Back in March, I mentioned that I listen to Grace to You, the radio ministry of John MacArthur, and promised that I would take him to task someday on his extreme complementarian views. But then I put this post on the back burner. This is partly due to the fact that current events inspired other posts which I felt took priority, but if I am being honest, I also didn’t fully recognize and appreciate the overlap of Christian Nationalism with complementarianism. I am passionate about the mission I sense God has given me, to speak out against Christian Nationalism. I read every book and article, listen to every podcast or documentary I can get my hands on to make sure I fully understand this unbiblical philosophy in all of its nuance. Family and friends who know about this passion will sometimes even send me material, asking “did you see this?” But I must humbly confess that I am still learning. At the root of Christian Nationalism is fear of change, which has resulted in men, especially white men, fearing a loss of authority and status as women broke into careers that have long been pretty much the exclusive domain of men, and as black Americans fought for and won basic civil rights, to distort Scripture to justify racial subjugation and patriarchy. People are complex, and I still give John MacArthur credit for recognizing the foolishness of Christians lobbying in Washington. But lobbying in Washington is just the tip of the iceberg of the harmful repercussions of Christian Nationalism, and unfortunately, John Macarthur has serious blind spots in his interpretation of Scripture. I was horrified when I read recently that John Macarthur commented back in 2012 that he found it strange that we have such an aversion to the human institution of slavery because for some slaves working for a gentle, caring, loving master was the best of all possible worlds. But perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised. Of course, I am not implying that holding complementarian views also means you condone slavery. But given the insecurity at the root of Christian Nationalism, it makes perfect sense how for John MacArthur, as well as those who don’t want children to learn just how evil the institution of chattel slavery was, downplaying slavery and preaching complementarian theology would go hand-in-hand. Our God is a God of progressive revelation, and perhaps this applies not only to God’s gradual revelation of his redemptive plan for humanity over the course of about a thousand years, but also to a more enlightened understanding of Scripture, as new archeological evidence comes to light and scholars gain new insights. Christians still have a lot of work to do toward living as Christ calls us to live, evidenced by the fact that Sunday mornings are still the most segregated time of the week. I am also well aware that globally, there are more people working as slaves today than there were in the 18th and 19th centuries. But at least in principle, the vast majority of American Christians would agree that slavery, especially Chattel slavery, was an ungodly institution according to Scripture, read in its proper context. Our understanding of God’s view of women has not caught up to this level of enlightenment yet. But in The Making of Biblical Womanhood, Beth Allison Barr raises a compelling question: “When we rightly understand that biblical passages discussing slavery must be framed within their historical context and that, when framed through the lens of this historical context, we can better see slavery as an ungodly system that stands contrary to the gospel of Christ, how can we not then apply the same standards to biblical texts about women?” (Page 34) Given the rise of Kamala Harris to the top of the Democratic ticket, and the fact that many prominent figures, most notably J.D. Vance share John MacArthur’s view that a woman’s place is in the home, caring for (biological) children, it is time to give this issue priority.

In her book Nobody’s Mother: Artemis of the Ephesians in Antiquity and the New Testament, Sandra L. Glahn, before diving into the academic focus of the book, shares her personal story. She grew up in a large, traditional family. Her father had a good job with the federal government, and her mother loved being a homemaker and doted on Sandra and her four siblings. Sandra always dreamed of being a mother, and church teaching she was exposed to reenforced this, teaching that motherhood and homemaking was God’s ordained purpose for women. But after multiple miscarriages, an ectopic pregnancy and three failed attempts to adopt, Sandra struggled not only with the emotional and financial toll of infertility treatments and hopes dashed, but also with the question of what God’s purpose was for women like her? It is this question which inspired her to study more carefully the cultural context of ancient Ephesus, the backdrop of 1 Timothy 2:15 in which Paul writes, “But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.” Beth Allison Barr, a Southern Baptist who grew up immersed in complementarian theology, and a history professor who teaches about women in Medieval and early modern church history, was inspired to write her book after her husband, a youth pastor, was fired for challenging the church’s position on women in ministry. Both Sandra Glahn and Beth Allison Barr acknowledge that everyone reads Scripture through the grid of their personal experiences. As I have discussed frequently on this blog, Christian Nationalists also twist Scripture out of context, or cherry-pick passages that support their political agenda, while ignoring others that do not. But what if Beth Allison Barr and Sandra Glahn were doing the same thing? It is true that the extreme positions taken by some evangelicals, or at least the self-righteous, judgmental way biblical principles are applied, is contrary to the teachings of Jesus. But it is also true that God’s ways are higher than our ways, and as such, true Christians can expect that at some point in their study of Scripture, the Holy Spirit will reveal something we don’t want to hear, or that goes against the cultural trends of the day. Put another way, one of our pastors once said that if God always agrees with you in every matter, it could be that you are creating God in your own image. But Sandra Glahn and Beth Allison Barr make a commitment to set their personal experiences aside, and to evaluate, as impartially as is humanly possible, the emerging research of Bible scholars, and archeological discoveries related to the cultural contexts of ancient Ephesus and Corinth. In so doing, these women make a compelling argument that “biblical patriarchy” isn’t really biblical at all.

The concept of biblical patriarchy, as Beth Allison Barr pointed out, goes all the way back to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:16 when God told Eve, “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” This is after Adam and Eve had disobeyed God and eaten from the forbidden tree. This is Scripture’s first indication that biblical patriarchy was not ordained by God, and not part of God’s original creation but another consequence of the fall. The curse of sin will not be fully reversed until Christ returns, but if Christ called Christians to be salt and light, offering the world a foretaste of God’s kingdom, we should be taking our cues from other passages of Scripture, especially Galatians 3:28, not from the culture around us, or even from church history. Beth Allison Barr notes that “Christians in the past may have used Paul to exclude women from leadership, but this doesn’t mean the subjugation of women is biblical. It just means that Christians today are repeating the same mistake of Christians in the past—modeling our treatment of women after the world around us instead of the world Jesus shows us is possible” (Page 41).

According to Sandra Glahn, it is also worth noting that in Proverbs 31, the Old Testament passage proponents of complementarian theology turn to most, the virtuous woman described does fulfill domestic duties—providing food, sewing garments—and submits to her husband. But she also “sees that her trading is profitable” (31:18), makes and sells linen garments (31:24), and “speaks with wisdom” implying that a virtuous woman could teach (31:26). In other words, a virtuous woman could provide for her family while also earning money outside the home.

In the Gospel accounts, Jesus models a level of respect for women that was radical for his time. In Luke 10:42 for example, Jesus is invited for dinner at the home of Martha and her sister Mary, but Martha is upset that her sister is sitting at Jesus’s feet listening to him teach, rather than helping her with dinner preparation. In response, Jesus says, “Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her,” prompting Sandra Glahn to quip that “The first female seminarian was not feminist Betty Friedan’s idea, but Jesus Christ’s” (Page 10).

People hostile to Christianity love to hate Paul, but this hostility is due to an inadequate understanding of the context of Paul’s letters, perpetuated by prominent pastors like John MacArthur. When framed properly in their cultural contexts, Paul’s letters actually offer the most compelling repudiations of biblical patriarchy. While proponents of complementarian theology, and those hostile to Paul, for different reasons cannot get past Ephesians 5:22—wives, submit to your husbands—the women Paul was speaking to would have focused on Ephesians 5:27—husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them—and this would have been revolutionary in a historical context where Roman law viewed women as the property of men, and Pagan husbands frequently beat...