Priscilla Papers 31.3 | Summer 2017

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apers Vol 31, No 3 | Summer 2017

CBE International 3 The Nicene and Reformed Doctrine of the Trinity Kevin Giles 8 Language, Logic, and Trinity: A Critical Examination of the Eternal Subordinationist View of the Trinity Millard J. Erickson 16 Marriage: Patriarchal, Sacramental, or Covenantal?

Cristina Richie 23 The Significance of Worldview in Thwarting Spiritual Formation, with Special Reference to Gender-based Violence in South Africa and Beyond Rosemary J. Hack 29 Book Review: Christian Standard Bible Thomas R. Schreiner, David Allen, et al., eds.

Jeff Miller

Priscilla and Aquila instructed Apollos more perfectly in the way of the Lord. (Acts 18:26)

The cover photo shows an icon in which a group of church leaders display a rather large banner containing the opening lines of the NiceneConstantinopolitan Creed of AD 381.

Kevin Giles explains the Trinitarian Christology of this creed in the first article of this issue of Priscilla Papers. Among his emphases is a clarification of the Greek word monogenēs, which modifies the creed’s first occurrence of “the Son.” The word means “unique,” “one of a kind.” Dr. Giles says it best: “What this clause in the creed is saying is that Jesus’s sonship is not like human sonship.

There is something about his sonship that is absolutely different from creaturely sonship” (p. 4). Monogenēs occurs nine times in the NT, including John 3:16. Older English versions such as KJV and ASV tend to mistranslate it as “only begotten.” More accurate translations include “only” (NRSV, CEB) and “one and only” (NIV, NLT, NET).

Consider how monogenēs is used in Hebrews 11:17, “By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son . . .” (NIV). Isaac was not Abraham’s “only begotten” son, but he was indeed Abraham’s “unique, one of a kind” son.

John 1:18 presents an interesting case, for the numerous manuscripts here differ, referring either to “the monogenēs

Son” or to “the monogenēs God.” Most English translations follow the former (e.g., KJV, RSV, NRSV, CEB). A few follow the latter (e.g., NASB, ESV). Modern editions of the Greek New Testament differ as well, but lean toward “monogenēs God.” Our second article is by Millard Erickson, who inspects— and finds deficient—the logic of Bruce Ware’s and Wayne Grudem’s arguments for the eternal subordination of the Son. This article was presented at the 2016 meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society, in tandem with the article

by Kevin Giles. Dr. Erickson here capsulizes what is argued more fully in his book, Who’s Tampering with the Trinity (Kregel, 2009).

The third article, by Cristina Richie, evaluates both the practices and the symbolism of engagement and marriage, especially modern American wedding ceremonies. Dr. Richie presents an insightful and uplifting theology of Christian marriage as sacrament and as covenant.

Our fourth and final article is by Rosemary Hack. The article won third place in the student paper competition at CBE’s 2016 conference in Johannesburg, South Africa. She reveals that many Christians have been strongly influenced by worldviews which lead to unhealthy views of gender and even to abuse.

These four articles are significant additions to egalitarian thought and to the archives of Priscilla Papers. May they be a blessing to you as well.

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Please note that each author is solely legally responsible for the content and the accuracy of facts, citations, references, and quotations rendered and properly attributed in the article appearing under his or her name. Neither CBE, nor the editor, nor the editorial team is responsible or legally liable for any content or any statements made by any author, but the legal responsibility is solely that author’s once an article appears in print in Priscilla Papers.

Editor: Jeff Miller Associate Editor / Graphic Designer: Theresa Garbe President / Publisher: Mimi Haddad President Emerita: Catherine Clark Kroeger† Consulting Editor: William David Spencer Peer Review Team: Lynn H. Cohick, Havilah Dharamraj, Tim Foster, Susan Howell, Jamin Hübner, Loretta Hunnicutt, Adam Omelianchuk, Chuck Pitts, Marion Taylor On the Cover: Nicaea Icon Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Priscilla Papers is indexed in the ATLA Religion Database® (ATLA RDB®), http://www.atla.com, in the Christian Periodical Index (CPI), in New Testament Abstracts (NTA), and in Religious and Theological Abstracts (R&TA), as well as by CBE itself. Priscilla Papers is licensed with EBSCO’s fulltext informational library products. Full-text collections of Priscilla Papers are available through EBSCO Host’s Religion and Philosophy Collection, Galaxie Software’s Theological Journals collection, and Logos Bible Software. Priscilla Papers is a member publication of the American Association of Publishers.

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Priscilla Papers (issn 0898-753x) is published quarterly by CBE International 122 W Franklin Avenue, Suite 218, Minneapolis, MN 55404-2451 www.cbeinternational.org | 612-872-6898 © CBE International, 2017.

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The following two articles, by Kevin N. Giles and Millard J. Erickson, were presented as lectures at a plenary forum on the Trinity at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) on November 15, 2016, in San Antonio, Texas. Bruce Ware and Wayne Grudem also spoke in the forum. Sam Storms presided.

Giles’s publications which relate to his lecture include The Trinity & Subordinationism: The Doctrine of God & the Contemporary Gender Debate (InterVarsity, 2002), Jesus and the Father: Modern Evangelicals Reinvent the Doctrine of the Trinity (Zondervan, 2006), The Eternal Generation of the Son: Maintaining Orthodoxy in Trinitarian Theology (InterVarsity, 2012), and The Rise and Fall of the Complementarian Doctrine of the Trinity (forthcoming from Cascade). Erickson has published God in Three Persons: A Contemporary Interpretation of the Trinity (Baker, 1995), Making Sense of the Trinity: Three Crucial Questions (Baker, 2000), and Who’s Tampering with the Trinity?: An Assessment of the Subordination Debate (Kregel, 2009).

The lectures are published here in slightly revised form. As lectures, they are sometimes less formal than a typical academic article. As presentations before an academic society, they are sometimes more technical than articles written for a broad audience.

The Nicene and Reformed Doctrine of the Trinity Kevin Giles Thank you, Dr. Storms, for your welcome. It is a tremendous honor to be invited to give the introductory address at this ETS plenary forum on the Trinity.

In putting my case this afternoon, I am going to speak forthrightly and unambiguously, as I am sure Dr. Grudem and Dr. Ware will do as well. Dr. Erickson, who stands with me in opposing Dr. Grudem and Dr. Ware’s teaching on the Trinity, I am sure will be the clearest in what he says, and the most gracious. I speak bluntly because the issues we are discussing are of monumental importance for the evangelical community. I believe that what Dr. Grudem and Dr. Ware teach on the Trinity, and now large numbers of evangelicals believe, contradicts what the Nicene Creed, the Reformation and post-Reformation Protestant confessions, and the ETS doctrinal basis teach.

Three Introductory Clarifications To begin my presentation, I make three matters perfectly clear.

First, I have no distinctive doctrine of the Trinity. My exposition of the Trinity which follows is simply an outline of what I consider to be the historic, orthodox doctrine of the Trinity as articulated in the Nicene Creed. I know absolutely nothing about a so-called “evangelical egalitarian doctrine of the Trinity.”

What this means is that I have basically the same understanding of the Trinity as the many complementarian confessional Reformed theologians who have come out in opposition to Dr. Grudem and Dr. Ware’s teaching on the Trinity.1 What this immediately reveals is that the divide on the Trinity is not between evangelical egalitarians and complementarians but between creedal and confessional evangelicals and non-creedal and confessional evangelicals.

Second, I want to state clearly and unambiguously that I think the doctrine of the Trinity has absolutely nothing to say about the relationship of the sexes. I personally do not ground my gender egalitarian commitments on the Trinity, and neither does virtually any evangelical egalitarian. I have been publishing on women in the Bible since 1975, and I have never appealed to the Trinity to support the substantial equality of the two sexes.

The gender complementarian, Fred Sanders, who is giving a lecture on the Trinity after this forum, confirms what I say. On

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his blog and in a personal email to me he has said, “I have not been able to find one sentence where Kevin Giles works to secure his own [gender] egalitarian position by appeal to the Trinity.”2 I do not appeal to the doctrine of the Trinity to support my gender egalitarianism because I believe the doctrine of the Trinity is our distinctive Christian doctrine of God, not our social agenda. Why and how the doctrine of the Trinity might inform our doctrine of the sexes, whatever that may be, completely escapes me. The Trinity is three divine persons, all analogically spoken of in male terms. How, we must ask, can a threefold analogically all “male” relationship inform a twofold male-female relationship on earth? No analogical correlation is possible. The argument simply does not make sense. The logic of this argument suggests that threefold marriages or male-male relationships are the ideal! None of us, I imagine, would affirm these deductions.

The impossibility of correlation is made clear by Dr. Grudem in his Systematic Theology. On p. 257, in an attempt to make a connection, he likens the Trinity to dad, mum, and their one child. In doing so he feminizes the Son; the Son becomes an analogue of the woman. Moreover, this family picture of God has nothing to do with the revealed doctrine of the Trinity. It sounds more like Greek mythology.

This observation takes us right to the heart of what I believe is the fundamental and inherent error in Dr. Grudem and Dr. Ware’s doctrine of the Trinity—depicting God in human terms, versus how God is revealed in scripture.

My consistent argument for nearly twenty years has been that, if we evangelicals want to get right our doctrine of the Trinity, the primary and foundational doctrine of the Christian faith, we must sharply and completely separate it from our doctrine of the sexes. They are in no way connected; when they are forced together, both doctrines are corrupted.

I have not the time to discuss 1 Cor 11:3 in any detail, but I am sure this one text does not justify fusing the doctrine of the Trinity with the doctrine of the sexes.3 This is not a Trinitarian text. The Spirit is not mentioned, and it would seem that the Greek word “head” (kephalē) almost certainly here carries the metaphorical meaning of “source.” Woman comes from man

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(that is, from Adam; 1 Cor 11:8, 12) and the Son comes “from” the Father.

Now my third point, still by way of introduction. In this presentation, I am arguing that what Dr. Grudem and Dr. Ware teach on the Trinity is a sharp and clear breach with historic orthodoxy as articulated by the Nicene Creed.

There can be no denying that we have starkly opposing doctrines of the Trinity. Dr. Grudem and Dr. Ware argue on the basis of creaturely analogies for a hierarchically ordered Trinity where the Father rules over the Son, claiming this is historical orthodoxy and what the church has believed since AD 325. I argue just the opposite. On the basis of scripture, I argue that the Father and the Son are coequally God; thus the Father does not rule over the Son. This is what the church has believed since AD 325. You could not have two more opposing positions. There is no middle ground.

When it comes to the doctrine of the Trinity, we are not discussing a theological question where one side can assert something, the other side assert the opposite, and resolution is possible. In this case, there is absolutely no uncertainty as to what constitutes Trinitarian orthodoxy. No other doctrine has been more clearly articulated by the great theologians of the church across the centuries and none more clearly and consistently articulated in the creeds and confessions of the church.

The Nicene Creed of AD 381 The Nicene Creed is the definitive account of the doctrine of the Trinity for more than two billion Christians. It is binding on all Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Reformed Christians. These two billion believers agree that anyone who denies what is taught in the Nicene Creed stands outside the historic Christian faith, and any community of Christians that rejects what the Nicene Creed teaches is by definition a sect of Christianity. On this basis, for example, we do not accept Jehovah’s Witnesses as orthodox Christians because they cannot confess this creed, even though, like us evangelicals, they uphold the inerrancy of scripture.

Be assured, I do not place this creed or any other creed or confession above scripture in authority or on an equal basis with scripture. For me, and for two billion Christians, this creed expresses what the church has agreed is the teaching of scripture. I believe every single statement in this creed reflects what the Bible articulates or implies. In my view, we have in this creed the most authoritative interpretation of what scripture teaches on the Father-Son relationship.

In this creed, the Son is communally confessed in these words. Note its use of “we,” meaning “we Christians.”

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only (monogenēs) Son of God, eternally begotten (gennaō) of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten (gennaō) not made, of one being (homoousios) with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us and our salvation he came down from heaven, by the power of the Spirit he was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man.

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Let me now highlight seven things this creed says clearly and unambiguously about the Son of God. First, “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ.” These words reflect exactly 1 Cor 8:6. In this verse, as you all know, Paul makes the Jewish Shema (Deut 6:4), which is a confession that God is one, a confession that the one God is God the Father and God the Son. Again, as you all know, “Lord” (kurios) translates the name of God in the Greek OT. In this confession, we are therefore saying we believe the “one Lord,” identified as Jesus Christ, is God without any caveats, yet not a second God. In other words, we are confessing Jesus Christ to be Yahweh, omnipotent God. In the NT, Jesus Christ is confessed as “Lord” over 600 times.

The title Lord excludes the thought that Jesus Christ is eternally subordinate or submissive.

This first clause in the Nicene Creed immediately draws to our attention the logical impossibility of confessing Jesus as Lord and at the same time arguing he is set under God the Father and must obey him. If the Father and the Son are both rightly confessed as Lord, the supreme co-rulers over all, then they are not differentiated in authority. They are one in dominion, rule, power, and authority.

Let me illustrate the point I have just made. After hearing an Anglican complementarian theologian in Australia insist that the Son must obey the Father, I asked him how he could confess Jesus as Lord on Sundays in church and then during the week teach that the Son is eternally subordinated to the Father and must obey him? He replied, “I see no contradiction, the Son is just a little bit less Lord than the Father.”

In arguing unambiguously and repeatedly that the Father and the Son are essentially and eternally differentiated in authority, Drs. Grudem and Ware contradict the first clause of the Christological confession in the Nicene Creed.

Second, the Nicene Creed says, “We [Christians] believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only (monogenēs) Son of God….”

Again, we all know that the word monogenēs means “only” in the sense of “unique,” “one of a kind.” The Greek church fathers, as Greek speakers, also knew it meant “only” in the sense of “unique,” “one of a kind.” None of them thought it meant “only begotten.” What is more, none of them appealed to this word or the texts in which it is found as the basis for their doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son. John, the biblical author, uses the word monogenēs of Jesus Christ five times (John 1:14, 18, 3:16, 18, 1 John 4:9). This designation of the Son was deliberately included in the creed because it explicitly excludes the disastrous error made by all the Arians of various brands, namely that human sonship defines divine sonship. All the Arians argued that, because Jesus Christ is called the Son of God, he is like a human son; he is subordinate to and must obey his father.

What this clause in the creed is saying is that Jesus’s sonship is not like human sonship. There is something about his sonship that is absolutely different from creaturely sonship.

In saying Jesus’s sonship is not like human sonship I am not saying anything novel. The best of theologians across the ages have with one voice insisted that human relationship and

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the Trinity. You can see how important it was to the bishops who human language cannot define God. Our creaturely language drew up this creed because they prompt us to confess twice the is adequate to speak of other creatures but inadequate to speak generation of the Son, once at the beginning and once at the end of the Creator. The fourth Lateran council (AD 1215) made this of the christological clause. This doctrine is like two book ends. point starkly, “For between Creator and creature, no similarity Remove these words from the creed, and there remains nothing can be expressed without implying greater dissimilarity.” What to support what stands in the middle. this means is that human language used The doctrine of the eternal generation of God is not to be taken literally or To argue that human language can of the Son is affirmed in the Nicene “univocally,” but analogically. define God is possibly the most and Athanasian Creeds and by all the To argue that human language can serious theological error one can Reformation and post-Reformation define God is possibly the most serious make. It leads to idolatry, making confessions of faith and by virtually theological error one can make. It God in our own image. every significant theologian over the leads to idolatry, making God in our last 1800 years. own image. We evangelicals should The joint doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son and the not define divine fatherhood and divine sonship by appeal to eternal procession of the Spirit seeks to explain threefold eternal human experience as liberal theologians are wont to do. We self-differentiation in the life of the one God. It does this by noting should define divine fathership and sonship in the light of that the Bible speaks of the “begetting” of the Son “from” the scriptural revelation.

Father, and the “procession” of the Spirit “from” the Father. It is a In the NT, Jesus Christ is called the Son and the Son of doctrine arising out of scripture that explains much in scripture.

God to speak of his kingly status, not his subordination. The It is an eloquent doctrine. It has solid biblical support. To argue Reformed theologian and complementarian, John Frame, says, that the greatest theologians across the centuries have taught a “There is a considerable overlap between the concepts of Lord doctrine for which there is no biblical warrant is implausible. It and Son. . . . Both [titles] indicate Jesus’ powers and prerogatives is mind boggling. as God, especially over God’s people: in other words, [the title For the authors of the Nicene Creed, and virtually all Son speaks of his] divine control, authority, and presence.”4 orthodox theologians, the primary basis for distinguishing and I agree completely with Dr. Frame. I believe the NT calls Jesus differentiating the Father and the Son is that the Father eternally Christ “the Son of God” to speak of his kingly status, NOT his begets the Son, and the Son is begotten of the Father. This is the subordinate status.

ONLY difference between the Father and the Son the Nicene Dr. Grudem and Dr. Ware, again in stark contrast to the Creed mentions and allows, and this difference is essential to the Nicene Creed’s confession that Jesus is the Son in a unique doctrine of the Trinity. way, constantly and consistently argue that Jesus Christ is to be Both Dr. Grudem and Dr. Ware openly reject the doctrine of understood like any human son and as such is subordinate and eternal generation. Dr. Grudem says it would be best if the words necessarily obedient to his father. Note carefully their theological about the begetting of the Son were deleted from the Nicene methodology: they define God in creaturely terms, not by what Creed and from all “modern theological formulations” of the is revealed in scripture. doctrine of the Trinity.6 Dr. Ware says this “doctrine is highly In absolutely rejecting Dr. Grudem and Dr. Ware’s theological methodology, I follow the gender complementarian Dr. Robert speculative and not grounded in biblical teaching.”7 On this point Letham. In his essay in One God in Three Persons, Letham there is no ambiguity; both Dr. Grudem and Dr. Ware undeniably roundly condemns Drs. Grudem and Ware for predicating their say they reject the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son as understanding of the Son of God on fallen human relationships. He it has been understood for 1800 years, and thus they deny what says this is an Arian argument that must be categorically rejected: indelibly and eternally differentiates the Father and the Son.8 Fourth, immediately after the confession of the eternal The Arian argument that human sons are subordinate begetting of the Son, the Nicene Creed says the Son is, “God to their fathers led to their contention that the Son from God, Light from Light, true God from true God.” These is subordinate to the Father. The church rejected the words assert that, on the basis of his eternal generation, the Son conclusion as heretical and opposed the premise as is everything the Father is—yet he is not the Father, but the Son. mistaken. Rather, [it taught], the Son is equal with the Derivation does not imply any diminution of the Son in any way, Father in status, power and glory.5 or any division or separation between the Father and the Son. Let me say it very clearly: to confess Jesus Christ as the monogenēs, These words are in the creed to say emphatically that, while the the unique Son, is to say he is not like any human son. He is more Son is “begotten of the Father” and “from” the Father, he is in no dissimilar than similar to all human sons. way less than, inferior to, eternally subordinated to, or submissive Third, the Nicene Creed says, We [Christians] believe . . . to the Father. the unique Son of God, is “eternally begotten (gennaō) of the To argue that the Nicene Creed speaks of the eternal Father.” Thus we come now to what is called “the doctrine of begetting of the Son in order to teach the eternal subordination the eternal generation of the Son,” what I and other orthodox of the Son, as Drs. Grudem and Ware do,9 is, to put it bluntly, theologians believe is the foundational element in the doctrine of perverse. For the bishops who promulgated this creed and

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no support for these assertions in the Nicene Creed; indeed, the for orthodox theologians across the centuries, the eternal wording of the scriptures and the creed exclude the idea that the generation of the Son teaches that the Son is “God from God, Son is the subordinate creator. Scripture speaks of him as the coLight from Light, true God from true God.” The doctrine of the creator (e.g., 1 Cor 8:6, John 1:3, Heb 1:2). eternal generation of the Son, rather than teaching the eternal Before moving on I must digress for a moment. Because subordination of the Son, teaches the eternal co-equality of orthodox theologians seek to take into account everything God the Father and God the Son. scripture says on the divine three persons, they affirm “order” Fifth, we come to the coup de grâce. We believe the Son is “one in divine life and actions. They agree that nothing is random or being (homoousios) with the Father.” This is not a word the Bible arbitrary in God. Scripture speaks of the patterned ways God uses of the Son. It is an implication drawn from the confession acts. One example is that he creates “through” or “in” the Son and that the Son is “God from God.” Allow me to explain the force of not in any other way. More importantly, from scripture we learn the Greek word homoousios. that the Father begets the Son and sends him into the world. Such All of us share the same nature as human beings, but we are patterning differentiates the divine persons without subordinating not one in being. The Father and the Son uniquely are one in any one of them. Orthodoxy accepts order in divine life and actions, being. They are both God in all might, majesty, and glory without but not hierarchical ordering. any caveat whatsoever.

This conclusion is confirmed That the Father and the The word homoousios allows for no dividing by noting that, in the roughly Son are one in being means that or separating of the divine persons. It excludes seventy times where the NT they cannot have three wills. absolutely any possibility that the Son can be writers associate together the They cannot be separated in eternally subordinated to the Father and thus three divine persons, sometimes what they do; the one God the Father is mentioned first cannot be divided into the other than the Father in might, majesty, dominion, (e.g., Matt 28:19), sometimes Father who rules and the Son authority, or glory. the Son (e.g., 2 Cor 13:13), and who obeys. Their glory is one.

The word homoousios allows for no dividing or separating of the divine sometimes the Spirit (e.g., 1 Cor 12:4–6).12 persons. It excludes absolutely any possibility that the Son can be Seventh, the Nicene Creed says we Christians believe that, “For us eternally subordinated to the Father and thus other than the Father in and our salvation he [the Son] came down from heaven, by the power might, majesty, dominion, authority, or glory. of the Spirit he was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man.”

None of the various schools of Arian thought in the fourth The creed here reflects Phil 2:4–11. Jesus Christ, God the century could endorse the word homoousios, because as fourthSon, had “equality with God [the Father]” (v. 6), yet he “emptied century men living in a Greek culture they understood that to himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. confess that the Father and the Son are one in being meant the And being found in human form, he humbled himself and Father and the Son cannot be divided or separated in any way. became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross” Modern day evangelicals who separate and divide the Father (vv. 7–8 NRSV). and the Son, setting the Father above the Son, accept the term What Phil 2 teaches is the willing and self-chosen because they do not understand its force. They think it means subordination and subjection of the Son for our salvation. On simply that they have the same divine being. this basis, orthodox theologians with one voice insist that the Both Dr. Grudem and Dr. Ware say that they affirm that the subordination and obedience of the Son seen in the incarnation Father and the Son are one in being, but at the same time they should not be read back into the eternal life of God. To do so is sharply separate and divide the one God into the Father who a grievous mistake. rules and the Son who obeys, implying two wills in God. Thus, In the incarnate Son we meet in the Gospels, we see the in reality, they deny that the Father and the Son are one being. self-emptied God, the kenotic God (borrowing the word kenoō, Sixth, the Nicene Creed says of the Son that, “Through him “empty,” from Phil 2:7), the Son of God who came down from all things were made.” These words reflect exactly the words of heaven. To read back into the eternal life of God any of the scripture (1 Cor 8:6, John 1:3, Heb 1:2, cf. Col 1:16). For the Nicene human limitations of the kenotic Son, or his obedience to God fathers, the most fundamental division in the whole universe is the Father as the second Adam, is bad theology. between the creator and what he creates. These words are thus With Athanasius, Augustine, Aquinas, and Calvin, I believe included in the creed to make the point emphatically that the that to interpret scripture rightly we must recognize that in Son is the omnipotent co-creator, yet as in all things, he and the scripture there is “a double account of the savior,” one in “the Father contribute to this work distinctively as the Father and form of God” and one “in the form of a servant.” The two should the Son. In this instance, the Father creates through or in the not be confused. What these great theologians concluded is that Son (Col 1:16). the kenotic Son does not reveal fully the exalted Son. I agree.

In contrast, Dr. Grudem says the Son in creation is simply The Arians of the fourth century read the Son’s incarnational “the active agent in carrying out the plans and directions of the self-subordination, obedience to the Father as the second Adam, and his human limitations, back into the eternal life of God. Dr. Father”10—which is exactly what Arius taught. Dr. Ware says the Grudem and Dr. Ware do the same and thus sharply break once Son “creates under the authority of the Father.”11 I definitely see 6 • Priscilla Papers

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again with the Nicene faith and virtually every major theologian who has written on the Trinity since AD 325.

Role Subordination of the Son I leave the Nicene Creed at this point. Before concluding, I need to comment specifically on Dr. Grudem’s claim in his Systematic Theology (p. 251), that the eternal role subordination of the Son has been the church’s doctrine at least since the council of Nicaea in 325.13 This is simply not true. “Role subordination” is definitely not found in the 325 or 381 versions of the Nicene Creed. The word “role” does not appear, nor any synonym, nor the idea.

The first person in history to speak of the role subordination of the Son was George Knight III, in his 1977 seminal book, The New Testament Teaching on the Role Relationship of Men and Women.14 It was he who first introduced the concept of the Son’s “role subordination” into evangelical theological circles. It was not known before that time. Many theologians across the centuries have spoken of the “subordination of the Son,” but none spoke of the “role subordination of the Son or the Spirit” before Knight. To have done so before the late nineteenth century would be impossible because the French word “role” appeared first in English in 1875 to speak of the part an actor plays, and first in the sociological sense to refer to characteristic behavior in 1913.15 The more general claim that the eternal subordination of the Son has been the teaching of the church since 325 is likewise objectively false. As we have just seen, the Nicene Creed seeks to exclude the eternal subordination of the Son in a number of ways: relationally the Father and the Son rule as the one Lord, temporally the Son is eternally generated by the Father and as such is “true God from true God,” and ontologically the Son is one in being with the Father. The Athanasian Creed is even more explicit; it declares that the three divine persons are “co-equal” God. Then we have all the Reformation and Post-Reformation confessions of faith that likewise seek to exclude the eternal subordination of the Son in a number of ways. With one voice, they affirm that the three divine persons are “eternal” and, importantly, “one in being and power.” It is not only temporal and ontological subordination they reject, but also relational subordination; they teach that the Son is not less in power than the Father. The Second Helvetic Confession of 1566, clause 3, on the Trinity, is the most specific, adding that the Son is neither “subordinate nor subservient.”

The words “power” and “authority” often overlap in meaning in English, like the words “house” and “home,” but in both cases the words are not exact synonyms. However, when it comes to theological description of divine life, the words “power” and “authority,” in English and in Greek, may be taken as synonyms.

If the Son has all power then he has all authority, and if he has all authority he has all power. Both terms speak of divine attributes shared identically by the divine persons. What is more, Paul insists that the Son who reigns over all has “all authority (exousia), power (dunamis) and dominion (kuriotēs)” (cf. Eph 1:21).

“Equality” in being and power, we should also note, is affirmed by the Evangelical Theological Society doctrinal basis to which many evangelicals have subscribed. ETS members all

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confess the Father, the Son, and the Spirit to be “one in essence, equal in power and glory.”

To confess that the Father, Son, and Spirit are equal in power of course means that one does not rule over the other in any way.

The Father and the Son are God almighty, omnipotent God. I also note that Dr. Ware stands in opposition to the ETS doctrinal statement in that he rejects “equality in glory.” He says the Father has “the ultimate supremacy and highest glory.”16 For him, the Son is less in glory and for this reason must give “ultimate and highest glory to his Father.”17 In saying this he not only denies the ETS doctrinal basis but also the teaching of scripture where the Father and the Son are alike glorified (1 Cor 2:8, Gal 1:3–5, Eph 1:3–5, Heb 1:3, Rev 5:12–13, 7:9–12, etc.), and again the Nicene Creed which says the divine three persons “together” are to be “worshipped and glorified.” To be faithful to the doctrinal statement we ETS members we must reject what Dr. Grudem and Dr. Ware teach on the Trinity.

Some of you may be tempted to dismiss what I have argued, for one reason or another, but please note that in agreement with me now stand dozens of highly respected theologians, some gender complementarians, some gender egalitarians, some evangelicals, some not.

Kyle Claunch, from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, speaking specifically of Dr. Ware and Dr. Grudem’s doctrine of the Trinity, agrees completely with me that what they teach is not historic orthodoxy. He says their doctrine of the Trinity entails a commitment “to three distinct wills in the immanent Trinity,”18 an idea rejected by orthodox theologians.

Moreover, he adds that their “way of understanding the immanent Trinity does run counter to the pro-Nicene tradition, as well as the medieval, Reformation, and Post-Reformation Reformed traditions that grew from it.”19 What could be clearer? Claunch says explicitly that what Dr. Grudem and Dr. Ware teach on the Trinity runs counter to the Nicene faith and the Reformation confessions. This is exactly what I have argued. He and I agree absolutely.

Conclusion In the Nicene Creed, seven wonderful affirmations about Jesus Christ, the Son of God, are made. I unequivocally endorse them all. I love them. These seven affirmations give content to my faith.

I have written in the past and have spoken today and often to encourage us all to confess Jesus Christ as Lord in these words because this is the faith of the church, what the vast majority of Christians past and present believe is the teaching of scripture.

Notes 1. Such as Robert Letham, Carl Trueman, Fred Sanders, Liam Goligher, Aimee Bird, Keith E. Johnson, Stefan Linbad, Todd Pruitt, Michael Horton, and Rachel Miller.

2. See http://scriptoriumdaily.com/a-plain-account-of-trinity-andgender.

3. “But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the husband is the head of his wife, and God is the head of Christ” (1 Cor 11:3 NRSV).

4. John M. Frame, The Doctrine of God (Phillipsburg: P&R, 2002), 658. Italics added.

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5. Robert Letham, “Eternal Generation in the Church Fathers,” in One God in Three Persons: Unity of Essence, Distinction of Persons, Implications for Life, ed. Bruce A. Ware and John B. Starke (Wheaton: Crossway, 2015), 122.

6. Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), 1234, but see note 5 above.

7. Bruce A. Ware, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: Relationships, Roles, and Relevance (Wheaton: Crossway, 2005), 162.

8. Author’s note: After I finished this presentation, Dr. Ware spoke.

He began by saying that he had changed his mind and went on to tell the several hundred evangelical theologians present that he now endorses the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son because he now recognizes it has good biblical support. It seemed to me as if the air had been sucked out of the room. He did not mention me, but as the only evangelical who has written a book on the doctrine of the eternal generation, I am thankful he is now convinced he had been in error and needed to apologize to the evangelical community for leading it to reject a foundational element in the doctrine of the Trinity. Dr. Grudem later gave the fourth lecture in the session. He too indicated that he now believes the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son and that he would be correcting his Systematic Theology upon its next revision.

9. Grudem, Systematic Theology, 251–52, 1234; idem, Countering the Claims of Evangelical Feminism: Biblical Responses to the Key Questions (Colorado Springs: Multnomah, 2006), 239–40; idem, Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth: An Analysis of More Than 100 Disputed Questions (Wheaton: Crossway, 2004), 210–13.

10. Grudem, Systematic Theology, 266.

11. Bruce A. Ware, “Equal in Essence, Distinct in Roles: Eternal Functional Authority and Submission among the Essentially Equal Divine Persons of the Godhead,” The Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood 13, no. 2 (Fall 2008): 49.

12. See the full account of this phenomenon by the complementarian theologian Roderick Durst, Reordering the Trinity: Six Movements of God in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2015).

13. Grudem, Systematic Theology, 251–52.

14. George Knight III, The New Testament Teaching on the Role Relationship of Men and Women (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1977).

15. See further Kevin Giles, “The Genesis of Confusion: How ‘Complementarians’ Have Corrupted Communication,” Priscilla Papers 29, no. 1 (Winter 2015): 23–24.

16. Ware, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, 50, 65. In this book time and time again Dr. Ware speaks of the “supremacy” of the Father and often of his “priority” and “preeminence” in the Godhead. For him the divine persons are not “co-equal” as orthodoxy with one voice asserts.

17. Ware, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, 51.

18. Kyle Claunch, “God Is the Head of Christ: Does 1 Corinthians 11:3 Ground Gender Complementarity in the Immanent Trinity?,” in One God, 88.

19. Claunch, “God Is the Head of Christ,” in One God, 88.

KEVIN GILES, an Australian, has served as an Anglican parish minister for over forty years. He has been publishing on the substantial equality of the sexes since 1975 and is a foundation member of CBE International. He holds a doctorate in NT studies and has published books on the church, church health, ministry in the apostolic age, the book of Acts, gender equality, and the Trinity, besides numerous scholarly and popular articles.

Language, Logic, and Trinity: A Critical Examination of the Eternal Subordinationist View of the Trinity Millard J. Erickson For the past two decades, evangelical theologians have debated over one specific aspect of the relationship between members of the Trinity. One group insists that the Father is eternally the supreme member of the Trinity, necessarily and always possessing authority over the Son and the Holy Spirit, who are thus subordinate to him. The other view contends that the Son eternally possesses equal authority with the Father, but that for the period of his earthly ministry, he voluntarily became subject to the Father’s will. Similarly differing views are held regarding the authority of the Holy Spirit, although the discussion has not dealt extensively with the status of the third person. Both parties agree that all three persons are fully deity, and thus equal in what they are. Biblical, historical, philosophical and theological arguments have been presented on both sides, without reaching agreement. Whether or not the subordination itself is eternal, some have begun to wonder whether the debate over it might be.

Perhaps what is needed to cut the Gordian knot is a different approach. In their book, That Used to Be Us, Thomas Friedman 8 • Priscilla Papers

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and Michael Mandelbaum argue that one of the skills that will be necessary in the global environment into which we are increasingly moving is critical thinking.1 Paradoxically, the wave of postmodernism makes critical thinking unpopular, but it has seldom been more needed. Although popular postmodernism is rampant on college campuses and in general culture, objective thinking is gaining influence not just in the natural sciences but also in the humanities.2 The aim in this article is to apply the methods of critical thinking to the view that the second person of the Trinity is eternally functionally subordinated to the Father. The intention here is not to be neutral, but to be as fair and objective as possible.3 I will focus primarily on the writings of Bruce Ware and Wayne Grudem, and especially their most recent contributions to the debate.

A. A Rhetorical Issue It is common practice in politics to attempt to gain an advantage in an argument by the way the issues are stated or the positions are

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labeled. For example, the two sides in the abortion debate label themselves “pro-life” and “pro-choice.” The attempt is to take a term or issue that most people favor and attach it to a position that is more disputed. It is the attempt to win one argument by representing it as another argument that is already settled.

Rather than labeling the two positions “complementarian” and “egalitarian,” a more accurate pair of terms would be “hierarchical complementarian” and “egalitarian complementarian.” The two positions do not really differ on whether the first person and the second person perform differing but complementary roles, but on whether the complementation is horizontal or vertical. Despite Grudem’s contention that the complementarian/ egalitarian terminology is well established through usage, this misdirects the focus of the argument regarding the relationships between men and women.4 The same is true of the discussions of the Trinity. The issue is not whether the Father, Son and Spirit have differing roles, but rather whether there is a superiority/inferiority relationship of authority. While the subordinationists’ use of the term “complementarian” may designate a group of persons who have taken that name, its denotation is quite different.5 B. A Practical Issue Scripture writers frequently develop doctrinal expositions in connection with practical issues (for instance, Phil 2:5–11). This issue similarly has definite practical implications, one of the most important of which is to whom Christians should pray: to the Father only, or also to the Son and the Spirit? Ware says that we should pray only to the Father, and that one of the reasons we do not is that we do not understand the doctrine of the Trinity correctly.6 This seems to be saying that what I call the gradational view of the authority relationship implies praying only to the Father. The argument could then be stated as: If the Father is supreme we should direct our prayers only to him.

The Father is supreme.

Therefore we should direct our prayers only to him.

This is an instance of the argument termed “affirming the antecedent,” and it is a valid argument, so that if both premises are true, the conclusion is also true. This type of argument is a two-edged sword, however. It appears that the NT contains prayers to the Son (Acts 7:59–60, 2 Cor 12:8–9, Rev 22:20). Unless these were not really prayers or those praying them were in error and praying improperly, it is not true that prayer should only be directed to the Father. It is notable that these are identified as prayers, and that they were accepted rather than corrected.

If, therefore, it is in order to pray to the Son, then the argument looks like this: If the Father is supreme we should direct our prayers only to him.

It is not true that we should direct our prayers only to the Father.

Therefore, it is not true that the Father is supreme.

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This is an instance of denying the consequent, and it is also a valid argument.

Grudem does not teach that prayer should only be directed to the Father.7 If, however, as he asserts, the Father is the one who initiates action, such as sending the Son the first time, then should not Grudem logically hold the same position on prayer as does Ware? If the Son came the first time because the Father sent him, and the authority relationship remains unchanged, should we not pray to the Father to send the Son the second time? If so, the argument leads to the same unfortunate conclusion we have already seen.

C. Metaphysical Issues 1. Qualities of the Persons. One of the vigorously contested issues concerns whether the eternal necessary subordination of the Son to the Father implies not merely a functional subordination but an ontological subordination as well. Tom McCall and Keith Yandell argued the latter at length in the 2008 debate at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School on subordination in the Trinity.8 Briefly put, their contention is that if the Son is eternally and necessarily functionally subordinate to the Father, then it is part of his very nature, and he is not homoousios, or of the same nature, with the Father.

Ware and others have responded by drawing a distinction between predicates of the essence of the triune God or “attributes,” and predicates of each of the individual persons of the Trinity, which they term “properties.”9 Thus, although the Father has the inherent quality of supremacy or authority over the Son (and the Holy Spirit) and the Son has a quality of always being subordinate in authority (or always submitting to the Father, as they prefer to put it) and neither has these qualities of the other, that does not mean they have different essences, because each of the three equally and wholly shares in or possesses the same essence.

At least two major observations need to be made about this statement. The first is to note that a subject may possess a quality in two ways. It either has that quality necessarily (independent of any variable), or it has it contingently (dependent on the presence of some variable). Second, an attribute or quality that is possessed contingently is called an accidental quality, and one that is possessed necessarily is called an essential quality. In other words, an essential quality is inseparable from something being what it is, while an accidental quality can be absent without affecting the true nature of something.

In Grudem’s and Ware’s view, these qualities of supremacy and submission cannot or could not have been otherwise.10 They are inherent in being the two different persons of the Trinity. On the conventional philosophical understanding, however, these are essential qualities or attributes. On the contrasting view, the supremacy/submission qualities are accidental, dependent upon one person having become incarnate as a human being in the space-time universe.

The eternal subordination view thus seems to say that the Father has an essential attribute that the Son does not have, and the Son has an essential attribute that the Father does not

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have. From the perspective of modern philosophy, the essential attributes possessed by a subject constitute its essence. Philip Gons and Andrew Naselli try to get around this similarity of root meanings by restating it as “fundamental” qualities.11 Even that relabeling will not solve the problem however, for that means that the two persons are fundamentally different. In a recent article, Paul Maxwell seeks to slip between the horns of the dilemma by suggesting a third class of property, namely relational.12 This, however, confuses relations with properties, which in this case have since the middle of the twentieth century been generally agreed are modal properties.13 One might infer that the three persons do not share the same essence, but rather there are three equal essences. Grudem and Ware are careful to avoid saying that. Part of the problem here is that their conception of the relationship between essence or being and attributes is not completely clear.14 Nor is their understanding of the relationship between the divine will and divine actions fully lucid. This will emerge later in our discussion of function and ontology.

Ware has suggested that I and some others are charging him and those who hold this view with implicitly holding to some sort of Arianism, and has called for a retraction of that charge.15 Actually, I am not accusing them of theological error, but of logical error, and unfortunately, laws of logic are notoriously difficult to enforce. If indeed the view of eternal and necessary subordination of authority logically implies subordination of essence and one rejects the subordination of essence, then either one must reject the subordination of authority, or rebut the claim of logical implication. In my judgment they have not yet done the latter successfully.

2. Differentiation of Persons. An additional key argument that Ware and Grudem advance is that eternal functional subordination is essential to the differentiation of the persons of the Trinity. Otherwise, Grudem says, “They would no longer be Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but rather Person A, Person A, and Person A.”16 This leads to the ominous conclusion: “This would mean that the Trinity has not eternally existed.”17 This seems to be a claim that different roles are essential to differentiation of persons and that different roles require a superiority/ subordination relationship. There is a hidden premise here: “to have differing roles is to have roles of superiority/inferiority of authority.” That suppressed premise needs to be extracted and argued for, or the conclusion does not follow logically. It may be true, but it cannot be established by this argument otherwise.

Another way of putting it is to make explicit the tacit argument that Grudem is advancing: The Son is numerically distinct from the Father.

If something is numerically distinct from another, it must be qualitatively distinct.

Therefore, the Son is qualitatively distinct from the Father.

The problem is that Grudem has assumed, but not argued, the second premise. To do so, however, would lead him back into the problem of essential difference that we have already described.

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There is an additional problem here. Is differentiation of persons really dependent on differing roles (which we may note, must, on this view, be eternal and necessary)? In the abovementioned debate at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Ware subscribed to the principle of the identity of indiscernibles.18 That principle, however, has been disputed, particularly by Max Black19 (and appears not to apply in the area of quantum mechanics20).

Ware and Grudem, it seems, need to argue for this principle in a way that rebuts the criticism of Black and others. As their statements stand, they depend on an unargued assumption.

3. Definitions of Metaphysical Concepts. What appears to be needed is complete definition of such concepts as being and essence. Thus, surprisingly, Grudem agrees that “when one person of the Trinity is acting, it is also true, in some sense that we only understand very faintly that the entire being of God is acting,”21 yet rejects the idea that “any action done by one person is also done by the other two persons.” This seems to contend that there are actions of the entire being of God that are not thereby actions of each of the persons. My difficulty in understanding this view may stem from my lack of conceptual empathy with Ware’s and Grudem’s metaphysic. If so, I would appreciate their elucidating their use of substance, essence, being, person, attributes and properties, as well as of time and eternity, since they seem to hold at different points that God is timeless and that he is endlessly temporal. Otherwise, this approach seems to substitute a label for an elucidation of its meaning.

4. Function and Ontology. It would also be helpful for the eternal subordinationists to elaborate their conception of the relationship between function and ontology. To suggest that there can be necessary and permanent differences of function by two subjects without asking what this presupposes ontologically appears to be similar to the functional Christology found in biblical theologians such as Oscar Cullmann.22 5. Nature of Religious Language. Finally, it would be helpful if Ware and Grudem were to articulate their theory of religious language. They have spoken of the analogical nature of the terms Father and Son. To invoke the concept of analogical language, however, is not the answer, but the question—namely, how much of the term used is univocal, or to put it more popularly, what portion of the analogy is to be taken literally, and to what extent? This is especially important, since both have appealed to the anthropomorphic nature of language about God in their arguments against open theism.23 D. Logical Issues 1. Assumptions in Statement of Opposing View. This argument has potentially another interesting feature. Grudem says, by way of refuting my view and that of others, “If all three persons do every action in the same way, then there is no difference at all between the persons.”24 The italics are his, and are a crucial part of his assertion. I am not aware of having said that the three persons do every action in the same way, and Grudem does not document it. If I have, I want to correct that statement. If I (and others who hold my position) have not said that, then Grudem’s analysis of our position must be somewhat as follows:

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If all three persons do every action, they do them in the same way.

All three persons do every action.

Therefore, all three persons do every action in the same way.

From there, the discussion would proceed to the identity of indiscernibles argument. For the conclusion to follow, both premises must be true, and he has failed to prove the first premise.

This tendency to leave unstated and unargued premises can also be seen with respect to the first person of the Trinity sending the second into the world. Here the argument seems to be: If the first person of the Trinity sent the second person into the world, he alone made the decision to do so.

The first person of the Trinity sent the second person into the world.

Therefore the first person alone made the decision to send the second person into the world.

The first premise, however, is assumed, not argued. We really do not know how that decision regarding the incarnation was made, nor who made it. Grudem and Ware have apparently not considered the alternative suggested by B. B. Warfield, namely that this was the result of a covenant among the three persons.25 2. Misdirected Criticism. Another tendency also deserves attention. The aspect of an argument that Grudem criticizes is frequently not the point that the opponent is making. We have noted this in connection with the issue of whether all persons participate in divine actions in exactly the same way. He also responds to the contention that the sending of the second person of the Trinity was the work of all three by pointing out that the Son never sends the Father, for example. But I am not asserting that. It would appear that Grudem has inserted a premise: “If all persons of the Trinity are involved in all actions attributed to one, then each action attributed to any person in relation to any other person must be reciprocal.” That may be true, but it has not been argued.

This tendency also occurs in a rather conspicuous way in his response to my discussion of the significance of the title “Son.” I had mentioned that “Son” is used of Jesus in other forms than “Son of God,” and that “Son of God” is not even Jesus’s most frequently used expression. Of this Grudem says, “Are the only things that are true in the New Testament the things that are mentioned most frequently? Surely Erickson cannot mean this.

But then, what is the point of bringing up ‘the New Testament says other things more frequently’ as an argument?”26 Grudem is correct in saying that this is surely not what I mean.

Perhaps I can make my argument clearer. The point is not primarily frequency of reference. The broader point I was making was that the title “Son of God” does not necessarily carry the heavy significance that Grudem and Ware have rested upon it. Other terms are used of and by Jesus, including “Son of Man” and “Son of David.” While Jesus and John used “Father” and “Son” frequently, Paul preferred “God, Lord, and Spirit,” to “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” Focusing upon the frequency of usage diverts attention from the major point

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here, thus constituting what I call “an irrelevant truth,” or what are sometimes called “weapons of mass distraction.”

3. Circular Reasoning. One of Ware’s arguments illustrates another principle. He asserts at length that the first person of the Trinity must eternally have authority over the second person because of the names Father and Son respectively. He says, Without question, a central part of the notion of ‘Father’ is that of fatherly authority. . . . To fail to see this is to miss one of the primary reasons God chose such masculine terminology generally, and here the name ‘Father’ particularly, to name himself. If the Father is the eternal Father of the Son, and if the Son is the eternal Son of the Father, this marks their relationship as one in which an inherent and eternal authority and submission structure exists.27 If I correctly understand the argument here, it is that the use of the term Father carried in that patriarchal culture the meaning of authority, so that the application of that term to the first person of the Trinity means the Father eternally has authority over the Son. But how do we know that this is the correct meaning of the term Father? That seems to stem from the statement in 1 Cor 11:3, the husband is the head of the wife, as the Father is of the Son, “head” being interpreted by them as meaning having authority over.28 Elsewhere, the authority of human fathers in the family is extended to their children. In other words, the argument seems to be something like this: We know that the Father has authority over the Son because the term “father” applied to humans carries the idea of authority over their families.

We know that human fathers are to have authority over their families because they are to relate to them as the first person of the Trinity relates to the second (and third) members of the Trinity.

This appears to me to be a case of circular reasoning, and a rather tight circle indeed. In that judgment I may be mistaken, but if so I would appreciate a demonstration of why these arguments are not circular.

4. Refutation and the Square of Opposition. Grudem’s argument here and at several other points also must be evaluated in light of the traditional square of opposition. The contrary of “All S is P” is “No S is P.” The contradictory of “All S is P” is “Some S is not P.” To disprove a universal statement does not require that every instance be opposed. Rather, only one negative instance is required. Grudem, however, seems to think that anyone opposing his view must demonstrate that every relevant scripture reference supports the opposing view. Moreover, he attempts to show that every consideration supports his view, using language like “No single text or biblical teaching anywhere in Scripture. . . . Every biblical text on this question.”29 This leads, it seems to me, to some rather forced and strained interpretations, a sort of cruel and unusual punishment of the biblical text.

Upon closer scrutiny, Grudem seems in several cases to be saying that there is a possible alternative interpretation to the

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simpler one. He then feels justified in following that interpretation.

Such a move must be warranted, however. One must offer evidence that one interpretation is more adequate than the other.

One cannot move from “T is conceivable” to “T is confirmed as true” simply by assertion or by repetition of the statement. That would be what I term “rhetorical alchemy,” and this procedure is no more effectual than were the efforts of the ancient alchemists to convert a base metal, such as lead, into a precious metal, gold.

This tendency can also be seen in Ware’s writings; consider, for example, one of his articles, where references such as “is it not obvious,” “clearly,” “does it not make sense,” “the obvious point,” and “does it not stand to reason” appear twenty-eight times, without supporting arguments.30 There is a third type of relationship within the square of opposition. “Some S is P” and “Some S is not P” are subcontraries, and may both be true. In that case, however, a different type of consideration, inductive logic, enters into deciding which statement to believe or act upon.

5. Inductive Logic and Verification. A closer examination of the nature of inductive logic may prove informative. In any dispute between rival theories, whether in history, physics, biblical interpretation or any other discipline, evidence can be cited on either side of the debate. In inductive argument, I do not consider it necessary to demonstrate that every instance of potentially relevant evidence supports my view. Of course I do not believe that contradictories can both be true. To my limited and fallible understanding, however, some texts may seem to support one view more strongly, some are ambiguous, and other texts appear to support the alternative view more definitely. I must continue to study these texts, holding to the view that has more support, but be prepared to change my conclusion if, in my estimation, the balance of evidence shifts.

6. Cumulative Effect. Finally, bear in mind also that many of the subordinationists’ conclusions draw on a whole chain of assertions. In such procedures, the probability of the premises are not merely added, but multiplied. Thus in a chained argument where each link is 70% probable (a generous assumption), if the conclusion follows from two steps, it is 49% probable, if three steps, 34.3% probable, if four, 24.01% probable.

Viewed this way, many of the assertions are far less probable than their advocates assert.

E. Exegetical Issues 1. Insertion of Meaning. Let us now turn to an analysis of some of the exegetical arguments, which Ware and Grudem advance in large number. One of the most significant is the text of Phil 2:6–8: “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped [or “held on to”], but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!” (NIV 1984).31 This, at least on the surface of it, seems to indicate that the Son became obedient by becoming incarnate. Grudem, however, says that this refers to a new kind of obedience that Jesus entered into as the God-man, an ‘Incarnational’ obedience that was 12 • Priscilla Papers

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consistent with the eternal pattern of obedience that he had shown to the Father for all eternity. Neither of these texts [the other being Ps 2:7] explicitly says that the Son for the first time became obedient.

Neither text says that the Son had not previously been obedient to the Father.32 I am unable to find in these biblical texts any statement to the effect that this was “a new kind of obedience.” Grudem should show us that from the text. Interestingly, in the Philippians passage, the “form” (morphē) that is contrasted with the “form of God” (morphē theou) is the “form of a servant” (morphēn doulou). This was something that on a plain reading of the text seemingly was acquired by becoming incarnate. It was not only “human” (anthrōpos) but also “servant” (doulos) that the second person became in the incarnation.

This is not the only place where Grudem inserts a meaning into the text that is neither overtly stated nor implied. He says that “at Jesus’s baptism (Mark 1:11) and again at Jesus’s transfiguration (Mark 9:7), then again at the resurrection (Acts 13:33), God declared that a new aspect of sonship had begun, one in which Jesus as the God-man was now relating to God as his Father. This does not mean that the eternal Son of God was not Son prior to this time. . . .”33 His treatment of Heb 5:8, “he learned obedience,” is similar. The problem I have with these statements is that I cannot find such an assertion in the texts cited.

2. Lexicography. Another exegetical problem comes with the meaning that Grudem attaches to the word “intercede” (entugchanō) in Heb 7:25 and Rom 8:34: The verb that both passages use is significant: To ‘intercede’ (entugchanō) for someone means to bring requests and appeals on behalf of that person to a higher authority, such as a governor, king, or emperor (cf. Acts 25:24, which uses the same verb to say that the Jews ‘petitioned’ the Roman ruler Festus). Thus Jesus continually, even today, is our great high priest who brings requests to the Father who is greater in authority.34 Grudem’s argument here requires the meaning of bringing a request to a person of higher authority. Of the lexicons by Bauer,35 Abbott-Smith,36 Thayer,37 Moulton and Milligan,38 Liddell and Scott,39 and Louw and Nida,40 none specifies that meaning. Grudem seems to be contending that the usage in Acts 25:24, where the one addressed is a higher authority, determines its meaning elsewhere.41 Since the work of James Barr,42 however, that approach must be seriously tempered, as Doug Moo has more recently pointed out.43 Some other support for Grudem’s assertion is needed.

Even such documentation also must be closely scrutinized.

In attempting to deal with the problematic prophetic reference to the coming Messiah as “everlasting Father” in Isa 9:6, Grudem appeals to a note on the verse in the ESV Study Bible, the general editor of which is Wayne Grudem.44 3. Selective Utilization of Relevant Passages. We should also observe that Grudem and Ware have omitted certain texts that

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do not fit their theory. For example, in Heb 1:10, God, speaking to the Son, seems to credit the latter with creation, “In the beginning, Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands” (NIV). They do not deal with this passage. Nor do they comment on the apparent equivalence of “the love of Christ” (Rom 8:35), and “the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:39), or several similar passages arguing for the unity of divine action.

4. Indexical Reference. One further case may yield some broader hermeneutical insight.

The statements in which Jesus refers to “my Father” are made during the time of his earthly ministry. The eternal functional subordinationists, however, construe these texts as indicating that the relationship between the first and second persons of the Trinity was the same prior to the incarnation as it was at the time that Jesus spoke these words. In many cases, that is assumed rather than argued. Grudem claims that the first and second persons of the Trinity were “Father” and “Son” (with the meaning he attributes to those terms) before the incarnation because those terms are used in statements referring to activities of the two persons prior to the incarnation.45 This, however, fails to take account of “indexical reference.” In this context, that means that statements about an earlier period frequently employ terminology in use at the time the statement is made. For example, it was true in 2016 that “President Obama worked as a community organizer on the south side of Chicago.”

That does not assert, however, that he was president of the United States at the time that he was a community organizer, only that he was president at the time the statement was made.46 This can be seen with respect to biblical place references, for example, “They advanced against the Canaanites living in Hebron (formerly called Kiriath Arba) and defeated Sheshai, Ahiman and Talmai. From there they advanced against the people living in Debir (formerly called Kiriath Sepher)” (Judg 1:10–11 NIV). In prophetic references, such as Ps 2:7, the same principle applies, although the sequence is reversed, using the name that readers at the time referred to will understand.

5. Nature of Language Used. The language used in describing what is unseen is phenomenal and anthropomorphic language, drawn from present experience to convey meaning of what is not experienced. Was Jesus intending a literal expression of what they could not experience? Did the first and second persons of the Trinity address each other as “Father” and “Son” prior to the incarnation? Perhaps the former is true, but that must be argued.47 If we follow Grudem’s argument to its logical conclusions, was Jesus, not simply during his time on earth but also in eternity, unaware of the time of his second coming (Matt

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24:36, Mark 13:32)? Was he capable of being tempted (Matt 4) prior to the incarnation (cf. James 1:13)?

6. Extension of Interpretive Principle. One test of a method is to apply it to other similar cases. One of Grudem’s arguments for the eternal relationship of Father and Son is Jesus’s choice of the term “Father”: “But if intimacy and identical authority were all that Jesus intended to indicate, he could have spoken of ‘my friend in heaven’ or ‘my brother in heaven’ or even ‘my twin in heaven.’ But he did not. He spoke of ‘my Father in heaven.’”48 There is a silent premise in this argument as well, which I reconstruct, subject to correction, as something like, “If Jesus could have used a different term but did not, then the difference between the term he did use and the one he might have used is emphasized.”

Now suppose we draw a parallel something like this: If Jesus’s statement, “my Father and your Father” (John 20:17) is taken to convey an eternal relationship, what about “my God and your God” in that same verse, and “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” in Matt 27:46? If the first person of the Trinity is eternally the second person’s god, and in the same way that he is the god of the disciples, what does that say of the ontological status of that second person? If equality of essence but subordination of authority was all that Jesus intended to indicate, he could have spoken of “my supervisor” or “my guide” or even “my advisor.” But he did not. He spoke of “my God, my God!” If Jesus’s reference to his Father indicates an eternal superiority/inferiority relationship of distinction, does his reference to his god indicate a similarly eternal relationship?

F. Theological Issues The position taken by this theology on the relationship between the Father and the Son has several broader theological implications.49 1. There is a tendency toward tritheism. The sharp separation between the three persons and the rejection of the idea that the works of God are the works of all three persons means that there are three separate wills of the three persons, and thus that there are actually three persons. Grudem and Ware have contended that the view they are opposing tends towards modalism, the view that God was one but played three different roles at different times, but that judgment follows from the position from which it is made.50 2. There is a tendency toward impassibility. This is the view that God is not affected by anything that happens in his creation, or in an extreme form, that God has no emotions. While the claim that Christian theology displays a corruption of the biblical revelation

by Greek philosophy has been greatly exaggerated, in recent

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years evangelicals have acknowledged that this has occurred at some points. Ware himself has called for a redefinition of the doctrine of divine immutability because of this.51 Theologians such as John Feinberg have rejected the traditional conception of impassibility as well.52 Again, the charge of patripassianism is made from the perspective of impassibility.

3. The significance of the incarnation is diminished. On the Ware-Grudem view, Jesus took on human form and the limitations thereof, but there really was no surrendering of equality of authority. His subordination to the Father had always been true of him.

4. The significance of the exaltation is similarly reduced.

Jesus did not reassume equality of authority with the Father. The ascension becomes primarily a change of location, rather than of status.

Summary and Conclusion The instances cited above are only examples of numerous arguments for eternal functional subordination of the Son that contain significant logical fallacies, of both the formal and informal varieties. Many of the arguments are enthymemes, resting on unproven and unacknowledged assumptions. In other cases, the arguments seem ad hoc in nature. Until these problems are clarified and resolved, the case for eternal subordination must be considered dubious at best.

Notes 1. Thomas L. Friedman and Maurice Mandelbaum, That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World it Invented and How it Can Come Back (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011), 139. By contrast, in a 2011 Gallup poll regarding the most important reason for getting education beyond high school, only 1 percent said, “to learn to think critically.” (Cynthia English, “Most Americans See College as Essential to Getting a Good Job.” http://www.gallup.com/poll/149045/AmericansCollege-Essential-Getting-Good-Job.aspx.) Accessed April 20, 2017.

2. See a series of articles by Patricia Cohen under the general title, “A New Enlightenment:” “The Digital Revolution,” The New York Times, November 19, 2010: C1; “Analyzing Literature by Words and Numbers,” Ibid., December 3, 2010: C1; “In 500 Billion Words, New Window on Culture,” Ibid., December 16, 2010: C1. Also, Elizabeth Blackwell, “The Data Renaissance,” Weinberg Magazine, Fall/Winter, 2016: 20–25.

Tragically, when the cultural turn becomes more pronounced, students studying today on many college campuses may find themselves unprepared for the world in which they live. Crispin Sartwell, “The ‘Postmodern’ Intellectual Roots of Today’s Campus Mobs,” The Wall Street Journal, March 25–26, 2017: A3.

3. Ware seems to confuse impartiality with neutrality. Bruce A. Ware, “Does Affirming an Eternal Authority-Submission Relationship in the Trinity Entail a Denial of Homoousios? A Response to Millard Erickson and Tom McCall,” in One God in Three Persons, ed. Bruce A. Ware and John Starke (Wheaton: Crossway, 2015), 238. We certainly want judges, referees, umpires and other arbiters to be impartial, that is, not to favor one side over the other. We do not, however, want them to be neutral, for that would mean they would never make any rulings, thus negating the value of having such arbiters at all.

4. Wayne Grudem, Countering the Claims of Evangelical Feminism: Biblical Responses to the Key Questions (Colorado Springs: Multnomah, 2006), 13–15.

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5. I have attempted to bypass this issue by the use of “gradational authority” and “equivalent authority.” Millard J. Erickson, Who’s Tampering with the Trinity? An Assessment of the Subordination Debate (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2009), 17–18.

6. Bruce A. Ware, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: Relationships, Roles, and Relevance (Wheaton: Crossway, 2005), 18.

7. Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), 380–81.

8. The debate, sponsored by the Carl F. H. Henry Center, took place at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois, on November 6, 2008.

9. Ware, “Does Affirming an Eternal Authority-Submission Relationship in the Trinity Entail a Denial of Homoousios?,” 242–43. In most philosophical discussions, “attributes,” “properties,” “qualities,” and “predicates” are considered synonyms.

10. Ware, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, 21.

11. Philip R. Gons and Andrew David Naselli, “An Examination of Three Recent Philosophical Arguments against Hierarchy in the Immanent Trinity,” One God in Three Persons, 201.

12. Paul C. Maxwell, “Is There an Authority Analogy Between the Trinity and Marriage? Untangling Arguments of Subordination and Ontology in Egalitarian-Complementarian Discourse,” JETS 59, no. 3 (September 2016): 564.

13. For elaboration, see the following articles: Francesco Orilia and Chris Swoyer, “Properties,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL=https://plato. stanford.edu/entries/properties/. Teresa Robertson and Philip Atkins, “Essential vs. Accidental Properties,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL=https:// plato.stanford.edu/entries/essential-accidental/. Fraser MacBride, “Relations,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL=https://plato.stanford.edu/ entries/relations/.

14. Grudem, Systematic Theology, 177–80. Ware, One God in Three Persons, 42.

15. Ware, “Does Affirming an Eternal Authority-Submission Relationship in the Trinity Entail a Denial of Homoousios?,” 237–47.

16. Wayne Grudem, Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth: An Analysis of More than One Hundred Disputed Questions (Sisters: Multnomah, 2004), 433.

17. Grudem, Systematic Theology, 251.

18. In brief, the principle says that no two distinct things have all of the attributes of each other.

19. Max Black, “The Identity of Indiscernibles,” Mind, A Quarterly Review of Psychology and Philosophy LXI, no. 242 (April 1952): 153–64.

20. Steven French and Michael Redhead, “Quantum Physics and the Identity of Indiscernibles,” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 39, no. 2 (June 1988): 233–46.

21. Wayne Grudem, “Doctrinal Deviations in Evangelical-Feminist Arguments about the Trinity,” in One God in Three Persons, 24.

22. Oscar Cullman, The Christology of the New Testament (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1959), 3–4. For an exposition and evaluation of this type of theology and the functional philosophy underlying it, see Millard J. Erickson, The Word Became Flesh: A Contemporary Incarnational Christology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991), 243–73.

23. E.g., Bruce A. Ware, God’s Lesser Glory: The Diminished God of Open Theism (Wheaton: Crossway, 2000), 84–86.

24. Grudem, “Doctrinal Deviations,” 24.

25. Benjamin B. Warfield, “Trinity,” The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, ed. James Orr (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952), V:3021.

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26. Wayne Grudem, “Biblical Evidence for the Eternal Submission of the Son to the Father,” in The New Evangelical Subordinationism?

Perspectives on the Equality of God the Father and God the Son, ed.

Dennis W. Jowers and H. Wayne House (Eugene: Wipf and Stock), 235.

27. Bruce A. Ware, “Equal in Essence, Distinct in Roles: Eternal Functional Authority and Submission among the Essentially Equal Divine Persons of the Godhead,” The Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood 13, no. 2 (Fall 2008): 44–45.

28. Ware, Father Son and Holy Spirit, 72.

29. “Grudem, “Biblical Evidence,” 260.

30. Ware, “Equal in Essence, Distinct in Roles.”

31. In these verses, the NIV 1984 is closer to the Greek text than the NIV 2011 is.

32. Grudem, “Biblical Evidence,” 242.

33. Grudem, “Doctrinal Deviations,” 30.

34. Grudem, “Biblical Evidence,” 247. Italics his. In the original, the verb is in Greek characters; it is here transliterated in accordance with Priscilla Papers style.

35. Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, and Other Early Christian Literature, ed. William F. Arndt and F. Wilbur Gingrich (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 270.

36. G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1953), 157.

37. Carl Ludwig Willibald Grimm, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Being Grimm’s Wilke’s Clavis Novi Testament, 4th ed., tr., rev. and ed. Joseph Henry Thayer (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1955), 219.

38. James Hope Moulton and George Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament Illustrated from the Papyri and Other Non-Literary Sources (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1930), 219.

39. Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, Greek-English Lexicon, 7th ed. (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1883), 489.

40. Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains, ed. Johannes P. Louw and Eugene A. Nida (New York: United Bible Societies, 1989), 408.

41. The issue is not whether the word can bear that meaning, but rather whether it must mean that here.

42. James Barr, Semantics of Biblical Language (New York: Oxford University Press, 1961).

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43. Douglas Moo, We Still Don’t Get It: Evangelicals and Biblical Translation Fifty Years After James Barr (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2014).

44. Grudem, “Biblical Evidence,” 237–38.

45. Grudem, “Biblical Evidence,” 232–35.

46. Since presidents retain that title even after leaving office, that statement will always be true, although the statement “Barack Obama is president of the United States” was true from January 20, 2009 to January 20, 2017 (noon Eastern Standard Time in each case), but no longer is.

47. Many of Grudem’s texts purporting to show that the Father had supreme authority over the Son even prior to the incarnation appear to depend upon a radical assertion of Rahner’s Rule regarding the identity (qualitatively) of the immanent Trinity and the economic Trinity, but that can yield some unwanted consequences.

48. Grudem, “Biblical Evidence,” 228.

49. For a more complete discussion of these theological issues, see Erickson, Who’s Tampering with the Trinity?, 195–225. The entire book elaborates on the issues in this article.

50. John Calvin indicates that he had not only been accused of Sabellianism (a version of modalism), but even of Arianism. John Calvin, “To Simon Grynee,” Letters of John Calvin, ed. Jules Bonnet (Boston: Little, Brown, 1860), I:54. Peter Caroli, who made the charges, was condemned by the Synod of Lausanne.

51. Bruce A. Ware, “An Evangelical Reformulation of the Doctrine of the Immutability of God,” JETS 29, no. 4 (December 1986): 431–46.

52. John Feinberg, No One Like Him: The Doctrine of God (Wheaton: Crossway, 2001), 277.

MILLARD J. ERICKSON (PhD, Northwestern University) has served as a pastor and seminary dean and has taught at several schools, including Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Western Seminary (Portland and San Jose), and Baylor University. He has written over thirty books. Dr. Erickson is a highly regarded Christian scholar, and CBE is blessed to count him as a friend.

Priscilla Papers | Vol. 31, No. 3 | Summer 2017 • 15

Marriage: Patriarchal, Sacramental, or Covenantal?

Cristina Richie Many modern Western marriage rituals—from engagement, to the wedding ceremony, to post-union practices such as female surname change—are clearly patriarchal. Various customs, including engagement rings that act as modern dowries, separate wedding vows where the woman “loves, honors, and obeys” and the man “loves, honors, and cherishes,” and unequal childrearing, create a system that oppresses women and subordinates them both within and outside of the home.

The Christian ritual of marriage, however, redeems patriarchal marriage through emphasis on sacrament in the Roman Catholic Church1 and on covenant in Protestant denominations.2 In Catholicism, a union is a grace that symbolizes the mystery of Christ’s love for the church. In Protestantism, a couple is united in a formative union that aids one on the path to sanctification. In recent years, the covenant marriage has become a legally binding, recognized form of Christian marriage.3 Since both the sacramental and the covenantal marriage are predicated on God instead of the human couple, cultural—and hence non-theistic—patriarchal mores need not determine pre- and post-marriage rituals.

This article will first overview six categories of marriages in America and then focus on patriarchal, sacramental, and covenantal marriage.4 I will highlight aspects of patriarchal marriage present in most American unions, explain the Catholic view on the sacrament of matrimony, and then proceed to an egalitarian presentation of the covenant of marriage for evangelicals.5 Based on covenantal theology and scriptures such as Eph 5:25–28, 31–32 and Mal 2:11–16, I will emphasize God as the progenitor, sustainer, and redeemer of Christian marriage and eschew patriarchal forms of marriage as incompatible within biblical egalitarian theology. I turn first to an overview of marriage.

Types of Unions and Marriages A 2007 survey found that three quarters of Americans believe the main purpose of marriage is the “mutual happiness and fulfillment” of adults.6 While children remain an objective of most marriages—eighty percent of all white women in the United States will have a child—procreation is ancillary to marriage, and marriage is separate from procreation. Christian theology has long acknowledged that children are not necessary for marriage—citing the numerous infertile couples throughout scripture and lauding the companionate aspects of marriage.7 Yet Christians have never endorsed a theology that supports having children without being married,8 even though generating a child outside of wedlock is no longer socially stigmatized.

Indeed, by 2013, 40.6 percent of all children in the United States were born to unmarried women.9 Of course, some of these women are in committed relationships. Others chose single motherhood over abortion, while some were abandoned by their partners. Christians must not judge the morality of these trends 16 • Priscilla Papers

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outside of the context, nor demand explanations from women, but must rather commit to loving women and children in our midst regardless of marital state or paternity. Leaving the role of procreation within marriage aside, my objective here is to explore the most common permutations of domestic unions in the United States.

In America, there are at least six different models of marriage. First, there is a common-law marriage, defined by a long-term relationship of cohabitation. It is socially recognized, and in some cases, legally recognized. The timeline to establish these unions varies by district. Common-law marriages can be contracted in nine states (Alabama, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah) and the District of Columbia.

A second alternative is a civil union. This is a legally recognized union of a same-sex or opposite-sex couple, with legal rights similar to those of marriage. The term “civil” denotes a secular, non-religious component, consonant with separation of church and state. The term “union” is in contradistinction to “marriage.”

A similar and third type of partnership is a civil marriage.

A civil marriage is performed, recorded, and recognized by a government official. Again, note the use of the terms. This is a non-religiously recognized union that is an option for both same- and opposite-sex couples. In the United States, same-sex civil marriage has been legal nationwide since June 26, 2015, when the US Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges. This case declared that state-level bans on same-sex marriage were unconstitutional.10 A fourth union can be described simply as “marriage,” which encompasses both religious and non-religious unions. Marriage is the formal union of adults, recognized by law and sometimes by faith communities. Religious ceremonies—whether Hindu, Wiccan, Jewish, Christian, etc.—have additional liturgical and theological components. They have legal protection and recognition and indicate a cosmological commitment beyond secular partnership.

A fifth type of marriage is a sacramental marriage. This is a union confected in the Catholic Church where at least one person is a baptized Catholic. There is a requirement that the partners vow to raise any children that they may have in the Catholic faith. The sacrament of marriage from a Catholic perspective will be articulated later in this article.

The sixth and final model of marriage is covenantal. There are two types of covenantal marriage—theological and legal. First, the theological covenant marriage indicates a relationship of a religious nature, where two Christians are united in marriage under God. I believe all marriages between two Christians are covenantal, even if they are not described in that manner.

Second, in contradistinction, a legally recognized covenant marriage is a union in Arizona, Arkansas, and Louisiana, defined by additional juridical structures to make divorce more

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follow.”13 When these dichotomous gender roles are applied to difficult. Legal covenant marriages do not require a Christian patriarchal marriage, women are perceived as being naturally affiliation; it is state-recognized union, not issued by a church. (as opposed to socially) nurturing, passive, private, at-home Of course, it is appealing mainly to Christians who use the companions to men who are erroneously viewed as naturally theological language of “covenant” to describe their marriages. providing, active, public, and sole income earners. Scripture The numbers of recorded covenant marriages were less than exalts warriors such as Deborah, Jael, two percent in Louisiana and about 0.25 the deuterocanonical Judith, David, percent in Arizona and Arkansas in the An egalitarian interpretation of and Joshua, and highlights nurturing early 2000s.11 It is unclear how many scripture proposes that biological individuals like Paul, Barnabas, same-sex couples have sought a legal sex does not determine social Martha, and Peter’s mother-in-law. covenant marriage since Obergefell v.

Leaders of both sexes also display all of Hodges, and I will maintain my focus roles, vocation, or personality. the spiritual gifts throughout scripture. on opposite-sex marriage. Having In sum, an egalitarian interpretation thus surveyed the six most common of scripture proposes that biological sex does not determine classifications of unions in the United States, the task of my next social roles, vocation, or personality. However, cultural norms section is to underscore patriarchal aspects of modern, secular in tandem with biological realities, customs, and social marriage in the United States. strongholds—inclusive of patriarchy and kyriarchy—determine Patriarchal Marriage the parameters of activities, which sometimes become engrained Patriarchal marriage is neither a legal nor a religious type of as “the way things are.” I contend that the modern American, union; rather it is a complex and interlocking social, domestic, secular marriage—and the steps leading up to it—is rife with positional, sexual narrative that can be applied in any of these a-theistic patriarchal imagery, language, and ritual. unions. I contend it is a narrative not befitting a (theologically) In modern America, certain widely accepted events typify covenantal union. Patriarchal marriage is, furthermore, highly the engagement and the wedding ceremony. Taken in the inflected in form and constitutive of many partnerships across aggregate, social theologians may call this the “marriage script,” culture, era, and geography. Sadly, many Christian unions are or unquestioned modus operandi many people unreflectively not immune from patriarchal presuppositions, much to the conform to without checking it against God’s design for equality, disservice of the faith. mutuality, and self-giving love. Based off of long-entrenched Patriarchy is a social system in which males primarily hold patriarchal understandings of marriage, the modern secular power, dominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, marriage—to which Christians often assent—unfolds as follows. social privilege, and control of property. In the domain of the Patriarchal marriage stretches back to the engagement, family, fathers or father figures wield authority over women and courting and dating prior to that. I will begin at the and children—male and female. Theologian Elisabeth Schüssler engagement, since it signifies a commitment to eventual Fiorenza describes the compounded layering of male power as marriage. Engagements are typically prolonged periods where “kyriarchy” from the Greek kyrios, “lord.” Kyriarchy is thus the couple displays an additional social obligation to each other. “a socio-political and cultural-religious system of domination Historically, this ritual likely harkens back to the betrothal, a that structures the identity slots open to members of society in period between marital promise and marriage itself needed to terms of race, gender, nation, age, economy, and sexuality and confirm that the woman was not pregnant and therefore suitable configures them in terms of pyramidal relations of domination for marriage.14 and submission.”12 There are several well-known features of a traditional Kyriarchy requires a monograph-length treatise to fully engagement. Although less common now, in previous years understand all of the subtleties and nuances. For the purposes a man would ask the father of the woman he was dating for of this essay, kyriarchy encompasses patriarchy and is further permission to marry her. This petition is illustrative of headship, buttressed by 1) Sexism, defined as prejudice, stereotyping, where the woman is under the authority of her father until she or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of becomes the property of her husband—indicated by the eventual natal sex, 2) Chauvinism, patronizing, disparaging, or other change of last name. If it is not the case that asking for the hand denigration of women under the belief that they are inferior to in marriage is representative of headship, then we might ask why males, and 3) Misogyny, the hatred or dislike of women or girls. women do not ask the father (or mother!) of the man they are Misogyny can manifest in numerous ways, including workplace courting for permission to propose marriage to him. As it stands, discrimination, belittling of “women’s” activities, attitudes the male is essentially asking for a trade of ownership. Once the and bodies, violence against women, sexual objectification of father agrees to these terms and conditions, the man proposes women and sexual assault. marriage to the woman, and at that time she is presented with a Patriarchy thrives on dualism, which, in the words of ring—usually with a diamond—to be worn, in many cases, for Elizabeth Johnson, “assigns predetermined personality traits the rest of her life or even beyond. to men and women on the basis of their roles in reproduction; The engagement ring, which the man does not wear, and thus extrapolates distinct social roles that must necessarily symbolizes that the woman is no longer under the absolute

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authority of her father, as she was when her bare finger made her “available” to other interested males. The very fact that women are identifiable as “taken” by the engagement ring and men are not speaks to the double standard of women-as-men’s property versus men-as-autocrats. Once beringed, the woman is clearly marked as belonging to another man. If engagement rings are only beautiful symbols of commitment and love to come, then men should wear them too (and indeed, men do in some European countries, such as Sweden). However, the American norm that only women wear the engagement ring, in tandem with the conspicuous expense of the jewelry, indicate no less than a down payment on the eventual exchange of financial support for sex and domestic service. The man is purchasing the woman physically through this initial financial “gift.”

Since mid-nineteenth-century America, the suggested cost of the engagement ring has been set at two months’ salary. This correlation between income and jewelry allows an engaged woman to silently boast of the economic prowess of her soon-tobe husband, and the assurance that she will shortly be financially dependent on her husband, just as she was on her father.

Economic dependence of wives is a modern, upper- and middleclass luxury. In poor and working families, all members of the household—including the wife—have to work full-time in order to furnish the needs of a household. The financial exchange of the woman terminates at the wedding, which the parents of the bride traditionally finance. At that time, the man can and will claim access, sexual and otherwise, to the woman he has bought.

The wedding—when funded by the woman’s parents—is an economic investment symbolically equivalent to the dowry. In both cases, the motivation is to offset the expense that marrying a woman incurs since she will not be an economic producer under prescribed gender roles (although her unpaid domestic labor will ensure a functioning home). Furthermore, the family who marries off their son is losing the potential for pecuniary support from a working family member. It is interesting to note that as the average age of marriage gets older, and couples are more egalitarian, the couple themselves fund the wedding, consonant with financial expectations that both partners are economic earners and spenders. This indicates a shift in understanding about “natural” gender roles, as economic necessity often requires both in the couple to work.

At the wedding ceremony, further evidence of patriarchy abounds.15 In traditional American weddings the groom stands at the altar, wearing a black tuxedo or dark suit. In contrast, the bride wears a white wedding dress, historically indicative of her virginity. The virginity of the man is irrelevant, since there are double standards about the sexuality of young women and young men. If the sexual “purity” of the man were a communal or theological value, and if Christians believe that “true love waits”16—for both women and men—then the groom would also wear white. But the trope of a male virgin is comical, while the “deflowered” young lady is a serious social breach; thus gendered social standards persist through wedding garb.

As the groom is standing at the altar, the bride is escorted down the aisle by her father. The minister inquires, “Who is 18 • Priscilla Papers

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giving this woman to be married to this man?” The father answers “I do” or “her mother and I do.” The bride’s hand is brought from her father’s to her future husband’s. Clearly the transfer of dominion, which was first instigated upon privately petitioning the father for the daughter’s hand in marriage, is reenacted, this time in public.

The woman goes directly from father to husband. Further, the mother-of-the-bride does not participate in the ceremony, since her “guardian”—her husband—speaks in her stead. The mother does not “give” her daughter away since she is merely a woman too, with no voice or choice of her own, having abdicated her will and autonomy to her husband, just as her daughter is destined to replicate one day with her daughter. With the transfer from father to husband complete, the couple declares their wedding vows.

In years past, the woman has taken separate vows, “to love, honor and obey,” while the man agrees to “love, honor and cherish.” Obedience is not indicative of mutuality, but rather servitude. Subsequently, banded rings are exchanged and the man is given permission to, “kiss your bride,” or “the bride”—rather than a mutual kiss, or permission for the wife to kiss her husband, thus replicating the erroneous active/ passive dichotomy in sexual pursuit. Indeed, at this moment the husband has legitimate and legal access to the wife, while she is expected to submit to him physically.

For a very long time the concept of marital rape did not exist. It was understood that, once married, a man could have intercourse with his wife whenever he wanted, regardless of her feelings, physical condition, consent, or pleasure. Marriage was seen as carte blanch consent to sex since woman were the property of men. In 1982, Diana E. H. Russell published Rape in Marriage, the first book on the topic.17 By the 1990s, marital rape had become a crime in all fifty states, a full seventy years after the Soviet Union criminalized marital rape, sixty years after Poland, and forty years after Czechoslovakia did the same.18 Ignoring marital rape on the grounds that the woman belongs to the man is an obvious symptom of the patriarchal marital system that still lingers today in the United States.

Following the male-to-female kiss, the couple is typically pronounced “man and wife” instead of “man and woman” or “husband and wife,” which would indicate mutuality. The man’s identity remains the same, whereas the woman’s identity has been incorporated into the identity of another: someone’s wife. This loss of self is further confirmed by the next words the minister says, “I present to you Mr. and Mrs. (man’s last name).”

Significant academic attention has been given to prefixes for men and women, observing that a man’s title is “Mr.” regardless of his marital status, whereas female prefixes are divided by marital status—“Miss” for the unmarried and “Mrs.” for the married. Many other languages have similar linguistic structures to adjudicate the marital status—and hence the subjection—of women in relation to men, whereas the man is his own person. Aware of this toxic practice, the United States adopted “Ms.” as the recognized equivalent to “Mr.” by the 1970s.19 It is now a common salutation for women in certain

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settings, but patriarchal systems require a woman’s marital status to be clearly and immediately identifiable by prefix.

Further, there is the matter of the surname in the presentation of the couple.

Names indicate ownership, which is why people put them on books, suitcases, and business cards. Re-naming was a powerful indicator of character in the OT and has often been a common occurrence in slavery. It is right that a married couple would form a new identity together, but if the change of the last name is only representative of the beginning of a one-flesh identity, then Christians might question why men do not change or hyphenate their last names—with at least the same frequency, if not more—than women after marriage, as did a certain Barzillai in Ezra 2:61.20 To be sure, Christians who read Gen 2:24 might expect that it is always the man who would change his last name since “a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife.”

But this is not the case, and American men almost never modify their last names upon marriage. Indeed, the very suggestion that men should change their last names after marriage seems absurd, supererogatory, or inconvenient. This social sentiment is highlighted by US attitudes towards the normalcy of name changing for women.

Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and implementation of the so-called “Patriot Act,” if a man wants to change his last name upon marriage, he has to undergo a background check, put in an application, and pay a fee.21 The woman does not have to maneuver through these procedural hurdles because it is still accepted—and expected—that the woman will alter her identity and be subsumed under her husband’s name, just as she was with her father.

In sum, the structure of modern, secular marriage is clearly patriarchal from its beginning in the courtship of the woman, to the engagement, wedding ceremony, and wedding vows. After the ceremony, patriarchy drives the relationship as well. Many fine critiques on prescriptive motherhood, dependent housewives, compulsory stay at home mothering, unilateral male decisionmaking, female career deferral, and unequal housekeeping have been put forth by others and it is not my objective to address them here.22 My intention has been to describe the foundations of a non-theistic union, in order to contrast it with Christian alternatives, to which I now turn.

Sacramental Marriage Although there is some overlap between secular and Christian rituals leading up to marriage, the very cornerstone of Christian marriage is different from that of non-Christian unions.

Christian marriage is, in fact, even a radical part of Christianity itself, since Christians believe that it is better not to be married (1 Cor 7:8); that some people are “eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 19:12); and that under the new covenant believers are commanded to “go and make disciples of all nations” (Matt 29:19), not to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:28).

Yet early apologists like Augustine defended the “Excellence of Marriage” even as many other theologians drew on the

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biblical witness to defend a life of celibacy.23 Over time, as marriage became more common, entire theologies were developed to support those who had chosen not to follow the Lord’s example or the model of Paul.24 Christians thus have two primary paradigms for articulating marriage of believers: first, the Catholic sacramental marriage, and second, the Protestant covenantal marriage. I will begin with the Catholic sacrament of marriage.

Sacraments are graces, or ceremonial activities in which Christians participate. The sacraments have literal and symbolic value. Catholics maintain that Baptism, Eucharist, Confession, Confirmation, Penance, Holy Orders, and Extreme Unction are sacramental. The sacrament of Holy Orders is comprised of two exclusive alternatives, either ordination or matrimony.

Ordination is defined by commitment to the Church and vows of poverty and celibacy. Catholic priesthood excludes women. Nuns are “consecrated,” not “ordained,” although they take vows of celibacy and poverty. Matrimony is defined by a commitment to one person in a sexual relationship for life, and may be undertaken by men or women.

Ephesians 5:31–32 provides the biblical grounds for adjudging marriage a sacrament in the Catholic Church. This passage indicates, “a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church” (NRSV). Augustine regarded this pericope as authoritative when he “proposed that there is a ‘sacramental bond’ forged between Christian couples at the time of marriage that linked them indissolubly together.”25 While sacramental marriages may have earthly benefits like sexual pleasure, procreation, and companionship, the ultimate goal or telos is sanctification and growth in faith.

In the Catholic tradition, marriage is first and foremost part of Holy Orders, set within the larger purview of ecclesiastical sacraments. Thus, Catholics understand marriage as part of the peregrination (journey) toward God. In 1930, Pope Pius XI deemed that the “mutual molding of husband and wife, with determined effort to perfect each other, can … be said to be the chief reason and purpose of matrimony.”26 In order to achieve this perfecting of one another, there are certain parameters within Christian marriage to which both Catholics and evangelicals assent.

Since marriage is a sacrament directed by God, it is not to be broken, and therefore divorce is not permitted except in the case of porneia as stated in Matt 19:9–10 (where porneia is variously translated as “unchastity,” “marital unfaithfulness,” “immorality,” or “sexual immorality”). For some, a biblical theology for divorce understands porneia to be inclusive of adultery, emotional and physical neglect, abandonment, and abuse.27 Many modern Christians are also grappling with the appropriateness of divorce under the porneia clause for men and women who unknowingly marry a homosexual or transgender spouse who “comes out” after vows are said. Both the former situation and those involving chronic addiction may fit under one or more of the aforementioned categories.28 Regardless of

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what may be considered porneia, it is divorce and remarriage that presents the theological conundrum, not “simple” divorce.

In addition to indissolubility, the unitive aspect of marriage is also the core of the couple’s relationship. Paul eradicates expected stereotypes of sexual need in 1 Cor 7:5 and, considering the partners equal to each other, encourages both the wife and husband to give to each other freely, and only have periods of celibacy if it is mutually agreeable and for prayer. This passage is the basis for comparable participation and initiation in marital relations, and moreover credits women with the same capacity for intimacy as men.29 Other parameters of the Christian marriage include fruitfulness, which can be biological or spiritual, creative and expressive, or the sharing of a life-project.30 Within these guidelines, the sacramentally married couple is equipped for the “mutual support” that the Code of Canon Law from 1918 indicated as a telos of marriage,31 as reiterated in 1983.32 The theme of mutual spousal support is threaded throughout scripture. Genesis 2:23–25 specifies that a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

The apostle Paul claims that the disciples had “the right to be accompanied by a believing wife, as do the other apostles” (1 Cor 9:5 NRSV). Reciprocity is the foundation of a Christian marriage and is part of the larger mutually submissive relationships that all Christian brothers and sisters have to each other. To be sure, marriage partners are first and foremost each other’s sibling in Christ and co-heirs to the kingdom of God. The sense that spouses have an obligation to each other is powerfully described in section 113 of the encyclical Casti Connubii where Pope Pius XI advises that couples should be prepared, “as far as they can, to help each other in sustaining the vicissitudes of life.”33 Thus, the Catholic sacramental marriage is a first example of a thoroughly Christian union with many points of contact with Protestant covenantal marriage.

Covenantal Marriage In the United States, marriage is a legally binding contract that is recognized and dissolved by the state. For Christians, especially Protestants, a theology of marriage goes beyond civil unions, a-theistic companionship, and patriarchal arrangements. Thus, marriage from a covenantal perspective is a union that binds spouses to each other through a joint commitment to God, first and foremost, and secondarily to each other. Retrieving the covenantal—not contractual—view of marriage for Christians is essential to repudiating patriarchal models of marriage, which denigrate women as being made in the full image of God and relegate women to domestic servitude. Covenantal marriage also rejects secular models of marriage, which are devoid of religious significance and thus do not carry spiritual weight. In order to appreciate the covenantal marriage, the historical roots of the concept must be unearthed.

A covenant is a solemn agreement between nations, peoples, or individuals, effecting a relationship that is binding and inviolable.

Covenants often appear in ancient Near Eastern history and follow a formulaic outline, with stipulations and conditions. These specifications may include benefits and rewards—also dubbed

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“blessings”—as well as penalties for breaking the covenant— also known as “curses.” Covenants typically have witnesses, a short locution on the relational history of those undertaking the covenant, and a ritual or symbol associated with the ratified covenant. In many cases, the chief parties must be fully consenting, rational, and autonomous even as the covenant extends to people who do not consent (e.g., the covenant Abraham made with God extends to all Israelites).

The Bible includes several varieties of covenants. Sexless, companionate covenants existed, for example, between Jonathan and David (1 Sam 18:3) and between Naomi and Ruth (Ruth 1:16– 17). Covenants were also made between God and God’s people.

For instance, five biblical covenants enumerated in Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology are the Adamic covenant, Noahic covenant, Abrahamic covenant, Mosaic covenant and Davidic covenant.34 I will briefly describe selected aspects of each in order to familiarize the reader with constitutive components.

The Adamic covenant stipulates that the first humans should be fruitful and multiply, act as guardians over the animals (but not eat them) and avoid the forbidden fruit (Gen 1:28–29, 3:16–17). Note that, since ’adam means “earthling,” this covenant was between God and the “earthlings,” whom modern Englishspeaking theologians call Eve and Adam. The covenant was for both the woman and the man, even though male theologians have androcentrically named it after the man alone.

Like the Adamic covenant, the Noahic covenant also included a blessing to be fruitful and multiply. The sign of the covenant was the rainbow, which served as a physical manifestation reminding the parties of an intangible promise (Gen 9:13–17). Again, although male theologians have dubbed this promise the “Noahic” covenant, the specification of reproduction would have required the cooperation of Noah’s wife to fulfill. Christians would do well to recall the essential and non-replaceable role that women played in bringing the human side of covenants to fruition.

The Abrahamic covenant assured Abraham that he would procure land, spawn many descendants, and bless all nations through his biological lineage (Gen 17:2–9). The sign of this covenant was circumcision (Gen 17:10–14), still practiced today by numerous Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Sarah’s role in the covenant was integral and cannot be overlooked (Gen 17:15–21).

The Mosaic covenant is characterized by the Decalogue, which provided ritual law and enacted a sacrificial system of atonement (Deut 5). Finally, the Davidic covenant provides a root from the line of Jesse (Isa 11). Christians maintain that the Davidic covenant was fulfilled in Jesus (Matt 1:17, Rev. 5:5), which leads to the New Covenant. Under the New Covenant (or New Testament) God adopts Gentiles as spiritual children through the grace of the Holy Spirit, and the atonement of Jesus Christ on the cross. The sign of the New Covenant is the Lord’s Supper (Luke 22:20). A biblical theology of marriage parallels the ancient Near Eastern concept of covenant on several accounts.

A covenantal marriage is a graced covenant of love and fidelity between two baptized believers which, when sealed in the flesh through sexual intercourse, has God as author, witness, and

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guarantor of the indissoluble bond.35 Malachi 2:11–16 provides linguistic and social imagery for biblical, covenant marriage.

Verse 12 affirms that the man who marries a pagan should be “cut off from the tents of Jacob.” The Hebrew carat (“cut off ”) is a polysemy and may indicate circumcision as well as “cutting” a covenant. This visceral word choice calls a Jewish man back to the covenant of his forebears which required him to have descendants with Jewish women; the person that covenant is with, with whom that covenant is enacted by copulation, is his wife.

In Mal 2:14, the NASB translates beriteka as “covenant”: “the Lord is the witness between you and the wife of your youth. You have been unfaithful to her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant.” The Hebrew beriteka is recorded in four places in the OT: 1 Kgs 15:19 and 2 Chron 16:3, “go, break your treaty with Baasha king”; Jer 14:21, “do not annul your covenant with us”; and Mal 2:14, “and your wife by covenant.”

Marriage is—at its core—a union between two people joined under the protective covenant of God. Christian covenantal marriage is analogically like a divinely arranged marriage where God orchestrates the means by which two people come together and provides a spiritual and social hedge of protection around them. God sees the relationship through until the end.36 The purpose of the covenant marriage is the same as the purpose of the Christian life—to become more sanctified in relationship with God. The opening question of the Westminster Catechism proposes that the purpose of humankind is to “glorify God and enjoy God forever.”37 Thus, Christians glorify and enjoy God through sanctification, and in this, become nearer to God. A covenant marriage is, moreover, a formative union that has the telos of sanctifying spouses. Happiness, children, sex, wealth, and companionship are secondary to the pursuit of God manifested through loving devotion to a spouse as Jesus loves the church. Theologian Marva Dawn perceptively notes, “the Scriptures challenge us to direct our marriage outside of itself . . . its major purpose is to be an agent of the Kingdom of God.”38 This theocentric articulation of marriage is consistent with the biblical witness that Christian life is primarily realized through spiritual formation. Of course, a marriage covenant is not merely a life-long witness to the world about God’s fidelity, or an exercise in sanctification. It actually involves another person. Thus, I will conclude this article with the implications of a covenantal marriage for those in the earthly relationship.

Conclusion After God, the next most significant relationship in a married life is the spouse. Duties and obligations toward the spouse primarily are expressed by love and support, as portrayed in Eph 5:22–32. Spouses are to enjoy each other physically, as Song of Songs poetically demonstrates. In marriage, spouses should prioritize each other, attend to physical, emotional, and sexual requirements, and always seek the best for each other.

Scripture praises the reciprocal relationship of the spouses and their responsibilities to each other. Thus, in many ways, modern legal structures of marriage are necessary—but not sufficient— for encompassing the entirety of married, Christian life. The

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recent movement to legally institute covenant marriage has been underwhelming in part because covenants occur in the heart and soul, not on paper.

Christians must aspire to love God first, and then love their spouse through the love of God, as a co-heir of the kingdom of heaven, a sibling in Christ. Patriarchal forms of marriage—inclusive of courtship, engagement procedures, wedding ceremonies, wedding vows, and post-marriage norms—are not reflective of the gravity and glory of a covenant marriage.

Notes 1. Pius XI, On Christian Marriage: Casti Connubii (Washington, DC: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1930).

2. Gary Thomas, Sacred Marriage: What if God Designed Marriage to Make us Holy More Than to Make us Happy (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000).

3. Arkansas’s Covenant Marriage Law, “Covenant Marriage Act of 2001.”

4. Paul F. Palmer, “Christian Marriage: Contract or Covenant,” TS 33, no. 4 (1972): 639–65.

5. Jack O. Balswick and Judith K. Balswick, A Model for Marriage: Covenant, Grace, Empowerment and Intimacy (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2006); Gary D. Chapman, Covenant Marriage: Building Communication and Intimacy (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2003).

6. Lauren Sandler, “The Only Child: Debunking the Myths,” Time Magazine, July 8, 2010, at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ article/0,9171,2002530–4,00.html.

7. Isa 54 and 56 and the stories of Abraham and Sarah (Gen 16, 18, 21); Rachel and Jacob (Gen 29–30, 35); and Hannah and Elkanah (1 Sam 1). Marva Dawn, Sexual Character: Beyond Technique to Intimacy (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 42; H. A. Ayrinhac, Marriage Legislation in the New Code of Canon Law (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1919), canon 1068, 137, section 3; Pius XII, Allocution to Midwives on the Nature of their Profession (Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, 1951); United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan. A Pastoral Letter of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (Washington, DC: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2009), 15.

8. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction on Respect for Human Life in Its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation: Replies to Certain Questions of the Day: Donum Vitae (Washington, DC: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1987), II. A. 1.

9. Center for Disease Control/ National Center for Health Statistics, “Unmarried Childbearing,” Sept. 30, 2015, at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/ fastats/unmarried-childbearing.htm.

10. This paper does not defend or reject same-sex marriage and does not discuss such debates. My focus is patriarchy in opposite-sex secular marriage and Christ-centered Christian marriages.

11. Scott Drewianka, “How Will Reforms of Marital Institutions Influence Marital Commitment? A Theoretical Analysis,” Review of Economics of the Household 2, no. 3 (2004): 303–23, n3.

12. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, But She Said: Feminist Practices of Biblical Interpretation (Boston: Beacon, 1992), 8.

13. Elizabeth Johnson, Quest for the Living God: Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God (New York: Continuum, 2007), 108.

14. Thanks to Ronald W. Pierce for pointing this out to me at the Gender and Evangelical session at the ETS National Meeting, 2015, where I presented a version of this article.

15. For a description of many of these conventions, see Thomas Nelson, Nelson’s Minister’s Manual, NKJV Edition (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2003).

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16. The reference is to the Christian movement. See “True Love Waits 2016,” at http://www.lifeway.com/n/Product-Family/True-Love-Waits.

17. Diana E. H. Russell, Rape in Marriage (New York: Macmillan, 1982).

18. Jill Elaine Hasday, “Contest and Consent: A Legal History of Marital Rape,” California Law Review 88, no. 5 (2000): 1373–1505.

19. Mary E. Knatterud, “Call Me Ms: A Word Doctor’s Titular Musings,” Science 27, no. 6 (2004): 203–7, 207n3.

20. “Also, of the descendants of the priests: the descendants of Habaiah, Hakkoz, and Barzillai (who had married one of the daughters of Barzillai the Gileadite, and was called by their name)” (NRSV).

21. 107th Congress (2001–2002), “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT ACT) Act of 2001,” Public Law 107–56, Oct 26, 2001.

22. Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (New York: Norton, 1963); Simon DeBeauvior, The Second Sex (New York: Vintage, 1989); Bonnie Miller-Mclemore, Also A Mother: Work and Family as Theological Dilemma (Nashville: Abingdon, 1994); Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution (New York: WW Norton, 1995); Ann Crittenden, The Price of Motherhood: Why the Most Important Job in the World is Still the Least Valued (New York: Macmillan, 2002); Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead (New York: Random House, 2013).

23. See David G. Hunter, ed., Marriage and Virginity (Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century) (Hyde Park: New City, 1997); Augustine, Against Julian, trans. Mathew A. Schumacher (Washington DC: Catholic University Press, 1957).

24. Sidney Callahan, Beyond Birth Control: The Christian Experience of Sex (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1968); Dawn, Sexual Character; Lisa Sowle Cahill, Sex, Gender, and Christian Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Dennis Hollinger, The Meaning of Sex: Christian Ethics and the Moral Life (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2009).

25. Elizabeth Clark, ed., Saint Augustine on Marriage and Sexuality (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1996), 6.

26. Pius XI, On Christian Marriage, 24.

27. See, for example, David Instone-Brewer, “What God Has Joined: What Does the Bible Really Teach About Divorce?,” Christianity Today 51, no. 10 (Oct 5, 2007): 26.

28. There is paltry little written from a Christian perspective on the pastoral, ethical, and theological challenges of discovering that a spouse is transgender (here I use the term to include cross-dressing, gender dysphoric, and pre- and post-transitioning people). I refer the reader to Sheila Jeffrey, Gender Hurts: A Feminist Analysis of the Politics of Transgenderism (London: Routledge, 2014), ch. 4, for groundbreaking ethnographic and philosophical work on the effects of (male) transgender husbands “coming out” to their wives.

29. Cristina Richie, “Can Sex Be Egalitarian?,” Mutuality 18, no. 4 (2011): 10–11.

30. Matt. 19:9; James F. Keenan, “Proposing Cardinal Virtues,” TS 56, no. 4 (1995): 709–29; Margaret Farley, Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics (London: Bloomsbury, 2008), 227.

31. Code of Canon Law (1918), preliminary notions, article II section 1.

32. John Haas, “The Inseparability of the Two Meanings of the Marriage Act,” in Reproductive Technologies, Marriage and the Church, ed. D. G. McCarthy (Braintree: The Pope John XXIII Center, 1988), 89– 106, at 98. See also The Code of Canon Law (Washington, DC: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1983), title VII can. 1057 section 2.

33. Pius XI, On Christian Marriage, 113.

34. Wayne A. Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994).

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35. See also Dennis Hollinger, The Meaning of Sex: Christian Ethics and the Moral Life (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2009), 97 et al.

36. The reality of divorce presents a troubling affront to the credibility of a God-sustained covenant marriage. I am unable to engage this apologetic issue here, but refer the reader to the short section in this article on Matt 19:10 as well as the theological concept of “already-not yet” inaugurated eschatology.

37. The Westminster Divine Assembly, The Westminster Larger Catechism: With Full Scripture Proof Texts (Lindenhurst: Great Christian Books, 2013).

38. Dawn, Sexual Character, 48.

CRISTINA RICHIE is on the faculty of the Bioethics and Interdisciplinary Studies Department at the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. She has also taught at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, Tufts University, and GordonConwell Theological Seminary. She has published extensively on ethical and theological topics such as in-vitro fertilization, war and combat, environmental stewardship, marriage, and global health care justice. Cristina holds a PhD in theological ethics from Boston College.

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The Significance of Worldview in Thwarting Spiritual Formation, with Special Reference to Gender-based Violence in South Africa and Beyond Rosemary J. Hack Evangelical Christians often fail to live up to the biblical standards to which they ascribe. Unconscious and inconsistent behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs (recognized and unrecognized) are ever-present. Though striving to follow Christ and be filled with the Holy Spirit, our behavior and attitudes fail to adequately represent Christ. This article addresses habitual abusive behavior perpetrated by professing Christian men (and sometimes women1) against women. Many of the men mentioned herein do not seem to think such abuse is inconsistent with their lives as Christians, and often as Christian leaders.2 Rachel is a petite yet stately woman. She is married with three pre-teenage children. However, despite her outer and inner beauty, she is broken. She rarely speaks, and when she does, one has to strain to hear. As a result of our relationship, she revealed to me that certain pastors of the church she worked at were raping her. She felt she had no right to refuse these “men of God.” This seemed like normal church life for her, in part because Rachel had been sexually abused since she was a young child. I have also observed that a man from the same church’s leadership team holds deeply prejudicial attitudes toward women, attitudes that were probably prevalent in the conservative culture in which he was raised.

Though I live in South Africa, this is not a purely African issue. Similar incidents around the world show that such abuse and prejudice cannot be written off as local culture or an anomaly. Indeed, speaking with women around the world I learn of many who have been sexually abused by Christian leaders. Further, there are many families in the church in which husbands, who frequently use the Bible to justify their actions, abuse their wives. The women in these varied scenarios often believe that they deserve such treatment and that the Bible supports it.

Many of these men are respected leaders of evangelical churches; they are people with whom we would fellowship, break bread, and from whom we would learn. They are men who would teach from 1 Cor 6:19–20, “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit . . . ? You are not your own; you were brought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies” (TNIV).

A study conducted by the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) in North America has shown that twenty-eight percent of church-attending adults had been emotionally, physically, or sexually abused in their congregations and notes that, “Women, more than men, report having experienced abuse of all types.”3 This can be compared with a thirty-five percent rate of intimate partner violence in the general population of the United States in 2010.4 This United Nations data comes eighteen years after the CRC study, and in the ensuing years, according to the organization Human Rights Watch, rates of gender-based

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violence have soared in the United States.5 Thus it is reasonable to conclude that the rates in the CRC and in the general population are probably not substantially different.

What is wrong with our spiritual formation that this can be so common, and that the levels of abuse in the church, which is meant to be a place of safety, are not substantially different from those outside it? Could it be that Christians have embraced a faulty theology of gender and, in so doing, have not only justified, but have also failed to confront gender-based violence and discrimination? This is my hypothesis.

Contributors to Worldview Patriarchy, Male Privilege, and the Old Normal The Bible is set in patriarchal contexts, and patriarchy is often viewed as a biblical model for family life. The Bible, however, never teaches such a view.

Men who are raised in a patriarchal society assume male privilege and power and are often unaware of it. This has been subtly and not so subtly underscored in many ways in the church: male dominated leadership, restrictions on the ordination of women, endless debates on the place of a woman, women as the passive recipients of church teaching, the use of masculine language in the Bible and the pulpit. The Bible has been translated into English almost exclusively by men, and absence of gender accuracy in biblical translation with its use of masculine language tends to portray male as the norm and female as the exception or the “other,” and reinforces common biblical misinterpretations regarding gender relations and gender value (for example, the Hebrew and Greek words for “human” are frequently translated “man”). Fortunately, this “old normal” is being challenged by recent translations such as the NRSV, NLT, TNIV, NIV 2011, and the CEB. The Fall Another central contributor to many Christians’ worldview is human depravity, a consequence of sin (Gen 3). The influence of the fall on the church’s views of women cannot be underestimated.

Tertullian (c. AD 155–c. 240) said of women, “You are the Devil’s gateway. You are the unsealer of that forbidden tree. You are the first deserter of the divine law. You are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God’s image, man. On account of your desert—that is death—even the son of God had to die.”6 Tertullian’s statement, together with numerous others like it,7 raises a number of questions and problematic consequences.

Not least is the belief that a mere woman, so to speak, was more persuasive than the devil in leading humankind to disobey God. Furthermore, according to Tertullian, Eve destroyed God’s image and was personally responsible for the death of God’s son! Tertullian also implies Eve was not created in God’s image,

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in part, because the Hebrew word ’adam was translated “man” rather than “humankind” in key texts such as Gen 1:26–27.8 In Gen 3:14–19, God curses the snake and the ground. He does not specifically curse the woman or the man, but the change in relationships, with God and with each other, is a direct result of the fall. There is no record of man ruling over woman before the fall, in the original perfect creation. Life, as it is after the fall, is not life as God intended it to be. The curse has now been lifted in Christ—the seed of the woman (e.g., 1 Cor 15:45).

However, we still live with various effects of the sin of Gen 3. It seems there are certain ramifications that the church does not have any hesitation mitigating—such as drugs to reduce pain in childbirth and the destruction of thorns and thistles in order to grow crops. But the last line of Gen 3:16, “and he will rule over you,” has been exempted from redemption. Indeed, some would portray male domination as a blessing and biblical mandate; however, it is clear that, according to this passage, it is a result of sin. These consequences of the fall reflect a life filled with pain, toil in work and male headship, though none are God-endorsed but a result of human disobedience.

The Patriarchs The OT patriarchs9 do not have a stellar record when it comes to their treatment of women. Many were polygamous, which led to much pain. It is worth noting that, though God gave guidance to some of the patriarchs regarding whom they should marry, he never instructed them to take a second wife or a concubine.

King David’s seduction of Bathsheba could more accurately be described as rape, yet through Christian teachers and media, she is depicted as a seductress rather than a woman who is dominated by immense power in the king who “‘saw,’ ‘sent,’ ‘took,’ ‘lay,’ all verbs signifying control and acquisition.”10 King David’s record with his sons’ behavior toward women is no better. When Amnon raped Tamar, for example, though David was furious, there is no record that he intervened on her behalf (2 Sam 13:21).

Worldviews on Gender Which Have Religious Endorsement An Ethiopian proverb says that, if you really love your wife, you have to beat her.11 In Swazi and many other southern African languages, the word for wife is Umfazi, which means, “She takes her secrets to her grave.” Violence against women is an accepted part of many cultures. Indeed, the idea that a wife should submit to her husband even if he is an abuser is alive and well in mainstream evangelical Christian teaching. John Piper is a respected and influential US pastor and author. When asked in 2009, “What should a wife’s submission to her husband look like if he’s an abuser?” he replied: If this man . . . is calling her to engage in abusive acts willingly—group sex, or something really weird . . . that clearly would be sin. . . . [S]he’s not going to do what Jesus would disapprove, even though the husband is asking her to do it.

She’s going to say, however, something like, “Honey, I want so much to follow you as my leader.

I think God calls me to do that, and I would love to

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do that. It would be sweet to me if I could enjoy your leadership. . . . But if you would ask me to do this, require this of me, then I can’t—I can’t go there.”

Now that’s one kind of situation. . . . If it’s not requiring her to sin, but simply hurting her, then I think she endures verbal abuse for a season, she endures perhaps being smacked one night, and then she seeks help from the church.12 Piper’s simplistic response, if it were not so dangerous, would be laughable. The church is tacitly approving violence against women by minimizing its seriousness, by often remaining silent, and by frequently blaming the victim.

An American friend recently told me that her stepfather was abusive toward her mother. When her mother went to the church for help, the church leadership turned the problem back on her, telling her she was not being submissive. They then told her husband that she had come to them. She was “forced” to attend church, but when she had the chance she stopped. This situation had an incredibly negative effect on her spirituality. According to Chitando and Chirongoma, “Instead of being prophetic and insisting on justice, churches appear to be signatories to the ‘covenant of violence’ against women.”13 In the case of Rachel, mentioned in the introduction, if her abuse were made public she risks her husband leaving her and taking the children, plus having to bear the shame and blame for her abuse. The perpetrators, as religious leaders, hold all the power of deniability.

Women in Zimbabwe report that the (male) elders within the church council who deal with abuse cases frequently side with the husband.14 A study of women lecturers in seminaries in Africa has shown that seven out of ten women do not believe that the church is a safe place to get help if they are being abused. A further seventeen out of thirty indicate that they think popular opinion agrees that the Bible supports violence against women.15 Such stories and studies reveal some of the reasons for the underreporting of acts of gender-based violence in the church.

The church, which should be a safe place, is often not a place of compassion and justice. Sometimes the fact that the church, which should bring justice to women who have been violated, will break their trust is more painful than the abuse itself. “My deepest trust was betrayed, my self-esteem stolen from me—by that man and by the church that let him get away with it. The shame has been almost impossible to bear. I felt that my soul had been burnt out, leaving an empty shell.”16 False Masculinity Formed through Socialization Christianity and culture cannot exist independently of one another; this is not a bad thing, for the church needs to fit into a cultural context to be understood. At the same time, however, true Christianity is radically counter cultural. Although we are in the world, we are not subjects of this world: “the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world” (1 John 4:4 TNIV). We are subjects of another kingdom. It would seem, however, that in terms of masculinity, sexual violence, and gender relations, the gospel has become culture’s prisoner and the other kingdom conveniently forgotten.17

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Prominent psychologist and egalitarian author Mary Stewart van Leeuwen talks about her early days studying psychology.

She noticed that there were entries in the textbook indexes for “women” but none for “men.” She says, “one thing now seems obvious about those textbooks: the standard for optimal human behavior was simply assumed to be male. Women were different or ‘other’ and so needed special mention because they fell short of that standard in ways that were presumed to cause problems.

They were, as the title of a 1947 essay by Dorothy Sayers put it, ‘The Human-Not-Quite-Human.’” It is hard for a dominant group to critique themselves or their position. “As the old proverb puts it, a fish in water does not usually know that it is wet.”18 Van Leeuwen also speaks of what psychologist William Pollock calls the “Boy Code.” Although the context for this language is North America, many aspects of the Boy Code are relevant to boys raised all across the world, although there may be cultural variations. The Boy Code speaks to male honor, and it shapes a boy’s worldview of what it means to be a man. It subjects boys to a code of behavior which, if they break, they are seen as being less than male—in other words, female.

The Boy Code first insists, “no sissy stuff,” hide your emotions, “big boys don’t cry.” If a boy acts in such ways, he will be ostracized and mocked. Next, a boy must be “a sturdy oak”; he must be self-reliant and “act like a man.” This is in contrast to a Christian lifestyle, which calls us to be part of an interdependent body and to be vulnerable to one another. Even in cultures where interdependence is a positive value, the male destiny is often to be the person on whom others ultimately depend. Closely related is the need to be successful, to be “a big wheel,” to have others envy you. This may be expressed, for example, on the sports field or in the world of academia. The key is to be at the top of whatever is the measure of success in the specific cultural setting. Finally, the Boy Code calls boys to “give ’em hell,” to defend themselves when under attack, to take risks, to live dangerously.19 A British equivalent of the Boy Code is the “lad culture” seen on university campuses, where sixty-eight percent of female university students in the UK report being sexually harassed.20 Although this refers to university campuses, not churches, the sexist mentality behind it is pervasive, and these young men are leaders—including church leaders—of tomorrow.21 It is not hard to see that these constructs of masculinity have been imported, typically without question, into our churches.

Neither is it hard to see why men often regard themselves as without emotion, tough and needing to have status and power, with sexual conquest and domination forming part of that power.

Consequently, women, who are “other,” are easy targets of male status and aggression. They are sometimes easy to wield power over; it is widely recognized that sexual violence is about power, not lust. Maybe this is why Jesus’s instructions on adultery and lust are so easily ignored.

Religion has much to answer for. Many religions, not least Christianity, uphold male dominance as the status quo, including power-based masculinity and a man’s absolute right to rule.22 Given the toxic mix of unbiblical teachings and biased Bible translations, coupled with the male honor-code, it is not unsurprising that the contemporary quest for spiritual transformation has not had the

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radicalizing impact that it had in previous generations, including the early evangelical movement. It is indeed difficult to replace a self-beneficial belief in God-given male superiority with the message of equality.

Dualistic Thinking During the NT era, a Greek dualistic worldview was part of cultural patriarchy. A twenty-first century worldview generally communicates that we are primarily physical beings for whom it is legitimate to seek pleasure. However, there is a popular move today to also see ourselves as spiritual beings, whatever one’s concept of “spiritual” might be. These two ways of looking at life reflect the context in which the early church found itself.

Our Christian worldview has been indelibly influenced by Greek thinking, both gnostic and hedonistic. Gnosticism views the created order as evil or inconsequential—what we do in the body does not have consequences in our spirit or in our relationship with God. The goal is to escape from the physical and be restored as pure spirit. Hedonism sees the world as intended for our pleasure.23 If we are unable to see ourselves as whole people, integrating the spiritual and the physical, then the temptation to divorce what we do in our body from what we are in our spirit is both powerful and deceptive. We may so divorce the effects of our actions from our spirit that we believe that we can willfully sin with our body and then repent in our spirit.

Glen Stassen and David Gushee, in Kingdom Ethics, elaborate further on this dualism. Cracks appeared in the church’s theology when the second-century apologist Justin Martyr, in his efforts to curry favor with Emperor Antoninus Pius, applied a dualistic interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount and Jesus’s teaching to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s (Matt 22:21). Justin tells the emperor, “To God alone we render worship, but in other things we gladly serve you.” Jesus, however, had a different worldview, giving to God what belonged to God meant giving everything to God. Justin, having been influenced by Socrates and Plato, already had an ingrained dualistic worldview.

It was normal for him to divide between what is spiritual and what is worldly.24 The implications of this dualism on our worldview today are enormous. We have exchanged a truly biblical worldview for a Greek one. Political and economic structures, empire, colonialism, media, businesses, etc., have exported this dualism and its ramifications all over the world (often with the complicity of the church). Such dualism leaves the door ajar for selfish abuses, leading in some cases to the belief that wielding potentially abusive power over others is, if not fully legitimate, fairly inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.

A truly Christian worldview requires that we are whole persons—body, soul, and spirit fully integrated. To be holy in one area of life requires that we be holy in all aspects. In the OT, integrity of character begins with God. John Goldingay points out that the Hebrew word tamim, often translated as “blameless,” is more accurately rendered “uprightness, completeness, wholeness.”

According to Goldingay, integrity or wholeness is the first quality of someone who wants to spend time with God:

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It is thus an aspect of the commitment God expects of us and assumes it is possible for us to offer. . . . Yhwh expects our lives to be fundamentally oriented to what is right, though without setting up unrealistic expectations about their being sinless and therefore blameless.25 From this we can ask ourselves, does God expect us to have integrity (wholeness) of character? Yes, he does. Does he expect us to be perfect? No, he knows us better than that. Does this then give us a license to abuse, rape, and oppress others? A resounding “no”—to behave in such a way is not tamim.

Following Jesus and being transformed into his likeness means not following our sinful desires and instincts. We need to be retrained in holiness and righteousness. “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Rom 12:2 TNIV). This transformation does not happen without effort on our part. We are all so “squeezed into the shape dictated by the present age” that this takes effort and discipline as we learn first to think and consequently to act in a different way.26 Being holy concerns more than morality (our actions), it concerns our heart, our thoughts, and our motivations—ultimately our character.

Correcting our Course I cannot overemphasize the need to change our thinking. Unless we recognize that there is a problem with our worldview in how we think of men and women, our spiritual transformation will be stunted. As N. T. Wright says, “It is one thing to insist on walking south when the compass is pointing north. But to ‘fix’ the compass so that it tells you that the wrong way is the right way is far worse. You can correct a mistake. But once you tell yourself it wasn’t a mistake there’s no way back.”27 Men and women, even those who are not abusers, need to make transformed thinking a priority. I was once on a small church planting team and the question of women serving communion came up. My (male) team leader’s response was that he would rather “play it safe” and not have women serve communion, for he was not sure about it and was busy with other matters. I consider this unacceptable. At the time, I did not think much about it. At that time, I saw gender based violence and discrimination as a problem of other religions, not my own.

Until we realize we have been trying to “fix the compass,” and it is important rather to fix ourselves, we cannot change. As we learn to think differently and to bring our compass into alignment with God’s, our attitudes and actions will change. It is possible for our worldview to be subject to our spiritual transformation rather than the other way around. This will not happen without effort on our part, but God has equipped us for holiness.

Eugene Peterson says following Jesus and being transformed into his image means, “not following your impulses and appetites and whims and dreams. . . .” Peterson goes on to say that we do not have to do what our bodies or our culture tell us; we have the incredibly liberating freedom to say “no.” “The judicious, wellplaced No frees us from . . . debilitating distractions and seductive sacrilege. The art of saying No sets us free to follow Jesus.”28

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Jesus as Our Model Jesus’s Radical View of Women With Jesus as our model, we must radically change the way we view women and men. When Jesus is told his mother and brothers are there looking for him (Mark 3:32), he tells those seated around him that they themselves are his mother and brothers, and his sisters as well (3:35). This expanded response is representative of the way Jesus saw and spoke of people—he was gender inclusive!

Athol Gill describes Jesus’s attitude toward women and the difficulty the early church had emulating it.

Jesus displayed an outrageously open attitude to women, but the early church struggled to follow his example. They remember the names of the brothers of Jesus, but not his sisters (6:3), they recalled the name of the person in whose house Jesus was anointed, but forgot the name of the woman who did it. . . .

Mark seeks to redress the balance of contemporary Christian chauvinism and stresses the faithfulness of the women disciples in the ministry of Jesus. It would be impossible for him to speak about people doing the will of God without making sure that it is understood that women were included.29 How Jesus Handled the Temptation to Power Power and vulnerability are a dangerous combination. When they intersect, it takes a person whose worldview has been formed by and subjected to God to operate in true humility and resist the temptation to wield that power for their own advantage. Church leaders throughout history have struggled with living a biblical social ethic, while also failing under the influence of their own culture and worldview. This struggle continues today, and the church cannot continue to allow its leaders and congregants to operate out of a worldview that ascribes them power, invincibility, and privilege. “Christian spiritual formation must yield Christian disciples who are absolutely and stubbornly impervious to any temptation or enticement to sacrifice the sacredness of any group of neighbors for any private or public purpose, however compelling it may seem at the time.”30 Women have the right, in Christ, to be seen as human beings, worthy of equality and dignity. Their lives are sacred because they are created in the image of God. Gushee quotes Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, “To love another person is to see the face of God.” He goes on to insist that, “to hate, or degrade, or demean, or torture, or murder or ignore the suffering of another person is to spit in the face of God.”31 According to David Augsburger, radical attachment to Jesus goes beyond knowing about Jesus or even believing in him. The secret is believing Jesus, believing what he believed, “taking him as a radical example of rejecting dominance, violence or coercion . . . investing your life in him by living out the reign of God on earth.”32 If we are to follow this model, our worldview will become subject to the Holy Spirit, not to worldly or inaccurate concepts of masculinity or femininity.

I come to know myself truly as a spiritual being by knowing God. I come to know who I truly am by being known by God.

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I come to know others by seeing in them the reflected image of God, the Other. I come to know this Other when meeting God in others, sister, brother, neighbour, stranger, friend, or enemy.33 Henri Nouwen, in his reflections on the temptations of Christ, takes a radical approach. His deep and rich book challenges our corrupted worldview and leaves the impression that true spiritual power is willingness to put oneself “under,” not to wield “power over.” Concerning the first temptation (Luke 4:4), he talks about moving from relevance to prayer. He posits that leaders need to “dare to claim their irrelevance in the contemporary world” so they can enter into solidarity with a suffering world.34 Looking at the second temptation, he reflects on the “temptation to be spectacular,” to be the person who has all the answers, to play the hero or heroine (Luke 4:8). In addressing the third temptation, in Luke 4:12, he talks about the temptation of power and the need to move from “leading to being led,” the willingness to be taken into painful places.35 If our view of power were to be so radically altered, then abuse perpetrated by followers of Christ would be unthinkable.

Conclusion A change in behavior and deeply held cultural beliefs will not come overnight. Clearly the church has struggled to live a truly biblical worldview for centuries. We are all recovering sexists, racists, and worse. Nonetheless, we are called to be holy.

Although I have largely addressed the attitudes of men here, the change also needs to take place in women, for they are subject to the same influences, especially the teachings of the church—just because they are female does not mean that they have appropriate attitudes towards gender.

Transformation takes time. It took time for the disciples even though they were with Jesus every day. There were indeed moments of enlightenment and transfiguration, and we need such moments as well. The transfiguration itself was a part of the disciples being healed of spiritual blindness, and undergoing a “radical transformation of vision and learning to see the world as God sees it.”36 The spiritual formation of our worldview must redefine the way we do church; a survivor of gender-based violence expresses it this way: I long for the church to be a supportive community, celebrating life and God. Not a place to hide from, or conceal real suffering, but a community that nurtures the courage to speak out against wrongs.

If only the church could see human potential and life as something to grapple with and enjoy. And if only it could be a place where it’s safe to be just who we are—real, flesh and blood and heart human beings, made by God, loved by God and redeemed in Christ.37 An important part of the journey will be having leaders who are willing to openly address this issue from the pulpit, for the voices of those who have been abused to be heard—and taken seriously—and for a robust system of accountability for church leadership to be in place.38 However, a cultural change has to start before that. It has to start with the way parents socialize

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their children, the way Sunday school teachers treat girls and boys. It is also vitally important that a theology and culture of gender equality permeate the teaching and practice of theological institutions.

The way things stand today, retrospective reeducation also needs to take place, including the use of proven programs such as One Man Can, implemented in South Africa by Sonke Gender Justice.39 It will take men and women, but especially men, who are willing to be unpopular with their peers, who are willing to be counter cultural and choose a path of downward mobility.

“Downward mobility puts its emphasis on people rather than possessions, on action on behalf of justice rather than accomplishments on behalf of the ego, and on the God of hope rather than the god of greed.”40 Notes 1. Prominent examples of violence by women against women include genital mutilation, human trafficking, and honor killings. See Elaine Storkey, Scars Across Humanity: Understanding and Overcoming Violence Against Women (London: SPCK, 2015), chs. 3, 5, 7 (reviewed by Kevin Giles in Priscilla Papers 30, no. 4 [Autumn 2016]: 29).

2. The men and women used as examples in this article are chosen from a vast number of encounters I have had as director of AIDSLink International. Inconsequential details in the case studies have been changed to ensure anonymity.

3. Committee to Study Physical Emotional and Sexual Abuse, “The Agenda for Synod of the Christian Reformed Church in North America” (Grand Rapids: CRC Publications, 1992), 320–21. The fact that there are so few denominational studies which survey congregants’ experience with abuse, and that this one was done more than twentyfive years ago, speaks volumes concerning how low a priority this is in the church. However, The Methodist Church in Britain is to be applauded for its recent release of a far-reaching report which surveys past cases of clergy and church leadership as perpetrators of abuse.

The report cites that 1,885 individuals in leadership perpetrated abuse between 1950 and 2012. Jane Stacey, “Courage, Cost and Hope: The Report on the Past Cases Review, 2013–2015” (The Methodist Church of Britain, 2015). http://www.methodist.org.uk/media/1683823/pastcases-review-2013-2015-final.pdf.

4. UN Women, “Violence against Women Prevalence Data: Surveys

by Country” (December 2011), 8. http://www.endvawnow.org/uploads/ browser/files/vaw_prevalence_matrix_15april_2011.pdf.

5. Human Rights Watch, “US: Soaring Rates of Rape and Violence Against Women” (2008). http://www.hrw.org/news/2008/12/18/ussoaring-rates-rape-and-violence-against-women.

6. Cited in Godfrey Museka, Morrin Phiri, and Manasa Madondo, “Patriarchy and Gender-based Violence, The Politics of Exclusion in Zimbabwe’s Roman Catholic Church,” in Ezra Chitando and Sophia Chirongoma, eds., Justice Not Silence: Churches Facing Sexual and Gender-based Violence (South Africa: EFSA Institute for Theological and Interdisciplinary Research, 2013), 115.

7. See also, for example, Augustine’s Questions on the Heptateuch, Book 1, §153, and Jerome’s Against Jovinianus, Book 1, §28.

8. Austin H. Stouffer, 95 More for the Door: A Layperson’s Biblical Guide to the Gender Reformation (Winnipeg: Word Alive, 2008), 1.

9. Using the term “patriarch” broadly; Acts 2:29, for example, uses the term for King David.

10. L. Juliana M. Claassens, “Teaching Gender at Stellenbosch University,” in H. J. Hendricks, E. Mouton, L. Hansen, and E. le Roux, eds.,

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Men in the Pulpit, Women in the Pew? Addressing Gender Inequality in Africa (South Africa: EFSA Institute for Theological and Interdisciplinary Research, 2012), 150.

11. Muchugu Kiiru, “You Cannot Catch Old Birds with Chaff: Woman’s Multiple Images in Proverbs,” Wajibu, A Journal of Social and Religious Concern 14, no. 1 (1999): 5.

12. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OkUPc2NLrM&featu re=youtu.be.

13. Maluleke and Nadar, cited in Chitando and Chirongoma, Justice Not Silence, 9.

14. Ingwani, “An Exploration of Gender-based Violence among the Shangaan People in Southern Zimbabwe, A Case Study of the Gazini Clan,” in Chitando and Chirongoma, Justice Not Silence, 84.

15. H. J. Hendricks, “HIV and AIDS, Curricula and Gender Realities,” in Men in the Pulpit, Women in the Pew?, 39.

16. Lesley Orr Macdonald, “A Spirituality for Justice: The Enemy of Apathy,” Feminist Theology: The Journal of the Britain and Ireland School of Feminist Theology 8, no. 23 (2000): 18.

17. Elisabet le Roux, “Why Sexual Violence, The Social Reality of an Absent Church,” in Men in the Pulpit, Women in the Pew?, 53.

18. Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen, My Brother’s Keeper, What the Social Sciences Do (and Don’t) Tell Us About Masculinity (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2002), 23.

19. Van Leeuwen, My Brother’s Keeper, 97.

20. A. Phipps, “Lad Culture Thrives in Our Neoliberal Universities” (Higher Education Network, 2014). http://www.theguardian.com/ higher-education-network/blog/2014/oct/15/lad-culture-thrives-inour-neoliberal-universities.

21. For more on Lad Culture see “That’s What She Said: Women Students’ Experiences of ‘Lad Culture’ in Higher Education” at http:// www.nus.org.uk.

22. Chitando, “Religion and Masculinities in Africa, Their Impact on HIV Infection and Gender-based Violence in Men,” in Men in the Pulpit, Women in the Pew?, 75.

23. M. Robert Mulholland, “Spiritual Formation in Christ and Mission with Christ,” Journal of Spiritual Formation and Soul Care 6, no. 1 (Spring 2013): 12.

24. Glen H. Stassen and David P. Gushee, Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2003), 128.

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25. John Goldingay, Old Testament Theology: Israel’s Life (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2009), 3:600. Italics added.

26. N. T. Wright, After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters (New York: HarperOne, 2012), 151.

27. Wright, After You Believe, 153.

28. Eugene Peterson, “Saint Mark: The Basic Text for Christian Spirituality,” in Kenneth J. Collins, ed., Exploring Christian Spirituality: An Ecumenical Reader (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000), 335.

29. Athol Gill, Life on the Road: The Gospel Basis for a Messianic Lifestyle (Scottdale: Herald, 1992), 129.

30. David P. Gushee, “Spiritual Formation and the Sanctity of Life,” in J. P. Greenman & G. Kalantzis, eds., Life in the Spirit (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2010), 215.

31. Gushee, “Spiritual Formation,” 226.

32. David Augsburger, Dissident Discipleship: A Spirituality of SelfSurrender, Love of God, and Love of Neighbor (Ada: Brazos, 2006), 40.

33. Augsburger, Dissident Discipleship, 22.

34. Henri J. M. Nouwen, In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership (Chestnut Ridge: Crossroads, 1989), 35.

35. Nouwen, In the Name of Jesus, 51, 69, 81.

36. Daniel G. Groody, Globalization, Spirituality, and Justice (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2007), 243.

37. Macdonald, “A Spirituality for Justice,” 19.

38. Stacey, “Courage, Cost and Hope,” 22, 29.

39. See S. L. Dworkin and A. M. Hatcher, “Impact of a GenderTransformative HIV and Antiviolence Program on Gender Ideologies and Masculinities in Two Rural, South African Communities,” Men and Masculinities 16, no. 2 (2013): 181–202. http://doi.org/http://dx.doi. org/10.1177/1097184X12469878.

40. Groody, Globalization, Spirituality, and Justice, 254..

ROSEMARY HACK serves in South Africa and around the world as founding director of AIDSLink International. This article won third place in the student paper competition at CBE’s 2016 conference in Johannesburg.

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Book Review: Christian Standard Bible

Thomas R. Schreiner, David Allen, et al., eds.

(Holman Bible Publishers, 2017) Reviewed by Jeff Miller The Christian Standard Bible (CSB) is a revision of the Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB). The CSB was published in March 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers, which is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.

This review does not pretend to be comprehensive. A full review would need to consider a broad variety of factors and features, from the translation’s manuscript base to the maps at the end of the finished product. Instead, this review is limited to three matters that may be of heightened interest to evangelical egalitarians. First, the gender makeup of the translation team.

Second, the translation philosophy regarding gender language.

Third, several test cases. More about these and other features of the CSB can be learned at www.CSBible.com.

The HCSB involved 102 translators, eleven of whom are women. The group is largely, but not entirely, complementarian.

The CSB revision is the work of the twenty-one members of the CSB Translation and Review Team. One member of this team

is a woman—Dorian G. Coover-Cox, associate professor of Old Testament Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary.

A statement about the CSB’s approach to gender language is available at CSBible.com. It states a tendency toward retaining “a traditional approach to translating gender language.” It also notes, however, avoidance of “being unnecessarily specific in passages where the original context did not exclude females.”

For example, “brother(s) and/or sister(s),” instead of simply “brother(s),” occurs approximately 175 times in the CSB, but never in the HCSB. There is also some progress in preferring “person/people” over “man/men.”

The following list of test-cases, though brief, gives a sense of the CSB’s treatment of passages which are often consulted when studying women in Christian leadership. The table gives the reading of the CSB and, for the sake of comparison, the 2011 New International Version. Many of these test-cases include footnotes, which would be too cumbersome to reproduce here.

CSB

NIV 2011

Gen 1:26–27

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, the whole earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.”

27So God created man in his own image; he created him in the image of God; he created them male and female.

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

Gen 2:18 (cf. v. 20)

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. alone. I will make a helper corresponding to him.”

I will make a helper suitable for him.”

Ps 68:11

The Lord gave the command; a great company of women brought the good news . . .

Rom 16:1

I commend to you our sister Phoebe, who is a servant of I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the the church in Cenchreae. church in Cenchreae.

Rom 16:7

Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Jews and fellow Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Jews who have prisoners. They are noteworthy in the eyes of the apostles, been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the and they were also in Christ before me. apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.

1 Cor 11:10

This is why a woman should have a symbol of authority on It is for this reason that a woman ought to have authority her head, because of the angels. over her own head, because of the angels.

1 Cor 14:33–36

. . . since God is not a God of disorder but of peace.

As in all the churches of the saints, 34 the women should be silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak, but are to submit themselves, as the law also says.

35 If they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home since it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church. 36 Or did the word of God originate from you, or did it come to you only?

1 Tim 2:11–12

A woman is to learn quietly with full submission. 12 I do A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. not allow a woman to teach or to have authority over a 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority man; instead, she is to remain quiet. over a man; she must be quiet.

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The Lord announces the word, and the women who proclaim it are a mighty throng . . .

For God is not a God of disorder but of peace—as in all the congregations of the Lord’s people.

34 Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. 35 If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.

36 Or did the word of God originate with you? Or are you the only people it has reached?

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1 Tim 3:1–2 1 Tim 3:11–12

This saying is trustworthy: “If anyone aspires to be an overseer, he desires a noble work.” 2 An overseer, therefore, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife . . .

11 Wives, too, must be worthy of respect, not slanderers, self–controlled, faithful in everything. 12 Deacons are to

Here is a trustworthy saying: Whoever aspires to be an overseer desires a noble task. 2 Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife . . .

In the same way, the women are to be worthy of respect, not malicious talkers but temperate and trustworthy in be husbands of one wife, managing their children and everything.

12 A deacon must be faithful to his wife and must their own households competently. manage his children and his household well.

Eph 2:15b . . . so that he might create in himself one new man from His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity the two, resulting in peace. out of the two, thus making peace . . .

Eph 5:21–24

. . . submitting to one another in the fear of Christ.

Instructions for Christian Households 21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Wives and Husbands 22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord, 22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as 23 because the husband is the head of the wife as Christ you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the is the head of the church. He is the Savior of the body. wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives are he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so to submit to their husbands in everything. also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

In conclusion, the CSB makes some improvements over its ancestor, the HCSB (and over the English Standard Version as well), in its translation of gender language. In contrast, the various texts which tend to form and bolster a person’s view of women in Christian leadership tend strongly toward complementarian views.

Evangelical egalitarians will thus continue to prefer translations such as the NRSV, NLT, TNIV, NIV 2011, and CEB.

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| Vol. 31, No. 3 | Summer 2017

JEFF MILLER is editor of Priscilla Papers and teaches biblical studies at Milligan College in eastern Tennessee. He holds a PhD and an MDiv. He has attended several CBE conferences, including the July 2017 conference in Orlando, Florida. He writes for Arise as a member of CBE’s blog team. Miller has published articles in Priscilla Papers, Mutuality, Bible Translator, Christian Standard, Leaven, Restoration Quarterly, and Stone–Campbell Journal. He has been a youth minister and, more recently, a worship minister.

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CBE International CBE International is a nonprofit organization of Christian men and women who believe that the Bible, properly interpreted, teaches the fundamental equality of men and women of all ethnic groups, all economic classes, and all age groups, based on the teachings of Scriptures such as Galatians :.

Mission Statement CBE exists to promote biblical justice and community by educating Christians that the Bible calls women and men to share authority equally in service and leadership in the home, church, and world.

Statement of Faith • We believe in one God, creator and sustainer of the universe, eternally existing as three persons equal in power and glory.

• We believe in the full deity and the full humanity of Jesus Christ.

• We believe that eternal salvation and restored relationships are only possible through faith in Jesus Christ who died for us, rose from the dead, and is coming again. This salvation is offered to all people.

• We believe the Holy Spirit equips us for service and sanctifies us from sin.

• We believe the Bible is the inspired word of God, is reliable, and is the final authority for faith and practice.

• We believe that women and men are equally created in God’s image and given equal authority and stewardship of God’s creation.

• We believe that men and women are equally responsible for and distorted by sin, resulting in shattered relationships with God, self, and others.

• God’s design for relationships includes faithful marriage between a man and a woman, celibate singleness and mutual submission in Christian community.

• The unrestricted use of women’s gifts is integral to the work of the Holy Spirit and essential for the advancement of the gospel in the world.

• Followers of Christ are to oppose injustice and patriarchal teachings and practices that marginalize and abuse females and males.

Envisioned Future CBE envisions a future where all believers are freed to exercise their gifts for God’s glory and purposes, with the full support of their Christian communities.

CBE Membership To celebrate 30 years of ministry, CBE is pleased to make available, for free, every Priscilla Papers article ever published. In addition, find the full archive of CBE’s magazine, Mutuality, and hundreds of book reviews and recordings of lectures given by worldrenowned scholars like N. T. Wright, Gordon Fee, and more!

Find it all at www.cbeinternational.org.

Core Values • Scripture is our authoritative guide for faith, life, and practice.

• Patriarchy (male dominance) is not a biblical ideal but a result of sin.

• Patriarchy is an abuse of power, taking from females what God has given them: their dignity, and freedom, their leadership, and often their very lives.

• While the Bible reflects patriarchal culture, the Bible does not teach patriarchy in human relationships.

• Christ’s redemptive work frees all people from patriarchy, calling women and men to share authority equally in service and leadership. cbeinternational.org

CBE Board of Reference Miriam Adeney, Myron S. Augsburger, Raymond J. Bakke, Michael Bird, Esme Bowers, Anthony Campolo, Paul Chilcote, Havilah Dharamraj, Gordon D. Fee, J. Lee Grady, David Joel Hamilton, Fatuma Hashi, Roberta Hestenes, Richard Howell, Craig S. Keener, Tara B. Leach, Gricel Medina, Joy Moore, LaDonna Osborn, Jane Overstreet, Philip B. Payne, John E. Phelan Jr., Ron Pierce, Kay F. Rader, Paul A. Rader, Ronald J. Sider, Aída Besançon Spencer, William David Spencer, John Stackhouse, Ruth A. Tucker, Cynthia Long Westfall, Cecilia Yau. Priscilla Papers | Vol. 31, No. 3 | Summer 2017 • 31

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| Vol. 31, No. 3 | Summer 2017

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