Biblical complementarity is not fundamentally about what opportunities women must forgo, but what responsibilities men must take up.
— Dr. Jason K. Allen, President of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
As I’ve noted before, Complementarians live in a fantasy land where feminist rebellion doesn’t exist. According to Complementarians, women aren’t coveting the roles of men, men are forcing women to take on their roles by abdicating them. This is ludicrous, but it is how Complementarians have coped with the feminist rebellion. The best example of this I’ve seen to date comes from the PCA’s Ad Interim Study Committee on Women in the Military (June 2002):
Through this committee’s study, it has become apparent that the sin of our present circumstances is not that of women who have taken on the role of warrior-defender, but that of brothers, fathers, and husbands who have abandoned their daughters, wives, and mothers to the androgyny and sexual anarchy which has been the seed-bed of this violation of God’s creation order. It is this sin which must come under the discipline of the church.
The report puts to rest any fears that by blaming men for a non existent sin, women who really are sinning will be called to account (emphasis mine):
If the Church Adopts the Language of Duty, Will Not Women Come Under Discipline?
It has been argued that the adoption of any statement by this assembly declaring it the biblical duty of man to defend woman will have the unintended result of placing women of the PCA serving in direct combat military positions under session censure. This charge is groundless, flying in the face of the practice of the church and the teaching of Scripture concerning church discipline. Rather than protecting the women of the PCA, it serves only to cloud the issue, leading gentlemen to fear that, by voting in favor of the man’s duty to defend woman, they may inadvertently place women at the center of battles in the session meetings of their home church.
Oddly, the same report assures us that it is highly unlikely that men will be disciplined either. This makes sense because if you were to take seriously the claim that men are the ones who are forcing women to sin, aren’t all men guilty? Men who don’t serve (or don’t serve in combat roles) would be guilty for leaving an empty slot that ostensibly has to be filled by a woman. Men who do serve on the other hand could also be guilty of not doing so well enough, thus causing women to have no choice but to join and carry the weight the existing men ostensibly are refusing to carry. The report assures us that it would be absurd to act as if men were really sinning in the way the report claims they are.
Were the assembly to adopt this committee’s recommendations, the fear of the courts of the church being filled with cases of men being excommunicated for their refusal to defend their daughters, mothers, and wives is rather comical. By the assembly’s action, this sin would not somehow be raised above the sins of greed, lust, or envy. Discipline moves to censure, temporary suspension, or excommunication only rarely, and even then, only after preaching, teaching, and pastoral counsel have failed to produce the fruit of repentance, and the offense is so egregious that both the souls of the flock and the honor of Christ are placed in jeopardy.
H/T Nereus
