The material basis of complementarianism

Mark Baddeley over at the Sola Panel has written this piece on “complementarianism and egalitarianism.” 

“Complementarianism” is the theological belief that men and women have different roles, and that a woman’s role is subordinate but equal to the role of men, and that therefore women cannot have authority over men in church, and that therefore, women can only be ordained to roles such as running Sunday School, “Ladies’” ministry, serving food to men and cleaning up after them - but not to pastoral ministry.

“Egalitarianism” is the belief that men and women can both be called to any role.

This clean choice of two clean options (C-ism vs. E-ism) is the brain child of John Piper and Wayne Grudem, and is robustly defended by conservative groups such as the Sydney Diocese of the Anglican Church.

Baddeley’s logic (and I’m attempting to be objective here, but should admit from the start that I do not feel very objective) is classical, paranoid 'slippery slope' rhetoric. Namely, he argues that it is important to deny ordination to women, because if we start ordaining women, then logically, we would have to start approving homosexuality too. (Although to be fair, Baddeley talks about “promoting” homosexuality, and I am curious about what exactly that entails… but I think he really means approving not promoting).

Slippery slope arguments have this structure: 'Give a n*gger an inch and he’ll take a mile.' Their logic functions as follows: ‘if you let them free from cotton picking, next they will want to vote. If you let them vote, they will want to ride on the bus next to us. If you let them ride on the bus, they will want jobs with a living wage. Once they have a wage, they will want to move into our neighbourhoods, teach in our schools and marry our daughters.’

A similarly terrifying outcome of egalitarianism, based on the same logic is this: if you give human rights to women, then not only will gay people want them too, but EVERYONE will! Gays will want marriage; Palestinians and Afghanis will want to live without fear; political prisoners in Guantanamo Bay will want to not be tortured; the third world will demand clean water and food.  Chaos liberally ensues!

In other words, complementarianism, as much as it seems to be backed up by the genius ability of male theologians to take bible verses out of context, is really based on their desire to secure their own material comfort - not just in their Christian homes, but globally.  If we let women be ordained, it’s not simply their male privileges of hot dinners and clean laundry that are threatened… their and our ability to exploit marginalised people everywhere would be at stake.