Complementarian Incompleteness

Carl Trueman and I agree on many things and disagree on many others, but here, if you listen carefully, you will hear a slow clap from the back of the theater:

I rarely read complementarian literature these days. I felt it lost its way when it became an all-embracing view of the world and not simply a matter for church and household.   I am a firm believer in a male-only ordained ministry in the church but I find increasingly bizarre the broader cultural crusade which complementarianism has become.  It seems now to be more a kind of reaction against feminism than a balanced exposition of the Bible’s teaching on the relationships of men and women.   Thus, for example, marriage is all about submission of wife to husband (Eph. 5) and rarely about the delight of friendship and the  kind of playful but subtly expressed eroticism we find in the Song of Songs.  Too often cultural complementarianism ironically offers a rather disenchanted and mundane account of the mystery and beauty of male-female relations.  And too often it slides into sheer silliness.

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One Reply to “Complementarian Incompleteness”

  1. What does complementarian mean?
    It seems to me that pseudo- and wannbe-theologians have way too much time to contemplate their navels and so they dream up new words as a form of self-exaltation. So, why should anyone spend any time trying to understand this one?
    Sincerely,
    David Parker

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