Complementarianism Needs a Creation-Order Reset

Husbands, it's time to return from exile

Last week our men’s group spent some time discussing complementarianism — specifically why, as a movement, it largely failed.

Complementarianism, as Dale Partridge explains. . .

“. . . is a theological view that holds men and women to have different but complementary roles and responsibilities in marriage, family life, religious leadership, and civil government. This perspective argues that while men and women are equal in value and dignity, they have distinct roles, with men typically serving as leaders in the home and church and women typically fulfilling supportive and nurturing roles.”

Popularized by men like John Piper and Wayne Grudem, the complementarian system initially seemed to be a solution to the inroads of feminism into the church. It was backed by many reformed celebrities, seemed to accurately reflect the biblical reality of marriage, and even came with a website.

But although it was a needed correction, and said many good and true things, it soon became clear it wasn’t nearly enough of a correction. True, it shifted the compass needle, but as anyone who’s been lost in the woods for three weeks will tell you, walk 355 degrees North long enough and you’ll eventually just be going West. The longer a movement goes on, the more likely any initial miscalculations will reveal themselves.

Thirty-five years into the complimentarian movement, we can confidently say things have gone bad. Why did they go bad? I think for several reasons, but the big two were: 1) A sheepishness towards Scripture’s assumed and unapologetic patriarchy, manifested in the many ways men were no longer “allowed” to call women to the same standard of repentance as men. 2) A loss in translation between “Young, Restless, and Reformed” posturing and the actual execution of repentance at a local church level.

In other words, there was enough of a correction for Christians to take their kids out of public school and start homeschooling. There was enough of a correction for Christians to affirm certain biblical norms, i.e., husbands as breadwinners, moms as homemakers, children as blessings, etc.

But that’s — well, that’s kind of where the whole thing just ran out of steam.

Under the auspices of complimentarianism, husbands would eventually servant-leader themselves into irrelevance, leaving wives to momma bear the heck out of their households. Husbands, unwilling to take on the risks and responsibilities of leadership, accepted their role as token “principals” and curriculum wallets. Wives, left to navigate through the void, sought validation of their lonely enterprise through trad-wife online influencers.

Turns out it wasn’t enough to pay homage to the form of obedience. It wasn’t enough to just play the part. We needed to love the substance underneath.

Creation Order Redux

Men and women DO compliment each other, but in more than just an uneasy ceasefire. We find positive and proactive direction in Genesis 2:15-22:

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.

But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

When God made Adam, he also gave him a job description, which was to move Eden from a state of sublime profusion to a state of sublime definition. “That’s a piranha,” Adam starts, “That’s an anaconda, and there’s a turkey vulture.” Could God have given Adam an already-made list of names for everything? Sure. But he gave him a job instead — and it isn’t humility to refuse a job God gives you.

As a result, “whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.”

But there was a problem. By himself, he wasn’t equal to the task. Such a state, God proclaims, wasn’t even good. So God made him a helper.

Far from being inferior, a helper is an absolutely necessary and noble calling — in fact, God refers to himself as a helper many times throughout Scripture. But the thing about a helper is — and stay with me here — they help. A ruler doesn’t outsource the task of dominion to his helper, nor does the helper co-opt the mission for themselves. Rulers rule, and helpers help.

Let’s say you’ve set yourself to the task of reshingling your roof. At around 3pm, the temperature rises to 40 degrees. You feel the approach of a crippling migraine and your back skin is starting to feel like a strip of fruit leather. You look at the work you’ve done so far and realize you are only 1/24th of the way done. But just as you start praying for death’s sweet release, a neighbor comes along and offers to help. You bless his name and proceed to announce a thousand blessings on his children’s children.

What’s changed now that your neighbor is helping you? It’s still your roof. You’re still the one paying for supplies, organizing deliveries, and managing the division of labour. In other words, the roof is still your responsibility. Is the neighbor inferior because he’s a helper and not the homeowner? No. He is, in every way, your qualitative equal.

The difference is that the pre-help prospects of you ever finishing the job were grim to the point of non-existence. And now they aren’t.

Before the fall, Adam was a glad leader and Eve his glad helper. Adam charted out the schedule for the day (Let’s clear that stand of alders; Let’s dam up that river; Let’s forage that opal deposit) and Eve helped him finish it. After the fall, however, things changed. Instead of harmony between Adam and Eve, there was conflict. Instead of ruling, husbands would forever be tempted to passivity and abdication. Instead of helping, wives would forever be tempted to overbear and dominate.

Back to the roof, say the neighbor suddenly starts directing who should do what, ordering new supplies, and telling the homeowner to work through lunch. At this point the neighbor is no longer functioning as a helper. Had he maintained that role, the roof would have been finished in a few days. But because the homeowner would rather avoid conflict (since the neighbor is trying to help after all) the roof will now languish under a blue tarp for the rest of the decade.

Sadly the roofing relationship in this degraded state has become the settled dynamic of many “complementarian” marriages.

Instead of ruling, many husbands have pursued/accepted their truncated role as breadwinners. Instead of helping, many wives have pursued/accepted the household operations as a vehicle to arrive at their own needs and desires. The children soon identify that mom is functionally in charge and that dad is either irrelevant, or relevant only as “Mr. Fun.” Over time, mom’s fears and anxieties (exacerbated because of dad’s absence) become their own — girls become clingy and fearful, boys become limp and listless.

What this tells us is that there’s no workaround to God’s design; no shortcut through his roadmap. God, of course, gives grace in less than ideal circumstances (i.e., a single-parent home) but there’s no such thing as ignoring the biblical pattern and everything turning out okay anyway.

God will not be mocked. What a man sows, he will reap.

Changing Course

The good news is that all is not lost. For the Christian, there is never a point of no return. God can restore the lost years eaten by locusts (Joel 2:25).

That being said, things won’t magically turn around without concerted effort.

Husbands, it starts with you. You are not your wife’s helper. God has not made you to help realize your wife’s vision for the home. God has made you to help her, help you, realize God’s vision for your home.

Now, a helper needs to know what to help with. “If the trumpet does not sound a clear call, who will get ready for battle?” No one’s going to rally behind the dude blowing through a damp party kazoo. So if you never set clear priorities, you can’t blame your wife for eventually just doing her own thing. Nature can’t exist in a vacuum.

Practically, this means your job isn’t done when you drop the kids off at school or when you earmark a section of the budget for homeschool curriculum. A king can’t just jot some notes down on a sticky pad and hope the best for his kingdom. Problems will arise. And a problem in a king’s dominion is, you guessed it, the king’s problem. If there’s a problem of discipline or direction, the king’s intervention isn’t an intrusion. It’s an expectation.

Husbands, God will hold us accountable for our presence or absence. And if Genesis tell us anything, it’s that we better not try to blame the woman for our failures.

Wives, know your ditches here, too. Throughout the years I’ve sensed a wistfulness among certain women in regards to what they could have been or might have done. One gets the distinct impression they feel incomplete, unrealized, or unappreciated in their roles as wives and mothers. Some try to recover this sense of lost destiny in the midst of their new roles — boss mom, career mom, teacher mom, farmer mom, artist mom, tupperware mom. The list goes on. But these are ultimately poor identities when set next to the gleaming mandate of Proverbs 31. What’s the praise of a random online stranger next to the praise of your husband, children, and neighbors?

Husbands, it’s not enough to be the breadwinner — you need to rule your home. Wives, it’s not enough to be the homemaker — you need to help your husband. If this sounds costly, remember that the only kind of obedience is a costly obedience. It wasn’t enough for the Israelite to scour his flock for a mangey, half-dead lamb to throw on the altar.

It had to be the BEST lamb. It had to cost him.

The good news, and the news that must be received by faith, is that as we pour out our lives — as, indeed, Christ poured out his life — then we will find them.