One of the fascinating features of the debate over gender and the church is the victory of complementarity alongside the retreat of complementarianism. I’ve quoted her before but I think it’s worth doing it again but Andrea Turpin has a point.

I believe one reason complementarian teaching remains popular is that many people consider being male and female a central part of their identity. They want it to mean something. And Christians who hold a theology of a purposeful creation rightly ask what God intended by two sexes. Unfortunately, I have yet to encounter a robust egalitarian theological treatment of the meaning and significance of sexual difference.

Andrea Turpin

It is this seemingly insurmountable and obvious truth that men & women are different and therefore have different needs that is behind the increasingly stout resistance to transgender ideology. Evangelicals have begun to think theologically about our bodies but I think there is a hesitation to follow this line of thinking all the way through.

Here are a few examples of people who accept complementarity but reject complementarianism. A few examples…

• Ian Paul says he is a ‘true complementarian‘.
• Simon Benham who has recently moved the church he leads from a complementarian to an egalitarian position says, “I agreed with quite a bit of what he [Andrew Wilson] wrote, especially in terms of the need for us to affirm that God did create male and female as two distinct groups within humankind – a diversity which should be celebrated and without which we can’t fully express the image of God in us. We, our children, and our society need to hear us express that message with love but also with confidence.” (emphasis original)
• Roger Olsen can say, “I am both a complementarian and an egalitarian. I believe male and female human beings are different in complementary ways, but I also believe that difference does not require, nor does God require, a hierarchy between them.”

And they’re certainly not alone, scholars like NT Wright, Michael Bird would because complementarity seems inescapable. But…

I have questions.

• What are those differences and why do we have them?
• What was God’s purpose in creating men and women equal but different?
• What was God’s purpose in creating men and women different in terms of physical strength? Ie Why are men as a group stronger than women?
• What is a man’s duty towards his wife when she is pregnant or child-rearing? Your answer should take into account that not every country has generous welfare safety nets with maternity or paternity leave.
• In what way might this differ from traditional notions of ‘provide and protect’?
• What differences should we celebrate and how should we celebrate them?
• What exactly ‘does our society & our children need to hear’ about what it means to be a man or a woman?
• Do any of these differences change discipleship for men or women? In other words do the same Christian virtues apply or work out differently because we are different?
• Do these differences mean that in general terms one sex may be better equipped than the other for certain things? If so, what? And is this a good thing you can celebrate?

Mostly on these questions, I get tumbleweed from egalitarians but if you know someone who offers ‘a robust egalitarian theological treatment of the meaning and significance of sexual difference‘ then let me know because I’d love to read it.