<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:st1="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">
<head>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=us-ascii">
<meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 11 (filtered medium)">
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="country-region"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="place"/>
<!--[if !mso]>
<style>
st1\:*{behavior:url(#default#ieooui) }
</style>
<![endif]-->
<style>
<!--
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{color:purple;
text-decoration:underline;}
span.EmailStyle17
{mso-style-type:personal-compose;
font-family:Arial;
color:windowtext;}
@page Section1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 2.75in 1.0in 1.25in;}
div.Section1
{page:Section1;}
-->
</style>
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="1027" />
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1" />
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]-->
</head>
<body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple>
<div class=Section1>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Keely,<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Thank you again for your
time discussing this; I’ve interjected my response in a way similar to
last time around:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Keely Writes:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>1. My example of two
pals -- two women, two men -- having lunch was intended; I reject that dating
must have, outside of the presumed heterosexual nature you described, a
hierarchical or "pursuer/pursued" construct. I like the idea of a
man and a woman both feeling free to be pleased with an invitation and to risk
rejection if it's turned down, and the mature relationships I know of are the
ones where two people who love each other simply decide together what their
plans are, either for that day or for their lifetimes. A "traditional
sociology of dating" hasn't proved to be particularly good for women or
for men. I think Christ would lead us to something much more mutual, honest
and loving.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Me:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>I think this is an
example of what I take to be the more radical nature of the social views you
are espousing in this area. My argument is not that dating “must
have” a “pursuer/pursued” construct; I wanted to rather note
that it has had this construct for the last 3000 years, clear into the 21-st
century in liberal <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region></st1:place>.
The reason I brought it up is that it seemed there was an interesting form of
“submission” involved in this construct, and one that seems to be a
bit off the radar when the concerns are merely with respect to domestic abuse,
oppression, “patriarchy,” etc. We still seem to see something
lovely, non-violent, and unthreatening in the common practice of the man as
“romantic initiator;” in fact, this construct typically presupposes
a certain kind of respect and protection of women. I suspect that most
Americans, even many of the social liberals, enjoy watching the new release of
Pride and Prejudice (and the better 6 hour long old one), as well as just about
anything like it in our western heritage. It is hard to imagine how one would
defend the claim that the “romantic initiator” construct
“hasn’t proved to be particularly good for women or for men”
since it is still hard to imagine a genuine, rival alternative. Abandoning any
sort of pursuer/pursued construct altogether seems like mere social negation;
we remove so much of what we find lovely and replace it with mere equality or
mutuality. But custom has been perfectly consistent with equality or mutuality
when practices without the attendant corruptions, and so it seems this is just
a radical departure from culture, not a proven, aesthetically pleasing
alternative. In rejecting romantic initiation and rejecting femininity and
masculinity as fundamental sexual categories (from dating to marriage) you are
not just fighting oppression and wrongful subjugation. You are doing far
more. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Kelly Writes:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>2. The argument that the
relationship between husband and wife mirrors in every way the relationship
between Jesus and the Church is useful insofar as the limits of analogy are
respected. .. Like all analogy, though, its usefulness is in the truth it
illustrates, not in what it logically can't -- … But the passage in
Ephesians 5 clearly states "submit you, therefore, one to another,"
before it commands that women submit to their husbands and their husbands love
their wives. The mutual, reciprocal command is the foundation -- it introduces
-- the exegesis of the command, which follows with an obvious parallel
construction. If only women are to submit, then only men are to love, if we
read the parallels literally. Do we really want to suggest that, especially
when the overarching principle is one of mutual submission in love?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Me:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>We cannot limit our
interpretation of this Pauline comparison found in Ephesians 5 to mere
analogy. Paul is typically clear when he is merely grasping for metaphors or
analogies to make a theological point. Here, Paul makes it clear that the
marital relationship at creation foreshadowed Jesus as groom and the church as
bride, and that the new relationship between Jesus and the church is to now
become an actual pattern for earthly relationship between a husband and wife.
After quoting from Genesis, Paul says, “this mystery is great; but I am
speaking with reference to Christ and the Church.” Paul is speaking of a
“mystery” which is the coming together of man and women as one
flesh, and which is also the union of Christ and the church. My point was not
that the two relationships have to correspond in every respect; if so, they
would not be two different relationships at all. Rather, since they are both
part of the same mystery, Paul tells us they are to reflect one another; and
one of the few ways Paul explains they are to reflect one another is in the
wife’s subjection to her husband. Paul’s point is therefore clear:
the wife, with respect to her role as wife in reflecting this mystery is to
submit to her husband; the husband, with respect to his role as husband
reflecting this mystery is to “save” and love his wife. We are to
love Jesus as he loves us, but this does not negate the fact that we have a
unique role of submission that Jesus does not in the relationship. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Later on, you say:
“Your exposition of other "submission" roles in society
(citizen to police, employee to boss, etc.) falls short because those are
vocations; they are not ontological categories into which beings are born.”
My response to this will lead me to the response to the second part of your
paragraph above. It is true that Paul first says “be subject to one
another in the fear of the Lord” before moving on to marriage in
Ephesians 5. However, Paul here, as well as in Titus, no different from what
we find in 1 Peter, embraces the current social institutions and the submission
required for each one. I was giving the state and judicial system as examples
of institutions that involve submission; and these institutions exist
independent of vocational decisions. We are born citizens, under a political
authority and within a particular judicial system. Employment and military
service was just another example of hierarchy; if we have a draft, however,
military service would be little different. Paul says we should all submit to
one another in the fear of Christ, and then gives the way this is to look in
the various institutions. The first institution is that of marriage, where the
woman is to submit to her husband. The second institution is that of the
family, where children are to obey parents. The third institution is that of
the slavery; slaves are to submit to their masters as unto the Lord and
therefore as freemen, and not as servile men-pleasers. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>We find the same approach
by Peter. Peter begins: “submit yourselves to every human
institution.” This included kings and governors. So Peter begins with
the institution of the state. The second institution is that of slavery. The
third institution is that marriage, and Peter writes, <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in;text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>In the same way, you
wives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are
disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of
their wives, as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior. And let not
your adornment be merely external – braiding the hair, and wearing gold
jewelry, or putting on dresses; but let it be the hidden person of the heat,
with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious
in the sight of God. For in this way in former times the holy women also, who
hoped in God, used to adorn themselves, being submissive to their own
husbands. Thus Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord….You husbands
likewise, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with a weaker
vessel, since she is a woman; and grant her honor as a fellow heir of grace of
life…. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>And for the reader’s reference, here is the passage from
Ephesians 5:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>giving thanks always and for everything to God the
Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21 submitting to one another out
of reverence for Christ.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the
Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the
head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the
church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their
husbands.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the
church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having
cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might
present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such
thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way
husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife
loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and
cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of
his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and
hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This
mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife
see that she respects her husband.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>So clearly, in both Paul and Peter, we are all to submit to one
another; but submission and application of the gospel takes on a very
particular form in the various institutions of state, marriage, and slavery.
And before the word “slavery” causes offense here, please note that
Paul’s injunctions are to the slaves (he has things to say to masters as
well); a Christian servant was to serve his master in a particular way assuming
the existence of the institution. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>The unique command for women to submit to their husbands is clear in
other passages as well. Writing to Titus, Paul says that he is to teach women
to love their children and submit to their husbands, whereas husbands are to
sensible, good, pure, dignified. And then Paul goes onto the next institution:
“Urge bond slaves to be subject to their own masters…not
argumentative, not pilfering.” And then the third institution of the
state is discussed: “Remind them to be subject to rulers, to authorities,
to be obedient…”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>So Peter and Paul see marriage as an institution, one with respective
roles, just as they see the political state as an institution. And the gospel
did not obliterate submission in the home; it rather revolutionized it, just as
it did within the institution of slavery and the state. Just as Jesus did not
propose political revolution, so did he not reject in full the submission found
within the institution of marriage. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Keely Writes:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>3. A point I've made
before is that while Jesus chose to set aside much of His majesty and be in
complete submission to His Father WHILE HE WAS ON EARTH, He is no longer in
unilateral submission to God the Father, nor was He prior to the Incarnation.
That's the view of Scripture and, less important, the view of the Church
orthodox for two millennia. You say that Christ's being "Son to the
Father" implies a role distinction, but you err in two ways:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>One, you are taking
"son" and "father" in the literal sense that we use it in
English, but the Trinity is far too complex to reside within the vocabulary we
have; we use words like "son" and "father," "male and
female He created them," to illustrate imperfectly the Perfect that
surpasses our language. We don't believe, for example, that God, who is
described in Genesis as "male and female" (as we are thus created
"in His image") has physical sexual characteristics, much less a
two-gendered physical body. We accept that within the Person of God the
Father, we have a God who is fully male and fully female in ways that we cannot
pack into the word containers we have. Indeed, some have tragically used the
"maleness" of God to assert that men more properly mirror the Godhead
than do women, an error that must grieve the One who created us both male and
female.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Me:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>I do not believe I am
taking the words literal. Rather, speaking of Son and Father before and after
the incarnation is legitimate, and Jesus submitted to the will of the Father as
a son and as the Son. While on earth, Jesus spoke to his Father, in
submission, asking the Father to make his followers one with him as he was
currently one with the father. Before Jesus humbled himself, his sonship would
have operated differently; and after glorification, his exaltation to the throne
certainly operates differently. But he is still a Son to his Father; he still
originates from the Father. He still sits on his Father’s right hand.
In sum, the Word becoming flesh revealed the Trinity concretely; Jesus as Son,
submitting to his Father, revealed something to us about his eternal
relationship to the Father in terms of his submissive Sonship. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Keely Writes:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Two, you are importing
into your argument of "roles" within the Trinity a hierarchy, however
sanctified, that mirrors the relationships and roles we have here on Earth.
What Jesus DID wasn't simply a "role," it was and is essential to his
Personhood, and the mutuality and harmony of the Trinity, which your own elders
correctly describe as a dance of love and intimacy, cannot also be one of
"leadership" and "follower." However, EVEN IF IT DID, it
only goes as far as an analogy as its illustration of love and mutuality; it
cannot be used as a model of gender relationships that subjugates women.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Me:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>This seems to miss the
argument. The point is not gender relationships. One wife might command the
obedience of a male servant who is husband of another. The point is with
respect to the institution of marriage and to the different roles that the
different persons of the Trinity play. Just as there is love and mutuality in
a Christian marriage where a woman submits to her husband, so there is love and
mutuality in the Godhead in which the Son eternally proceeds from the Father,
and in such a way that when becoming flesh, he submitted himself to his Father
as the eternal Son. And although Orthodoxy speaks of the perichoretic
mutuality and harmony of the Trinity, it also speaks of the different roles
played by each person of the Trinity. “leadership” and
“follower” is not the precise terms for this, and “submission”
is certainly not ideal. But my point was not to state that the Son submits to
the Father in precisely the same way a woman submits to a husband or a citizen
to the State. To be more precise, I would say that the submission of Son to
Father was grounded in the eternal relationship of the Trinity, just as the
unique submission of wife to husband is grounded in the eternal relationship
between church and Jesus. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>All for now.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Thanks,<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Michael<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
</body>
</html>