Responding to the Argument that the Bible Teaches Patriarchy

The words, patriarch, patriarchal, and patriarchy seem confusing to all of us. Abraham is called a patriarch in church, which means that he lived to be the ultimate great-grandfather, a good thing. But increasingly in our culture, patriarchy refers to an abusive, unjust system of government in which men hold all the power, The rising generation is being taught that when the Bible makes distinctions between gender roles, it reflects the sinful patriarchy of an unenlightened, old-fashioned cultural system that abused women and children.

The way to influence the thinking of lost folks around us who hold such views is to love them well. For males, it is also to model godly manhood as husbands, fathers, or as we saw last week, surrogate fathers to those who have no dad. This fatherhood role also means protecting others from peer pressure all around them that squeezes them into its mold, including their thinking about gender roles. So, let’s examine the argument that the Bible teaches patriarchy, specifically five ways this argument is based upon false logic.

A. The accusation that the Bible embraces unjust patriarchy often begins with a strawman. This way of arguing misrepresents your opponent’s views because it is easier than defeating his real argument. The biblical teaching of male leadership at home is often miss-identified with extreme minority views like those of a group called Vision Forum led by Doug Phillips. Let me illustrate with examples of what Wikipedia identifies as this group’s teaching about Biblical Patriarchy. This extreme teaching is often set up as a strawman for what Complementarians believe. I will show this extreme view and then what Complementarians have set forth as their beliefs. These are identified in the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood’s Danvers Statement affirmations. 

1. Biblical patriarchy believes God reveals Himself as masculine, not feminine. However, the Danvers Statement, reflecting true complementarianism, actually says, Both Adam and Eve were created in God’s image, equal before God as persons and distinct in their manhood and womanhood. In other words, it takes man and woman to fully image God.

2. Biblical patriarchy believes god-honoring society will...prefer male leadership in civil and other affairs. That is true of the Vision Forum movement but not true of the majority of complementarians. Most churches and organizations like the Gospel Coalition, who believe God created males and females for different roles in the home and church are, in fact, careful not to go beyond what Scripture makes clear. For this reason, the Danvers Statement says nothing about “civil and other affairs.” It defines male headship in the home and covenant community. In these two spheres, there is clear accountability for husbands and fathers, as well as the calling to model God as heavenly father and Christ as the husband of his bride.

3. This article on Christian patriarchy cites three examples of patriarchal teaching: that women should not vote, that higher education is not important for women, and that unmarried adult women are subject to their fathers’ authority. When feminists or egalitarians cite these extreme views as reflective of complementarianism, they exemplify classic strawman building. My entire denomination is complementarian and I don’t know anyone who holds these radical views. To the contrary, complementarianism views God’s assignment for men, given in Genesis 2:15 to be using their role to cause those under their care to flourish. Flourishing means equipping his daughter to fully participate in the decisions of life (voting), helping her get training that helps her fully develop her gifts, and encouraging her to use her gifts in a Bible-believing church where she, like un-ordained men, is under the care of elders.

B. The Second fallacious argument accusing the Bible of teaching unjust patriarchy is circular reasoning. With circular reasoning, you assume what you are trying to prove but don’t actually prove it. Here is an article entitled, Is the Bible “Patriarchal” Yes and No--An Excerpt from Gender Roles and the People of God, by Jeremy Bouma. Bouma writes: The Danvers Statement reads, “Adam’s headship in marriage was established by God before the fall and was not a result of sin.” Proponents of gender-based hierarchy don’t believe ontological equality of men and women leads to functional equality; equality of being does not lead to an equality of roles.

Can you see the logical fallacy? He assumes that equality in value means that there can be no differences in roles. He assumes that submission to another’s authority proves his or her inferiority. Submission of a wife to her husband’s leadership must mean that, by definition, she is inferior. In fact, this assumption is completely false. It does not conform at all with reality. Does a citizen submitting to a police officer mean that he believes he is inferior to the police officer? Does an athlete submitting to her coach mean she is an inferior human being to the coach? Does anyone actually believe that a child submitting to his parent implies that the child is a human being without as much intrinsic worth and dignity as the parent? God, the Son is fully equal to God the Father in every single way. But for the purpose of salvation, he submitted to the Father’s will. Submission does not mean inequality!

C. The third logical fallacy that is used to accuse the Bible of unjust patriarchy is implying that there is causation when there is just correlation. A coach who always wins when he wears a certain pair of socks reflects this logical fallacy (if he actually believes wearing the socks CAUSE the win). Those who fault God’s home and church structure of authority for the horrible mistreatment of women are sadly mistaken, when they blame the structure. The real cause is human sin. The Danvers Statement makes this clear: Point 4:

The Fall introduced distortions into the relationships between men and women. In the home, the husband’s loving, humble headship tends to be replaced by domination or passivity; the wife’s intelligent, willing submission tends to be replaced by usurpation or servility.In the church, sin inclines men toward a worldly love of power or an abdication of spiritual responsibility, and inclines women to resist limitations on their roles or to neglect the use of their gifts in appropriate ministries.

Notice how well this statement fits reality. Sin causes LEADERS to abuse their authority or refuse to take responsibility for leading. It causes FOLLOWERS to either rebel against authority or be mindlessly, submissive. The fact that the men of a society have the most power and use it to abuse women is true. But the cause is not God’s design of authority in the home and church; it is human sin.

D. The fourth way that the biblical view of male and female is attacked is through plain ignorance of the facts. Patriarchy—literally is “the rule of the father.” Historians tell us that Roman households were patriarchal; the father had absolute power to rule. Neither Israel in the OT, nor the church in the NT were patriarchies. No Israelite or Christian wife or child was under the naked, individual, capricious rule of an all-powerful father. Both Israelite citizens and church members were under the Rule of Law. There have always been protections for widows, orphans, children, and wives built into God’s moral law to restrain men from abusing their power by mistreating them. Although it’s not easy to know how to apply these laws from Israel’s theocracy to our day, consider Deuteronomy 22:23-27.

 If there is a betrothed virgin, and a man meets her in the city and lies with her, then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones, the young woman because she did not cry for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbor's wife... But if in the open country a man meets a young woman who is betrothed, and the man seizes her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die. But you shall do nothing to the young woman; she has committed no offense punishable by death….though the betrothed young woman cried for help there was no one to rescue her.

The fathers and husbands in Israel were accountable to God’s moral law and to the elders of the city who were responsible to enforce those laws. In the church, husbands and fathers are accountable to Christ, the Head of the church, whose authority is exercised through the rule of church elders. It is true that patriarchy is a word that is sometimes used to describe a culture in which land, property, and lineage are transferred through the father as the head of the household. That was true of Israel. But this legal structure had laws to protect against anyone being harmed by the male abuse of power. It was not the same as Roman patriarchy.

E. The last false accusation directed against men’s leadership at home is made using a fallacious argument called ad populum. This argument ridicules the other side as being completely out of date with modern thinking. It says, in essence, “People who hold your view sound like the people who once thought the earth was flat.” Here is an example of this argument. It is from a Christianity Today article, entitled Leaving Patriarchy in the Past, which reviews John Stackhouse’s book, Partners in Christ: A Conservative Case for Egalitarianism.

 Stackhouse acknowledges that certain New Testament passages embrace a sweeping complementarian viewpoint. He maintains, however, that once a culture has left its patriarchal origins behind, these passages are no longer meant to be obeyed.

This argument is based upon condescension towards anyone who holds the outdated idea that men should lead their homes. It reeks of arrogance, i.e.  assuming that our current Western egalitarian culture, which calls viewing differences in male and female roles sexist, is enlightened more than every other culture that has not “left patriarchy behind.” The fact is that outside of current Western culture, nearly every culture of the world for thousands of years has recognized that men are to be the leaders of the homes. It is OUR culture, which denies obvious differences between men and women that is blind to reality.   

 The Blessing of Fatherhood

The accusation that the biblical understanding of manhood comes from patriarchy is completely false. The best way to help them see the glory of God’s design is to show them biblical fatherhood the way it was designed to be: With the remainder of our time I want to return to a portrait of godly fatherhood taking a closer look at godly fatherhood mentioned last week by Pete Alwinson in his  book, Like Father, Like Son. This is a partial description of the kind of fatherhood relationship God designed every human to need.

1. A welcoming father: It means consistently communicating, “I always have time for you.” “I always enjoy time with you, because I enjoy YOU.” It means proving he is important to you because you refuse to let other things take priority over time with your child. When they interrupt your project, it means dying to the immediate goals on your to-do list for a few moments or longer to talk. It means taking the initiative to get into your children’s world, being a part of their everyday live, so that when they really need you, they will come to you. It is recognizing that “quality time” is a myth. A son or daughter’s love language is TIME. It is daily fighting the pressure to succeed in a tough world because that pressure will blind you to the unmet need in your child’s heart for time with you. It means having a brother to challenge you, Are you saving time and energy for the home-front?

 2. An approval-giving father: It is understanding that almost nothing in the world motivates your child as much as hearing you say, “I’m proud of you."We see that truth in the way God the Father spoke audibly from heaven, This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Part of our leadership role in our families is realizing that our words of praise have so much power to steer our children whose hearts are shaped to want our approval. We need to regularly give that to them and as often as possible link it to character. Wow, I’m proud of the way you worked really hard on that science project. I noticed how your sister criticized you but you kept your temper and did not retaliate, like Jesus would have. Our children have a vacuum in their heart to hear from their father, Well done. I’m so proud. The more we build that bond of approval from us, the easier it will be for our child to unplug that longing for approval from us and reconnect it to his heavenly father and Lord.

 3. An identity-building father: We need to constantly express our confidence in the fact that God has perfectly designed them for the mission he wants them to accomplish. Ephesians 2:10 says, For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. We need to keep reaffirming Psalm 139—that they were perfectly designed while still in their mother’s womb. We need to do whatever we can to help them discover their own abilities, DISC or Myers Briggs profile, and spiritual gifts, with a sense of anticipation about what God will use them to accomplish for his glory.

 4. A freedom-giving father: The goal of our training program for our children is for them to take responsibility for their own lives, especially their own faith and walk with Christ. In the early years, we must teach our children attentiveness, obedience, and impulse control. They need to learn to rule their own desires and not be a slave to them. We’ll look in more detail at a biblical training plan for our children, next week. As our children grow, they need limited freedom to begin to make their own decisions. We want to train them in what the Bible calls “the fear of the Lord” not to emotionally fear God but to understand his weightiness: you never break his law and get away with it. The wage of sin is always destruction. As we administer pain as consequence for disobeying us, we teach them lesson. Our goal is to give our child more and more responsibility for his or her own life. We need to let them experience the consequences of their own bad choices but not give so much freedom that they crash and burn.

 5.  A grace-giving father. We empower those under our leadership with grace by leading with a limp, i.e. by being open about our own sins and failures. Proverbs 17:6 says, The glory of children is their father. They admire us so much they can put us on a pedestal and since we yearn for respect, we love it. However, the best thing we can do is let them know how much we need grace. A second way to give grace to our children is through our compassion for them. Compassion for what they are experiencing knits our hearts to theirs. Even more important is compassion for them when they fail. It doesn’t mean removing painful consequences for bad behavior. In fact, compassion means feeling the pain of what that continued behavior will do to him or her if they do NOT get pain for bad behavior. But grace-filled compassion says, I know it hurts to not be able to play with Billy this afternoon because you did not get your room cleaned up. I hate it when I miss out on being with friends too. Or, I get painful consequences in my life too when I don’t listen to God. God’s not angry with our sin—Jesus took all that. It’s that he’s made life so that when we don’t obey him, life doesn’t work right. But I’m sure you will put this lesson behind you. Tomorrow is another day.

Biblical fatherhood is not a form of patriarchy, nor is it the same motherhood. Men who answer the call to godly fatherhood enormously beneficial everyone in the culture because humans are created by God to need a father.

For Further Prayerful Thought:

1. Which of the flawed arguments that the Bible teaches unjust patriarchy have you heard? What you think is the cumulative effect upon fathers of hearing these accusations from many media voices?

2. Which of the five characteristics of godly fathers means the most to you about your heavenly father. Which do you think means the most to most kids?