

Memorial Day is not only a time for citizens of the United States to honor veterans.  It is also a time that we as Christians can allow our society to turn our minds backwards so that we might be prepared for what lies ahead.

One of the most encouraging parts of church history is when we read of saints who have suffered for their faith, and continued to faithfully follow Jesus.  We may know those stories from the Bible, or from the Roman persecutions, from the period of the Reformation, or from the great 19th-century missions expansion.  There are other mines, too, for remembrances that will encourage our faith.

One other particularly encouraging to me is to see the faith of my African-American brothers and sisters, even as they labored under the terrible persecution of slavery, sometimes even from those who were members of the same church.  This is not simply material for a cultural "Black History" month; this is OUR history as Christians–as sinners saved by grace. 

In Betty DeRamus’ book Forbidden Fruit:  Love Stories from the Underground Railroad, she recounts the faith of one James Smith.  I guess that she recounts it primarily as a human love story; and that it was.  I see in it too, a story of God’s love, and of Smith’s love for God.

James Smith was a slave in pre-Civil War Virginia, in the Richmond area.  More fundamentally, he was a Christian.  At night, he would go and preach the gospel to fellow slaves.  His master forbad him from doing this, and even whipped him when Smith continued.  Finally, when James Smith would not stop worshipping with and ministering to other slaves, his master took the ultimate retribution–he sold him.  James was married, and had 2 children.  Selling him was effectively cutting him off from his beloved family.

Smith was purchased by a Georgian plantation owner and sent to Georgia, hundreds of miles away from his family.  DeRamus recounts how Smith was met there with a severe lashing of 100 strokes in order to discourage him from that same kind of Gospel ministry which had gotten him sold by his previous master.

What was Smith’s response?  We’re told in both the Old & New Testaments to love our enemies.  Smith’s response was to pray for his persecutor and tormentor.  Smith would do this regularly and out loud.  Once, when the overseer heard Smith doing this, he was pierced to the heart.  Even slave-holders were not beyond the power of the Holy Spirit.  He begged Smith to forgive him.  While he didn’t feel that he could free him (for whatever reason) he did say that if Smith escaped, he would not recapture him.

With that encouragement, Smith escaped.  He made his way back up to Virigina.  There, however, he learned that his wife, too, had been sold.  It took Smith 22 years of facing trials before he finally found his wife and was reunited to her.  DeRamus recounts this story as a human love story in the most inhumane of circumstances, and that it is.  It is also a story of Christian faith, where my brother in Christ James Smith would not be put off by beatings or discouragements from looking for his wife, faithfully fulfilling his covenant to her, praying for his captors, preaching the Gospel, and continuing to follow Jesus in the most horrendous and discouraging of circumstances. 

That’s something worth remembering.  Stories like James Smith’s encourage us about God’s faithfulness in the past.  They may also steel us for the future.

About the Gospel (4)

Mark, it was great to be with you in Philly on Monday and Tuesday. C.J. and Al — wish you’d been there with us. I’ll miss fellowship with you guys on Friday night though, but will pray God’s blessings on your time and planning. Mark, thanks for the CDs! And thanks reminding us of that great comment from John Piper on productivity at T4G.

Now, I’d better get productive and produce some more Spurgeon quotes, about the gospel. These are some bracing thoughts addressed to hearers of the gospel and preachers of the gospel.

"The hearing of the gospel involves the hearer in responsibility. It is a great privilege to hear the gospel. You may smile and think there is nothing very great in it. The damned in hell know. Oh, what would they give if they could hear the gospel now? If they could come back and entertain but the shadow of a hope that they might escape from the wrath to come? The saved in heaven estimate this privilege at a high rate, for, having obtained salvation through the preaching of this gospel, they can never cease to bless their God for calling them by his word of truth. O that you knew it! On your dying beds the listening to a gospel sermon will seem another thing than it seems now." CHS

"Do you know, my dear unsaved hearer, what God’s estimate of the gospel is? Do you not know that it has been the chief subject of his thoughts and acts from all eternity? He looks on it as the grandest of all his works. You cannot imagine that he has sent his gospel into the world to be a football for you to play with–that you may give it a kick, as Felix did when he said to Paul, "Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee" (Acts 24:25). You surely cannot believe that God sent his gospel into the world for you to make a toy of it, and to say, as Agrippa said to Paul, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian" (Acts 26:28), and then put away all thought of it out of your souls. You cannot even speak of it irreverently without committing a great sin." CHS

"Avoid a sugared gospel as you would shun sugar of lead. Seek the gospel which rips up and tears and cuts and wounds and hacks and even kills, for that is the gospel that makes alive again. And when you have found it, give good heed to it. Let it enter into your inmost being. As the rain soaks into the ground, so pray the Lord to let his gospel soak into your soul." CHS

How do you rest?

CJ, Lig and I had the honor to have dinner with RC & Vesta Sproul and John Piper.  It was the first night of the Together for the Gospel conference.  And we were being hosted very graciously by Al & Mary Mohler. 

At one point the conversation turned to our busy schedules.  One person exhorted another about the importance of rest.  It was then that John Piper quietly commented "I find productivity restful for my soul." 

"Restful for my soul." 

"Productivity." 

Bodily rest is important.  Rest for the soul is even more important. 

Glorying in the Cross

Thanks, Lig, for giving us such great quotations about the Gospel!  And while I’m still reflecting on Together for the Gospel, I am reminded of one of my favorite comments Spurgeon made in his Lectures to My Students.  Those of us who were at T4G did not agree on everything.  And some of those things we disagree about, we’re even particular proponents of!  But what we had and have in common is even more significant.  And that’s our desire for the fruit from this conference–and, should the Lord tarry and give us life and opportunity–and for the next conference.  “More and more am I jealous lest any views upon prophecy, church government, politics, or even systematic theology, should withdraw one of us from glorying in the cross of Christ.” (C. H. Spurgeon, Lectures to my Students, I.83).  What stops us from so glorying in the cross?  This is my threatening enemy.  What will encourage us to glory in it all the more?  This is my loving friend.