These notes, which I will add to as inspiration strikes me, exist for the purpose of leadership development at our church, The Well, but may hopefully help anyone who stumbles upon them.
Complementarianism
I just read a quote this week from someone talking about the issue of gender distinction. This person remarked how the differences between the two sexes were basically biological. The statement could have come right out of Piper & Grudem's Recovering Biblical Manhood & Womanhood where many respectable scholars tackled various related issues. The trouble is that this particular quote came from Brian McLaren, so, naturally, he was using this same reasoning to justify how the "He's" "His" and "Him's" in the Bible refering to God were simply generic. Now of course the view of the CBMW is diametrically opposed to McLaren's. However I offer this as just one piece of evidence that much damage can be done by not taking Genesis 1-3 seriously and thoroughly enough, or, said another way, by not making gender and sexuality a worldview/worship issue (like everything else). This it seems to me is the one weakness I have seen so far within the CBMW. Of course, I love what they're doing in general. But consider this a bit of a crusade of mine, as I think that forging such a biblically thorough picture of gender and marriage will give our young people the tools to enter into it with their head screwed on somewhat straight.
Can I be specific? Here is my most concise defintions of marriage and gender (see the audio for the class Dating, Gender, & Compromise for a more thorough unpacking):
If we want to understand either gender or marriage, we have to understand man and woman's chief end in the context of creation. God made Adam and Eve in His image in order for Him to be glorified. We all know this, then we all proceed to forget it the moment we start to think about marriage in the here and now. I argued in the class that the "leading, providing, protecting" (male) and "affirming, nurturing, receiving" (female) from Piper's lingo explain God's design to make for Adam a "helper fit" for him. Once we have already understood what image (Christian Hedonism) and Eden (delight, in the Hebrew) are, the "helping" and "fitting" are really the key things to see about Chapter 2 as the two become "one flesh," or, one glory reflector. That is why we call it "Complementarianism" after all, since the two complement, or fit together, for this single-minded purpose of worship. This glorification of God through the man's spiritual headship just IS what marriage is. This is not the "Christian" view or the "biblical" view (those words can be so cheapened)--it is the only view, since this is God's reality, and He made it for His purposes. Once we have fought for this vision of gender and marriage, all of the other jagged-edged pills I have to throw out into the crowd in class will go down much more smoothly.
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I like what you said at the end- about things being the way they really are, and not marginalized into subjectivism by saying that's the "Christian" view. Whenever you take something static (non-changing) it seems un-fitting to apply the term "view" in regard to it (it just doesn't make sense to say, "the Christian view of how the Earth rotates around the sun is . . ." if what you're going to say is in terms of what really does happen); it can be fitting, however, to say the word "view" in terms of things that are variable- either the things themselves being variable, or a person's thoughts about something static. With the former- I could say something about the Christian view of finances, or the Christian view of education, and with the latter I might say something about the Christian view about science, or the Christian view about medicine, and in that case you're saying something about how that static thing is perceived (or what it means) in terms of knowing God. To expound upon that- someone could have a different view of finances based on an atheistic mindset, that they'll use their finances to their own greatest perceived pleasure, rather than to God's greatest glory, and in and of itself that is actually what they're doing- they're actually using they're finances for selfishness, but the Christian view of stewardship would respond that that's not how it ought to be. Where as with marriage, you can have an atheistic view of what a male and a female do together- and you can actually do that, but you just can't call it marriage, because marriage itself is a term that refers to what you were saying- two people glorifying God together faithfully. This is different from the term 'finances' because the term 'marriage' refers to something God has actually established, where as the term 'finances' would be thought of as "what we do with our money" (rather than what we ought to do) where as the term 'marriage' refers to "what we ought to do, and what someone is actually doing if they're married" (rather than what two people happen to be doing, which before I said that you just can't call marriage). So it is somewhat of a linguistic gymnastics, but it's important to make a distinction about when you're talking about how things actually are, and what it is that you think about it or how it should be.
cheers,
Wes
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