The contents of the Bible (when read in the Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek) are saturated with patriarchy (literally, the rule of fathers). God, the LORD, is pre-eminently “the Father” in the New Testament and the great heroes of faith and the covenant of grace of the first book of the Bible are patriarchs – e.g., Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Jesus chose only men to be his apostles; and the apostles ordained only men as presbyters (elders) and bishops (shepherds) in the churches they founded. In his Mere Christianity, Professor C.S. Lewis saw the “headship” of the father in the family as part of basic Christian doctrine and ethics.
If patriarchy is writ large in the Bible (not to mention being writ large in The Book of Common Prayer [1662] and Protestant Confessions of the Reformation era), why do these facts not genuinely bother and trouble modern American evangelical readers of the Bible, who claim that the Bible is “God’s Word written”? It would appear that they should be troubled because they are committed to equality of the sexes not only before God (which the NT certainly proclaims) but also for equality of opportunity, work and leadership in family, the world and the church (which the OT and NT do not affirm). In other words, they deny patriarchy in certain important, practical aspects; but, nevertheless, they proclaim the authority and inerrancy of the Holy Scriptures, which contain patriarchy as a major ingredient. How can this be? How can they (by implication) proclaim one thing and then deny its requirements in practice?
The answer would seem to be that they are so much a part of the modern world of civil and human rights and of therapeutic approaches to faith, things which are also a part of religion in their churches, that they are not really challenged by the way that patriarchy is inextricably intertwined into the biblical narrative. They just do not see it there and so there is no problem to face. Why? There are two or three possible answers.
First of all, they tend to use versions/paraphrases of the Bible translated into English using the method known as dynamic equivalency. This has the effect of removing the teeth of patriarchy as it provides not a literal translation of the original text but an approximation of it in modern terms (e.g., “brethren” becomes “sisters and brothers” & “Blessed is the Man…” becomes “Happy are they…”).
Secondly, they are told by evangelical experts on the Bible, that the patriarchy is part of ancient society and culture and is not part of the essential Word of God; rather, it is the package in which the Word comes and was the means graciously used at the time by God when the revelation was originally given. So, for example, the appointment only of men as apostles and elders was simply because women at that time did not do such things and, furthermore, they were involved in child-minding (after all, safe birth control only arrived in the second half of the 20th century!). In modern times, with all the advances in science, technology, anthropology and the social and behavioral sciences, women are in a very different position than they were in Biblical times –even early 20th century times and this the God of heaven surely knows.
Then, of course, there is the tendency in all of us to choose from what is on offer before us that which is acceptable or pleasing to us. This is part of our inherent self-preservation and selfishness. So, if we are tied into a home-life, educational system and culture that insist on the full rights of women in employment and leadership, and we regard all this as what should be, even ought to be, then we assume that God also approves of the status quo. And if HE approves then His Word will surely not say otherwise and when we read it we do not expect it to say anything but that which we have come to see as His way through our experience in the modern world. (This is an important point worth pondering!)
But there is one area where Evangelicals keep traces of patriarchy and that is in the addressing of God as “Father”. They see it as the term Jesus used and therefore one which they should use as his disciples.
So it would seem to be the case that those (e.g., the Evangelicals in the ELCA, ECUSA and AMiA) who proclaim loudest the final authority of the Bible for faith and conduct are yet are unable to see much of the content of the Bible, because of the types of spectacles they use in reading it and the blinkers that their commitment to modern cultural norms causes them to wear. “Headship” of the male is for most if not all only a talking point; it is not a practical doctrine in family or church as the empirical evidence of the latter makes more than clear.
Cross References
I would suggest that there is much the same mindset at work when it comes to the acceptance of the right of divorced persons to have a Christian service of Holy Matrimony in church or conducted according to the rites of the church. We live in a divorce culture and we are so used to serial monogamy that we read the Bible without seeing that if (and it is a big if) remarriage after divorce is actually permitted by Jesus (and thus approved by God) it is only in a limited area and thus involving only a few persons – not multitudes. The themes of chastity, and “one man and one women as one flesh for life” are noticed but not emphasized (except as an ideal, which is different from a standard). So here again the message of the Bible is missed or avoided through either inability to see or the lack of will to see.
However, and this is a big however, a different mindset is at work when it comes to the rights of homosexual persons of the same sex to form a covenanted union and receive a church blessing. This is condemned strongly and loudly – to put it minimally -- by most Evangelicals and done so by using the clear biblical texts against sodomy in the way they were used in ancient times. That is, no allowances are made as they are for women’s rights and for the rights of divorcees. The Bible as it was read by the Fathers, the Reformers and the Revivalists is used to denounce the homosexual agenda as of the devil and sinful before God. No allowance is made for the claim that the covenanted union of homosexual persons is a new phenomenon, is part of modern civil rights and justice, and that the Bible does not even address it as such.
I am puzzled by all this. I am not defending homosexual practice and neither am I attacking women in leadership in society and church. I am asking questions about what seems to me to be an odd situation.
Maybe some evangelicals who fit into the description above will tell us how they square up their use of the Bible for doctrine and morality.
petertoon@msn.com November 28, 2005
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