This article is adapted from Chapter 1 of How God Sees Women: The End of Patriarchy by Terran Williams.
The Oxford Dictionary defines patriarchy as “any form of social organization in which men have predominant power.” By this definition—though I never used the term “patriarchy”—I used to be the primary articulator of a patriarchal doctrine in my church. As a lead teaching pastor, several times a year, I would stand up before hundreds of new members and explain why, by God’s will, it was biblical for men to hold more responsibility in church and marriage. I’d explain:
”According to the Bible, God made Adam and Eve to complement each other in equal but distinctive roles. More than that, God has brought that complementarity into the church, so that, although most roles are open to women, God has ordained men alone to be elders and pastors. Although there is enormous cultural pressure to revise this, we’re committed to taking our cues from the Bible not culture.”
And most people would accept our position. When some didn’t and chose to leave, I consoled myself that faithfulness to Jesus was most important.
Then a few years ago, after the issue resurfaced yet again and we realized our past substantiations were a bit thin, our core leadership team decided to revisit the doctrine and draw up a thorough articulation and defence for it. Though we spoke open-mindedly about the issue, none of us had any real doubts that we might be wrong about our prior interpretation of Scripture. After all, we had respected Christian leaders like John Piper and Timothy Keller who had championed our way of reading the Bible on all manner of things—including gender and leadership. And God had blessed our church numerically while this doctrine was in place.
As one of the most theologically qualified leaders, I was commissioned with others to write a paper on the subject. I delved into the topic with enthusiasm and abandon, ready to provide an articulate and considered defence for our position. Despite my theological education, this was the first time I had deeply explored the arguments against and for women leading in the church. Never afraid of the facts, I read everything I could on the subject.
As I did so—and I never imagined this might happen—my confidence turned to dust.
The more I understood what I believed, and how many of the most well-known and vocal proponents of this belief have defended their position, the more it dawned upon me how wrong I had been to assume my convictions were built on rock-solid biblical exegesis. How could this be? How could so many of the authors and scholars I respected and who I had thought were immune to the snares of culture have themselves been captured by an antiquated yet equally unbiblical culture? My journey to uncover the answer to this question is unpacked in my book, How God Sees Women: The End of Patriarchy.
I did not change my mind carelessly. I especially applied the counsel of Proverbs 18:17 (NIV): “The first to speak seems right, until someone comes forward and cross-examines.” Making doubly and triply sure, I turned every stone—every text and every argument—looking at it from all sides, over and over and over. Upon reflection, it has proven to be one of the most liberating of journeys.
Definitions and defining moments
Allow me to define some of the terms that we use. By patriarchy or gender hierarchy, I mean the assumption that in whatever sphere is being referred to—be it home, church, or society—men are mandated to have the highest authority.
Contrary to our secular culture’s overtones that portray men as bullies, predators, abdicators, and power-mongers, when I use the terms, I do not mean that men are always oppressors, or that their masculinity is inevitably toxic. Encouragingly, more and more patriarchal churches are discovering the wisdom of listening to the voices of women. Yet while these churches give women a say, it is still understood that men have the final say.
My book mainly discusses a particular form of patriarchy labelled complementarianism. This is a recent and highly influential brand of revised patriarchy invented in the American church in the last quarter of the last century. Though claiming to equalize the genders, it excludes women from preaching and pastoral leadership in churches; upholds a wife’s submission in marriage; and, to a lesser degree, casts doubt on female leadership in society. It also tends to primarily esteem the domestic role of women as husband-supporters, homemakers and childrearers.
Making the young history of complementarianism a little more complicated, a small percentage of churches have more recently attempted to soften its harsher implications—allowing women to preach (but not with authority). Women can also lead men in the church (but only in lower levels of leadership). They can be top-tier leaders in society (but not senior leaders in the church). They can make decisions with their husbands (but where there is disagreement, the husband is the tiebreaker). I call this soft complementarianism.
For two decades, I would have described myself as a soft complementarian. Like many other leaders who find themselves in similar church circles, I valued and worked alongside many gifted women—grateful to be part of a healthy church that did not appear to limit, silence or suppress their call or contribution.
Yet as I studied Scripture afresh, I had to admit that, if the original complementarian methods of interpreting Scripture are correct, then soft complementarianism is much less defensible than I had hoped. It simply no longer has a sound biblical argument for its more inclusive practices. I concluded that either we should practise what we believe—and not let women preach, lead or even co-lead with men—or we should look closer at what we believe, and why. (After all, if complementarianism is wrong, then even a soft form of it is no more acceptable than a soft form of racism would be.)
Having done just that, leaning in closer to every one of the primary and secondary sources, what I discovered deeply unsettled me.
Upon closer investigation, I was astonished to discover that respected theologians (like Wayne Grudem, Tom Schreiner, and Andreas Köstenberger), as well as beloved pastors (like John Piper and Timothy Keller) have all offered critically unsound biblical analyses and imbalanced arguments in order to reach their conclusions about excluding women from many high-impact roles.
In fact, I couldn’t find a single watertight biblical argument for excluding females from senior leadership. How ever many arguments can be made, each is significantly flawed. And merely assembling them together makes them no more solid than does stacking many flimsy cards to form a house of cards.
Conversely, I was just as astounded to find substantial, indeed persuasive, biblical arguments for why women should be included.
My commitment to a whole-Bible approach to the subject is why I have ultimately settled upon male–female mutualism. I appreciate the synonymous term egalitarianism, and lock arms with most of the biblical scholars who nailed their colours to this mast—they are correct to say that Scripture supports the notion that men and women are equal. However, I prefer not to use the term for three reasons: first, complementarians also claim to believe in gender equality; second, the term is sometimes associated with the negation of all distinctions between men and women; and third, equality is not the only crucial idea—reciprocal partnership and collaborative unity are as important. With this in mind, here is my working definition:
Male–female mutualism is the theological position, informed by Scripture, that men and women are distinct and yet equal, created to serve and partner alongside each other in all spheres of life. Each person’s God-given authority, gifting and expertise can and should be recognized and celebrated, regardless of their gender.
Always reforming
The Protestant Reformation of the 1500s ushered in a much-needed review of the church’s teachings. Yet this Reformation itself advocated the principle of “church always reforming” (from the Latin phrase ecclesia semper reformanda). Calvin and Luther, for example, did not imagine that they had the last words on any matter of biblical import, but rather passed to succeeding generations the ongoing task of diligently reflecting on our doctrines and their alignment to the Scriptures. They knew all too well that, in a church that is centuries old, it is easy to pick up peculiar items—old, irrelevant relics from bygone eras—that need to be abandoned, not embraced, if the church is to freely move from one degree of glory to the next.
I believe that this is one of our generation’s crucial reformations.
Reading church history, I have marvelled at how the Spirit continues to lead the church into ever-greater clarity about its teachings and practices on a wide variety of matters. If the first reformation sought to give the Word of God back to ordinary people long since divested of its life-changing power, subsequent reformations have slowly yet steadily been restoring the work of God back to all God’s people—regardless of their age, race, class, or gender.
Reformations require effort.
For much of church history, Christians have left it to a select few learned individuals to figure out what we all believed. In fact, before the Protestant Reformation, and the advent of the printing press in 1436, most thought of theology, and much of the Bible, as lofty gibberish—to be understood only by priests who read and spoke Latin, and who had access to a rare copy of the Bible. While so much has changed since, many believers (and indeed many church leaders) still outsource their evaluation of this critical topic by relying on others to do the hard exegetical work for them. When I told a fellow pastor about my change in position, he lamented, “As a busy pastor I don’t know when I’m meant to find time to reflect on my theology.” He is correct: time and effort are needed! Yet it is an endeavour worthy of such an investment.
Reformations needn’t dishonour.
Beyond divisive camps and disparaging caricatures of one another—there is a better way. I am referencing not only the two obvious “sides” in this debate, but also our genders—which are all-too-often pitted against one another as if either men are all trash, or women are all Jezebels. In this vein, I am so proud of the many men and women I know (on both sides of this conversation) who do all they can to build up the body and honour one another. One female pastor told me, “I walk in the way of Jesus who lifted women up without disparaging men.” In this same spirit, I also desire to honour those leaders and theologians (again, in both camps) who have dedicated their lives to honestly pursuing truth and justice. While I may not agree with the likes of John Piper and the late Tim Keller on this particular issue, I do not see them as two-dimensional poster boys of the patriarchy. Much of who I am today has been shaped by them, and I continue to learn from them in many ways.
Churches evaluating their theology need to say no to the “culture wars” of the last decades as well as the methods of personal shaming to induce value change. While listening empathetically to voices of society, and the pain experienced by women, our primary driver in this conversation must be a proper understanding and redemptive application of Scriptural theology.
Reformations require humility.
It’s possible to do the right thing but to do it in such a way that does more harm than good. Wherever you land, be sure to add to your convictions kindness, gentleness and patience.
I take no pleasure in controversy and neither should you. Even though I now believe differently, I still hold many complementarian leaders and their churches in the highest regard as my brothers and sisters in Christ—whatever our differences of understanding may be; what we have in common is so much greater. Having been a complementarian for most of my tenure in Christian leadership, it would be remiss of me to suggest that those who still hold to it are spiritually or intellectually insufficient in some way.
As I show in my book, the church’s engagement with the relatively new cultural phenomenon of female equality is perhaps the greatest case study we have ever had to properly interrogate how the historical church imbibed cultural assumptions in its reading of its own texts. Tim Keller states this masterfully:
[Our] understanding of the Bible may definitely be wrong—indeed, is always partly so—and therefore must always be open to being corrected. … Because of our cultural blinders, we must not only speak to [a new culture]; we must listen to [its people] as well. We need to listen to what they are saying and take seriously their questions, their objections to what we are saying, and their hopes and aspirations. More often than not, this interaction with a new culture shows us many things taught in the Bible—things we either missed altogether or thought unimportant, possibly even ways in which we misread the Bible through the lens of our own cultural assumptions. (Center Church, ch. 8)
According to Paul the apostle, in Ephesians 5, Jesus is always at work beautifying his church through “the washing of his word” and making her ever more radiant and without blemish. It is in light of his grace that I offer my contributions. Though no doubt flawed in all kinds of places I am presently unaware of, I pray they may still play a small part in the renewing work of the Spirit to beautify the church of Jesus.
Explore Further
For more stories of people changing their minds in the complementarian-egalitarian debate, head on over to our Stories page, fondly referred to as our Ex Complementarian Corner.
For more on complementarianism, egalitarianism, and church history, see Williams, How God Sees Women: The End of Patriarchy, chapters 2–3 and Bartlett, True Complementarity: The Way of Christ for Men and Women, chapters 2, 5 and 23.
For more on the difficulties in changing one’s mind, see Williams, How God Sees Women: The End of Patriarchy, Appendix 6 ‘Why Facts Might Not Change Our Minds’ and Bartlett, True Complementarity: The Way of Christ for Men and Women, chapter 31.