Is there a future for complementarianism? I don’t mean whether the God-ordained concept of complementarity between men and girls will itself live on—those of us who hold to the principle of equality and distinction between men and girls understand it to be grounded in Scripture itself. Rather, I’m speaking of complementarianism as a particular movement, a coherent framing of a few of those biblical convictions.
I’d very very like to give you the option to proceed describing myself as complementarian by conviction, believing that Scripture prescribes particular roles for men and girls within the church and in the house. But in recent times, the increasing cancellation, co-option, and cannibalization of complementarianism as a term has led me to query whether I’ll proceed to make use of it to explain my beliefs.
Since the word complementarianism was first utilized in the late Nineteen Eighties to explain or frame the theological beliefs I hold, the concept has been subject to much critique. Now as Christians, we must always not fear inquiry but embrace healthy and respectful criticism. It compels us to interrogate our considering, discover our unspoken assumptions, and grow in our understanding and knowledge of God.
But cancellation is different. Cancellation doesn’t simply say, I feel you’re mistaken, and here’s why. It says, You don’t should exist. There is not any place for you here. And unfortunately, an increasing variety of opponents of complementarianism are selecting to leapfrog over critique to land on cancellation. Indeed, many more recent and younger commentators now typically condemn all expressions of complementarianism—in each time and in every place—as being inherently abusive and intolerable.
I share within the lament expressed by lots of these sisters and brothers. I grieve that complementarian theology has been misused and abused by its self-proclaimed proponents to the deep detriment and harm of others, most notably women. I prayerfully long for repentance and recommitment to what I’m persuaded is the biblically faithful and fruitful teaching of the complementarity of men and girls.
However, many now see the concept of complementarianism as fundamentally incapable of being anything aside from harmful to women, with no place for it within the contemporary church. But this implies there is no such thing as a place for complementarian women equivalent to myself within the church.
I hold a doctorate in theology and have extensive experience in ministry leadership in addition to the respect and support of countless male complementarian colleagues. When I seek to supply my very own experience and credentials as evidence that complementarianism is in truth able to uplifting and honoring women, I actually have been informed that it is solely unattainable for complementarianism to have produced such positive results, and so I need to not in truth be complementarian.
How is it possible for complementarianism to have a meaningful future when its opponents deny that it should also have a present?
Yet cancellation is just not the one thing imperiling complementarianism’s future. The theological framework can also be being co-opted by those that hold a much more restrictive view about gendered relationships and roles and seek to flatten out any differences between complementarianism and patriarchalism (the societal rule of men). But complementarian theology is just not similar to patriarchal ideology. Those of us committed to complementarianism’s defining theological principles can spot the differences immediately.
Written in 1987, the founding document of complementarianism—the Danvers Statement—insists on the equal personhood of men and girls. It also recognizes that scriptural distinctions exist and lays out the Bible’s teaching on the godly expression of those distinctions inside the home and the church. It calls women to exercise their God-given intelligence, to not be servile, and to proactively make God’s “grace known in word and deed.”
This is in direct contrast to those that speak of men and girls as unequal in being, extend male headship beyond marriage and the church to all areas of society, claim there is no such thing as a place for girls in theological study (and even higher education more generally), encourage husbands to find out what Christian books they may and won’t permit their wives to read, and suggest there is no such thing as a legitimate ministry for girls outside the house. This is just not complementarianism.
To their credit, many proponents of patriarchy know this. To their mind, complementarianism is just too passive. It doesn’t go nearly far enough. And yet despite this, complementarianism is increasingly being hijacked by this distorted and repressive ideology.
When there is no such thing as a recognized public distinction between these two contrasting viewpoints, how can complementarianism stand by itself terms? How can it proceed to have real meaning into the longer term?
In addition to cancellation and co-option by outsiders, the third and sure biggest present danger to complementarianism’s future is cannibalization from inside.
Such cannibalization occurs when adherents insist on redefining complementarianism beyond the foundational theological principles within the Danvers Statement. Yes, different individuals, churches, and ministries will come to different conclusions about the appliance of those principles.
However, the peril of self-destruction presents itself when such interpretations are defined because the only faithful type of complementarianism. It occurs when no allowance is made for differing conclusions which can be still grounded in and consistent with complementarianism’s defining theological affirmations.
Cannibalization also happens when self-professed complementarians eagerly refute any hint of feminist thought while being apparently content to overlook outright misogyny. I recently watched as a tweet from a self-described Christian feminist woman was subjected to a vitriolic pile-on from certain complementarian quarters while a viral video that asserted women are biologically less able to rational considering than men was greeted with near silence from the identical camp.
When we complementarians are selective in regards to the biblical principles we are going to and won’t uphold, we take part in our own destruction. How is there to be a future for complementarianism if we, its adherents, won’t comprehensively and consistently uphold what we are saying we imagine?
I don’t know if complementarianism as we understand it has a future. But I do know it would only have one if complementarian Christians are willing to consistently reveal—in each word and deed—that those that judge it (and us) incapable of bearing any good gospel fruit have it mistaken; if we’re willing to unapologetically denounce unbiblical and misogynistic teachings about men and girls; and if we’re willing to carry ourselves accountable to our theological principles, each by refusing to transcend them and by settling for nothing less.
If complementarianism is to have a God-given future, then it would require each its female and male adherents to proactively spend money on that future and to achieve this in actual complementary partnership with each other. Therein lies the challenge, but in addition the chance: to model what it really implies that God has created men and girls to bear his image together.
We have the possibility to reiterate the central role that God has been pleased for girls to play within the unfolding storyline of Scripture (equivalent to in Luke 24:1–12) and to enact the sort of wonderful ministry partnership we see between men and girls in Romans 16.
And we now have the chance to mimic and so honor our Savior, who at all times treated women with enormous dignity and respect, who called them to seek out life abundantly in him, and who urged them to ask others to do the identical.
Danielle Treweek is the creator of The Meaning of Singleness: Retrieving an Eschatological Vision for the Contemporary Church and the diocesan research officer for the Anglican Diocese of Sydney.
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