But it's obvious that Scripture is not going to have authority over her.

I don't really need to read a scientific or theological treatise on women. I'm a woman, and therefore I get automatic points as an expert on being a woman. (emphasis mine)

I, nor any complementarian that I know of, would ever discount the experiences of a woman. A woman knows more about being a woman than a man would. That's a given. But compared to her Maker, she an amateur.

Into this already abnormal environment, we have theologians who stray way out of bounds and tell women what they're like without ever troubling to consult the women themselves.

So in order to get the correct hermeneutic about women, women need to be consulted? This is to subject the Word of God under her own subjective point of view. She might as well have said that God needs to be counseled by women about women.

And then she follows with this “therefore”:

Therefore, I'm not allowed to have an opinion about myself unless it concurs with the MRI brain scans of women in some scientific study.

How she makes this a logical conclusion of her previous statement, I just don't get. She can have whatever opinion she may have about herself despite the scientific studies, but she cannot place her opinion over the authority of Scripture.

As for male-female differences leading to differentiated roles, that is a matter of interpretation and rampant generalization.

Ah yes, I've seen that argument before. “Matter of interpretation” indeed. Of course, she's never provided her interpretation, but maybe because she realizes that the same argument could be used against her position. Interpretation is the crux of the problem between the 2 views. So, unless she can provide one that can be put under scrutiny, she has no case other than “I don't like it.”

Humans are diverse, and difficult to package. Forcing people into gender-specific roles, outside of some very obvious things such as bearing children, breastfeeding and certain activities that men can do because of their heavier musculature, is an exercise in coercion because it fails to recognize that one cannot easily catagorize people.

She still argues based on a humanistic premise. Surely, if that was all there is to base gender-specific roles, then she's got a reason. But in Scriptural terms, it's clear to God for what purpose and role a man and a woman plays. To not follow under the authority of Scripture is subversion of order.

Patriarchy, by Christians or otherwise, has NEVER resulted in a situation in which women have equal intellectual freedom or a status of equal respect in any society.

I wonder if she even realizes the implication of her own words. Christianity is a patriarchy on the highest level since God has revealed Himself as our Father. Is she now going to denounce the faith because the faith is a patriarchy? If Christian Patriarchy failed to give women “equal intellectual freedom or a status of equal respect in any society,” it is because the people failed, not because the theology failed.

Complementarians behave as if they are going to fix this problem and make patriarchy good for women. This is a blindness of the pitfalls of power.

She, of course, is generalizing complementarians as powermongers, to which she only asserts without substantiation. It doesn't mean that there aren't those out there who are using the complementarian view to gain power for sinful means, but that isn't an argument against the complementarian position. It's just a sweeping generalization.

Male dominance is a problem for women because men are sinful and the most dangerous thing for almost any sinner is to be told that one is naturally entitled to power over some group of people.

Fire all teachers. After all, their position as a teacher naturally entitles them to have power over a group of people. If they didn't, they wouldn't be much of a teacher.

Better yet, have parents give up their children every 2 to 4 years in exchange for other children. After all, their position as a parent naturally entitles them to have power over their children.

Just because men are sinful doesn't negate their role as God has defined. If sin negated roles, then it's time to exchange children. But what the headship role of men does do is make them far more accountable to God. But I have a suspicion that it just isn't enough for Anon. She'd rather not have any patriarchy (male dominance, to make it sound more sinister), which only serves to make men more accountable for reliquenshing their role. Way to bring down the hatchet.

Why is such a huge degree of attention being devoted to complementarianism right now? Did you know that Baptist missionaries who devoted themselves to sharing Jesus with the world were severed from their denomination for refusing to agree to Danversism? It's such a strange, divisive issue, with the unusual purpose of limiting willing Christians from what they can do in churches.

I've heard that before. “It's divisive.” “It limits Christians.” Good doctrine will always be divisive against bad doctrine, or did she forget how sinful we are? And limitation as defined by Scripture is always a good thing, over and against unbiblical pragmatic solutions.

The post begins by discussing wives and husbands, but by the conclusion has broadened its scope to apply to women and men generally.

Ultimately, the husband has the greater accountability overall due to his place of headship (Eph. 5:23), but it no way does that mean the wife has no accountability either. God has ordained an order apart from the giftedness of the individuals involved.

So, even if the husband is the dolt (yeah, you know who you are out there!) and the wife completely has her act together, it is sin for the wife to usurp the role of head of the household. It is subversion of God's ordained order to do so.

Of course, one then starts to question the wisdom of keeping this order in light of the problems the family will face with a crackpot at the steering wheel. God made woman a suitable helper (Genesis 2:18). It is an ordained order which, I would argue, would be a sin for the husband to prevent her from fulfilling her role.

As head of the family, the husband makes the final decisions, but not without help. (Frankly, if the husband doesn't see his wife as his God-ordained help, then she is something else to him. That's not a good thing.) In your case where you have more involvement with the children, though he should make the final decision, he would be exercising good headship by depending upon your strengths.

As for the crackpot dolt, if he were to lead his wife and family into sin, the wife has a greater authority to obey, and that is Christ. The wife still has to fulfill her role has the husband's help, but not to help him sin. In cases where the husband continues to head down the path of sin and destruction unrepentantly, the husband is rejecting his role has the head and is deserving to be cut off (aka divorced). The same can be said if the wife helps to bring sin unrepentantly, she is deserving to be cut off. In either case, the authority of Christ is to rule in the hearts of both the husband and the wife so that they may fulfill their very roles.

So, though your husband may not be the encouraging, rewarding, dynamic leader, he is, by God's decree, the head of your household. His responsibility goes beyond his work and financial decisions. He must make decisions in areas where he isn't involved as greatly, which is where you come in, the God-ordained helpmate. Together, as one, you both are responsible to raise a Christian family. But just as Adam had the greater responsibility for the Fall of the human race, so does the husband have the greater responsbility over the family.

In Christ,

Victor

The examples would be endless…my point is that our lives do not seem to match up with what I took to be one of Amy's main theses: “Whatever decisions are made that affect the family as a whole, he bears the responsibility.”

I'm not necessarily against the concept of husband-leadership, but I still can't wrap my head around what it really means. Is my husband like a great boss who assigns roles and encourages excellent work and rewards handsomely? No. Not at all. Is my husband like a dynamic leader in a group of friends who plans activities and keeps everyone happy? No. Not at all.

I'm not trying to be antagonistic; it's an interesting subject; I'm just not understanding what it's supposed to mean in an actual marriage.

It's all about what you understand to be intellectual freedom and equal respect. Indeed, in my 'circles' women don't get to stand up front as much as men do, but I do see tremendous respect for the point of view women bring either when they're 'on stage' or in a more informal way. So i wouldn't say NEVER.

The 20% you spoke about (a completely random percentage i suppose) is I think very much a result of a distorted/worldly view on gender issues. That's why I'm curious to know how you deal with Pauline scriptures on this issue.

I don't think this is doing justice to the things Amy wrote. This is exactly why she wrote on hierarchy, and yet you chose to use the word in its most extreme 'military' form. And this is not at all what I understand Amy's view to be! And she did a great job explaining why.

All you do in this post is express your own opinion/conclusion without coming up with any verifiable facts or a proper exegesis of any passage of Scripture or a response to Amy's reply.
The differences between men and women are (in general) quite obvious. There is a huge amount of books out there on these differences, also from quite 'modern' emancipated people who might even consider themselves feminist. It's just that some people fail to see that these differences have consequences for the roles that men and women play.

I don't mean to be all smart, and please tell me if I'm wrong, but this whole post sounds to me as if you've been in painful situations where women indeed were suppressed/kept quiet etc. Something that is not just wrong from a civilized point of view, but is also utterly UNbiblical, i think we all agree.

I'll happily admit that my view has been shaped by positive experiences of marriages and churches functioning with a biblical mode of hierarchy (that mode that Amy described so well, thanks for that!)… for as far as we should take experiences as authoritative.

To complete our beloved quadrilateral ;-), i think church history DOES teach us that this is a subject that we should deal with with extreme care. Always be accountable to other people, always on our guard for the deceitfulness of our hearts. Just that a doctrine is difficult to be practiced and things have often gone wrong doesn't mean the end of the doctrine though.