Neither Complementarian nor Egalitarian: A Kingdom Corrective to the Evangelical Gender Debate

by Michelle Lee-Barnewall

our passage does not imply that Eve is naturally more prone to deception but rather makes clear that deception is the work of Satan. Genesis 3 highlights the serpent’s role since it describes the serpent as “more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made” (Gen. 3:1 NIV). Bar-Efrat notes that direct characterization is rare in biblical narrative, and when it does occur, “the trait noted by the narrator is always extremely important in the development of the plot.”60 Thus the story emphasizes the serpent’s craftiness as the explanation for Eve’s deception. There is no corresponding description of Eve, especially in terms of her gullibility.

Adam distances himself from Eve by blaming her, the person with whom he was supposed to be united, whereas Eve blames a third party, the serpent. Although earlier he considered Eve a suitable companion because she is like him, he now describes her as “the woman whom you gave to be with me” (Gen. 3:12). Instead of using kinship language to describe her relationship to him, he now speaks of her impersonally as “the woman” and as one who was given to him by a third party. His words no longer reflect an intimacy with Eve. As Alan Jon Hauser remarks, “She has become an object, not a companion.”63 Adam’s objectification of Eve is even more striking because only Adam receives any explicit instruction about their unity. The man is the one who is to leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife so that they may become one flesh, a union that involves numerous aspects beyond the sexual to include spiritual, emotional, and kinship relations.64 Adam is supposed to achieve the reunification of the two, but he fails profoundly. This is a critical, but mostly overlooked, aspect of Adam’s failure.

If God commissioned Adam to promote the unity of the marriage, then it is difficult to imagine that “authority” would be a main characteristic of his responsibility since power relationships tend to separate rather than create intimacy. At the same time, because Adam has a particular role in regard to the unity with Eve and the need for obedience to God’s direct command, it is also difficult to see their relationship as primarily one of functional “equality.”

if either “equality” or “authority” is present in this passage in some way, it must be understood in the context of these larger and more dominant concerns of unity, holiness, and obedience.

The normal expectation for the metaphor is that the head is the leader and provider of the body. Consequently, it is the head’s responsibility to ensure its own safety, and the body’s responsibility to sacrifice itself for the sake of the head. As a result, we would expect Paul to instruct the wife, the body, to be willing to sacrifice for the sake of the husband, the head. Such instructions would be the most logical since, according to common reasoning, the body could not survive without the head. But that is not what we find; rather, Paul states the reverse. The husband as the head is called to give himself up for the wife as his body, just as Christ gave himself up for the church, which is his body.33 Furthermore, where normal expectations would have the body being the one to love the head, Paul states that the husband as head is to love his wife as his body as Christ loved the church. The fundamental nature of the reversal is critical. It would have struck Paul’s audience not only as odd but even more so as being against nature. The sacrifice of the head would be suicidal for the entire body since the head provides guidance for the whole. The reversal in expectations in regard to love would also seem shocking in light of traditional honor conventions because Paul tells the most esteemed part, the head, to love the body.

Thus, in both the Old and the New Testaments, the marital metaphor brings connotations of intimacy and describes unity as related to the initiating actions of the husband/bridegroom.

In the world the life of the body revolves around the head, and its role in the unity of the body is particularly important. For example, Seneca describes the head, Caesar, as “the bond by which the commonwealth is united” (Clem. 1.4.1). For Paul, the head is also the source of unity, but only as the head acts in a manner that is very unheadlike, by not exerting power or privilege but rather doing the opposite.

In the fall Adam distanced himself from Eve by blaming her, rather than manifesting a true “one flesh” union. Instead of taking responsibility for his own transgression, he was essentially willing to sacrifice her by trying to place the blame on her in an attempt to save himself (Gen. 3:12), thus displaying the antithesis of the attitude expected of a husband in Christ. In Ephesians the husband/Christ creates intimacy by caring for the wife/church as much as he does for himself and so provides the nurture and care that is necessary for an intimate union. Whereas as a result of his sin Adam identified Eve impersonally as “the woman whom You gave to be with me,” now the husband who is in Christ considers the woman as his very body and is willing to give himself up for her rather than trying to save himself by blaming her.

Instead of being ruled by her husband because she is seen to be inferior, her relationship with her husband becomes a prime example of the kingdom ethic of reversal. The one who would normally be expected to serve becomes the object of sacrificial love.

Whether or not this reflects a “hierarchy” with connotations of “authority,” the larger issue may be how these gender distinctions serve God’s purposes in illustrating the ways of the kingdom as they involve Christ’s humility and sacrificial example as the basis for intimate unity.

dominant social trends have often impacted the gender debate by influencing the framework of the discussion, moving the overall trajectory in an increasingly individualistic direction based on self-fulfillment even as it dealt with issues of authority and equality. In light of this, we have tried to show the need to go back to Scripture to see whether there are other, more transcendent and corporate concerns with which to view gender than those presented by the two current positions. The crucial component to reframing the debate is to consider God’s purposes for his people and how these are accomplished in the new age.

The Spirit is God’s empowerment, and he is given to all believers. This gifting may result in “equality,” although in the context of God’s purposes it is better understood as leading to “inclusion,” since the dominant concern is not individual rights and benefits but God’s grace to all his people, Jew and gentile, male and female. The focus is on what God gives, or perhaps better, the God who gives, and not what people receive. The point is not that God is or should be fair, but that he is merciful and sovereign to give salvation and new life in the Spirit to all who call on the name of the Lord (Rom. 10:13).

perspective matters. The framing of the issue reveals the type of information we want, but Scripture often challenges our perspective. As detailed in the introduction, Paul says in Rom. 5–6 that the correct way to consider sin is not to ask, “Does grace mean we can/should continue sinning?” but rather, “Now that we are in Christ, what is our new relationship to sin, and how does that then impact how we live?” The way we pose our questions profoundly impacts the kinds of answers we receive. For Paul sin looks very different from the standpoint of new life in Christ than when one is enslaved to sin (Rom. 6:16–20). Rather than focusing on whether one can continue to sin, Paul demonstrates that renewal in Christ means one no longer has to sin. One’s very relationship to sin has changed because of grace, so the relevant questions change as well.

Gal. 3:28, which we discussed in terms of “inclusion,” has stronger implications for the diverse groups to be “one” in their love for one another than “grant[ing] equal status and privilege”15 to these groups, as in an egalitarian interpretation. At the same time, the complementarian assertion that Gal. 3:28 refers to an equality in “spiritual standing” as God’s “image-bearers”16 but with differences in “role and function in the church”17 focuses more on the separateness of the genders than on their intimate unity. Both positions, therefore, may miss the critical relational dimension of the passage, which speaks to the oneness of God’s people who are reconciled in the new age.

Since Jesus as well as Paul claim authority, even as they speak of being servants and slaves,21 an additional area of study may be how these two aspects are reconciled or otherwise coexist.22 The full impact of “reversal” must come into play, since the New Testament challenges hierarchy to show God’s power, and the cross of Christ was the ultimate display of power working through weakness.23 The theme of “reversal” is critical for understanding how God’s value system impacts believers in their relationship with God and others and in their self-understanding.24 In regard to leadership, servanthood does not simply qualify leadership but transforms it.25

Our notions of authority or leadership must be able to account for Paul’s conception of power manifested through weakness as a means of displaying the power of God among his people.

the New Testament ethic also transcends rights. Paul affirms their importance, but states that what matters more is one’s willingness not to act on one’s right if it will lead to a greater good. When Paul calls people to give up rights for the sake of others and the furtherance of the gospel, he exhorts them to place their trust in God, the one who ultimately justifies and rewards. In some cases, to see rights as foremost can actually harm another person and hinder the gospel (e.g., 1 Cor. 8:1–13; 9:1–23).

the New Testament speaks of the inability of either authority and leadership or equality and rights to produce unity in and of themselves. Promoting personal rights is intrinsically about what benefits or is fair to the individual rather than building relationships between individuals. Authority may provide order and efficiency but not intimacy. Again, this is not to say that either is “wrong” but rather that both are limited.

For the complementarian view, the reversal of hierarchy and the notion of the leader as slave or servant should speak to a dependence on God both for one’s identity, which rests in God rather than personal status, and for personal gain, which ultimately comes when God vindicates those who have suffered and sacrificed for his sake in the present age. For egalitarians, we see that the goal is not the acquisition of appropriate rights as much as the ability to see how the higher way is a readiness to give them up for the sake of another. The goal for both sides can be to make the more fundamental consideration not personal benefit or position but the imitation of Christ in the willingness to suffer loss for the benefit of others. This speaks to the larger goal of love and unity in the corporate body, as the church models the example of Christ for a watching world.

All positions are subject to corruption, and we should not be so defensive over our view that we cannot look honestly at unintended consequences and learn from our mistakes.

What “authority,” “leadership,” “equality,” and “rights” have in common is that they often highlight the individual over the community and God himself. What their reversals share is the potential to guide us to a greater acknowledgment of God’s sovereignty and a recognition of God’s ways in which the willing sacrifice for the other through the denial of self-interest results in unity and love.

The main point is not to have a community that is “fair” or properly organized. While these characteristics might well be part of the church, they must be subsumed under overriding kingdom priorities related to the inclusive, loving community that lives in dependence on God.

As we read the Scriptures, we must not define maleness as the normative humanity over against which femaleness is either greater or lesser.

Lee-Barnewall opens the way to talk about what I think is at the heart of the current debate: the definition of masculinity. By reframing the argument, Lee-Barnewall helps us to see that this is not about “women’s issues”; questions of identity arise as much for men as for women. Our culture tends to define maleness in two interlocking ways. First, it defines male as that which is not female. The reverse is not entirely true, for a girl can be a tomboy and a woman can be a strong athlete without diminishing her identity as a female. Second, it defines a male as having more of something than a female, namely, authority. The ancient world’s view of male and female shares similarities with our own. The reversal principle evident in the kingdom of God provides a lens through which to observe and critique our culture’s constructions of masculinity.