Theology in the Raw - The Beauty of Complementarity: Dr. Gregg Allison

Episode Date: January 16, 2025

Dr. Gregg Allison is a professor of Christian theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, the secretary of the Evangelical Theological Society, and a senior fellow at the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. He has written numerous books, including his forthcoming book Complementarity: Dignity, Difference, and Interdependence, which forms the backdrop for our conversation.  -- If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe to my channel! Support Theology in the Raw through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw Or you can support me directly through Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Visit my personal website: https://www.prestonsprinkle.com For questions about faith, sexuality & gender: https://www.centerforfaith.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Dr. Greg Allison, who is a professor of Christian theology at the Southern Baptist theological seminary. He's written a ton of different books, including his forthcoming book called ready for it. Complimentarity subtitle, dignity, difference, and interdependence. No, it is not about the complimentarian and egalitarian debates. At least he's not picking aside on that. Although the topic of this book does interact with various egalitarian and complimentarian scholars. So please don't make up your mind ahead of time. What you think this book is all about,

or what you think this conversation is all about. I really enjoyed getting to know Greg a bit better. I've interacted with him the past a few times and he's always very kind, wise, humble, and gracious. So, yeah, this is a really fascinating conversation if you're interested in what the Bible has to say about male-female relations without reading that conversation just through the lens of complementarianism and egalitarianism. So, please welcome back to show. The one and only Dr. Greg Ellis. Hey Greg, welcome to theology in the raw. You have a book coming out. It's a ways out. It's coming out in May. So this is a little early, but people can still pre-order it. If they find this conversation interesting,

the title of your book is pretty provocative. Why don't you give us the title of your book? It's complimentarity, dignity, difference, and interdependence. So what I hear complimentarity, obviously my mind goes to the complementarian, egalitarian debates. Are you waded into that or what is, yeah, why that title? I'm not wading into that debate at all. There are thousands of books, tens of thousands of articles on the importance of roles from those two perspectives, roles in the church, roles in a family. And I'm not dealing at all with that reality. Complimentarity

for me is something more foundational that undergirds those roles. And it talks about the nature of men, the nature of women and the relationship. Well, it's interesting because I know a lot of egalitarian don't actually like the term complimentarian as it pertains to that debate, because they're like, we believe that the sexes compliment each other. Like that, that, that, that term doesn't, it almost like a, it's, it almost suggests that egalitarians don't believe that, you know, and maybe some don't, you know, but the ones I talked to would say, no, we believe in male, female differences that these differences are good and beautiful.

We just don't think that that excludes one or the other from a person, a position of leadership. So yeah, give us the, since nobody has read it, it's not out yet. Tell us the gist of the book. So I define Complementary as God's design for His male image-bears and female image-bears to fill out and mutually support one another, relationally, familiarly, vocationally, and ecclesially for their individual and corporate flourishing. The idea here, given the title, Complementarity, Dignity, Difference, Interdependence, is that men and women alike share equal dignity being created in the image of God. God has also designed and created men and women with significant differentiation,

and we celebrate that reality. And when men and women live in love and in community and in strong relationships, there's a synergy that produces a flourishing interdependence, and this is by God's design. Do you deal a lot with the science of sex differences, how it interacts with the brain, different hormone levels, and how that manifests itself in behavior and interest and all these things? I do a little bit. So I talk about a biological reality, but my bigger point is that men and

women alike share common human capacities like rationality, emotions, volition, motivations, and they share common human properties like protectiveness, goodness, courage, the fruit of the spirit, other Christian virtues. And because we're gendered, sexed all the way down, men and women will inherently express those common human capacities and common human properties in ways that are typical and fitting for men and women. Okay. Now these different expressions, I've often seen these and see if what you think as, as kind of like a bell curve, right? Where, yes, you know, the majority of women are this

way. The majority of men are this way, the different interests and skill sets or whatever. But then there's always going to be a decent percentage that maybe fall outside of that. Like most engineers are just male. And here we get into a debate. Is that because of the engineering whole industry is socially structured in a sexist kind of anti-woman way? Is it, is it, is it nature? Is it nurture? Are men conditioned through culture to be more into engineering type skills or is there something biological on a general level that where men are more just wired that way? Now that doesn't mean there aren't awesome female engineers. It's just, it's, I would love, yeah. So would you say that it is something

like that or other, you can give other examples, that these are springing from our biology, from the creator's design to put it theologically? Or how much of this is socially constructed? My good friend, Felipe Doveo at Trinity has written a wonderful book, Gender is Love, and he disputes the notion that gender or sex is completely sexually, sorry, socially constructed. He does talk about biology, but not in biological determinism or biological essentialism. I applaud him for that.

So I actually interact with him a little bit on that. But your point about the bell curve is very well taken. So think of the book or the movie Hidden Figures, where you have African American women who are helping to put a man on the moon back in 1969. They are engaged in advanced mathematical computational exercises. They're using slide rulers, right? Inventing math. We would say that is usually on the bell curve, right? The domain, the realm of men,

but they had these advanced computational abilities. That does not mean that they were men. That does not mean that they were acting manly. That does not mean that they were wrong. It's just on the bell curve, they were a particular swath of that bell curve, which again is usually the realm of men, but they were acting properly as women with these gifts

and helping put the first man on the moon. Wonderful. It's fascinating. Yeah, I recently heard about that. That's crazy, especially that long ago, you know? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

Now I feel like scientifically, you know, it'd be pretty easy to establish these kinds of bell curve type interest behaviors theologically or biblically. Can can you do that? I mean, I'm just, my mind's just going through different stories where you have examples of different biblical characters that are kind of breaking the stereotypes. I always wonder, is that intentional or is it just kind of the biblical author just recording what happened? He's not trying to make a major point or is he trying to say, you know, think of the classic example of like a Deborah in, in judges for, you know, she's a, what a prophetess, a leader, a judge, you know, it's like, gosh, this, this would be a traditional masculine,

a societal role. Like what's the author thinking when he, when he is describing her, is he really trying to push that or is he just saying, yeah, she just happened to be the case. So I'm recording it, you know, um, you know what I mean? Like I think biblical authors are all always well intentioned for the selection and the narration of the stories. So, in my book, I look at about 20 Old Testament narratives of men and women interacting, like one that you pointed out. I look at about 20 passages or more, 25 in the Gospels, Jesus's interaction with men, Jesus's interaction with women, and then I look at the book of Acts.

I look at all the difficult passages in the rest of the New Testament. But my point in using these narratives is that biblical authors are emphasizing certain things and in the story, like the story that you're talking about, Deborah, we've got complementarians interpreting it one way in accordance with their view, egalitarians interpreting that story according to their view. What I'm saying is let's look at some more unifying, undergirding principles, points that the biblical author's trying to make, like Deborah basically rescues the entire nation of Israel.

Right? And we should applaud that. So what I'm trying to do in this book is look at these passages, these narratives and all like that, and just say, have we missed something by so focusing on roles and these frameworks of complementarianism and gallitarianism? We need to look in a different way at something more foundation. Wow. Oh, that's interesting. Can you give us some more example? You say you talk about several stories in the old Testament, gospel's act. Let's interesting. Can you give us some more examples? You said you talk about several stories in the Old Testament, the Gospels Act. Let's look at the Gospels. Yeah. So I take the first part, I look at Jesus' interaction

with male characters. And I'm pointing out both important points for Christology, but then I'm also looking at how these men model for us faith, obedience, courage, praise, evangelism, etc., etc. Then I look at Jesus' interaction with women, again, pointing out Christological ideas, but then also showing how these women model faith, obedience, courage, persistence, overcoming immense obstacles, praise, evangelism, etc., etc. But in terms of Jesus' interaction with female characters, He has to do a lot more in overcoming

taboos, overcoming social pressures, like even engaging in a conversation with a woman at the well, having been touched by a woman, right? Things like that. And I want to show that from these narratives, the biblical authors, like the evangelists, want to use both men and women as models for Christian discipleship today. We are to follow, I as a man, am to follow both Jesus' interaction with men and Jesus' interaction with women to learn about faith, obedience, courage, praise, discipleship, etc., etc. Yeah, I've been doing a lot of recent study on Jesus' interaction with women, and it is fascinating, especially when you situate Jesus in His first century Jewish context, which was very male dominant, hierarchical,

devalued women. And I, what I find fat. Okay. So here's something that's interesting. It's, it's fairly rare for ancient authors, Greco-Roman authors, Jewish authors to praise women, but it's not unheard of when they do. They praise women for living out stare stereotypical female virtues. This woman's awesome. She's modest, you know, she's faithful to her husband and, and they praise women for, you know, then things that, you know, are bad. It's just a good woman does these things. You know, what you find in the gospels though, is that women, you said it, I mean, they're often held up as models of discipleship period, like demonstrating faith in the midst of difficult circumstances, demonstrating courage, radical sacrifice with the widow who gave up, you know, half of her

income or whatever, you know, or gave her whole life, I think Mark says. And so I think that, as far as I can tell, that really is unique in how women are presented by a male author in the ancient world. I'm not sure, you know, what does that mean? I think it means that women can be full-on powerful disciples. And oftentimes they're even contrasted with the 12, right? Like where the 12 are failing, these women are living out what the 12 should be doing. And I'm not, I'm still trying to see like, what is that? Okay, what is that?

So the first 20% of my book, I use a sister Prudence Allen, three volume work, the concept of woman. It's three volumes, it's her life work, 45 years of work, in which she begins 500 years before Christ, right, with the Greek philosophers. She talks about the Greco-Roman world and then moves through the history of the Church, theologically, ecclesiastically, sociologically, and all like that. And what I try and do is paint a very tragic picture of the demeaning and defacing of women.

We have 2,500 years of history where men have demeaned women, have mistreated women, have considered women to be defective men, have considered women to be defective men, considered women to be irrational. Yeah, they have some kind of rational capacity, but the rationality doesn't have enough authority to overcome their bodily passions and desires. Women, therefore, should be silent. They can't engage in philosophy. They can't lead anything like that. And so I'm painting the picture, it's over a hundred pages of this tragic reality, this background,

which I say we have not yet overcome. We've made some good steps forward, but we still struggle with it. But then put that in the context of what Jesus is doing with men and women. And I think the radical nature of Jesus' call of and discipleship for men and women is really underscored. And I'm trying to do this for the purpose of emphasizing complementarity.

That word, I know it's going to be a trigger for some people. It is. Every time they hear that, they just automatically are going to go to the debates. [♪ Music playing. Fading out. This episode is brought to you by Mitopure by Timeline. Okay, so I care a lot about my health. You've heard me talk about this and you know, the older I get, the more important it is for me.

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So right now, Timeline is offering 33% off your first order of Mitapure while supplies last. Just go to timeline.com forward slash theology 33. Okay. So that's timeline.com forward slash theology 33, or you can just click on the link in the show notes. Do you think your work would lend itself to either one of those views or is it really because I could even hear just based on like what we were just saying about Jesus interacting with female disciples. I've seen egalitarian say the same thing as, as, but as an argument for equal roles in the church or something,

you know, and, and this is where I'm truly like wrestling with how I don't want to read too much into this or try to squeeze something out of this portrait. That's just the authors aren't trying to say. And I also want to be nervous. Always jump into modern application when you know, are there are, are there gospel writers trying to make a case for or against women and leaders? I just don't think that was their main thing that they're trying to do. So I don't know. I'm really wrestling with how I don't want to squeeze too much on one

squeeze too little out of, you know, these observations, whatever. But some people are so cautious. There's so much that you've said, right? So in my book, the two conversation partners are complementarianism and egalitarianism. So like on the story of Deborah or biblical passages like 1 Timothy 2, I set forth the complementarian view. I set forth the egalitarian view or views, right? I do not adjudicate between them.

That's not my purpose. I'm saying, is there something that we've missed here by so focusing on these frameworks and the roles that were missing very important points? That's what I'm trying to do. So, I'm not favorable toward complementarianism. I'm not favorable toward egalitarianism. I will point out where there's strengths in both, weaknesses of both. I don't judge between the two.

Right? But then I do point out, for example, in Jesus's interaction with women in the Gospels, for my try, it's important to understand that these narratives of Jesus's interaction with women are not just lessons for women, right? Therefore, all the cycles of Jesus Christ. But then in relationship to egalitarianism, who say because women were the first witnesses of the resurrection, therefore they can be pastors, I actually offer them several steps in the argument

that they will need to make in order to reach that conclusion and be persuasive. So I'm, I'm, I'm interacting with both and I'm plotting and I'm critiquing both, but I'm also saying, look at complimentarity. Do you think one side will be more satisfied with your book than, than the other, the anticipate how about both being dissatisfied? Well, I, that's right. I was almost like, I could, I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of either one. I could see some, you know, egalitarians saying, yes, yes, yes. Now take it a step further. And some commentaries saying, well, you're just paving the way for egalitarianism. But again,

I don't think either would be correct. It doesn't seem, cause I agree. I think, I do think that when people look at these stories and passages with this question in mind, complimentary and egalitarian, sometimes they do miss the full beauty of what's going on in the actual text. When you have kind of a question you needed to answer. Yeah. So first Corinthians 11. Yeah. Right. And you, you've just done an ETS paper on that. Right. So I set forth the complementarium view or views, egalitarian view or views. But what I'm pointing out is that the very, so this is a tradition that goes back at least to Thomas Aquinas, where men are immediately created by God without any intervening material,

and women are indirectly created by God through men. And there is some verses that talk about that. I think they're talking about historical Adam and Eve. But then what I think is missed in this is that Paul is saying, but all men, and all women, for that matter, come from women, right? And all things come from God. And there's the point of interdependence, which is one of the three key points that I'm trying to make in this book. Why can't we see in this passage,

the important emphasis on men and women enjoying flourishing interdependence? Because when we love one another and we seek to outdo one another and honoring one another and care for one another and pray for one another and our community with one another, we do express our interdependence in God honoring and male and female promoting ways. Yeah, that's those verses 11 and 12 there. Yes.

Really. And he even, you know, that's where he talks about interdependence of women. In a way, there are men and women in a way that kind of augments what he just said. So it's almost like you have to take that his, you know, quick reading of creation with this interdependence. Yeah. I think Paul is actually anticipating a misunderstanding of what he wrote, and He says, now, don't misunderstand me. There's strong male-female interdependence here. That's what I'm trying to bring out in complementarity. Let's not miss this. Pete Yeah, that's good. That's good. You see that throughout Corinthians. I mean,

chapter seven, you have some of that. And yeah, wow. Wow. So, also, I look at biblical metaphors for the church. For example, the body of Christ, and there is the head who is Jesus Christ. He's the authority or source, right? Or source and authority. I talk about the debate. I'm not adjudicating, but He's the head. And then we are all members of the body, we are parts of the body. But there, in that passage, in that metaphor, there is no hierarchy.

That is not the point of that metaphor. We're all parts, we're all members, we're all equally important, significantly dignified. We need one another for the church to function. Same thing with the temple of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, right, is the one who gathers us as living stones, right? He is the Spirit who is directing. There's no hierarchical reality among the living stones.

If you want to build a case for that, you have to build it from somewhere else, but not from that. And then we have, so we've got the body of Christ, the temple of the Holy Spirit, and then the family of God. Yes, within the family, there's fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, and all like that. But the point here isn't, again, hierarchy. It's not authority and submission or whatever. There's a different reality being pointed out. So I'm trying to say, here's something we need to focus on. Similarly, I talk about the prophethood

of all believers, the priesthood of all believers, and the kingship of all believers. The last metaphor, the kingship of all believers, there is a king, right? It's Jesus. But there are no kings among us as fellow members, citizens of the kingdom of God. There is the priesthood of all believers. There is a high priest. It's not you and me, right? We're all priests and we pray for one another and share the gospel with one another

and we absorb and then monish one another with the word. And so those are the kinds of emphases I'm trying to make in this book. That's great. How do you read a Glacius 328? I know that's a big... Yeah, I talk about the complementarian views and the egalitarian views.

And what I'm focusing on here is male and female, men and women alike have, uh, have dignity as image bears are rescued from sin and salvation. And they're safe. They're incorporated into, uh, the church. Uh, so that's, I'm just trying to draw attention to that reality. What would be the compliment? How would you how do a complimentarians read Galatians 3.28 versus the egalitarians? Like what are the different, I could, I could, I could assume how an egalitarian is going to read it. You know, there's neither male and female therefore, you know, there should be no distinction, no, no role distinction in the, in the church or in, or in marriage.

Right. So complimentarians would say the sole focus on that passage is about salvation and then equal incorporation into the Church. And it says nothing about roles. It says nothing about men and women in ministry. It doesn't make that point. So interacting with both of them, I'm just trying to show that here in the church, men and women have equal dignity, equal value. And then whatever you decide about the hierarchy roles and things like that, that's another debate. It's not my point. Yeah, I need to revisit it. It's been a while. You know what's interesting? And this is what threw me off because I dealt with it a little bit in my book embodied is he says neither slave nor free nor what Greek or whatever. And then he says neither male and female.

Isn't that weird? He doesn't say neither male nor female. He says neither male and female. Doug Moo takes that back to the early chapters of Genesis and says that's what the difference is. So what's he denying there? He's citing a pre-fall creation good and he says neither. So he has to almost be assuming some kind of cultural understanding of those passages, not what those passages are saying just intrinsically, right? Or I don't remember the details of it. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, there is a lexical difference there. It is man, male and female. So there's a difference. And one of the key things that I try

and work with is, so Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female, right? That doesn't mean that these ethnic racial distinctions, these socio-economic distinctions, these gender distinctions, it doesn't mean that they don't exist. Some people pretend they don't. That's not Paul's point, right? But those, but those realities that so block us, hinder us from complementarity, right? They're, they're dissolved. They're no longer the important distinctions or barriers. That's the point that I'm trying to make here. Hmm. That's good. I, that's, I mean, I, I've never been, he's going to split my audience,

but I need to revisit it granted, but I I've never been, he's going to split my audience, but I need to revisit it granted, but I I've never been really impressed with the egalitarian argument of that passage. I just seems like it's squeezing too much out of what Paul's, I don't, I don't think it would be, I don't think elections three 28 could be used as an argument for traditional complimentarian ism. I just think it doesn't seem to support an egalitarian view. I think that's just, I think both, yeah, I kind of like what you're saying.

I think that's kind of beside the main point of what he's getting at. I think Doug Moo here is really well balanced. He does talk about egalitarian interpretation of that and he cautions it. Then he talks about complementarian interpretation that sees, you know, there's nothing to do with the reality in the church and leadership and things like that. And he says, that's probably over reading it.

That's being too tight with that. And again, I'm not adjudicating. I'm trying to draw a different, uh, underground, underlying foundation of matter. Seems like he's, I mean, the, the, the, the, the social inequalities and hierarchies that these categories bring outside the church are nullified inside the church. So that, uh, Jew, Gentile, slave, uh, free male, female are eating at the same table, eating the same foods, worship the same God. Um, it seems like seems like that's, given the context of Galatians 3, it seems to be his main point. And whether there could be role distinctions within that in the church, I just think it's not, he's not getting into it there.

There would be other passages that would be more appropriate to turn to to discuss those matters. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So, wait, so your wait, so, so your subtitle dignity, difference, and interdependence. I mean, the dignity piece. So that's your first hundred pages where you're following the first hundred pages is historical. It's outside. I'm really pointing out the lack of dignity, right? The demeaning of women. And that sets the table for everything that I do. Okay. Here's what is weighed on me for so long. The first century, let's just say, especially

Jesus's treatment of women was clearly counter-cultural. I seem so clear that he's restoring dignity in women in a culture that didn't ascribe dignity to women. And yet, and you're, you're the church historian. So I, I haven't read too much in the next few hundred years, but I have read enough to know like, it seems like early church writers reflected more of the hierarchy, you know, hierarchical men or women are kind of secondary human beings. Is that true? Am I reading? I mean, there are a few exceptions, rare exceptions, but the picture you just painted that it starts very early in the early church. So what happened? Are they not reading the Bible right? Or are we not

reading the Bible? You know, like, Well, there's a strong Platonic influence. There is and will be even a stronger Aristotelian influence. There's a very strong Gnostic influence, right? So embodied, right? We both written the books entitled Embodied, right? So when you dispense with embodiment, you really dispense with male and female and differences and things like that. And then you've got unisex, you've got sex neutrality, rather than the significant differentiation.

But with the significant differentiation often goes this demeaning of women and this defacing of their image bearing such that even Augustine himself falls into this. That women and men are, yeah, you know, they're alike in some ways in terms of their image bearing, but not so much. Women have an inferior place in that reality. Augustine would say that, wow. Augustine, yep. And then most importantly, Aquinas, who was just channeling Aristotle and Aristotle's notion of a woman is a defective man.

Something went wrong. So much of Aristotle's view channeled then by Aquinas. They just don't understand physiology, reproduction. They don't have the idea of ova and sperm. They're tragically very handicapped, but they're making theological and ecclesiastical points based on ignorance. If they had only just been cautious and not spoken on these things, but they did, constructing a foundation for the demeaning of women, which is just tragic. I'm trying to think like a lot of these writers, you

know, they, you know, late second, third, especially fourth century. We don't have, I just want to know like what happened between like the first century and when some of these more for lack of better terms, misogynistic kind of views, like were they always there or like maybe like an Ignatius is kind of a Ignatius polycarp. Some of those, what say the early second century, like we, it just, is it pretty seamless? Like when the kid, right when the kid, right when the new test was closed, all of some people went back to kind of cultural women or a lot of them don't really delve into that specific area because they're working on a lot of different things. But

overall, the picture is not a positive one when they do focus on maleness and femaleness. They usually just evolve right to the traditional view of it. And that's the culture that surrounds them. So it's just a matter of they just were like all of us, you know, we have our cultural blind spots where we're have viewpoints that maybe are more culturally influenced and biblically influenced and just just happens to be one that pervaded the early church. And when you're dialed into the notion of the gospel and salvation, when you're focusing on Trinitarian heresies and Christological heresies. And when you're trying to build a

church from scratch, doing a lot of ecclesiology, you just don't have much time for, you don't give much attention to theological anthropology. But when you do, you just default, right, to that which is around. Who are some exceptions? Was Christostom, Christostom? he had some, a little bit, yeah. I've seen some things by him. Yeah, Christostom. And Hildegard of Bergen, back in, yeah, she's a major, trying to think here, Hildegard of Bergen, 1098 to 1179. So in Sister Pudence Allen's three volume, The Concept of Woman, Hildegard of Bingen, sorry, Bingen is the earliest champion

of complementarity. Yeah. So a thousand years. Wow. A thousand years. And then we can trace into the 20th century some developments and Sister Prudence Allen really focuses on Jacques Martin and John Paul II. So this gives you an idea that complementarity really is underground.

There's some current of it in the development of Church history, but really it's ignored. It's not promoted until our situation, you know, pretty much in the 20th century and 21st century. So I'm just trying to add on to that. What about the, like in the early church, you do have some heroes, female heroes of the faith, right? You have the martyrs I'm blanking on their names. Yeah. And you have, you have to just kind of scanty, but positive reference, you know, examples of women. It just seems like the man, the male writers, yeah. Kind of regurgitated their cultural viewpoint. But do you have female, do you have female deacons? But a deacon is

not, I think there's, there's some, it's, it's, is it unclear what role a Deacon had at the church? Like it's, they're not, that, that seems like an elder, right? No. So Deaconess is, existed and played very important role. So when a Bishop or a priest would go to the home of a female member, he would always be accompanied by a deaconess to obviously avoid scandal. And then in the days where baptism would be done in the nude, so you would be de-robed, right? Symbolizing then you return to innocence. So the bishop, right, would prepare everything,

would do part of the ceremony, and then would hand off the women to the deaconesses who would then strip these new converts, female converts of their robes and baptize them. So, they, female deacons, deaconesses in the early church played a very important role. Wow. Okay. But that doesn't mean that they didn't, they, we don't have any, do we have any examples of a female priest or overseer, whatever term they would have used for that or no, that's not. Okay. We don't. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. A thousand years. Yes. Yes. What was her point? What

did she, she just advocated for the like equality of women or yes. So for example, she encouraged women to be educated. Right? So, this was in the day where women in convents could experience and practice leadership and teaching and those kinds of things. So she's talking about the importance of that educational leadership opportunities for women like men. Oh, wow. And what region is she in?

Hildegard sounds German. I think German in that area, yeah. But soon after that, right, you have the rise of European universities. And guess who was excluded from being students in European universities? Women, right? So you've got these funny conversations of men

thinking about women in their university studies and wondering just really weird things about women's physiology and rationality and conversation ability and philosophical abilities. I mean, it's just bizarre. But this points out isolation of men from women like in educational facilities, right? It's not only harmful to women, it's also harmful to men because then they're left speculating about the other sex without ever interacting with them. So they just, they're in their heads making up these things and drawing the wrong conclusions. It's sad. It's really tragic.

things and drawing the wrong conclusions. It's sad. It's really tragic. This episode is brought to you by Jitasa, an organization that offers bookkeeping and accounting services exclusively for churches and nonprofits. So the name Jitasa simply means the spirit of serving others. And with over a decade of experience and clients across the US, Jitasa helps nonprofits and churches of all sizes manage their bookkeeping, accounting, taxes, and CFO services. So with Jatassa, you can outsource both your bookkeeping and accounting services or just one of these. Either way, you can be confident that Jatassa will provide professional services designed to meet your nonprofit's specific needs.

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over to, to Jitasa, just tell one of their team members that Preston at theology in the raw set you that's Jitasa group.com, or just click on the link in the show notes. Jitasa. Let's go back to the Bible. Let's go all the way back to Genesis one and two. I'm sure you have a section on Genesis one and two. What, what, what does Genesis one and two, again, it can be subject as all the complementarian, egalitarian debates, whatever, but aside from all that, what can we, what does Genesis 1 and 2 teach us about complementarity?

So Genesis 1, of course, 26 to 28 is the foundational passage for complementarity. And verse 26, the divine deliberation, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, purposing to create a being more like God than any other being to be able to rule over the rest of the created order. Verse 27 is the actualization of that divine intention, that divine deliberation. So God creates a man in His image. In the image of God, He created man. In the image of God, sorry, male and female, He created them. So here, from the very get-go, God created, designed and then created male-embodied image-bearers and female embodied image bearers. And that's they are equal in every way imaginable.

To them, in verse 28, then is given what we call the cultural mandate, or I put it the commandment to build society, to build a flourishing civilization that consists of procreation and vocation. Procreation, be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth, takes two to tango, it takes both men and women and subdue the earth and exercise dominion. So vocation, working hard, takes both men and women to do that. So the cultural mandate, this mandate to build civilization is given equally to men and women. When we come to Genesis 2, then we have the creation of the first man, Adam, the first woman, Eve.

We have to be careful, because sometimes the emphasis in the rest of scripture is on Adam and Eve as the first man and the first woman, not husband and wife. At other points, the emphasis is on Adam as the first husband, Eve as the first wife. We have to be careful. If for me, reading Genesis 2 back into Genesis 1 and concluding from the very beginning, God's design was for a male hierarchy, authority in the outworking of building of society with women being helpers. I think that's a misreading of that. Really? Okay. Oh yeah. Well, I want you to expand on that because that's a, yeah, that's an important point in for the audience. Yeah. I mean, again,

I hesitate putting it back in these categories, but these are the ones that are familiar with people, but familiar to people, you know, egalitarians typically would look at Genesis one and saying, there's no, no evidence for hierarchy here. So whatever you think is going on Genesis two, you have to kind of take Genesis one is kind of giving us the foundation. I agree with that. I think Genesis one, the foundational statement about this, there's no hierarchy. There's no authority. There's no submission. Whatever case you're going to make for hierarchy, authority and submission, it's not in Genesis 1. And it's an error in my estimation to read Genesis 2 with Adam as the first man and Eve as the first woman,

reading it as husband and wife and saying, there it is. It cuts out, obviously, this is very obvious, it cuts out all single people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which, and you know, our churches suffer because we don't have a clear concept of singleness and the value. 1 Corinthians chapter 7, I think we cut it out of our Bibles, right? We don't appreciate that. But if it's just all about husbands and wives, even in Genesis 1,

we're not addressing singleness at all, which I think is a mistake. So, you can build the case. Complementarians build their case for hierarchy, authority, and submission. I just don't think it's found in Genesis one. Let that be a statement about complementarity, which is my point of the book. Do you think it could be in Genesis two? Or you said you don't even see it in Genesis two.

Well, I can see it in Genesis two. I mean, New Testament would view it, right? But that's the reality between husband and wife, right? Oh, I see what you're saying, okay. So there is, right? Oh, I see what you're saying. Okay. So there is, right? Paul looks upon that from a complementarian position. Paul looks upon the narrative of Genesis 2, creation order, manner of creation, purpose

of creation. But his point is primarily about husbands and wives. Let that point stand from a complementarian view, right? But I think it's wrong to then read that into Genesis 1. Let Genesis 1 alone. And again, I'm not someone who says, you can't read all of scripture in particular passages. I read Genesis 1,

one, God in the beginning created the heavens and the earth. I think that's the triune God. I read that verse with Trinitarian eyes on the basis of all scripture, but you have to be careful when you do that. And Genesis 1, 26 to 28, I don't think should be read through hierarchical lenses. So, I want to go back to Genesis 2, because you made a point, I want to make sure it's clear with our audience that, you know, Adam and Eve do come together in a one flesh union in, in, in verse 24. So there is a marriage element to that, but Eve is not simply a created to be a marriage

partner for Adam. She is also, um, she represents community. Um, Adam's alone. This wasn't solved. I don't think in being married, his alone, this was solved in another human being that he, it's, it's like him, but different from him. The Ken egg dough that he, you know, she's a helper that's opposite me, like me, but different from me. So there's a equality, but difference built into that. But that's, that's not simply her qualifications to be a wife. It's her qualifications to be community to, to Adam. And it emphasizes dignity and different. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Two points. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And interdependence. You can put that in as well. Yeah. So, yes, Eve is the first woman, later on, as we said, in Genesis 4, she was the mother of all living things. Right? So, she plays that role. So, looking back again

at Genesis 1, there's procreation and there's vocation, which means the majority of men and women in this world will be married, and the majority of married couples will have children. That's God's design, right? But we have to account for the fact that some people don't get married. They may have the gift of singleness, 1 Corinthians chapter 7, or they may not find a suitable marriage partner. So, not everyone has to be married. The majority will be. And then there's infertility issues and things like that. Some couples may not be able to have children, but this is God's, I would call it, the charter

with mankind, with humankind, so that men and women, generally speaking, are married, have children, and then we're all working together for the flourishing of a society. Do you see significance in Jesus's singleness? I mean, he is the, the last Adam, the most perfect human. And I've heard people say, well, but yeah, but he's divine. And so he had to be single. It's like, well, I also don't want to nullify his a hundred percent humanity just because he was a hundred percent God. Do you see significance in Jesus' singleness? I don't want to speculate too much. I think he could have been Mary. Obviously, there has been

nothing wrong, immoral, sinful. It would have been very difficult. I think he becomes a stellar example of 1 Corinthians 7, a call to singleness, to have wholehearted devotion to the Lord and to the mission. It would have been very difficult for him to be married. I don't think it would have been wrong. But he's the second Adam. But Adam was married, but I think here Adam is being treated just as the first human being, and Adam and then Christ. You have to be either man or woman if you

have the fullness of human nature. And there are reasons why Jesus was incarnate as a man. The father and son idea with the Trinity, the second Adam motif, a sonship as a covenant to reality, blessings of the sons. There are many reasons why it's fitting for Jesus to be male, but I'm cautious in reading too much into his singleness. I certainly don't follow the Roman Catholic idea because Jesus was not married and apparently the apostles weren't married, therefore priests today can't be married. I don't buy that argument. I mean, Peter was married pretty clearly, right?

Apparently, yes. Yes. And if you watch The Chosen, he had a wonderful wife. The Catholics, they can't, like, their first pope, right, was married. There's no denying that, right? Or do they? Oh, easy going. Be careful. So would they say Peter wasn't married? I don't know if they would say he's not married, but let's just say that the trajectory was for priests to not be married because they have to image Christ as fully as possible. Christ was single, was not married, and so as they engage in preaching and the sacraments, they act in the person of Christ. They have

to model him even in their marital relationship as much as possible. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I was reading a bit there on Catholic, uh, theologies of men and women and the all male priesthood and stuff. There's a really good book, uh, by William wit. Um, it's, it's a, it's a book arguing for the ordination of women, but he does a really, really fair job with all the views, but he, in particular, I think he's more of a historian and he, he does says several chapters on kind of Catholic versus Protestant views of male only leadership. And, and I'm obviously much more familiar with the Protestant arguments, but it was

really interesting interacting with the, the Catholic arguments, but it was really interesting interacting with the Catholic arguments. But yeah, the male priest must represent Christ. It is different than how Protestants frame it. It's interesting, because I'm just not familiar with the Catholic way of framing it. And that goes back to Luther at the start, right? Martin Luther just challenging the whole notion of the priesthood, a caste of unmarried men, and he would say poor arguments for that. It's interesting that a guy like this is advocating for female priestly ordination. I don't think it's going to happen. The current Pope Francis has done some exploratory studies on deaconesses, and he's not in favor of that.

Oh, really? Right? So, yeah, he doesn't feel like the tradition is strong enough so that today they would emphasize deaconesses. So I'm disappointed in that. I think it could help solve some problems in the Roman Catholic Church, but I don't think he's going in that direction. And he certainly then not in the direction of female priests. And he's among the more, isn't he more progressive kind of like, if anybody was going to flip the script on that, it'd be him. But I think so. That's right.

Tell us so we could close for last question. What do you want people to walk away with when they when they read your book? What's the what's the so that kind of I'm I'm saddened by the impacts between complementarians and egalitarians, the bomb throwing, the tension. And I have no grandiose delusions that my book is going to unknot that and solve the problem and necessarily even reduce the tensions. But I would like both groups, both frameworks to consider complementarity as a foundation that undergirds their frameworks. And just call them to look at scripture, look at theological matters like the body of Christ, the priesthood of all believers, and see this significant, this dignity made in the image of God, this significant differentiation, and then this

flourishing interdependence that will grow out of love, harmony, respect for one another, honoring one another. Just a call to engage in what Alice Matthew calls Pauline love mutualism all in love mutualism in Romans 12 through 15. That's my initial biblical support for the idea of complementarity. And it's all about respect and honor and hospitality, supporting one another, loving one another, outdoing one another in showing honor. If we can do that, if my book can contribute a little bit towards that, I would be very pleased. That's fantastic. Greg, it was great seeing you again. Thanks for being a guest on theology and neural. I really appreciate the conversation. Thanks Preston. Thanks so much. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.

Hi, I'm Haven, and as long as I can remember, I have had different curiosities and thoughts and ideas that I like to explore, usually with a girlfriend over a matcha latte. But then when I had kids, I just didn't have the same time that I did before for the one-on-ones that I crave. So I started Haven the Podcast.

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