THE REBUTTAL, PART 3/3, FAREWELL
INTRODUCTION
For those of you who have read and watched the exchanges between me and Catherine, this whole debate has taken place over the course of roughly one month. But for the two of us, it’s been closer to four. For every word written or spoken publicly, there were at least 2 in private. I myself have roughly 3000 words sitting in an unreleased article which will remain that way (unreleased, that is).
When we first embarked on this cordially adversarial partnership, perhaps Catherine knew what she was getting herself into. Looking back now, I did not. I had envisioned this initial discussion as the first of a few, including one on complementarianism vs. egalitarianism in the home/family. What I did not imagine is the toll that this debate would take on me, spiritually and emotionally.
I do not say this, in any way, as a criticism of Catherine. She has been respectful in every way throughout the whole process. What I mean is that I did not imagine the amount of sheer effort required for such a rigorous debate. It has given me a whole new respect for the academic types who do this sort of thing on the regular, but with far more rigorous standards of citation, peer review, etc.
STORY TIME WITH UNCLE LUKE
Before I give my final remarks on the debate itself, I need to make an announcement and give an explanation. The announcement is that I will be stepping away from Advent Christian Voices indefinitely. The same goes for Bible & Banter, and any other regularly released online content. The reasons for this exit are many, but let me first say what they are not.
I have not had any unsavory conflicts with anyone involved in this long-form discussion. This has nothing to do with anyone I have worked with. They have all been helpful to and patient with me.
But on a personal level, in the past five months my family has dealt with:
-The birth of Hazel with down syndrome, duodenal atresia, and several other minor disorders
-Hazel’s major abdominal surgery on her 4th day of life outside the womb
-Dozens of appointments with doctors and specialists even after we came home
-Extreme back pain for many weeks after Hazel’s birth for my wife, which turned out to be gall stones
-Emergency surgery to remove my wife’s gall bladder, and various minor complications after its removal
All of this on top of living in the Covid era, trying to navigate the fine line between safety and paranoia, dealing with the endless discussions in the news, personal relationships, and on social media about masks, vaccines, and morality, and worrying through all of it about a little baby girl with weak respiratory passages and a compromised immune system.
With all that said, we need a break. We are so grateful for the love, the prayers, the gifts, the cards, and the many ways that people have reached out and offered their support. But for a season, we need some privacy. I have learned a whole new level of empathy for people who experience long-term medical problems. On the one hand, I want the people around me to know the circumstances so they can pray for the situation. On the other hand, after a while I’ve started to feel like I live in a fishbowl, and everyone is staring at me and my “special needs” child, waiting for the next update.
I so appreciate the platform that Advent Christian Voices has given me, and being able to write and share my thoughts has been a blessing. But for a while, I’d like to just be a husband and a father and a son and a friend and a pastor, and maybe once in a while a musician. I’ve been so busy writing and reading articles this year that I’ve barely written any music. That makes me sad, and I’d like to start doing that again.
PICKING A WINNER
But back to the debate. Perhaps the most obvious question is who won? Well, I certainly was not swayed by Catherine’s arguments. But I’m sure she would say the same about mine. I’d like to say the readers won because they got to hear the arguments, come to a proper understanding of each position, and consider their own views in the light of the evidence. But I’m not sure that happened. I think there are a few reasons why.
STRANGE BEDFELLOWS
For one, having now been through this whole public dialogue, I’m not so sure I was the best representative for my “camp.” Don’t get me wrong, I remain quite convinced by my arguments. But several of my fellow complementarians have given me the proverbial stink-eye at various points, confused as to how we took such different journeys to reach the same destination.
Of the many lessons I’ve learned over the past month, one is that you can’t assume the thought process of anyone who agrees with your conclusion. Despite our agreement that the Bible teaches complementarianism, some of my strange bedfellows disagree with me on exactly how it does so.
STRAW MEN ARE FIRE-RESISTANT
One of the very first things I attempted to do at the beginning of my exchange with Catherine was to burn both of the straw men. I wanted to be clear that I was not a domineering misogynist, and that she was not a Bible-burning communist. Labels like “liberal,” “sexist,” “ignorant,” etc. can be thrown with ease, regardless of their accuracy.
Nevertheless, mischaracterizations of both of our positions have persisted. First, allow me to concede mine. In retrospect, I wish that Catherine and I had exchanged our debate preparation before we went on air. I came quite prepared to answer a number of typical egalitarian objections. Some of them did indeed arise. But others did not. When you’re reading the various arguments, it’s easy to forget that you’re not debating a “camp” or a “position,” but rather a person. In the same way that I have my own brand of complementarianism, Catherine has her own brand of egalitarianism. We each have our own journeys of thought that led us to our current positions, and while they were certainly affected by the arguments of popular writers and thinkers, neither of us can be cornered into any singular stream of rhetoric.
Furthermore, I am even more convinced now than I was at the beginning that for many egalitarians, this is an issue driven by emotional trauma. This is not a slight against Catherine, who has been very faithful not to raise practical or personal objections, but has steadfastly kept her arguments grounded in the Biblical text. But many commenters have brought up examples of complementarianism gone wrong. They cite the abuses of male figures and leaders in their own lives, or in the lives of others they have observed from afar, and challenge me to explain how I and other complementarians can avoid such abuses.
I don’t mean to sound cold or unsympathetic to such people, who I don’t doubt have experienced real trauma. But I don’t have to explain a thing to you. I am not your abusive father. I am not your overbearing teacher. I am not the fundamentalist creep shushing women every chance they get, and some of the questions posed to me, quite frankly, offend me.
Please don’t misunderstand me, if you are someone genuinely seeking answers to difficult questions about the Bible’s teaching on men and women and their roles, I welcome your questions about how to practically work out the different views. But if you are a committed egalitarian, please stop conflating me with men who mistreat women. The only reason you have for doing so is to win this argument by sheer emotional manipulation. And I’m not playing your game.
NOT AN END, BUT A BEGINNING
As I said earlier, I had originally imagined this dialogue as having future installments. Since I am excusing myself for the foreseeable future, I would like to say, for the record, that Catherine and I have only scratched the surface of this subject. The Biblical evidence for complementarianism in the home FAR outweighs the evidence for complementarianism in the Church. Ephesians 5, Colossians 3, 1 Peter 5, and on the list of proof texts goes.
I hope that others will pick up the torch I am laying down. In some ways, others already have. Lou Going recently posted an article with a much more thorough treatment of the common egalitarian objections than I even attempted:
Perhaps someday I will return and once again cross swords with Catherine or some other like-minded theologian. But for now, I will sheath my pen and leave that fight to others.
WAS IT WORTH IT?
So, as I sit here, exhausted, frustrated, and considering how I could have done it all so differently, one question remains: was it worth embarking on this project? Unlike so many other questions throughout this dialogue, this one is easy to answer. Absolutely it was.
We live in a culture that discourages open and free thinking. Everyone is afraid to say something that could be used against them later. I flatly reject this kind of attitude. The only way to know if I’m thinking rightly is to expose my arguments to criticism. Sometimes, they hold up well. Other times, they’re a mixed bag. Still other times, I fall flat on my face, and get up with pie or egg or some other messy food item all over it. Yet every time, regardless of the results, I learn.
I’ve learned a lot by doing this. I’m still as committed to complementarianism as ever, because Catherine (despite a valiant effort) offered me no convincing evidence to the contrary. But the next time I engage with anyone on this subject, I’ll approach it differently.
To my readers, thank you for taking the time out of your lives to listen to me ramble. Should I ever return, I intend to come back better than ever, refreshed by a season of simpler life than the one I have lived for the past several months, and ready to employ the lessons I learned in the trenches, trading and receiving blows with fellow believers striving to understand God’s truth in His word.
May Jesus Christ be glorified by the words I have written. This has been Luke, signing off.