A new book belongs on your shelf next to Kristin Kobes Du Mez and Beth Allison Barr. Like those two authors, Lisa Weaver Swartz takes on the masculinist, complementarian culture of America’s evangelicalism. Her book is called Stained Glass Ceilings: How Evangelicals Do Gender and Practice Power.
Du Mez studied the broad themes of masculinist culture in the 20th Century, Barr pointed her attention at complementarianism’s restriction of women in contrast to women’s actual doings even in the medieval world, and Weaver Swartz examines how a gendered culture and gospel have taken hold in evangelicalism. Du Mez and Barr are historians, one modern and one medieval, and Weaver Swartz is a sociologist.
Weaver Swartz looks at two institutions, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary [=Southern] and Asbury Theological Seminary [=Asbury]. One is overtly complementarian and hierarchicalist, the other overtly egalitarian with polemic against complementarianism. Guess which one is which. (No extra guesses given.)
This book is gonna be a ride.
Weaver Swartz opens at a CBMW conference and concludes: “Fused with Reformed theology and cultural embattlement, its language is codified in systematic theology books and institutional statements, promoted by celebrity pastors and their Twitter feeds, and consumed by millions of American evangelicals.” Complementarian is not a peripheral preference but at the heart of what CBMW and Southern believe. “True believers insist that this arrangement, rightly practiced, is the best way to achieve the flourishing that God intends for all humans – both men and women.”
“True believers insist that this arrangement, rightly practiced, is the best way to achieve the flourishing that God intends for all humans – both men and women.”
Since her first chp describes the (gendered) Gospel Story and then the story of the Conservative Resurgence at Southern, I’ll sketch what she has about Asbury when she turns to Asbury later in the book. Lisa is fair-minded, so this is not an Either-Or. She knows both schools have to much gendered reality.
Southern seminary’s mission is to form students into the image of the ideal (Reformed, complementarian, etc) Southern Baptist, and at the heart of that is a Gospel Story that makes the male-female relationship fundamental. The narrative of the gospel is fused with complementarian thinking. Complementarianism is a “gospel” issue, belief, and order.
Genesis 1-3 is about gender differentiation – male and female – and male headship – men lead, women follow. They are essential. These two form part of the Creator’s order. They are not cultural but creational. A woman’s essence is mothering, nurturing, bearing children. Yes, this poses serious problems for single women but Weaver Swartz heard their responses. There is then an “essential gender binary” at work in the overall gospel story at Southern. She quotes Denny Burk who speaks of our culture “falling headlong into the genderless void.”
The classes are mostly men; Thursday night has Seminary Wives Institute, and this SWI forms women into the complementarian ideology. She perceives that they “believe themselves to be two categorically different kinds of beings.”
Headship is the divine calling for the men – at home, in church, in society as well. Headship, she heard, is rooted in the Trinity, which is borderline false teaching with the ESS (eternal subordination of the Son). Some sociologists, like Charlotte Perkins Gilman, name these male-female categories as “androcentrism” and others would perceive it as misogyny.
The understanding of women as subordinate and designed to support and honor their husbands entails reinforcing the masculinist, androcentric worldview. So the teaching about women and wives and mothering reinforce male headship and gender differentiation.
As I read this chapter I wrote at the top of the page: this is “narcissistic-male production.”
Southern forms a gendered gospel story in culture and in classroom. But the women know the tension that can arise in the home, and they explain the tension as the woman’s temptation to control and the man’s temptation not to lead.
A very noticeable (to me) section of this chp described the Christ emphasis of the students in their interviews, but the emphasis was not the life of Jesus, nor his cruciform or Christoform teachings and way of life, nor his serving, but the Christ emphasis of the household regulations with the church as the Bride of Christ: men are in the role of Christ, women in the role of the church. Men lead, women follow. Women with careers still are designed to be wives supporting their husbands’ career and mothering their children (and supporting the local church, which is not discussed as much in this chapter).
Women clearly have leadership roles in the New Testament, but Southern’s emphasis with the students was that those roles were nonetheless coherent and compatible with a complementarian way of life. And sometimes little more than desperate measures.
The gospel story at Southern then is visible in its “fusion of gendered ideals and orthodox Christianity” all made more compelling by the storytelling framework. That story is “indistinguishable from the good news of God’s love for the world.”
Next post: “The Conservative Resurgence.”
“Narcissistic-male production” is a perfect description, Scot. It is an utter shame what the Conservative Resurgence did to Southern Seminary and the SBC in general. My dad had Dr. Molly Marshall as a professor at Southern Seminary back before the conservative takeover, and learned a great deal from her. I had her mentee Dr. Penny Marler as a Sociology professor at Samford University in the early '90's. It's a shame how women have been erased, faded out, and forcefully removed in some cases. I am glad this book is highlighting how these thoughts have permeated over this generation into what I experienced over my 20 years as an IMB (SBC) missionary- a slow fade into a silencing of women. It's why I left the SBC. When you silence women, you silence them in violence as well. Now, the Department of Justice will have to invite those voices to speak because the SBC isn't. Al Mohler's declaration this week that women can't serve as pastors is, in my opinion, not something he gets to declare. God chooses whom God gifts. It's not for man to decide.
Very interesting and important.
Listening to a Homebrewed Christianity podcast with Tripp Fuuler, Brian McLaren, and Chandrika Pheasant, Chandrika made a statement: “When God is male, male is “God.” I capitalized and italicized the second “God.”
I was mowing the lawn when I was listening to the podcast. When I heard her say that, I said “wow!”, stopped the lawnmower, and thought about how revealingly true her statement is.
Over 33+ years of pastoring: 1) I have never told any person that the man is the head and the woman and everyone else are subservient. 2) I have dealt with many circumstances in which the was acting like God, and the relationship was lost, because the “godman” (don’t say that too fast too many times, or it becomes too realistic!) wouldn’t even listen to me. I have helped only by pointing the way toward the better way of true equality through mutual love.
I see the writing in this book happening in life, in many ways. One more reason to keep reading! Thank you!