F.F. Bruce in 1982, for women in ministry
Before the council on biblical manhood and womanhood produced the Danvers statement in 1987-88
Gentle reader,
If you’ve been knocking around certain corners of U.S. evangelicalism for the last 25 years, then it may seem that “complementarian” theology is native to evangelicalism or even to Christian faith. In many circles, complementarianism has been so naturalized it now seems inevitable. Some complementarians even argue that it is essential to and inextricable from the gospel itself.
But this was not always the case. “Complementarianism” is a new phenomenon, articulated in the 1980s in response to evangelical feminism, which was noticing the many ways that scripture speaks for women.
That is, this thing that an organization with “gospel” in its name now requires for membership was made up by some guys at a conference when I was in elementary school. I promise you, it’s not the faith “once for all entrusted to God’s holy people” (Jude vs. 3).
Use of the word “complementarian” from 1925-2019
There’s plenty to be said here, but today’s post is just one illustration, contrasting a piece written by the evangelical F.F. Bruce in 19821 with the complementarian Danvers statement from 1988. I stumbled across the Bruce essay this week over on the thing formerly known as the twitter.
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Bruce on culture:
“The local and temporary situation in which that message was first delivered must be appreciated if we are to discern what its permanent essence really is and learn to re-apply it in the local and temporary circumstances or our own culture.
Bruce is clear that “local and temporary” is the situation not just in our own time and place but also in the settings in which the biblical texts were written. Bruce seems remarkably free from anxiety about the ways our culture is likely to distort our understanding of the word. He also seems free from romanticizing ancient culture, as though it were, say, 1st century Greco-Roman society and not the gospel itself through which God was at work when the scriptures were written.
“it would be a pity if we were influenced by contemporary world-movements in thought and practice rather than by the guidance of the Spirit, as he speaks his liberating word to men and women today through the ministry of our Lord and his servant Paul.”
I’m not sure which “contemporary world-movements” Bruce is referencing here, but it’s clear they are movements which would push against the Spirit’s “liberating word to men and women.” Culture is not good or bad, on its own. Culture is not a threat, on its own. Culture is something to be weighed in light of the Spirit’s word.
Danvers, on the other hand, is full of anxiety about contemporary culture, which is a cause of “deep concern” including “uncertainty and confusion,” “increasing promotion given to feminist egalitarianism,” and, perhaps most tellingly, “widespread ambivalence regarding the values of motherhood, vocational homemaking, and the many ministries historically performed by women.”
While Bruce discusses women without any discussion of motherhood, Danvers sees motherhood as central to sexual difference. Danvers does not interrogate the ways mothering and homemaking were “historically performed by women,” ignoring, among other things, the ways class and race affect this statement. Nor does Danvers grapple with the great tradition of Christian singleness and the ways singleness frees men and women for ministry (see my book Faithful).
For Danvers, contemporary culture is a threat, and those who disagree are guilty of “accomodation”
“to the spirit of the age at the expense of winsome, radical Biblical authenticity which in the power of the Holy Spirit may reform rather than reflect our ailing culture.”
Bruce, on disagreement in biblical interpretation about women in ministry:
“Let those who understand the scriptures along the lines indicated in this paper have liberty to expound them thus, but let them not force the pace or try to impose their understanding of the scriptures until that understanding finds general acceptance with the church - and when it does, there will be no need to impose it.”
Bruce opposes force and imposition of a given understanding of scripture and does not condemn those who read differently. He seems confident that scripture will make its own appeal to the church.
Contrast Danvers, which judges interpretation unlike its own, bemoaning,
“the consequent threat to Biblical authority as the clarity of Scripture is jeopardized and the accessibility of its meaning to ordinary people is withdrawn into the restricted realm of technical ingenuity…”
Those who disagree with complementarian interpretation are a “threat to Biblical authority.”
Bruce on male and female as created:
“In the narrative of Gen. l no question of priority, let alone of superiority, arises. In the narrative of Gen. 2 the female is formed after the male…The priority of the male in this creation narrative does not bespeak his superiority: any suggestion to this effect might be answered by the counter-argument that the last- made crowns the work - but either argument is beside the point.”
The good creation itself contains no patriarchy or male headship.
Danvers reads male headship into the order of creation:
Distinctions in masculine and feminine roles are ordained by God as part of the created order, and should find an echo in every human heart (Gen 2:18, 21-24; 1 Cor 11:7-9; 1 Tim 2:12-14),
and
Adam’s headship in marriage was established by God before the Fall, and was not a result of sin (Gen 2:16-18, 21-24, 3:1-13; 1 Cor 11:7-9).
Conversation about this interpretation of creation is bigger than this post, but I’ll note that Danvers uses a lot of language here that goes far beyond the biblical text, adding complementarian interpretation to a text that is, at least, spare and open to a variety of interpretive possibilities.
Bruce on the fall:
“It is in the fall narrative, not in the creation narratives, that superiority of the one sex over the other is first mentioned. And here it is not an inherent superiority, but one that is exercised by force.”
Again,
“Subjugation of woman, in fact, is a symptom of man’s fallen nature.”
For Bruce, sin introduces something previously unknown into God’s original creation. We could call it sexism or patriarchy.
For Danvers, sin twists something (patriarchy?) which was already present at creation:
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.
and
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.
Again, it strikes me that Bruce stays very near the text here, while Danvers adds a number of interpretive layers to get to the statements above.
British 18th Century, The Expulsion from Eden, public domain via the National Gallery of Art
Bruce on Jesus:
“Jesus was born into a male-dominated culture. Some of its basic presuppositions he quietly and indirectly undermined.”
Again,
“He treated women in a completely natural and unselfconscious way as real persons.”
Danvers talks about redemption in Christ but does not refer directly to Jesus’s life or to his relationships with women.
Bruce on Paul:
As any honest interpreter must, Bruce acknowledges that some words of Paul seem to speak against women in ministry, while others seem to speak in favor. Bruce reads Paul as a whole, using what he deems to be Paul’s center—freedom in Christ—as an interpretive principle.
“No distinction in service or status is implied in Paul’s many references to his fellow-workers, whether male or female. Among the latter we recall Phoebe, deacon (not deaconess!) of the church at Cenchreae (Rom. 16:1f.)”
More,
“it is a corollary of Paul’s circumcision-free gospel that any such religious privilege enjoyed by males over females is abolished.”
Remarkably,
“when exegesis has done its work, our application of the text should avoid treating the new testament as a book of rules. In applying the new testament text to our own situation, we need not treat it as the scribes of our Lord’s day treated the old testament. We should not turn what were meant as guiding lines for worshippers in one situation into laws binding for all time.”
Again, I’m struck by how free from anxiety Bruce seems to be here.
“It is an ironical paradox when Paul, who was so concerned to free his converts from bondage of law, is treated as a law-giver for later generations. The freedom of the Spirit, which can be safeguarded by one set of guiding lines in a particular situation, may call for a different procedure in a new situation.”
As to debates about women and the priesthood, Bruce runs them over with his low church ecclesiology:
“Well, we may say, this is an issue which does not affect us: we believe in the priesthood of all believers; we do not recognise a restricted order of priests.”
Danvers, on the other hand understands the New Testament to prescribe specific ministerial orders and to lay out criteria for membership in said orders. I, like Bruce, am not at all convinced that we see anything this prescriptive or organized in the New Testament church. This understanding of church order is one foreign import complementarian theology has brought into the free church tradition.
There we have it. In 1982, a leading voice for “conservative” Christian faith, for brave defense of biblical authority, makes an entirely different set of assumptions about women and ministry from those that would soon be rather militantly advanced by the new complementarian movement.
Grace & peace,
BFJ
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My piece on the Bible and the end of patriarchy, which covers similar territory to the Bruce piece read here:
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F.F. Bruce, "Women in the Church: A Biblical Survey," Christian Brethren Review 33 (1982): 7-14. Linked above.
I sat in FF Bruce’s living room in 1982 and asked him about 1 Tim 2, and his response was that Paul would roll over in his grave if he heard how we are using his statements as fixed rules. Well done, Beth, to point to FF Bruce.
I should have written “role” over in his grave!