Retractiones

more on complementarianism

When you write frequently and publish quickly, you are bound to make mistakes. I think I made a few earlier this week, when I published this piece. I’d like to identify where I think I was wrong in order to clear the record, open conversation, and model what it looks like to identify theological missteps. That last one, especially, is significant for this question.

Let me quote from my previous piece.

I wrote:

It seems to me that a more honest reading of the text allows for two choices.

1. Prohibit women teaching with authority and leading in religious contexts. This means no female pastors, no female elders, and no female deacons- but it also means no female Sunday school teachers or theologians. No women teaching or writing theologically, at all. Only men are to teach Scripture with any authority- why on earth would you want to read a woman who taught without authority? Women should submit and listen in silence.

2. Admit women to church leadership in the form of elders and deacons, and allow for women’s preaching and teaching in all forms.

I think it is better to say that an “honest reading of the text allows for” more than two choices. The first option should have a sub-heading- an additional, modified form that is another “option” available to churchmen in regard to women’s teaching.

The word that comes into English as “to teach” in 1 Timothy 2 seems to mean “to teach” in a continuous form. The implication of “teaching continuously” in practice is taken to mean “to teach with regularity”, usually as part of a Sunday morning worship context. Practically speaking, it often is taken to mean “to preach”.

Although I know some congregations that prohibit women teaching adult men, this is not often the way this verse is applied. Point 1 deserves an “a” and “b”; a hard version, that prohibits all teaching, as stated, and a soft version, which prohibits female ruling leadership and women’s preaching. This 1b. version is the one I see most regularly in actual life. So I was wrong to say that there were only two options. This was overstated at best, and false at worst.

For what its worth, I do not think that there is a historic theological category called “teaching with authority” or “teaching with regularity”. There is preaching, and teaching- but a clearly defined category that is a form of teaching that regularly occurs, that also is closed to women by dint of their nature? As far as I can tell, it doesn’t exist. That does not mean that didaskein hasn’t come to mean something particular, especially for complementarians. I mean simply that this category likely developed in order to explain what it was that Paul meant in 1 Timothy 2- meaning, it likely was developed in order to describe whatever-it-is that women cannot do. This is why I referred to it as “motivated reasoning”. But I see now that this suggests a sort of ill-regard on the behalf of complementarians towards women, and this certainly need not be the case.

My second retraction comes in regard to the language of “motivated reasoning”. That phrase carries with it quite a bit of premeditation, and even malintent. It suggests that complementarianism as a system was developed in order to thicken the biblical account that prohibits women’s ministry. It suggests, too, that this was done with intent and purpose.

This might not be true. In fact, it might be the case that the development of these two movements- complementarianism and egalitarianism- were quite ad hoc, responding as needed to questions that were arising if not for the first time, at least in novel scope. As women’s education continued to rise apace with that of men, and as women entered all of the professions previously closed to them, the question of whether some professions- ministerial ones- would remain closed to women really did need to be answered for the first time.

It’s interesting, to me, that two of the denominations I name in my earlier piece- the Baptists (particularly the Southern ones) and the Presbyterians— both experienced a reorganization at the same time that women’s social roles were being renegotiated. The Southern Baptists notoriously reorganized around more conservative social mores beginning in 1979. The PCA, which joined concerns about theological liberalism to a male-only leadership structure, was formed in 1973. I think it is at least plausible that the tightening restrictions on women’s roles in church were a response to the loosening of restrictions on women’s roles in the wider culture. Religious people rightly sensed that something big was going on with gender in the broader culture, and they decided to tighten the restrictions against women in their ecclesial spaces.

But it might have gone the other way. Though there are reasonable and faithful ways of reading Scripture that differ in their conclusions, at this point my careful opinion is that the divide we live with in regard to what women can and cannot do is a provisional judgment. When we make judgments about what men and women can and cannot do in ecclesial spaces, we are doing just that- making judgments. The biblical text on these exact “roles” speaks quite minimally, and the evidence can be rearranged either way. We’ve built structures in order to help us speak about these roles, but these structures are themselves motivated by our opinions about these roles! There is a circularity to our judgments as well- the roles we seek to prevent led to the development of an intellectual system that reinforced these roles. All of it might have been built differently, if different motivations were at hand.

When it comes to the official organization of the church (or its “offices”), these seem to me, too, to be occasional and ad hoc. Though theologies have developed to limit the roles of elders or deacons to men, such systems seem to also be subject to what I’ve called “motivated reasoning”. They might have gone the other way.

What’s happened now, as I see it, is that the pressure is building in the other direction. The transition from second wave to third wave feminism¹ means that the cards being played by women who sought full participation in society were not “equality” but “justice”. When women’s ordination becomes a justice issue, the game is changed. This is why I’ve started to call third wave feminism “late-stage feminism”; because the commitments that third-wavers held led to feminism’s philosophical incoherence and inevitable decline. It set roles that ensured its own destruction. We’re now playing by these rules, when it comes to women’s ordination. It changes everything.

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So, should complementarians read lady theologians? I meant this more in jest than it was taken. At this point, I assumed my readers knew this, seeing as they are my readers, and I am a lady theologian.

But in truth, I actually meant what I said. I don’t think complementarians should rely on lady theologians. I don’t think they should train lady theologians, either. I think it is unwise to behave as if you think women were suitable for such training and then release them to a world that has no use for them- not structurally, at least.

The problem of complementarian theology in 2025 is that it presents women with a double bind; either do not become theologically trained, and continue to be ignorant of the nuance and significance of the tradition. Or else become theologically trained and find yourself without adequate conversation partners and opportunities to use your skills. Because, as I’ve suggested above, “teaching with authority” actually isn’t a historic category² for Protestants, it seems to me that women’s preaching might have been allowed beginning with the Reformation. But insofar as a teaching office is applied ad hoc and inconsistently in Protestantism, female theologians are trained with the impression that their training has value, only to find that there really are few places to practice what they’ve learned. Complementarian seminaries usually³ will not employ female theologians. Complementarian churches won’t, either. Women can teach Sunday school, usually, though men might not attend. Preaching, which is the main teaching function in a church on a regular basis, is also closed to women. There are simply few opportunities to practice the skill that you spent time learning. Additionally, complementarian pastors don’t know what to do with a lady theologian. Are they allowed to learn from one, if they find her in the wild? The truth is, theological teaching that includes teaching pastors and church leaders just is authoritative teaching in most contexts. That is its common sense definition.

This is why I think it would be better if strict complementarians really meant what they said- don’t let women preach. Don’t let them teach with regularity. Don’t encourage their taking on intellectual training that they can’t use. It would better for us, I think, if these forms of consistency were practiced. I suspect that what might happen, over time, is that we age out of the hardest versions of this philosophy and eventually realize that lady theologians aren’t such a problem- the good ones, at least.

But what’s happening in actuality is that complementarianism is encouraging the promotion and training of bad lady theologians. This is because when women are not being trained at the same level as men, and cannot engage in this training at the highest levels (meaning as professional theologians in complementarian spaces), they are not subjected to the highest level of critical feedback. They might be invited to give a paper here or there and their books might be published, but the real jousting match of intellectual exchange is closed to them. This is the worst kind of double bind for women- that you might be trained but not held to the highest standards, that you might not have the ability to level up intellectually, that you might always remain someone’s pet student or favorite peer. It is intellectual immaturity for women, and it would be better that women were not trained than that they remain stunted. I’ve found it more common than you might think.

As usual, I welcome your feedback and your opinions about where I’ve gone wrong- even, and perhaps especially, if you disagree.

1. I still need to explain this to you!

2. I’m going to go ahead and clarify this by saying that by “historic” I mean “New Testament”. I do realize that the documents of the Presbyterian church could be said to be “historic”, in a qualified sense.

3. As far as I know, there are no exceptions to this rule.