[Vision2020] submission vs. thoughtfulness

[Michael]

Keely,

 

I've interspersed my comments to your insightful challenge:

 

 

Keely Writes: 

.But I am gifted with a fairly extensive array of basic social skills, and
so I'd like to make a couple of basic comments, particularly in response to
his "first date" analogy.  If my friend Doris  and I were going to have
lunch, and I wanted to go to the Breakfast Club while she wanted to go to
Mikey's, I imagine both of us would go hungry before we'd insist on going to
the place of our own choice.  I'd say to Doris that Mikey's is fine; Doris
would assure me that BC is just peachy with her.  We'd go to either one, or
find something else.  

 

Me: 

This is a good illustration of an informal outing with a friend, but it
looses everything important to my scenario of a "high school date".  I'm
trying to get at traditional intuitions with respect to "leadership" and how
a woman might naturally respond to a man in a situation as common as dating.
I'm till genuinely interested as to what folks' intuitions are regarding
mail leadership within the traditional sociology of dating. 

 

 

Keely Writes: 

We would all agree that if Doris made me go to Mikey's -- insisted on it,
both as a condition of our relationship and of fidelity to Christian
doctrine (Doris being a member of my Bible study group) -- then she would be
an oaf, a jerk, and, as pertains to her Christian maturity, a rather
difficult toddler in the faith.

 

Me: 

Yes, but this is consistent with the view of submission I have put forward.

 

 

Keely Writes: 

..we are to submit to one another, and not on the basis of gender, to mirror
not only the love Jesus shows the church but also the fidelity the church
shows Jesus.  

 

Me: 

Agreed: not on the basis of gender, generally speaking; the relationship
between a "husband and wife" is something very specific. Paul says that this
relationship mirrors the relationship between Jesus and Church, which is a
relationship of submission; and in this context Paul tells women to submit
to their husbands.  

 

 

Keely Writes: 

A study of the word "head" -- kephalo -- would just as easily argue that
"man is the head of the woman" means "source," as in the Creation story,
just as "God is the head of Christ" means that, as the Apostle's Creed
affirms, that Jesus "proceeds from the Father."  Orthodox Christian doctrine
denies that Jesus is now eternally submissive to the Father and should deny,
but often doesn't, that that has to do with gender relations today --
relations whose only proper expression, they assert, is the eternal
submission of wives to husbands and the "ontological leadership role" of men
over women in church, home, and society.

 

Me: 

I'm fine with the "source" interpretation, but I'm not sure that Jesus is
not in any way eternally submissive to the Father.  He was while here on
earth; and even if he is no longer after glorification, he was eternally
before glorification (e.g. at the time of creation).  Even if the
relationship has "changed," he is still the Son to the Father, which implies
some sort of "role" distinction.  

 

 

Keely Writes: 

Jesus did it differently and gives us a radical new view of how women and
men can and should work together in His original intent for creation.  

 

Me: 

Correct; but what Jesus did not do is teach a current liberal social theory.
Jesus did not set aside the social assumption that a woman submits to her
husband.  Jesus instead revolutionized what this was to mean and how it was
to function. 

 

 

Keely Writes: 

.a more penetrating analysis of Pauline pronouncements on gender for a few
"easy" verses that seem to suggest that rigid roles for men and for women
are what God intended.  They would deny that prooftexting is an appropriate
way to understand and expound on Scripture, but it works well for them and,
to be generous, follows the pattern of church and society over the years.

 

Me: 

I don't like proof-texting either; but when you have statements as simple
and direct as "wives, submit to your husbands," I'm not sure what is wrong
referencing them with weight. 

 

 

Keely Writes: 

.but many men will take it as a mandate to exercise power and privilege in
the home.  Some, we know, will take it to mean that violence and degradation
are OK, too -- the human heart has no limits in how it can sin, and men
hardly need "orders" to exercise power over those portrayed as ontologically
submissive, weaker, and powerless.  

The preacher, then, may not be accountable for the abuse that results, but
surely is responsible for opening the door through which abuse rushes.

 

Me: 

Correct; but this is true of any institution.  Precisely because an
institution protects its members from harm, it can also hurt them.  This
point was made recently in a Harvard publication I quoted from that you can
link to here: http://poohsthink.com/?p=192 .  In the same way you want to
hold a minister accountable, we can hold the husband accountable.
Submission within a marriage is far more mitigated, flexible, light-weight,
intimate, and playful than we find it in other areas of life; so what I
don't understand is how a social liberal can be content with submission in
political, legal, and military spheres, yet objects in the one sphere where
it has less edge and is backed better by Custom. If an employee should
submit to his employer, a soldier to his officer, a criminal to a judicial
decision, and a citizen to a police officer in very strict terms, then why
can we have no form of submission at all within the institution of
traditional marriage?  We have the threat of oppression and harm in all the
other institutions, but this does not cause us to abandon them.   

 

 

Keely Writes: 

It will be a great day when a Christ Church man stays home with the kids and
cherishes his physician, teacher, engineer or fighter pilot wife who works
outside of the home -- and not to make any point other than this:  we are
all richly gifted, ought to be blessed with the option of glorifying God in
many beautiful and diverse ways, and should affirm that the Gospel of Jesus
Christ demands no less, whatever else the men who proclaim it insist.

 

Me: 

First, Wilson does not object to women fighter pilots because he does not
want women to have the freedom to pursue rigorous careers; Nancy Wilson has
always championed women medical doctors.  The point about fighter pilots is
a point about women warriors, a very specific aesthetic and moral issue
regarding beauty, femininity, and appropriate warfare methods. In other
words: pick any career you like, but that of a bloody warrior. Second, I
would like to think that women are better at "mothering" than men, generally
speaking. (Anyone have statistics on the successes of lesbian mothers over
homosexual fathers?)  I think my wife is cut out more for staying home all
day long with my young children than I am, which is partly because she is a
woman and I am not. And there seems to be prima facie reason to suppose that
this is grounded in part on biology since the controlling role of biology in
conception, birth, and weaning is expansive. In sum, this is an example of a
woman having a greater strength; this is one reason I do not think we should
go against the grain and encourage men, at least generally, staying home
with children so that their wives can further a full time career.  

 

Thanks!

Michael Metzler

 

 

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