A Response to My Complementarian Sisters

Recently there’s been a lot written about the hurt and pain caused by the statements made by John Macarthur at the Truth Matters Conference when he dismissively told Beth Moore to “go home.” You can read the details here, but like so many others, I was also bothered not only by Macarthur’s comments but the mocking laughter and applause from the audience. This led to a lot of fruitful discussion regarding complementarianism and the way we should approach gender roles in the church.

One particular response though was insightfully entitled “A Letter to My Complementarian Brothers” written by Soojin Park. I do not know this sister, but her open letter was honest, humble, and thought-provoking. As a male pastor of a local church, it helped me better understand what Christian women experience in a congregation that often presupposes a complementarian theology upon its people. While I am a complementarian and have written about this subject several times, I feel like I received a fresh perspective on how people - particularly women - experience such environments.

With that being said, I wanted to attempt at a humble response to her as well as any woman who may have resonated with what Park wrote. I know this is a risky endeavor and that my words may unintentionally come off as insensitive, tone-deaf, or, worst of all, as mansplaining.

But I’m imagining how I’d respond to anyone in my own congregation who would raise similar concerns to me. So here are three thoughts that I’d hope to offer to my complementarian sisters.

1. I’m No Longer Assuming That It’s Easy For Women to be Complementarians

There are a lot of great things written in Park’s letter. However, the one that stood out most to me was the simple yet straight-forward plea that she makes to Christian leaders: “Please don’t take it for granted that the women in your church should easily and quickly subscribe to your interpretation of complementarianism just because you see it as biblical.”

I must confess, this is probably something that most of us male pastors take for granted. After all, we were trained in seminary to “shepherd the flock of God” (1 Pet 5:2) by preaching the word “in season and out of season” (2 Tim 4:2). And right now in this cultural moment, it seems to be “out of season” to teach on the distinctive gender roles in the church. Therefore, if compliementarianism is biblical but being threatened, I think a lot of us pastors automatically see it as something that needs to be defended and protected.

Admittedly, I think I’ve also approached the subject this way. As a result, I’d often talk about complementarianism at a theoretical level. If women had issues with it, I felt like it was my job to show them where we find this idea in the the scriptures and explain how it made sense. And while doctrine must be protected, it must also never meant to be taught only at a theoretical level. Doctrine is always supposed to be personal. And as Park’s letter helpfully pointed out, I think women view this topic personally because of what they go through on a daily basis.

As Park and others sisters in my church have told me, I will never understand what it feels like to be gawked at on a regular basis. I am statistically far less likely to experience sexual assault or harassment in the workplace. I’ve never felt dismissed or questioned at church due to my gender. This is all unknown to me.

However, one experience that helps me begin to understand what women may go through at church is when I spend time with Christians and pastors outside of my church context. As an Asian American, I’m quite often one of the few minorities in the room. I’ve felt marginalized, dismissed, and unheard in such settings. I feel like I have to prove myself to them. I naturally have my guard up when I hear white pastors talking about multiethnic churches because I see it being under their terms. I often feel like a lot of white pastors are tone-deaf when it comes to dealing with racial issues.

But I realize this is probably what Christian women go through all the time at church. Women are sadly marginalized, dismissed, and unheard by Christian men. They’re often the only woman in a leadership team filled with men. They understandably have their guard up when they hear a male pastor talk about gender roles. And I’m sure a lot of male pastors come off as tone-deaf when they do address it.

So one of the main lessons I’m learning are the difficulties women experience regarding this topic. Rather than presuming this complementarianism upon people, I think the gospel requires us to meet people where they’re at and journey with them with love and grace. After all, there are many commands in the Bible that I have a hard time understanding and submitting to. Therefore, I hope I can better empathize with the challenges women have when trying to understand and submit to this one.

2. Help Us Men By Using Your Strengths

Another great point that Park’s letter points out is how when complementarians teach on gender roles, they often focus on what women aren’t allowed to do. Even though pastors always begin with highlighting the equal value and worth men and women have, for some reason we tend to emphasize the distinctions and limitations of women. In our desire to protect orthodoxy, I think we end up relegating rather than celebrating the strengths God gives to women.

However, from the beginning, women have been given the title “helper.” Even though our modern culture sees this term in a derogatory sense, the Hebrew word for “helper” (“ezer”) is actually an empowering title. In the Old Testament, God frequently describes Himself as Israel’s “ezer” (Exo 18:4; Ps 33:20; 70:5) because He is able to do something that Israel could not do for themselves. Similarly, when God designed women as “helpers,” this means women have attributes and strengths that men do not have but desperately need to flourish in both the home and in the church.

But a lot of men (myself included) don’t fully understand this. Like our fellow sisters, we too have been negatively affected by sinful men. Most men have grown up in a context where we’re influenced by chauvinistic leaders, sexist peers, and emotionally distant fathers. Many of us were taught to objectify women. Very few of us were taught what it means to be a man who show respect to women. In fact, more and more of us don’t even understand what it means to be a man in general.

This must be understandably frustrating for women. “Why can’t men just get it?” While Ms. Park’s letter is super-gracious to dummies like us, I think her response is sadly an exception. Quite often, I can’t help but feel a lot of women more regularly respond in a critical and angry manner. Women are upset at the injustices caused by men. They’re enraged by the way men abused their power. They’re disgusted by the hypocrisy of men within the church.

Therefore, as a result, women often fall into the trap of dismissing men in the same way they’ve been dismissed. And I call it a “trap” because it’s falling into the curse of the Fall (Gen 3:16) where rather than complementing one another, men and women are in conflict with one another.

I think this is why a lot of men are honestly afraid of addressing gender in the church. We don’t to be labeled as a sexist or chauvinist, so we don’t want to talk about it. We don’t want our every word to get analyzed and picked apart, so don’t engage in dialogue. Personally, I feel like the only way I have permission to ever publicly speak on this matter is not when I have a Bible in my hand but if I have a woman by my side.

As a result, men aren’t learning or growing but are simply remaining silent.

So this is where I’d humbly request something from my complementarian sisters: while men probably deserve your criticism, we actually need your help. Christian men lack many things that women have, but in this cultural moment, it seems like one glaring weakness is the lack of perspective on how to approach this subject-matter. We are weak and foolish. We need to learn empathy and humility. We need to recognize women were created not to be dismissed but to be praised (Gen 2:23), understood (1 Pt 3:7), and sacrificially loved (Eph 5:25). We need women to see these moments of weakness as moments to minister to us in love and grace.

In other words, we need women in the church to function as the empowering “ezers” that God designed them to be.

3. Don’t Lose Hope in the Church of Christ

One thing that breaks my heart is when I see Christians leaving complementarian churches and joining progressive ones that seem to do a far better job of empowering women. However, it’s understandable. I mean, if this is how complementarian churches treat women, there must be something wrong with their theology, right?

What’s interesting though is that if you look at history, the church has always maintained distinct gender roles. Yet at the same time, the church has always been known as a place of refuge for women. In every study of every region, it’s known fact that the ordinary participants in churches throughout history have been predominately women. Why so?

According to historian Rodney Stark, “Women were especially drawn to Christianity because it offered them a life that was so greatly superior to the life they otherwise would have led.” That’s because in the ancient world, the secular culture treated women more like chattel than people. Women weren’t allowed to own personal property; their testimonies were considered invalid in court; they weren’t able to have an education; they often lived in destitution.

But in the church, women were treated differently. That’s because women were seen as being in the “image of God” (Gen 1:27) and treated as fellow “heirs according to the promise” (Gal 3:28-29). The church was known to have always dignified women in a way the surrounding culture failed to do.

And that’s because Jesus, the founder and perfector of our faith (Heb 12:2), dignified women.

Throughout His earthly ministry, Jesus regularly interacted with women (Mt 15:21-28; Lk 7:36-50; Jn 4:1-42). Some of Jesus’ earliest followers were women (Lk 8:2-3). His teachings and parables featured women (Mt 25:1-10; Lk 15:8-10). The first witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection were women (Mt 28:1-10). In other words, the church treated women with unprecedented dignity because Jesus treated women with unprecedented dignity. As author Dorothy Sayers writes,

“[Women] had never known a man like this Man…A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, never flattered or coaxed or patronized; who never made jokes about them…who rebuked without querulousness and praised without condescension; who took their questions and arguments seriously; who never mapped out their sphere for them, never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female; who had no axe to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend; who took them as he found them and was completely unself-conscious.”

While the church had always maintained distinctive gender roles, it somehow simultaneously manage to always empower women in a way like no other institution. That’s because when a church is true to being like Jesus, the church functioned as a city on a hill for women in the world. And I think the church can still function as one today.  

Therefore, I hope any woman who is discouraged by their complementarian brothers would not dismiss this doctrine but would help the church remain true to it. Because when a church is truly complementarian, there can be no safer and dignifying place for a woman. I know it’s not easy to believe this in today’s #churchtoo climate where there are so many stories of abusive men in the church.

But praise God that our hope lies not in men but in Christ who promises build up His church (Mt 28:18). May our hope ultimately lie in Him.

Conclusion
Once again, I know I may catch flack for writing this response. I might have said things that came off wrong. In a world where identity politics permeate our social media interactions, I know I’m not supposed to say anything to my complementarian sisters except, “I’m sorry.'“

But as I’ve learned from marriage, seeking dialogue and understanding tends to be more effective than apologies. And even more than that, I hope I can do my part in helping the men and women in our church glory in their God-given design.

As a pastor, I hope to help build a church culture where women are heard and dignified. I hope the women in our church would feel not relegated for their genders but celebrated because of how God uniquely designed them.

And I hope complementarianism wouldn’t just be seen as a challenge to the women in my church but for the men as well. Hopefully, men can also see the importance of knowing how God uniquely designed the genders to beautifully compliment one another in the household of God. But I think this can only be possible with a lot of help from our sisters and a lot of humility from our brothers. By God’s grace, I think it’s more than possible.