Chapter 9
Gender in the Big Picture or
a Reduced Context
An Unavoidable Blessing for the Church as Equalizer
In the narrative of the first creation,
God created a difference that was fundamental to the whole yet critical
not to be distinguished beyond God's purpose to be whole. Since then,
the most dominant human difference which all humanity has faced without
exception is gender. Gender is the most dominant human difference
because it pervades in all other distinctions of race, ethnicity, class
or age. To the extent that gender has gone beyond God's purpose, there
has been struggle with this distinction both within the human person and
in human relations. As discussed in the first chapter, God created this
difference for more than procreation; and God created the relationship
having this difference for more than marriage and biological family. God
created this difference in order to be whole in the whole of God as the
whole of God's family constituted in the Trinity.
How the church has addressed, dealt
with and struggled over gender suggest the absence of the whole of God
or a lack of understanding of the significance to be whole. This would
apply to both biblical egalitarians and complementarians. While gender
in the church goes beyond the scope of this study, it is vital that this
issue be addressed within the context of discourse on the whole of God.
The process necessary to be whole for personhood and relationships
cannot circumvent the issue since it directly involves God's resolution
to our condition "to be apart" from the whole. Within the limits of
this study, I will address this unavoidable blessing briefly in this
parenthetical chapter and suggest an alternative in the last chapter.
In Two Views on Women in Ministry,
Craig Keener concludes his egalitarian discussion by emphasizing Jesus'
demand "that we keep first things first, not missing the forest for the
trees."1 "What matters most to God," as Keener discusses, should indeed
be our primary focus and priority. Yet, Keener suggests only broader
principles such as justice, mercy and faith to define God's desires. We
need to go further and deeper than mere principles to understand the
whole of God's desires in the big picture. In doing so, much of the
current exegetical discussion on gender can be extended in a deeper
perceptual-interpretive framework--challenging our lens which filters
what we see and how we see it (our biases) and examining the basis for
determining what we pay attention to and what we ignore.
Distinguishing the Context
Throughout this study, the thesis for
the fundamental condition of human relations which God defined as "not
good" has been "to be apart" (a more relationally significant rendering
of the traditional but limited "to be alone," Heb. bad,
Gen 2:18) from the whole. And God's thematic actions throughout
Scripture have been distinguished as a response to this human condition,
whereas human activity has been summarized as maintaining this
relational condition "to be apart" in various ways (even
unintentionally in Christian practice) in multiple forms (even
inadvertently in church practice).
Since God has acted consistently in the
big picture toward an eschatological conclusion--most clearly and
vulnerably in the incarnation of Jesus--we need to address more deeply
in function how we may have unintentionally reduced God's design and
inadvertently redefined God's purpose for human relations. Such
reductionism is critical to address specifically in three basic
interrelated issues, as discussed previously, which directly involve
what matters most to God: (1) how we define ourselves, (2) how we do
relationships and thus (3) how we do church.
How we see gender relations is always
formulated by our perceptual framework, which for Christians is a
combination of the social, cultural and religious aspects of our lives,
influencing what we pay attention to and what we ignore. This means that
gender relations for Christians should not be seen in isolation from
human relations in the larger sociocultural context. We do not live in a
vacuum, as if "to be alone." And sociology helps us functionally
understand that each of us is a part of something bigger than self.
Whether that self is about gender,
race, ethnicity, class, age, or any other distinction, it is only a part
of a larger context of human relations. Sociology helps us understand
the relationships involved in a larger context. Yet, useful as that is,
sociology is limited in giving us understanding of the relations which
constitute life--particularly its qualitative aspects. This
understanding needs to be expanded and deepened in order to specifically
address the human condition "to be apart." A person cannot know what
one is a part of without understanding who one is apart from, and
how being apart reduces that person to something less.
This more expanded and even
deeper context into which all persons and human relations are placed is:
the created context of interpersonal
relationships in God's design and purpose,
constituted by and with God to address the condition of human relations
"to be apart" from the whole. From first creation to the eschatological
completion of the new creation, God's actions consistently responding
to this human condition formulate the big picture.
What matters most to God in the big
picture is the relational context. This relational context is the
very extension of the qualitative significance of God's being as the
heart of God as well as of the qualitative relational nature of the
Trinity. In God's likeness and into this relational context we all were
created and for this purpose our lives are designed. From this expanded
and deeper context our primary perceptual framework must be constituted
in order to formulate perceptions of the importance of the whole person
(defining the true status of personhood from the inside out, without
distinctions) and the primacy of interpersonal relationships (defining
intimate relationships as resolution for "to be apart" and thus its
primacy over any other level of involvement).
Such perceptions of the importance of
the person and the primacy of relationships are inadequately defined
from sociocultural perceptual frameworks, even with Christian influence,
because of the lens of reductionism. Reductionism redefines personhood
and diminishes or minimalizes relationships to common usage and ordinary
function and practice--the outer in over the inner out, quantitative
over qualitative, parts over the whole. The importance of the person and
the primacy of relationships can only be sufficiently and necessarily
based on God's self-disclosure of what matters most to the Creator.
God's desires are defined and most
vulnerably revealed in the relationship-specific incarnation of Jesus,
which is ongoingly mediated by the relational work of the Spirit. The
relational response and involvement of the persons of the Trinity should
not be minimized because they constitute the relational context and
process of God's big picture. Therefore, despite the various sociocultural contexts in which human persons live, we all are parts of
this whole and share in common this overall relational context
constituted in the very trinitarian being of God (not tritheism) and
signified by the relational process of the Trinity.
God's creation of persons is both an
extension of God and how God does relationships. God's self-disclosure
is the vulnerable presentation of God and this vulnerable relational
involvement defines how God does relationships. Both creation and
revelation represent who, what and how God is--with nothing less than
God and no substitutes for God. Thus any reduction of God's design and
purpose or of the relational context (especially as Jesus engaged)
become a reductionism of God, however unintentional and inadvertent.
This is how God gets put in a "box." Likewise, anything less than God's design and purpose or any substitute for the relational context
consign gender and human relations to a reduced context, a reductionist
alternative. And we cannot adequately address nor resolve any relations
from a reductionist framework, nor can we experience wholeness in
personhood without the relationships necessary to be whole.
Similar to a call we hear from
postmodernism, this suggests a need for a paradigm shift from
quantitative to qualitative. Unlike postmodernism, however, this change
requires going deeper than the relativity associated with persons and
beyond the variability of human experiences in communities. All persons
and human relations are rooted in the shared relational context of God,
which is distinctly qualitative.
Whenever we define gender and its
relations according to a context influenced by reductionism, we are
susceptible to drawing a scenario that is incompatible with God's big
picture, and thus can inadvertently be modifying the big picture or
formulating in function a different picture. Such a picture may not
appear to be theologically contrary, yet may be incompatible
functionally with the whole of God in the eschatological picture--specifically with how the persons of the Trinity do relationships.
Since this can be true for both
evangelical complementarians and egalitarians, we need to honestly
address the three basic issues noted earlier (how we define ourselves,
how we do relationships, how we do church). These vital issues are not
only interrelated and overlapping but both linear and reflexive in their
influence on each other. How we define ourselves is a prime determinant
for how we do relationships, with both determining how we actually
practice church--and mutually reinforcing thus, for example, entrenching
us further into reductionist practices.
What Matters Most to God
"To be apart" was God's concern for us from the beginning, and Jesus
deeply struggled over the effects of this condition within his own
person (both in relation to his Father, Mt 27:46, and his followers Jn
14:9) as he responded on behalf of all our persons. What matters most to
God is what we do with our whole person and how we function as that
person in the created design and purpose for relationships, which are
both extensions of who, what and how God is. The whole of the
person and the relationships necessary to be whole are God's
deepest desires because this whole directly corresponds in
likeness to the whole of God. When we fail to grasp this whole,
a person (of whatever distinction) cannot truly know the importance of
who one is and is a part of nor understand the primacy of what
one is apart from, thus not realizing the significance of how
being apart reduces that person(s) to something qualitatively less, or
less than whole.
To reduce the person to less than how
God defines and sees the person, to reduce the qualitative significance
(the image of God signified by the heart) of the person from the inside
out by subordinating this to quantitative matter redefining the person
from the outside in, notably by what they do or have, has serious
relational consequences not only with what matters most to God but also
with what we would ideally, if not pragmatically, desire for ourselves.
This involves having relationships in which we can be our true
substantive person and can experience genuine intimate involvement and
belonging in the relationships necessary to be whole. To reduce any part
of this is to reduce the whole of God's desires for life, not merely
for the condition "to be apart" but for the wholeness of life together
with God and with each other as constituted and experienced in the
communion of the Trinity.
Our lack of awareness or our
insensitivity to any of the various ways or multiple forms of the
condition "to be apart" in human relations reflect the operation of
reductionism. This may further reflect being controlled by the lens of a
reductionist framework, signifying our lack of freedom to adequately
perceive the whole person and the primary function of relationships to
be whole. This constrains us in "our little world" and confines God's
function to a quantitative "box." The change from the quantitative to
the qualitative therefore is an issue of redemptive change, the process
of which involves being freed from reductionist substitutes in order to
function in the new creation.
Redemptive change is a basic need which
the church must seriously address in an expanded and deeper context than
it often has. God's response to "to be apart" enacted by Christ in the
redemptive relational process (summarized by Paul in Eph 2) redeems all
persons from the reductionist practices and effects of distinctions
based on the outside in (Eph 2:9, 11-12) to the qualitative significance
of their whole person from the inside out (2:4, 5, 10). In this process
persons are equalized because they are no longer defined by reductionist
distinctions (2:13). This frees persons and removes the relational
barriers for relationships to be restored to the design and purpose of
how the whole of God does relationships (2:14-22).
As previously discussed, in the
redemptive process engaged relationally to be with and thus in Christ,
two irreducible changes are established and irreversibly set into
motion: (1) all persons are equalized in their whole person before God,
and (2) all persons are equalized as these persons with each other in
relationships together as the whole of God.
God's response to "to be apart"
fulfilled by the "nothing less and no substitutes" person of God in
this redemptive relational process must not be spiritualized nor doctrinized in an inadvertent reductionist attempt to remove it from the
relational context in which all human relations are rooted. God's
response signifies the process of equalization for human persons
and human relations. Furthermore, the integrity of church identity (Eph
2:19, 20) and the validity of its practice (2:21, 22) are constituted by
this process of equalization inherent in God's vulnerable response,
which constitutes the truth of the gospel operationalized by Paul in the
ecclesiology of the whole.
God's response in Christ defines what
matters most to God. Any reduction of the equalization process is a
reduction of God's response to the condition "to be apart" in human
relations, which then becomes a reduction of God--who and what God is
and how God does relationships, thus reconstituting the gospel. This
then is about not only what matters most to God but also about what
particular God matters most to us, that is, on whose terms and in whose
image.
How We Define Gender and How We Do
Gender Relations
The norm to define ourselves and to do
relationships in reductionist terms is endemic to Western contexts--but
is not unique to modernity, only compounded by it. Variations of this
human practice are pandemic to all sociocultural contexts. Historically,
reductionism has been consistently present in particular to how gender
is defined and how gender relations are done. And this is true today
even for biblical egalitarians as well as complementarians. Yet
egalitarians have not grasped their reductionism, for example, indicated
by qualifying female persons for leadership based on giftedness (that
is, on what a woman has or can do) and with this focus thereby
continuing to do relationships and practicing church in effect not much
differently than male leaders do, modifications notwithstanding. We
cannot dismiss the similar reductionist influence on these
perceptual-interpretive frameworks for how we define ourselves.
Egalitarians (especially women) need to examine if this is all they
want, because this is not what matters most to God.
For human relations, the matter of
authority is essential and necessary in any structure relating persons
to each other, be it a society, community, the church or a family. In
the New Testament, authority (exousia) means rightful, actual and
unimpeded power to act, or to possess, control, use or dispose of,
something or someone. Yet, we should not look at authority as some
static means in the possession of some individual/group or designated to
some individual/group. Essentially, authority is a relational matter
exercised in a relational context. That is, authority or power is always
exercised over some other person/group. Consequently, there is an
ongoing dynamic relationship involved in this process of authority,
which needs to be examined in the extended and deeper context of the
relational context, not merely sociologically.
Ultimately, the only rightful power in
life is God's. As the Lord and Creator, God exercises that authority
over all life whether we like it or not. Furthermore, since all human
authority is established by God, the issue of authority becomes an
ongoing relational issue between God and us (Rom 13:1, 2). Having said
this, aside from our relationship with God, where in human relationships
does the rightful exercise of power fulfill the desires of God as part
of the whole, for the whole and in the whole of God? Moreover, how can
we exercise or be subject to human authority within and consistent with
God's redemptive plan for all creation and not find ourselves
inadvertently in conflict with what matters most to God?
Consider what characterizes the
existing condition of human relationships in modernity more than
anything. I suggest it is distant, depersonalized or broken
relationships--variations of "to be apart." Our established ways of
doing things further reduce or constrain the whole person while
cultivating distance in our relationships, intentionally or
unintentionally, with bad intentions or with good intentions. These ways
have become further embedded with the use of technology in the
information age.2
In the broad context of human
interaction the greatest indicator of distant, depersonalized, broken
relationships is the operation of power relations. Whatever its form,
the unrighteous use of power (legitimate or otherwise) is responsible
for determining the nature or extent of relationships more than any
other single factor. The greatest consequence of power relations is
systems of inequality. Unlike our relationship with God which, on the
one hand, requires inequality while, on the other, functions with
intimate connections upon reconciliation, human systems of inequality
create only barriers in human relationships. Whether the criteria used
to determine inequality are based on race, class, culture, religion or
gender, the results are to eliminate certain people from equitable
participation in a system. Yet this relational consequence can be
accomplished even without prejudices or biases--even unintentionally.
Also, the subtlety of this relational issue may not involve overt power
or discrimination but may only be indicated by distance in relationships
reflected in a lack of intimacy. For example, how many persons feel less
important merely by not being listened to or simply being ignored? "To
be apart" always involves horizontal distance but usually also includes
the vertical distance of stratified relationships in which disparity
(sometimes read diversity) means to be less.
The relational context is necessary to
take us deeper than the sociocultural context of these relationships to
help us understand underlying issues needing redemptive change. This
requires that human relations, power relations and systems of inequality
must be addressed both from the aspects of discrimination/oppression
(stratified relationships) and the reductionism from which such
relationships evolve.
To deal with stratified relationships,
for example, merely by redistributing power is to address the human
condition "to be apart" with only the economic and political
substitutes of reductionism. While these resources are necessary and may
be urgent for a situation, there are deeper issues beyond situations to
address in order to be whole. Likewise, to share power to level the
playing field in power relations is to provide a social substitute of
reductionism (such as inadequate prevailing notions of pluralism and
multiculturalism), which may level the playing field but does not redeem
and transform the "game" itself because the issue is not dealt with in
the expanded and deeper aspects of the relational context. Thus
underlying issues are not changed--namely reductionism.
Justice and equality (even as
principles that matter most to God) do not have the extended and deeper
significance of God's qualitative basis for the person and for
relationships, if that justice and equality only perceive all persons as
equal in reductionist terms and pursues equality in their relationships
merely with the substitutes of reductionism. Reductionist substitutes by
definition cannot resolve the human condition "to be apart" for the
whole person and the relationships necessary to be whole.
As Jesus revealed, fulfilled and made
imperative by the relational context and process of his life, however,
the process of equalization redeems and restores the person from
reductionism to the whole of God, which involves restoring the primacy
of intimate relationships from reductionist substitutes. We need to look
more closely at how Jesus revealed this.
Jesus' Response to "to be apart"
Any response to the issues of church
order and the relationships among its members requires compatibility
with God's big picture and God's ultimate response in Christ to the
human condition "to be apart" from the whole. We need to keep in focus
that God's self-disclosure is always about how God does relationships,
and that revelation and truth are for this relationship, not for mere
church doctrine and propositional truth. As we look more closely at
Jesus, we are confronted to examine what aspects of how we do
relationships and thus practice church are determined by a
perceptual-interpretive framework from reductionism. Failure to do so
makes it difficult for us to distinguish the old about us (which we will
see Jesus redeeming) and the new for us (which we will see Jesus
restoring). Furthermore, failing to assess honestly our established ways
of doing things makes us susceptible to being in conflict with or even
in opposition to, however unintentional, the desires of God in the big
picture.
Peter learned this the hard way when he
was confronted with his failures to deal with how he did relationships
by distinction-making based on ethnicity (Gal 2:11ff). As God revealed
(Eph 3:4-6; Acts 10:9-16, 34, 35), the practice of false distinctions
was in opposition to God's desires in the big picture because
distinction-making creates, cultivates, reinforces or perpetuates the
very barriers in relationships destroyed by Christ in response to the
relational condition "to be apart" to reconcile us to the whole of God's family (Gal 3:28; Eph 2:24).
We know that it required the death and
resurrection of Jesus to destroy these barriers in relationships and to
establish the new creation of transformed relationships (equalized and
intimate) for his followers. Yet this relational work started prior to
his death. In the narratives between the manger and the cross, Jesus was
destroying barriers in relationship and eliminating distance for
intimate connections. These interactions defined God's direct response
to the various ways and forms "to be apart," and they were
consequential both for their opposition to the old as well as for their
establishing the new. Our Christology must include this to be sufficient
of God's self-disclosure in the life of Jesus.
Throughout his incarnation, Jesus
demonstrated how God does relationships by engaging in the relational
work necessary to restore the person to wholeness and to reconcile human
relationships from relational distance to the whole. Notably, in all his
human interactions, the most significant and intimate relational
connections were made with women. This was not coincidence. Given Jesus'
position of authority and the sociocultural and religious position of
women, his intimate connections with women were remarkable in
themselves. More significant, however, is the wholistic issue of
equalizing relationships in the prevailing context of systems of
inequality. The significance of this goes beyond responding to the
sociocultural-religious context to involve the deeper issue of
establishing the relationship of the whole of God. This is the
relationship in the first creation that God said is "not good to be
apart" from and thus provided the female person to complete the
relational whole. Of course Adam and Eve did not fully consummate it
other than quantitatively in marriage and biological family.
Jesus' intimate connections with women,
in contrast to the relational constraints for men, possibly suggests a
symbolic consummation of the first creation relationship between the
genders to be whole in the whole for the whole of God. Whether it does
or not, Jesus' intimate relationships with women do suggest the
significance of gender in the new creation. This significance of gender
seen in his relationships, however, is not as a distinction for
personhood to define qualitative differences between female and male
persons. Rather, Jesus' relationships demonstrate the reductionist
influence on gender and help us to understand the redemptive changes
necessary to be whole as persons in the relationships together as the
whole of God's family. In no other human distinction or difference is
the influence of reductionism more pervasive, and thus necessary for
change, than in gender. Gender, then, not only informs us of the extent
of the human condition "to be apart" but it also reveals the depth of
the resolution needed to be whole.
When Jesus vulnerably engaged a
Samaritan woman at a well, he broke down "double jeopardy" (double
discrimination based here on ethnicity and gender) for her and gave her
direct access for intimate relationship with God by equalizing her
person without distinctions (Jn 4:4-26). The ethnic issue was certainly
important here but gender was even more significant because it applied
whether she was a Jew or a Samaritan. In his relational connections (see
also Lk 7:36-50; Mt 15:21-28), Jesus defines the relational process
needed for qualitative relationships in general, and for significant
church relationships in particular to be whole and not "to be apart."
And gender relations provide the functional understanding of this
relational process.
No relationship brings these issues to
the forefront of Christian practice more than Jesus' interactions with
Mary, sister of Martha (whom we contrasted in the previous chapter). As
we review the highlights of this relationship, note its development: (1)
Luke 10:38-42; at this first dinner there is a conflict of cultural
perceptual framework; Jesus doesn't deny Martha her framework but
prioritizes it in the deeper qualitative framework of the relational
context; Mary goes against the religious culture by sitting at Jesus'
feet in order to be taught by the Rabbi--a place forbidden for women and
reserved only for men, particularly disciples (note also, that serious
disciples usually were training for leadership); Jesus not only warmly
receives her in front of all the other men but affirms her place and
gently explains to Martha what's more important than the prevailing
reductionist substitutes--namely, relationships and discipleship; (2)
John 11:17-44; here again we contrast the two sisters; Martha shared her
concern for Lazarus but within the limits (maybe barriers) of
relationships between men/rabbi and women; consequently, she sincerely
expresses her belief but does not fully open her heart; in contrast,
Mary, though she repeated the exact opening words (see Greek text) to
Jesus as Martha, expressed herself completely from her heart, thus
deeply moving Jesus to engage in that intimate connection; (3) John
12:1-11; Mary again breaks various established customs in order to
respond even more intimately to Jesus (cf. Luke 7:36-50); Jesus, once
again, not only receives her intimate connection in their relationship
but makes this relational process more important than even ministry to
the poor.
The priority of relationship over
ministry, service and work is difficult to reconcile in practice. Yet,
what we see Jesus practicing and, therefore, clearly defining is what is
necessary to be whole: (1) the primacy of relationships; (2) the
intimate character of those relationships; (3) the equalizing of persons
in the process of the relationship. As surprising (shocking to some) as
his interactions with women were, this is not really exceptional, though
beyond ordinary function and practice (the significance of "holy").
That is, it was not exceptional to the Holy One because the human
condition "to be apart" is what Jesus came to restore by vulnerably
establishing the relational context and process to his Father (or
Mother, if you need) and for his family in the whole of God's big
eschatological picture. And in order to restore these relationships, he
had to redeem relationships--notably from how we make distinctions and
relate to others based on those distinctions with reductionist
substitutes. Thus, what Jesus discloses in these relationships for our
depth of understanding is the ongoing tension and conflict between his
call to be whole and the lure of reductionism. Reductionism shifts us to
common usage and ordinary function and practice. By his nature, Jesus
takes us vulnerably beyond that in sanctified life and practice to the
whole of God as family in likeness of the Trinity.
All Jesus' authority expressed while on
this earth served to complete this eschatological end. Every exercise of
his power (even for healing) worked for this purpose in the big picture.
Jesus' authority and power cohere in the eschatological plan for the
whole of God's family. It is to this end and for this purpose that all
human authority must be examined and critiqued.
Church order and relations can neither
function in this eschatological end on our terms nor serve a purpose
apart from the relational context of God's family in his eschatological
plan. To be compatible with the whole of God's desires and how God does
relationships necessitates countering stratified relationships (in all
ways and forms) with the process of equalization, as well as displacing
any reductionist relational substitutes which reinforce distance or
impede intimacy. This is the redemptive relational process of
transformed persons engaged in transformed relationships of the new
creation as the new kinship family of God. Regardless of what side of
the gender issue you support, we need to address how we define our
person and do relationships and thus practice church, because what
concerns God most is what we do with the whole person and the
relationships of the whole of God. We need to affirm together the divine
priority that it is indeed "not good to be apart" from the whole, then
respond as the Trinity ongoingly has since the first creation.
The Need for Deeper Change
Reconciliation denotes the change from
the old to the new by taking away the root cause of the human condition
"to be apart," of relational distance or brokenness, leaving no
barriers to restoring communion as signified by God's communion in the
Trinity. The process of reconciliation involves restoring relationships
to wholeness and well-being; that is, by its nature reconciliation must
return persons to God's original design and purpose, specifically for
intimate and equalized relationships (now also new in Christ)--the whole
person and relationships to be whole in likeness of the whole of God.
Yet, this is no simple process because
to restore to wholeness involves redemptive change from what exists.
Reconciliation requires redemption, and the two should not be separated
or undertaken independent of the other. In Christian practice, however,
many redemptive efforts have not included reconciliation, while
reconciling efforts have not involved redemption. It is always easier to
make reductionist substitutes for wholeness and settle for less.
Changing from the prevailing condition of human relationships (invested
also with culture and tradition) to how God does relationships tends to
create tension, conflict or even opposition. Why?
When Jesus countered both how the human
person was perceived and how relationships were done with his teachings
on the new life order (outlined in the Sermon on the Mount, Mt 5-7), we
can understand why. As he clearly brought out the qualitative
significance and meaning of the law and the prophets (the primary
purpose behind all of God's directives and the heart of God's desires
for his people), Jesus helps us understand two of the overriding and
far-reaching effects of our established ways of defining our person and
doing relationships. They are: (1) it gives more emphasis to secondary
aspects of life than to primary aspects, of the quantitative over the
qualitative, defining the person from the outside in rather than from
inside out, that is, based on what we do or have rather than on who and
what we are in the significance of the heart; and (2) as a result, it
reduces our function in relationships away from the qualitative, thus
does not give top priority to intimate involvement in relationships.
This is about reductionism, and Jesus expects (indeed demands) who, what
and how we are as his followers to surpass the reductionists (Mt 5:20).
God's presence and involvement with us
has always been directed toward wholeness. If we are to get beyond the
prevailing norms for human relations and surpass the reductionists, we
will need redemptive change from any reductionist influence on how we
define ourselves, do relationships and practice church. While certain
reductionist distinctions such as race, class and gender have
consistently remained resistant to change through history, as we undergo
redemptive change and experience reconciliation the church can function
with Christ as equalizer, both within itself and then in the world.
Yet, of course, there are costs to
change and reconciliation which need to be deeply addressed also.
Costs to Change and Reconciliation
Jesus experienced the kind of intimacy
(defined as hearts opening to each other and coming together) with women
that would make many men (and even some women) very uncomfortable. The
primary discomfort with intimacy in gender relations, however, is not
for sexual reasons--with the prevailing reductionist substitute of sex
confused as intimacy--but for the primary threat genuine intimacy
creates. This emerges more clearly when you include equalization with
intimacy in gender relations. Adding equalization would make women more
confident in gender relations but not necessarily less uncomfortable
with intimacy. It depends on how we define our person.
Whether back in Jesus' time or in ours
today, men have always had more to lose than to gain from intimate
relationships, at least in their perceptions. Aspects of prestige,
privilege or power are diminished when intimacy defines the
relationship. This can explain why males have tended to divert intimate
connections in general to contexts with more competitive, adversarial or
even conflict relations (such as sports)--which may in fact provide the
connections not "to be alone" but still maintain enough relational
distance to prevent the resolution of "to be apart." This is compounded
because it also becomes confused with intimacy in particular.
Insecurities and self-worth are exposed
when the heart is opened, leaving only the authentic person
unembellished by what one does or has and without distinction to enter
into relationships. This is the significance of genuine prayer and the
discomfort we have with silence in prayer (cf. Mt 6:6-8). Even though
this is how we intimately need to come equalized before God, we tend to
resist this in relation to others. Who would be more vulnerable in such
relationships and why?
We have also settled into certain
assumptions about the genders, for example, that women are more
relationship-oriented and that men are not really "wired" well for
intimate relationships. Even though these assumptions have no biblical
basis and cannot be used to explain Jesus' relationships, churches have
bought into these reductionist perceptions (as if God created us with a
different heart or designed us for a different purpose) to establish a
mindset, even a bias, that deeply affects what the church does with the
whole person and the relationships necessary to be whole in likeness
with the whole of God. This certainly compromises the integrity of
church identity as constituted by the truth of the gospel and by the
persons of the Trinity.
All the above reflect matters which we
humbly need to let go of, to be freed from, to die to. We need to
understand them as substitutes which have kept us "to be apart" from
the more and whole of God beyond the common and ordinary.
Essential for our response to the basic issue of how we define ourselves
is to be redeemed from the reductionist alternatives to self-definition.
Further, we need to let go of, to be freed from, to die to the
reductionist substitutes for how we do relationships and thus get into
for how we practice church.
Ironically, what these costs also
make us accountable for in gender relations is
submission--submission by men and women, by complementarians and egalitarians.
Foremost, our submission to God is the submission to how God does
relationships in creation and revelation. In this relational context and
process, this submission is submission to God's response of redemption
and reconciliation. To submit then to redemptive change and
reconciliation is to submit to redeemed and transformed relationships.
Redeemed and transformed relationships are both intimate and equalized
relationships. Thus, submission is the foremost relational response in
the process to be whole in the relationships necessary for the whole of
God.
This is the submission God demands from
both sides of the gender issue. It is the cost all persons must bear if
gender relations are to get beyond a reduced context to the big picture.
We cannot avoid the issue (even by ignoring it) yet we can be blessed by
its significance, as Adam was in the primordial garden.
Where Our Expectations Are Rooted
Our perceptual-interpretive framework
will effectively determine further how we will move on to define
ourselves, do relationships and practice church. Hopefully, this
discussion will challenge us at the very least to think beyond the terms
of egalitarians or complementarians. These positions are not what is
important to God. I suggest that is probably why Jesus never spoke
directly about the issue. He only affirmed the whole person without
distinctions and vulnerably involved his person with their persons in
intimate relationship together in relational progression to the whole of
God's family constituted in the Trinity. Now this is what matters most
to God.
As discussed previously, in Paul's
conversion he followed Jesus in this relational context and process; and
in his call from Jesus he operationalized the trinitarian relational
context of family and relational process of family love in the
ecclesiology of the whole. Even in the textual areas of dispute with
Paul's teachings on gender, he completely reinforced Jesus' qualitative
emphasis on the whole person and intimate relationships together. If we
distinguish, on the one hand, what Paul said about human relations
(particularly in church) in the big picture, while on the other, with
what he said about gender relations in reduced contexts involving
essentially important reductionist issues, we can better understand that
in dealing with the latter Paul was always working for the relational
context and process of God's desires for the big picture. When we take
Paul's gender teachings out of the extended and deeper relational
context, we are susceptible to overlooking the reductionist issues
affecting the whole persons they were in Christ and the relationships
necessary for the new creation as the whole of God's family in the
eschatological big picture. I suggest to this end and for this purpose
Paul addressed these gender issues. He did not shift from this
qualitative focus on the inner out of personhood and relationships to
fragment the whole by giving priority to a reductionist focus on
outer-in issues. Paul did, however, address the latter as it affected
the former--the ongoing tension between the lure of reductionism and the
whole of God.
Moreover, as mentioned earlier, I
further suggest that we even need to revisit some of Paul's teachings
on issues about a reductionist focus on secondary matter by examining
them more deeply in three vital areas of practice: (1) the presentation
of our self to others, (2) the content of our communication, and (3) the
level of relationship we engage. Certain secondary matters (for example,
dress and appearance) are issues even complementarians conveniently
ignore in Paul's teachings. Yet, in part or all, Paul was not
establishing church structure or order in all these unavoidable
reductionist issues, but he was concerned about what they did with the
whole person and with the relationships necessary to be whole in
likeness of the whole of God as vulnerably revealed in the face of
Christ (cf. Col 2:2, 3; 2 Cor 4:5, 6). For Paul, what matters most to
God was also what mattered most to him, and this was where his
expectations for the church were rooted. We have yet to adequately
address similar reductionist emphases practiced today in churches. Until
we do, our expectations of church practice and for change or resolution
of the gender issue cannot be promising.
In the unreduced context of the big
picture, God's desire is not for a specific church structure or order
but for the distinct qualitative function of relationship which reflects
the likeness of the whole of God and experiences being God's very own
family. This is not about the church doing something a certain way but
about God's people being the new creation family as the extension of
the communion of the Trinity. This becomes a functional reality only as
it is operationalized by God's family love (intimately involved to
equalize), not by doctrine or church polity.
As we see Jesus intimately interacting
with women and understand the purpose his Father gave him to respond to
the human condition "to be apart" from the whole and all that was
necessary to fulfill the Father's desires, it becomes evident also that
his commands to love in this relational context and process can be
operational only in relationships which would not create, cultivate,
nurture or reinforce, however unintentional, any forms of stratified
relationships, power relations and systems of inequality whatsoever, as
well as any other reductionist practices impeding intimacy. When the
full Christology of the incarnation coheres with a complete soteriology
(saved from and to), the truth of the gospel compels our persons to the
redemptive change of transformation (from inner out, as Peter was
compelled, Gal 2:11-14), thus constituting our practice together in the
church by the ecclesiology of the whole.
Intimacy and equalization are the
qualitative functions of transformed relationships engaged by those
persons truly being redeemed and transformed in Christ. These functions
are fundamental to who, what, how God is and continues to be vulnerably
involved with us in the persons of the Trinity. And this is who, what
and how God expects (demands) his very own to be and to be involved in
their relationships together in the multicultural church as equalizer.
From the beginning with the person
Adam, the condition "to be apart" has always been what concerns God the most--to whom God responded with the gift of the person (not gender)
Eve, responding ultimately with the gift of the incarnate person God and
continuing with the gift of the person Spirit. This is only how God does
relationship. As the righteous and faithful God, we need to expect
(demand if you will) how God does relationship to continue in the big
picture to the eschatological conclusion. At the same time, this is a
reciprocal relational responsibility since God also expects this
relational work from us--even demands it, if we fully grasp this--both
among ourselves as the whole of God's family and within the world as
equalizer.
Our call to be whole includes being
sent to be whole, which is discussed in the next chapter.
____________________________________________________
1. Craig Keener, "Women in
Ministry," in James R. Beck and Craig L. Bloomberg, eds., Two Views
on Women in Ministry (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001), 68.
2. Schultze, Habits of the
High-Tech Heart.
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