A sermon on marriage

Notes from Richard James' sermon on marriage. Aug. 24, 2008, St. John's Shaughnessy Church, Vancouver.

Marriage is like the trinity, The Father is in charge. Jesus ALWAYS submits to the father, he obeys, he says what his father has told him to say, Jesus sees the father in the trinity as the head, and he obeys him. It is never the other way around. Isn't it interesting?

But in no way can we say that Jesus being subject to his father is demeaning. ... In the godhead himself there is submission. To submit to any authority, you are being Godlike.

In Gen. 1 God said, Let us make mankind in our image. To be made in the likeness of God is to be made in relationship where, just as the son submits to the father, we have a couple, a head and a helper.

Wives, submit to the husband as the head - he is in charge. God solved the argument before it started, he said, I have to choose someone, okay, husbands, you are in charge. I hold you responsible.

Now what does it look like? If you are married to a good husband, who ... you will find a very happy wife, ... if however, you are a wife who is married to a lousy husband, just line up over here and we can discuss this in a therapy group afterward. [laughingly] Its not easy.

I want to point out something that is very important. In our culture we decide that if something doesn't work we change it. But God designed humanity. God designed the world and gave it order. We submit to all authorities because God has put them there. Never in the Bible do you see God saying plan B is if it is not working, swap. You never hear, wives command your husbands, and husbands submit.

We do live in a culture where wives command husbands. ... we reject all authority structures because we think we know better.

God does not say, I put you in charge now rule. He always tells authorities, I have put you in charge but what I want you to do is love. You are in charge husbands, I have decided this, too bad if you don't want to be in charge, you are in charge, says God, like I am in charge of you, so I want you to love your wives, in the same way I love the church, so far that you are willing to die for her. Use my love for you as the minimum requirement for how you love your wife.

If there is any husband who raises his voice or strikes his wife the smell of hell is close to your marriage. How dare you ... Love your wives sacrificially. It is so shameful when you go to other cultures where the gospel is not preached, women are sold. they are treated like objects.
But it is an irony. In a culture where Jesus has been proclaimed and women have been raised to equality, and have been treated in every way equal but different to men, that same culture, people jettison God and the women say they want to jettison the men, they say, we want to be in charge.

- Husbands ask your wives how you can be a better husband, and take notes.
- The biggest mistake Adam made and we men make is we are not willing to lead.
- It is difficult in any culture if you have a lousy husband. This culture has made it easy, you just divorce him. that is not necessarily, the solution love them as if they were the lord.
- A good divorce? Divorce is a natural consequence of living in a culture that denies the living God.

I know Richard and his wife, and quite simply Richard is not exceptional in his teaching that wives are to obey in everything and men are in charge. Richard is teaching what is the standard belief system in complementarian churches.

practical submission

What exactly do people mean by complementarian and hierarchical marriages? This has been hacked to death theoretically. But it is pretty simple to find a practical guide to this lifestyle these days. I have found two recently.

First, on Boundless, in this post, the implication is that the husband decides -

• how many children the wife bears
  
• whether to home school
• whether the wife works
• what church they attend
• where they live
• what house to buy
• how to invest
  
• what kind of medical treatment a dying child should have
• and so on

Mark Driscoll confirms most things on this list in his sermon on marriage and women. Naturally it isn't much of a marriage if the wife makes all these decisions on her own either. That is no better. There has to be mutual responsibility and give and take.

I don't think that the church uses scripture in any way to say that these decisions belong to the wife alone. So, in my view, within the Christian community, there are only two major positions. Either option one, these things need to be decided by mutually respectful agreement; or option two, the husband has the right to override the wife and make the decision by himself. I don't see a third major option.

So, my interest in this is how the Bible is being used to support option two, where the husband has "final say."

If there were a teaching which made the wife supreme over the husband, and if it were supported by the Bible, then I would be concerned about that too. I understand the difficulty for husbands when the reproductive capacity of their wife is simply denied them, that is, if she refuses sexual relations, refuses to have children although this was previously a mutual understanding, or she refuses to live with her husband. In these cases, I believe it is better to divorce. That's just my opinion. But I don't think a lifetime of suffering for either husband or wife is God-honouring.

In this summary, I view the complementarian marriage, the hierarchical marriage and the traditional marriage as variations on a theme. I am not concerned about how many chldren a family have, whether they home school, or whether the wife works. The concern is about who has the right to make these decisions.

There is more and more on the internet on this issue all the time. I'll mention a few who write on this issue.

Waneta Dawn
Kathryn Joyce
Quivering Daughters
No longer quivering
Sovereign Grace Survivors
Because It Matters
Christian Coalition against Domestic Abuse

In addition to this there is the "leaving the fold" phenomenon as Christians simply move from faith to agnosticism. There is some thoughtful writing here that I will link to in future.

The way I see my part is that I wish to show how the arguments for a hierarchical marriage are constructed by fallible humans by misusing both scripture texts and modern scientific research. I do not believe that either one of these should be used to influence or coerce a woman into accepting subordination.

moderate conservative

I really didn't know how to classify my new church but according to the newspaper yesterday when it was mentioned in a column, it is rated as "moderate conservative." I know it is quite open to women priests, and I think it is just happenstance that it doesn't have one now. On the recent very bitter separation over same-sex blessing, this church did not split with the diocese.

My former church led the split from the diocese over same sex blessing. At first I was appalled that there was pressure from the bishop for all priests to accept same sex blessing. I was originally in full support of the resistance to same sex blessing and even wrote a letter which was highly supportive of the minister and I know he appreciated it.

I had studied the issue of alternate episcopal oversight for my MA thesis when I wrote about aboriginal churches in Canada and compared that with the church in New Zealand and India. Technically I was against the bishop promoting the acceptance of same sex blessing in this diocese.

However, now I attend a church which did not leave the diocese. Let me explain. This is a very technically complicated business, but what I now understand is that only about 6 parishes have said that they would be happy to have same sex unions blessed in their church. The rest of the churches have simply agreed that we have this policy, but they have not offered to have any same sex ceremonies. The topic largely goes unmentioned in my present church.

There were several reasons for my leaving the Anglican Network church and joining one of the churches which remained in the diocese. I will list them but cannot put them in order of importance.

1. A prominent member of my former church had signed the statement of concern against the Today's New International Version of the Bible. I believe that this document is morally compromised and articles attached to this discussion contain inappropriate language. One example is that some early articles mentioned that the TNIV "neutered" Christ because he was called "human" instead of "man" in some cases where the Greek word was anthropos. It is my view, as someone trained in Greek, that the statement of concern against the TNIV is simply an inappropriate document for any Christian to be associated with.

2. When I first started attending my former church many years ago, women would occasionally speak from the pulpit. Over the years that stopped and there were no more female assistant clergy. Women disappeared from the large ministry team by attrition and no new women joined. Women remained in positions of women's ministry, of course. To my knowledge the ministry team did not follow the inclination of the congregation on this but unilaterally decided that women were not to lead. The Anglican church of Canada has been ordaining women since 1976 so this church had already made the split from the diocese doctrinally before the same sex issue made the split definitive. This is my view from the outside.

3. A few years ago I asked the minister's wife for some resources for an abused woman for "a friend." She answered that she had none because this problem did not exist in this congregation of over 1000 members. At this time the minister was increasingly preaching the submission of women and there was at least one woman in the congregation who suffered violence during this time, probably more. Last summer a sermon was preached on the total submission of the wife, and the preacher made a joke about how women who were married to unreasonable men could line up after the service for "therapy" if they wanted to. This comment was delivered by the preacher with a guffaw. Frankly I cannot imagine anything more crass.

I left that church.

These are my reasons for now attending a church where technically same sex unions are accepted. I personally do not consider sex or marriage a sacrament. I keep church and sex in two separate compartments of my brain and they don't mix. I am pretty much disgusted by what I have seen and I do not want to interact with any man in church in a sexually "complementary" way. Period. The less people talk about sex and gender in church the better, as far as I am concerned. Christians don't have a great track record, so let's just move on to discuss something more profitable. These are my thoughts. Some day I may have more to say on the topic, or maybe not.

The lessons and carols service this morning was exquisite. There was no sermon and this was a huge relief. I am tired of hearing the minister get up and preach an "altar call" sermon just in case someone who only goes to church once a year might be there for Christmas.

The choir was so beautiful that several people were in tears. The children sang like a professional choir and we all sat in soft silence and listened. No clapping, but a few toddlers roamed the aisles freely. A couple of people told me that they had attended the service on Saturday for those in grieving. Many people grieve at this time of year.

Reading through the blogs last night, I read of men who could not pay the bills, couples with young children who were divorcing, older couples going separate ways, each asking what on earth they had done to find themselves alone in life at this stage.

It is a muted time for many. It is a good time to stick to a few traditional routines, not to shop too much, to prepare food that really is food, that is warming and comforting. It is a good time for siblings and parents to keep in touch. It is a good time to phone a friend. It is a good time to sit alone by the window and watch the snow fall silently.

The trial of John Piper

Without going into any more detail, we can agree that John Piper is aware of, and has publicly refered to three types of abuse which are more frequently experienced by women than by men. These consist of physical assault, alternative sexual practice under coercion, and restriction of movement.

In this video, which has been transcribed here, we can hear of his awareness of these issues. In this article Piper refers to the control and coercion which a woman might also experience. He is not unaware of these challenges to a woman's well-being.

I recognize that Piper has written much which makes it appear that he is sensitive to and concerned about the well-being of women. He does not condone any of the behaviours which I mention. He is horrified by them. I am also aware that men experience abuse, in ways which are both similar to, and different from that which is experienced by women.

So the issue is not about who abuses, and who experiences abuse. We can, everyone one of us, be on either side and on both sides of this equation. However, it is wrong to counsel the weaker, the one who is in danger, to submit in the long term to the aggressor. While one may submit in the short term, for safety sake, submission will encourage a continuation of the aggression. It is wrong to submit to, or be counseled to submit to any aggression and restriction of basic human rights.

We all agree that Piper knows that these restrictions against the human rights of women happen in Christian marriages. So now, we must observe with accuracy how he responds. I would like Piper to speak for himself. Here is a significant sermon, in which Piper addresses 6,000 women at one time.

Some of you God is going to touch so profoundly in these days. You won't want to go home, because he's letting you down so badly. So let's pray for each other. I would like to be speaking to 6,000 men. I would, and I would get in their face big time (a lot harder than I'm getting in your face). I would tell them, "You're the main problem in most of these situations. Your women would rise to this if you would do it like Jesus." ......

I'll say it again. Submission is the divine calling of a wife to honor and affirm her husband's leadership and help carry it through according to her gifts.

Now the point here is not to go into detail about how this gets worked out in every marriage, and every marriage looks a little different. The point is that these two, headship and submission, correspond to true manhood and true womanhood in marriage. They're not the same, and these differences are absolutely essential, by God's design, so that marriage will display more fully the glory of the sacrificial love of Christ for His bride and the beauty of the lavished reverence and admiration of the bride for her Husband.

I know that leaves 200-300 questions unanswered. What about unbelieving husbands? What about believing husbands who don't do this leadership, protection, provision? What about wives who resist leadership, don't like the idea of being led, think it's all 50/50 always? What about wives who do receive it but never express any appreciation for it?

There are hundreds of questions that we could take up now, and I apologize that I won't. But here's my comfort: If you could embrace this true, that as married women (and I'm turning to singles in one minute), if you as married women could embrace this magnificent truth, that your true womanhood ultimately means that your distinctive role in marriage is meant to magnify the glory of God's grace supremely expressed in the covenant-keeping love between Christ and His church, you would have a compass with which to navigate hundreds of questions. You have a lifetime to ferret them out.

Please read the rest of the sermon. Read John Piper's words. I am not trying to demonize him. But I do want to say that John Piper has nothing at all to offer women but a lifetime of misery. He has nothing to contribute to marriage counseling. It is negligent not to instruct anyone who is aware of violence to go to the police.

While it is true that many women do not want to go the police, a witness of violence is obligated to counsel this as a prefered response. Piper did not do that. He does not recognize the basic human rights that we all have under the law in our society, not to be violated. Paul himself appeals to Roman law, and insists on his right not to be assaulted. What business does Piper have diminishing the rights of women? Do the rights of women have less value than the rights of men? Than the rights of Paul? No, they don't. Piper should have preached Acts 22:25 to women.

But the important thing is not to belittle John Piper, or to demonize him. We must simply ask if what he says has value. Is his word good, and does it provide benefit to his hearers? If not, we have to move on. We simply need to testify to the positive value in our lives of moving past this kind of thinking and leaving it to the side where it belongs. We have to show other women that a true woman is not interested in the word of John Piper. Whatever intentions he has, whatever motives he has, these are irrelevant. His word is not healthy and life-giving.

Touching Testimony

The storm of response to Bruce Ware's sermon has had some positive results. Here is a touching response.

--------------------------

I want to just say bullshit and write this off as another “me Tarzan, You Jane” sermon by a Neanderthal preacher.

But this type of thinking is all to common in Evangelical circles. In the Baptist circles I grew up in this was the predominant view. My wife was taught, as a pastor’s wife, her primary duty in life was to make sure everyone thought well of her husband. She even had a class in how to properly give a tea party. (no I am not kidding)

John R Rice was the predominant family guru and he advocated that women were best served by being at home, married, and pregnant.

My wife and I started married life with the John R Rice philosophy of family. I worked. She stayed at home and had babies. She did work for a time in the Church daycare or Christian School but those types of jobs didn’t count. (and she was paid like they didn’t count. The Church paid men more than women)

I was the head honcho, chief of the tribe, CEO of our family. I ruled the kingdom with a rod of iron. I made all the decisions.

And we had a lousy marriage.

It is a wonder we survived the first five years of marriage. I was (and can still be at times) pretty temperamental during the early years of our marriage. As the boss of the home I would draw a line and say ”this is it”. Inevitably ,my wife would cross that line and then the war would begin.

What was the root problem? Her unwillingness to “submit”?

Or perhaps I was the root problem. I was taught to be the “head of the home” and I was going to be the head no matter what. When my wife refused to comply with my lordship I would react angrily. Fortunately, I never physically beat my wife, but I sure made her pay in other ways.

Such is the fruit of the teaching that Bruce Ware espouses. I am sure I will be rejected as nothing more than an extreme case, but many years of pastoral ministry brought me into contact with hundreds of guys just like me. Poorly taught complementarians (though few would have known that label)who hurt their families and often destroyed their marriages.

Fortunately for my wife and I (and my children) I saw the error of my way. Time and study has brought me to the egalitarian position, and I have watched the liberating effects of it in the life of my wife, and my own life.

We are co-heirs of the mystery of life. We walk together, side by side. Truly equal in the eyes of God and I hope in the eyes of each other.

We still battle the after effects of the earlier years of our marriage. My wife still falls into a default mode that allows me to be the “decision maker.” Sometimes, I have to force her (by not making the decision) to make decisions for herself. Our marriage is still a work in progress. We will celebrate 30 years of marriage in a few weeks.

In his sermon mentioned above, Bruce Ware passes the buck.

• If a man abuses his wife, often the cause is her unwillingness to submit
• If the man says “yes dear” he is acquiescing to his wife and forsaking his responsibility to be the head of the home and thus is sinning against God
• Egalitarians are to blame for this problem and the egalitarians are men pleasers and don’t fear God
• Blame it on the feminists

Well Bruce, this Bruce thinks:

• Men abuse their wives because they are sinners
• Men abuse their wives because they are angry
• Men abuse their wives because they are authoritarian control freaks
• Men abuse their wives because they have been taught complentarianism, divorced from the teaching of loving their wife as Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it. They are taught law rather than grace.

Several years ago our family attended a very conservative Reformed Church. Great pastor. The services were some of the best we ever attended. Several hundred people attended the Church.

We were accepted rather readily into the Church. We thought, “maybe this is the place where our journey ends. Maybe this will be our Church home.”

Things went along fairly well until one Sunday, in an after Church discussion, my wife mentioned to a group of Church women that she “worked outside the home.” Immediate silence!

From that moment forward we were treated like we had the plague. My wife was the only woman in the Church that worked outside the home. By her doing so she was sinning against God’s order for the family .Never mind her husband was sick and disabled. Sadly, we left this Church several months later.

In the mid 1990’s I pastored a Sovereign Grace Church that believed that women were to keep silence in the Church. Church business meetings were hilarious. If a woman wanted to ask a question she had to ask her husband who would then ask the question for her. At no time was the woman allowed to speak. Single women had to ask an older man to ask the question for her.

One family in the Church took this to the extreme (as if that wasn’t extreme enough) . The wife was converted during our time there.She desired to be baptized. One of our traditions was to have the baptism candidate give a testimony prior to baptism. Her husband refused to allow her to speak in Church so she couldn’t be baptized. This went on for weeks and then one day the wife came into my office crying and wanted to speak with me. She told me she really wanted to be baptized but didn’t know what to do. I told her this “your husband is standing between you and God, You need to disobey him and obediently follow the Lord in baptism.”

Needless to say I started World War lll. The wife was baptized and the husband got over it.

Such is the fruit of complentarianism when it is taken to the extreme. While I do not consider complentarianism sinful I have seen it used as a tool of abuse far too often.

Read the rest of this post . Thanks for writing this.

babble from Babel 1

Kurk has inspired me to set off on a new track for a bit. As I mentioned earlier Martin and some others have been commited to a way of translating which reveals the intertextual connections, the puns and wordplays, and opens up the underlying source text in new ways. While this is in some ways "literal" it really involves much more than that.

It involves understanding that choices were made between words, on whether to use transliteration or another mode, whether to retain the grammatical features, and so on.

Kurk brings many of his points back to gender and sexuality and I will to, but more for the fun of it: some of this is not theological. Whatever that means.

Kurk is writing on the first few chapters of Genesis, as is Martin. I hope there can be some cross semination of ideas. I am going to weigh in with a little Latin for a bit.

Here are some thoughts from the story of the tower of Babel in Gen. 11. Read Kurk's analysis here.

The first striking thing is that in Hebrew there are two words for language, sefat, or lip, and lashon or tongue. Here is the first verse.

Erat autem terra labii unius, et sermonum eorumdem. Vulgate

Erat autem universa terra labii unius, et verborum eorumdem
Pagnini

And the whole earth was of one lip, and of one sermon/word.

But in verse 7 working from the Greek OT, the Vulgate surrenders the "lip" and writes,

et confundamus ibi linguam eorum, ut non audiat unusquisque vocem proximi sui. Vulgate

and confound there their tongue, that they may not hear each one the voice of their next one.

(If that isn't just like marriage!)

And Pagnini translates,

et confundamus ibi labium eorum ut non exaudiunt singuli labium proximi sui.

and confound there their lip, that they may not hear each one the lip of their next one.

And so we begin to establish Pagnini's transparency to the Hebrew. The Vulgate broke down and refered finally to "tongue" in fidelity to the Septuagint in this case, Pagnini stayed with the "lip" the foreignizing element.

Both sefat and lashon are common ways to refer to language in Hebrew. However, in the Sefer Yetsira, a Hebrew text of the early centuries AD, we see that lashon had a masculine connotation. Likely "lip" did not.

The Ten Sefirot of Nothingness: The number of the ten fingers, five opposite five, with a single covenent precisely in the middle, like the circumcision of the tongue and the circumcision of the membrum.

But in Genesis 11, we see that the voice of the people was expressed as the "lip," a normal way to say "language." Nothing remarkable in this, but note that the Septuagint and the Vulgate have to interject with the normal Greek and Latin usage, that this lip is really the tongue. Pagnini does not. So many layers of translation before we get to the English.

Perhaps the choice of words in the Vulgate for verse 7 is because one cannot traditionally "hear" the lip of another person, when speaking Greek, or Latin, or English, but you can hear the tongue or voice of another person. The tongue provides the imagery of masculine agency and the lip, the latent feminine and receptive quality. But in Hebrew "lip" and "tongue" equally represent the active spoken language on par. They stand side by side as synonymous terms.

There will be much more babble from Babel. (In search of "transparent translation.")

godless love

George Eliot deconverted from evangelicalism in her 20's. She was known as "godless" in both beilef and practice since she lived for much of her life with her "husband" George Lewes, although they were never legally married. Her relationship put her outside the boundaries of Victorian society.

However, Queen Victoria was always a strong fan of George Eliot. (In an aside, this reminds me that the queen was also an enthusiastic fan of Annie Oakley.) Victoria was not a promoter of complementary gender roles, as we would imagine them today. She was, nevertheless a romantically attached wife, as were George Eliot and Annie Oakley. These women were all of them pro women, as well as pro marriage.

Adam Bede was George Eliot's first novel, and recounts an incident which the author knew from real life, of a young peasant girl becoming pregnant by a man above her station. Of course, he could not marry her, and the book tells the dark story that ensues. Another sympathetically drawn character in the novel is a young female Methodist preacher, who visits the girl later in prison. We also hear her preach a sermon on compassion and empathy.

The unbelieving George Eliot is still able to depict a preacher in a positive light, highlighting her words of compassion and love. She in no way polemicizes gender roles in ministry in this book, and the young preacher does marry and happily retires from public ministry to become a wife and mother. There is no dichotomy of alienated feminist and domestic wife. For George Eliot, the true woman, is one who is both compassionate and equal, both preacher and wife.

Regarding love, Eliot writes in this novel,

What greater thing is there for two human souls, than to feel that they are joined for life — to strengthen each other in all labour, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent unspeakable memories at the moment of last parting? (ch. 54)

Responses to Ware

I have been following responses to Ware's sermon in a few forums and this one stuck out.

I agree with part of what the author wrote, but disagree with a whole lot more of it. Domestic abuse has been a problem in this WORLD for a long time. The feminist movement that actually began in the late 40's (historically) was a reaction from women to men coming home from WWII and expecting the women, who kept this country moving during the war, to go home and make babies. Having had a taste of financial freedom, the woman as a group screamed, "NO WAY!" The movement intensified in the 50's, and when the birth control pill came out in the 60's and separated sexual activity and procreation, we then had the feminist movement we know today.

If families patterned their lives scripturally, men would love their wives as Christ loves the church, and women would have NO PROBLEM with submitting to a man who loves them that way. Children would obey their parents, because the parents would be doing what is right for the child. Parents who are submitted to the Lord won't be punishing or inconsistently disciplining their children out of frustration and anger, rather than simply because the child needs correction. But the reason marriage does not work the way God intended it to is that WE AS PEOPLE DO NOT OBEY GOD!

The only reason there is a seeming explosion in domestic violence has NOTHING to do with the feminist movement but it has everything to do with media coverage. It has always been there. Also there is the fact that, until the mid 70's, domestic violence was considered a "family matter" and not a matter of law. I can testify to that. My father put me in the hospital 17 times from the time I was 5 until I was 16 years old It was always considered a "family matter". I had no protection under the law. Today, there is protection for both the spouses (men and women are victims of domestic violence) and the children of abuse. But violence happens because people are not under the control of God. "Each man did what was right in their own eyes" (Judges 17:6 and 21:25)

Abuse is not a new problem. And, since I work in a school I am fully aware that abuse is not a male on female problem. It is a human problem. One way of helping people get out of abusive settings is to eliminate the functional subordination in the home of one adult to the other. The non-abusing parent needs full power to remove the children from the abusing parent.

I know, people don't like to talk about these things.

The trinity and the subordination of women

As far as I know marriage has only been compared to the subordination of the Son to the Father in the last half of the last century. This paragraph from the sermon I listened to recently is almost word for word similar to the theology of Bruce Ware.

Marriage is like the trinity, The Father is in charge. Jesus ALWAYS submits to the father, he obeys, he says what his father has told him to say, Jesus sees the father in the trinity as the head, and he obeys him. It is never the other way around. Isn't it interesting?

I can't say to what extent Paul intended this comparison. Did he line up all the verses from the gospels of the Son submitting to the Father? It does not seem likely.

The question that one can possibly ask, and potentially answer, is whether the church fathers thought that the Son always submitted to the Father and the Father never submitted to the Son. Did the church fathers believe that the Son was subject to the Father?

I sincerely believe that I would be better off if I had access to the necessary documents in Greek, but for a start, I would like to post on Augustine's view of whether the Son is subject to the Father. This is only tentative. Some day, I might investigate further.

In this chapter, Chapter 8.— The Texts of Scripture Explained Respecting the Subjection of the Son to the Father, Which Have Been Misunderstood. Christ Will Not So Give Up the Kingdom to the Father, as to Take It Away from Himself, of On the Trinity, Book 1, Augustine writes,

Nor let any one, hearing what the apostle says, But when He says all things are put under Him, it is manifest that He is excepted which did put all things under Him, think the words, that He has put all things under the Son, to be so understood of the Father, as that He should not think that the Son Himself put all things under Himself.

For this the apostle plainly declares, when he says to the Philippians, For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself.

For the working of the Father and of the Son is indivisible. Otherwise, neither has the Father Himself put all things under Himself, but the Son has put all things under Him, who delivers the kingdom to Him, and puts down all rule and all authority and power. For these words are spoken of the Son: When He shall have delivered up, says the apostle, the kingdom to God, even the Father; when He shall have put down all rule, and all authority, and all power. For the same that puts down, also makes subject.

While Bruce Ware compares the role of the husband to the Father who sends, Augustine is explicit in saying that the Son is sent both by the Father and by Himself, Book 2,

For perhaps our meaning will be more plainly unfolded, if we ask in what manner God sent His Son. He commanded that He should come, and He, complying with the commandment, came. Did He then request, or did He only suggest? But whichever of these it was, certainly it was done by a word, and the Word of God is the Son of God Himself.

Wherefore, since the Father sent Him by a word, His being sent was the work of both the Father and His Word; therefore the same Son was sent by the Father and the Son, because the Son Himself is the Word of the Father. For who would embrace so impious an opinion as to think the Father to have uttered a word in time, in order that the eternal Son might thereby be sent and might appear in the flesh in the fullness of time?

But assuredly it was in that Word of God itself which was in the beginning with God and was God, namely, in the wisdom itself of God, apart from time, at what time that wisdom must needs appear in the flesh. Therefore, since without any commencement of time, the Word was in the beginning, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, it was in the Word itself without any time, at what time the Word was to be made flesh and dwell among us.

And so Augustine rebutted the view that the Son was subject to the Father, except in that he was subject to Himself, that is, the will of God the Father, and of the Son, is indivisible.

The cause of abuse

This is the core of complementarian teaching. This is foundational. Bruce Ware said these words,

The very wise and good plan of God, of male headship, is sought to be overturned as women now, as sinners, want instead to have their way, instead of submitting to their husbands, to do what they would like to do, and seek to work to have their husbands fulfill their will, rather than serving them;

and their husbands on their part, because they are sinners, now respond to that threat to their authority either by being abusive, which is, of course, one of the ways men can respond when their authority is challenged, or more commonly by becoming passive, acquiescing and simply not asserting the leadership they ought to as men in their homes and churches.

in a sermon at the Denton Bible Church, June 22, 2008. The teaching goes like this. God created marriage as an authority submission relationship. Eve's sin represents her rebellion against male authority. Eve rebels against her husband, and he responds by being abusive.

Marriage failure, for complementarians, is one of the two patterns, the wife rebels against submission and the husband is either abusive or passive in response. Note who sins first, who causes the mess in the first place. Christians should have nothing to do with this teaching. The doctrine of male headship as it is taught by complementarians like Dr. Ware, who summarizes the complementarian position for CBMW, is simply wrong. Why are we so hesitant to say this?

The discussion is continuing on Denny's Blog. Thanks Denny for keeping this open.