Cultured Despiser 2: Relativizing the Text

Gary identified four errors with the thought of my booklet on women in ministry:

1. Failing to interpret Galatians 3:28 in its immediate context.
2. Failing to interpret it in the light of the broader Pauline context.
3. Drawing sweeping conclusions from very small data.
4. Relativizing clear NT teaching as merely first century culture.

I partially addressed 1, 2, and 3 in my previous post. With regard to number 3, connecting the wording of Galatians 3:28 with Genesis 1:27, I made my position clear. I think it is a plausible and arguable connection but admittedly without sufficient evidence to conclude beyond doubt. But I suggested that it is at least as likely as a reading that sees no connection between the two.

With regard to the broader Pauline context, I indicated that Gary had actually misunderstood my position somewhat. I do not believe that Paul applied Galatians 3:28 toward some abolition of existing social structures. However, I do strongly affirm that sonship for Paul had a strong eschatological element. By seeing no distinction between male and female in terms of being a part of the kingdom, Paul sets up certain principles that are very relevant to the social structures of this world, even if Paul did not apply them fully to his world. These are hermeneutical issues well beyond questions of Paul's original meaning, and I will address them in my final post.

That leaves this post to discuss the charge of relativizing the text. Here I want to turn a weakness into a strength--I think that the entire Bible was relevant to its world and that the overwhelming majority of its meaning was originally understood relative to that world. Even prophecies were almost always (in their "near" meaning) relative to current circumstances. In that sense, every word of the Bible in its original meaning was relative to its world. In terms of original meaning, scarcely a word of the Bible was written to anyone alive today (to press the paradigmatic nature of our reading of Scripture, even John 17:20 likely referred originally to the Johannine community that the Gospel of John addressed).

But, when I say these things, I am not saying it is irrelevant to us! Not at all! Both in its original meaning and as the living Word, the Bible is for us and speaks to us. We have two choices. First, we can discern its meaning for us indirectly, by reading its words in context and applying them to today with integrity by taking the differences between our worlds genuinely into account. Or we can apply them directly to ourselves today by taking them out of context as the Spirit or the Church has and continues to dictate. I have thought about these issues for over a decade and cannot see any other valid option outside these two.

One of my main critiques of modernist evangelicalism is that it is intelligent and informed enough to realize that the Bible was written two thousand years ago and in quite different historical and social consequences. Yet it is still pre-modern enough to want to apply the words directly to today. The classic pre-modernist reads the words of the Bible out of context and applies the meaning directly to today. The classic modernist evangelical is incoherent in that he (and I use the masculine pronoun with a smile) knows in principle how to read the words of the Bible in context, but still wants to apply the words directly to today.

The after-modernist evangelical makes the distinction and considers both paths potentially valid, although separate ways of applying the text: 1) the original meaning as God's word to varied ancient situations within their paradigms and worldviews--thus indirectly applicable to us as we connect the worlds; 2) out of context readings of these words as the Spirit or the Church applies them. These latter readings need not be vastly out of sync with the original ones, but they can be. I'm getting ahead of myself. I will provide the reasoning in the next post for why these options are the only valid ones.

Now back to my "patent non-sense." The women in ministry book points out that Aristotle, some four hundred years before Paul, held that the husband was the head of the wife. I claimed that Paul was "talking like any non-Christian" when he said that the husband was the head of the wife. Let me put it more academically: there was nothing uniquely Christian in Paul's world to claim that a husband should be the head of his wife. Since Aristotle says this--husband...head...of wife--I don't see how this point is debatable. Paul says nothing uniquely Christian in the claim itself that the husband is the head of the wife.

But Gary takes this comment to a different place with a slight jump in logic. He presumes that I am claiming that Paul is saying something non-Christian. Of course this is a jump in logic that is not a fair representation of what I said. To say that Paul is not saying something uniquely Christian is not to say that he is saying something unChristian.

I would agree with what he is thinking, namely, that Paul's spin on this common idea is "thoroughly Christian." Ephesians presents the relationship against the backdrop of Christ's relationship with the church. That's a massive upgrade to Aristotle!

But it doesn't change the fact that Paul did not come up with the basic relational structure. Would Gary suggest that God had therefore made clear to the ancient world and humanity throughout the ages--by natural revelation?--that husbands should be heads of wives? Would he claim that this is a truth intrinsic to the creation or directly revealed to Aristotle? The Greeks had the idea long before Paul. Did God reveal it completely independently to Paul, and it is just a coincidence that this was commonly said in the ancient world? If you'd have told Paul that Aristotle had said this years before he'd respond: "Wow, imagine that. God just revealed that to me too and I had no idea"?

Or would Gary say that God started with where Paul was at in his ancient context and sanctified that paradigm with specific Christian content? That is, of course, what I am saying, and it seems to me the only sensical conclusion. God took an idea Paul had from his world--that husbands are normally the heads of their wives--and steered this understanding in a specifically Christian direction.

But this raises the question--is the headship of the husband part of the incarnated revelation or the clothing in which the revelation comes (Gary used the word incarnational in his presentations, but I imagine he would be hesitant to apply it in this way). In my next post, I will show that we cannot reject the question. Like it or not, God revealed the truth of the Bible through the paradigms and worldviews of the original authors. This forces the question on us when we begin to reflect maturely on matters of hermeneutics.

By the way, I want to clarify that I really believe in common sense leadership in the home of today. If the husband is more gifted at a particular point in time on a particular issue to take leadership, by all means let him lead. If on another occasion the woman is more gifted on a particular issue, it at least seems stupid not to let her lead. God is not stupid. There is perhaps a time when we say, "It doesn't make sense, so it must just be a test of our obedience." I'm not convinced at all that this is such a time.

If a woman has a pilot's license, the pilot of our little plane has gone into a coma, I have no piloting experience whatsoever, and the plane's going to crash... should I say, "Step aside, ma'am. I'll handle this because I have male genitalia." That's how stupid we Christians appear sometimes. I personally believe that if the Dobsonians are right on the headship issue, then this is an issue requiring Kierkegaardian blind faith, because it is irrational. I believe it is unchristlike and unspiritual.

Further, I would argue that even Paul's world had room for what I would call the "deviant woman." Even Aristotle acknowledges that there are occasionally women who are unnaturally suited to command. The command for the husband to head the home in Aristotle's mind was based on the premise that men are simply the naturally gifted ones to lead and women aren't.

Similarly, I believe the absolutist position of so many conservative Christians today--a woman can never head the home--is a misinterpretation of the original scope of Paul's comments even in their original meaning. I have little serious doubt but that Paul understood the phrase "the husband is the head of the wife" to apply to most homes. But there was always room for the "deviant" like Deborah or Huldah, etc...

Well, this is long enough. My final post will address a very important question that Gary raises: "who gives me the privilege of identifying part of its [the Bible's] teaching as non-Christian." I reject the non-Christian part of this question. I believe Paul's comments were fully Christian for his context. Let me reword the question: "On what authority might we say that a portion of Scripture was appropriate for "that time," but not God's perfect will for "our time." This is an incredibly important question!! In anticipation, note that I've changed the question from the typically modernist Protestant "I" to the more appropriate "we."

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