Why I am a Complementarian (And Other Thinly Veiled Attempts to Start Fights in the Comments Section)

Photo credit Stacy Brumley

(I do hope you read that tongue in my cheek).

Deep into the Woods

This post should be at least two different posts, and most of it is really a rabbit trail, but for some reason I cannot pull it apart in my mind. Maybe because my brain is like spaghetti (I’ve actually never read this book, but it looks kind of connected, and do I ever relate to the title!) This post started its life in my head as a tribute to my husband and the way he pulled me through the worst of my illness. Then I realized I’d have to explain my beliefs in more depth, and then, with a pang, that I had not yet been specific about those beliefs. What a sad omission. I intend to remedy that now: to explain my faith and a bit about how it has been vital to my recovery. I hope to do it in a way that leaves you in no doubt whatever that no matter your beliefs, I sincerely welcome and desire your readership, your input and your discussion.

I am a Christian--a Christ-follower, Jesus-lover, baptized believer. Christie and I grew up with parents in full-time Christian ministry. We both chose early, and re-committed later more fully, to follow Jesus. I’m sure I can say for both of us that we could not have recovered without integrating our faith into the process. Because my faith in God is such an essential part of who I am and how I make sense of my illness and recovery, it will feature often in this blog. For me, wellness and faith had to coalesce, but not in the same way some of my Christian friends insisted they should.

I do plan to explicitly address some blog posts to the Christian community because I believe that we are lagging sadly behind the secular western world in understanding mental health. As I see it, the Church has had uniquely terrible responses to mental illness. While secular society is working hard to conquer the stigma surrounding mental illness, correcting popular vocabulary that mocks the mentally ill, and beginning to accept that mental illness is in most respects no different from physical illness, the Church is still condemning the mentally ill. Still telling people with depression to “buck up and rejoice in the Lord.” Still demanding that they repent of their worry and fear. Still frightening young girls struggling from eating disorders with talk of demon oppression, and in general over-spiritualizing mental illness. I’m dismayed to admit that the church is decades behind the rest of society in terms of accepting and reaching out to the mentally ill.

I’ve been hurt by the Church, but I still love it. I love it because my Savior loves it, and sees so much potential in it, as He sees potential in me (now there’s the real difficulty!). Mental illness is not a sin. I do not believe anxiety is necessarily a sin, nor is depression. Many disagree with me, and so throughout my writing on this blog I will attempt to explain my position and convince my Christian brothers and sisters. My hope is that some will reconsider their views on mental illness and the way they talk to their fellow Christians who struggle (or may be struggling--you never know!) with mental illness. For many of us, our healing needs to come within the Church. God wants to be our source of healing, but if His character and message are misrepresented or undermined by the Church, an individual’s faith can actually become a barrier to healing.

With that basic explanation of where I am coming from, let me now explain the complementarian bit, and why I am not actually trying to start a fight with this post.

Back onto the Bunny Trail...

There is a lot of discussion in the Christian community over the roles of women in the church. Traditionally, women have accepted a deferential role of service and giving, while men took on the leadership roles. This practical interpretation comes from an understanding of the Bible which states that since woman was created after man, woman is subservient to man.

Modern feminism has of course called into question this interpretation of Scripture, leading to much heated debate over which roles women can hold in church and family life.

Egalitarianism counters the traditional understanding by pointing out passages which show that there is no favoritism in God’s view of men and women--the best example being Galatians 3:28 which says: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28; compare also Romans 3:22 and 1 Cor 12:13)--and that Christ’s own attitude towards women was revolutionary in the extreme patriarchal culture of his time. Egalitarians insist that women should have all the same privileges and responsibilities as men. Both men and women should be preachers and teachers, and in the marital relationship both must submit to each other and lead their family together.

Complementarians by contrast, insist on the clarity of verses of Scripture which state that man is the head over woman (1 Cor 11:3), and that men are therefore to take the leadership roles. It is not that women are of lesser importance or position than men, complementarians argue, but that they are different and therefore necessarily fill different roles. Men and women have complementary roles to play in both church and family: men as leaders, women as helpers.

Most of you will see this as a rather extreme oversimplification of the situation, but that is as far as I am able or willing to go in this blog post.

To be honest, I do not consider the role of women to be a central issue of dogma. I don’t think God cares all that much which side we land on in the debate--He cares much more that we recognize Him as the ultimate Head, and that we all equally submit to Him.

In this blog post, I present the weakest argument I know to support my complementarian stance, because I consider a weak argument sufficient.

So with that caveat, I will now present my argument. It is, as I said, one of the weakest forms of argument according to philosophy--an argument from personal experience. As such, it need not sway your thinking much. The experience was nonetheless significant to my healing.

Once Upon a Time

It began with an oath I took before God. I had just been scratched by a strange cat in Africa. I knew nothing about the cat, and next to nothing about diseases from cats that might be harmful in pregnancy, but I had heard of such a disease, and I was terrified. I believed I could have prevented the scratch, so I made a promise to God to be more vigilant about protecting my unborn child.

I later received a comforting email from my midwife assuring me that I could not get the dreaded illness from a cat scratch. However, the promise I had made still stood. A few days later, when I was offered a drink of the famed roadside-stand-fresh-pressed orange juice of the area, I took it even though I was unsure how sanitary the stand could be. Later I lay in a fevered fit, full of guilt and shame for having taken that drink. My still-fresh oath compounded my shame. I vowed then that I would never again do anything if I was uncertain it would be good for my child.

This oath hung like a giant’s gavel over my head. In the following weeks, I discovered I was unsure about most things. On second thought, I was unsure about everything. How could I be sure that the water the airplane stewardesses handed out was clean? How could I know I had not brought back a deadly germ in my suitcase? That I would not pass a harmful toxin to my unborn child if I used that shampoo, touched that doorknob, ate at that restaurant, got out of bed in the morning?

In response to a question from my mom one day, I told her and Jem about the vow I’d taken. Jem’s immediate response was, “That was a really stupid vow to make.”

My mom kindly tried to temper his remark. No, it wasn’t stupid. No Judy you aren’t stupid. But in spite of an initial sting, his gruff words were actually what I needed to hear. There was an ancient solidity, an authority, about his response.

I don’t remember if it occurred to me right away or if it took a few days, but I recalled an obscure passage in Numbers chapter 30:

If a woman vows a vow to the Lord and binds herself by a pledge, and her husband hears of it and says nothing to her on the day that he hears, then her vows shall stand, and her pledges by which she has bound herself shall stand. 8 But if, on the day that her husband comes to hear of it, he opposes her, then he makes void her vow that was on her, and the thoughtless utterance of her lips by which she bound herself. And the Lord will forgive her.

I needed my husband to repudiate the oath from the beginning. I leaned into his authority. I asked him later if he had been thinking of that passage. No, he said, his reaction had been entirely out of his gut. I knew then that I’d been set free.

I didn’t live free right away. The fears had already carved deep striations through my brain that would take many months and much practice to heal. But there was never again a question in my mind that my vow held no power over me.

There were other similar moments throughout those months, when Jem stepped up in a rather knightly way to slay my dragons. One day he told me that God never expected mothers to protect--that was a father’s job. He declared himself responsible for my health. On another occasion, he came home early from work to carry me bodily into bed when I could do nothing but stand shaking and crying. His presence and wisdom through that dark time is unparalleled in any of the fairy tales. It wasn’t exciting or beautiful or romantic in the fairy tale sense, but it was a real-life, albeit earthy, rather dreary, fairy tale.