Rehabilitating patriarchy

Russell Moore gave a vigorous presentation at ETS on why egalitarians are winning the evangelical gender debate. He summarized some of the recent sociological work on evangelical family life, which presents a mixed picture. On the one hand, Bradford Wilcox’s Soft Patriarchs, New Men shows that evangelical fathers are not the brutal tyrants imagined by many; instead, fathers in the most conservative families are more apt to hug their children, spend time with them, and less apt to yell and beat kids than fathers in other groups. On the other hand, Moore cited evidence that many families that claim to be organized by the biblical concepts of headship and submission are functionally egalitarian.

Moore suggested at least two reasons for this discrepancy between theory and practice. First, he said that few evangelical pastors are willing to preach on biblical texts that speak of male headship out of fear of feminist backlash, and when they do preach on it they are short on specifics. The reigning model is “servant leadership,” a leadership that imitates the headship of Christ. But without specific details and instruction, “servant leadership” ends up as “non-leadership.” He suggested that behind this is the revolution in pastoral care that has taken place within evangelicalism over the past generation. Because counselors have allowed modern psychological categories – which are decidedly hostile to authority – to shape their understanding of pastoral care, counseling often tends to perpetuate egalitarian agendas.

Second, he argued that the notion of patriarchy or headship cannot be isolated from a whole range of theological issues, and that the evangelical “complementarians” have failed to communicate that the issues at stake go beyond the interpretation of a few texts and that the headship of the Father is build into the structure of redemptive history. The whole of redemptive history, he pointed out, is about a Father, His Son, and His children: Israel is God’s Son, and so is David, and so is Jesus. The whole history of redemption can be told as the story of the initiative of the Father. Patriarchy – the Father as source – is inherent in the gospel.

Further, he argued that the nature of God is at stake in the debate, suggesting that open theism has been able to catch on in evangelicalism because feminists had already changed the meaning of God’s sovereignty and fatherhood.

There were a couple of points where I would want to probe further. Moore dismissed the notion that the Persons of the Trinity are mutually submissive, but I think that’s true. And I don’t see that it undermines sexual complementarity any more than Paul’s call to “mutual submission” among Christians cancels out his talk about headship (Eph 5:21-33). Also, though Moore called for pastors to give specifics about how headship works – and he offered several helpful suggestions during Q&A – given the nature of the venue he was not able to fill out the picture much. Perhaps he’ll offer more detail in future writing or lecturing.

All in all, a vigorous and stimulating talk.