The Southern Baptist Convention’s explusion of Saddleback Church this week, over the ordination of a female pastor, is a sad reminder that male supremacy continues to haunt, and hurt, the church. While the tragic events in Ferguson, Missouri and elsewhere more recently have appropriately focused the church’s attention on issues of systemic racism, male supremacy, as expressed in the ideology of complementarianism, is still embraced by many Christians. Yet white supremacy and complementarianism go hand in hand.
Pope John Paul II suggests that if we use Col. 3:18-22 (“Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands….Slaves, obey your earthly masters….”) to justify women’s subordination, we follow in the footsteps of those who used these same verses to justify slavery. In tandem with the Pope’s astute observation, it’s hard to see complementarianism as anything other than the ideological sibling of racism. Like two sides of the same coin, the two are different, but both create supremacies of power – white supremacy and male supremacy – that masquerade as righteousness.
I also reflect on these issues now because on Sunday at my church, The Falls Church Anglican, Rt. Rev. Julian Dobbs was asked to give the final blessing. While Dobbs may be an otherwise decent follow, I associate him with the following report by virtueonline.org, which describes Dobbs’ comments to the Reformation 500 Synod in 2017:
The Bishop of the Missionary Diocese of CANA East told some 250 delegates that he will never ordain a woman to the priesthood based on his complementarian views regarding ordination.
‘I…ascribe to the historic, biblical position that male and female are equal but different,’ said Bishop Julian Dobbs.
He said the bishops of the Anglican Church in North America are still wrestling with Scripture regarding Holy Orders and women in the presbyterate, but his diocese, which is also linked jurisdictionally with the Anglican Province of Nigeria, will only recognize women as vocational deacons.
‘Let me tell you what complementarianism does not mean:
It does not mean that women are inferior to men
It does not mean that women are prohibited from ministry in the local church
It does not mean that women must never teach the Bible
It does not mean that men are to bark orders at women like a sergeant on a parade ground.’
If these statements don’t offend you, try transcribing them substituting “blacks” for “women,” “black and white” for “male and female”, etc. This exercise is legitimate, given the Pope’s analogic reasoning in Col. 3 linking racist and complementarian ideologies. The report would read something like this:
The Bishop of the Missionary Diocese of CANA East told some 250 delegates that he will never ordain blacks to the priesthood based on his racist views regarding ordination.
I…ascribe to the historic, biblical position that blacks and whites are equal but different.
[A short aside: this reasoning sounds suspiciously like the principle of separate but equal that was condemned as racist in the landmark US Supreme Court case Brown vs. the Board of Education. I discuss this concept more here. But let us continue.]
He said the bishops of the Anglican Church in North America are still wrestling with Scripture regarding Holy Orders and blacks in the presbyterate, but his diocese, which is also linked jurisdictionally with the Anglican Province of Nigeria, will only recognize blacks as vocational deacons. white supremacy and complementarianism
Let me tell you what racism does not mean:
It does not mean that blacks are inferior to whites
It does not mean that blacks are prohibited from ministry in the local church
It does not mean that blacks must never teach the Bible
It does not mean that whites are to bark orders at blacks like a sergeant on a parade ground.
In other words, to all the blacks and women out there – good news! – there’s room for you in the church, and you deserve to be treated with kindness. But remember your place.
Most of us hopefully recognize these statements as racist. The appeal to a gentle execution of male/white supremacy, with the audacious assertion that women and men/whites and blacks remain “equal” despite this unequal treatment, is particularly galling and invites us to consider the great “fake out” of complementarianism. It’s male supremacy, no more justifiable than white supremacy.
Yet male supremacy is accommodated, even promoted, by many like Dobbs who serve at the highest levels of church leadership.
In the Anglican/Episcopal church, our bishops carry a ceremonial shepherd’s staff, called a crozier, in formal liturgical settings. The crozier symbolizes the bishop’s authority as a shepherd of Christ’s “flock,” the church. As shepherds protect their sheep from predators, such as wolves, so too do bishops have a sacred duty to steer their “flock” away from spiritual dangers toward the life-saving truth of the Gospel.
One of our shepherds, Bishop Dobbs, has fed us to the wolves here – straight into the jaws of idolatry.te supremacy and complementarianism
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