The Southern Baptist Convention, in a move that drew much
media attention, in the late 1990s amended its official statement of
belief to affirm that a wife should "graciously submit to
the servant leadership of her husband." The
amendment—the first change in the largest Protestant
denomination's Faith and Message statement since
1963—alludes to Ephesians 5:22-33, part of a so-called
"household code" regulating the relationships between
persons in the ancient household.
Household codes were used in the ancient world to reinforce
the social hierarchy (e.g. the subordination of women). The
proper ordering of the household was seen to be integrally
related to the welfare of the state. The early Christians likely
adopted the household code in order to allay suspicions that the
church—which could be seen as engaging in social
experimentation—was disruptive of the general social order.
Such a move counteracting egalitarian tendencies in the early
church could have seemed necessary to its very survival.
New Testament documents written before Ephesians, such as
Galatians and 1 Corinthians, suggest that the beginnings of the
church were characterized by some remarkably egalitarian
practices and theology. In Galatians 3:28, for example, Paul
writes, "There is no longer male and female, for you are all
one in Christ Jesus." This theology comes to concrete
expression in Paul's acceptance of women co-workers as apostles,
prophets, teachers, ministers, and "laborers" in the
gospel.
These egalitarian social practices seem to have been extended
to the marriage relationship as well. In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul
gives wives and husbands the same rights and responsibilities in
marriage—not different and unequal ones. One of the
attractions of early Christianity for women was probably that it
afforded them greater freedom and opportunities, based on their
full equality before God, than did the dominant culture.
In providing this space for women, the early church was
mirroring Jesus' treatment of women, which was so accepting and
unstereotypical that it shocked even his own disciples. The
impetus behind such mirroring was surely to a great degree the
experience of the Holy Spirit outpoured on all flesh at Pentecost
in a way that transcended the difference between male and female
(see Acts 2).
We ought not to conclude that earliest Christianity was fully
egalitarian and that the church soon abandoned the vision of
transforming the hierarchical culture around it to conform to the
gospel. We can deduce that there never was a fully egalitarian
expression of Christian faith in the New Testament church. Rather
there is a mixture of the egalitarian and the patriarchal. The
second (and more controversial) conclusion we ought not to draw
is that early Christianity could have adopted a fully egalitarian
expression of Christian faith, if only the church had not made a
compromise with the culture. Such a conclusion presumes that it
was possible both to differentiate completely the gospel from
culture and to live out the gospel in a culturally
"uncontaminated" fashion.
ON THE CONTRARY, Christian faith is always
"inculturated," wrapped in cultural forms. Thus the
equality of the gospel will be experienced partly in the
dismantling of patriarchal structures, partly (paradoxically)
within the framework of those structures. The New Testament
contains different responses to this basic problem of the
interrelationship between the gospel and culture. The true test
of the teachings is whether and how they allow the gospel to
shine its light on the culture and reshape it.
The Ephesians version of this gospel that both adapts to and
transforms culture has been called "love
patriarchalism": It takes up some aspects of patriarchy
(submission of wives) while transforming it through the command
to husbands to "love your wives as Christ loved the church
and gave himself up for her." In the experience of many
married couples, such self-sacrificial love undermines hierarchy.
Nevertheless, love patriarchalism is not acceptable to most
Christian feminists (myself included). It seems anachronistic to
apply it to our contemporary Western egalitarian context anyway.
What we can absorb from Ephesians, however, is its intent to find
a way of inculturating Christian faith that transforms the
culture in accordance with the gospel.
The Southern Baptist position neglects the historical purpose
of the household code in Ephesians (to alleviate social tensions
with the surrounding society) and even contradicts that purpose
by provoking such tensions today. It ignores other New Testament
teachings on the roles of men and women that reflect early
Christian egalitarian impulses. This selective reading of the New
Testament is illustrated by the Southern Baptist decision to
exclude from the amendment the call to mutual submission in
Ephesians 5:21 that prefaces and qualifies the household code:
"Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ."
The Southern Baptist position is offensive in that it fails to
recognize the great contributions of women both to the church and
to the wider society outside of their traditional roles as wives
and mothers. It also dangerously opens the door to horrific
abuses in the name of Christ. The Southern Baptist position is
neither biblical in a serious sense nor just.
Judith Gundry-Volf was an associate professor of New
Testament at Yale University Divinity School when this article
appeared.
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