Progressives love to lay the blame for all of society’s ills at the feet of Patriarchy, what they call a system of “male dominance.” Because of this, many conservatives in both the religious and political senses, have become almost allergic to both the term and the general idea of male headship.
We should be unashamedly pro-patriarchy.
Why?
Because, simply put, patriarchy is God’s design.
“For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church…” (Ephesians 5:23).
“For in this way in former times the holy women also, who hoped in God, used to adorn themselves, being submissive to their own husbands; just as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, and you have become her children if you do what is right without being frightened by any fear” (1 Peter 3:5-6).
Jesus picked 12 male apostles. Elders are men (1 Timothy 3, Titus 1). Preachers are men (1 Timothy 2:11-12). The priesthood was exclusively male. Adam was created first. It is a curse on a nation when women and children rule (Isaiah 3:12). The Bible is not unclear on any of this.
“Father rule,” the literal translation of patriarchy, is how we as a people were meant to operate, and when things go wrong it’s because fathers aren’t ruling, or because they are doing so poorly.
The resistance to patriarchy shares a lot of similarities to the “libertarian moment” of the 2010s. So many of us were drawn into it by watching a woefully incompetent (at best) or malicious (at worst) government. The only logical conclusion we could make was that government either needs to go, or to be pared down to almost nothing.
But that’s an overreaction. Just because we haven’t seen it done well doesn’t mean it can’t be. Good governance is a blessing (Proverbs 11:11, 28:2, 29:2).
Similarly, the answer to a society run by weak, undisciplined, selfish men is not to abolish male leadership. It is to restore positive, virtuous, male leadership. We are not suffering from too much male leadership—we’re suffering from a shortage of it.
This is why I have been advocating so strongly for efforts to raise up a new elite in the home, church, and society. Without decisive, active men of honor, we will remain stuck in the mess we are in.
Men of honor who handle their responsibilities well and bless all who are under their care are God’s designed servants for a well-functioning world. It’s literally the only system that can possibly work. That’s why returning to patriarchy is the answer.
Unfortunately, because of the rise of feminism, patriarchy is a bridge too far for a lot of Christians. Complementarianism has become the reasonable position for those who aren’t ready to fully cave to feminism but don’t want to be called misogynistic, either. But that’s not good enough.
The Scourge of Complementarianism
This position acknowledges some male and female differences and holds that certain roles are made for men and not women. Namely, those roles are elder, preacher, and head of the household. Beyond those, men and women are typically considered to be fit for all the same roles.
A woman might not be able to lead the church, but there’s nothing wrong with her running the county, according to the complementarian. A man might be the one tasked to check out the strange noise in the night at home, only to wake up and see his wife off to her job as a policewoman or soldier. Thus, it is the fence-riding position between patriarchy and feminism.
As Aaron Renn has usefully documented, this is a completely ahistorical stance that was hastily put together only within living memory. As feminism began to spread through society, leading evangelicals offered up complementarianism as a compromise position.
“Ok, we’re not misogynists. Men and women can keep on operating exactly how they want, as long as you leave the church and the home alone.”
There are three major problems with this compromise.
First, the world does not care for your compromise.
They see anything but total bowing of the knee as hatred of women. They blame all of our societal woes on “the Patriarchy,” when we haven’t had anything near patriarchy in decades. In fact, our whole decline has occurred in a time when men have relinquished their roles.
And yet patriarchy is still blamed thanks to the last vestiges that Christians and conservatives hang onto. Compromise appeases no one.
Second, and naturally following the first, compromise with people who aren’t looking for a compromise always ends in capitulation.
So, now you have countless Christian couples who declare they are equal in every role. And you have plenty more who give lip service to male headship while the wife “wears the pants in the family.”
In like fashion, you have more and more churches giving in on female leadership while others are quietly driven by the demands and sensibilities of their female members as the men scramble to appease.
That’s really who the compromise was for—churchgoing women discipled by the feminist world. John Piper and Wayne Grudem didn’t have the fortitude to tell women to stop abandoning their families to compete with their husbands and go read Genesis 2, 1 Timothy 5, and Titus 2, so they gave them a pass. Now we’ve figured out how to justify the compromise by making Proverbs 31 about “have it all” Barbie imitators.
The compromise wasn’t a stopping point, but a speed bump, as per usual.
Third, the compromise ignores natural order.
This is the key point at which most complementarians go wrong: they can tell you that God wants men to lead in marriage and the church, but they can’t tell you why. But God has made it abundantly clear both through natural (creation) and special (Bible) revelation.
And when you pay attention to those reasons, you begin to see that male and female suitability extends a lot farther than you think.
As I’ve often pointed out, we mock progressives for not being able to answer “What is a woman?” when we can only say what they are not. Just looking at men and women, you can see they are built for different purposes. When you get beneath the skin and into the brain, the differences become even more stark.
A person built from the ground up for nurturing feelings and avoiding conflict is not a good fit for political or military leadership (or even business leadership).
This is why God chose a string of male leaders of home, temple, and nation throughout the Bible. And, it’s why He called the rule of women as a sign of judgment on a nation.
Whether we like God’s design or not, it is undeniable that things work better when we follow it. He made us, so He knows far better than we do how we should act, think, and speak.
Get off the fence
It’s time for us to do away with the compromise and just stand where the Bible stands. God is not unclear in the Scriptures about the role of men and women in the home, the church, and the society, and He is not unclear in natural revelation that the two are designed for different purposes.
It’s time we get back to acknowledging the division of purposes, and therefore roles. We have to start raising our sons and daughters in different directions. We have to stop carving out a space for women in roles clearly reserved for men. We have to teach men and women to sharpen the strengths God gave each of them respectively, and to guard against the temptations that come more naturally to them.
The sooner we get over our gag reflex to Biblical terms and ideas like “father rule,” the sooner we can start fixing the problems before us.
Notes
I’m still putting plans together for the first Men’s Excellence Workshop—be sure to check out the post and fill out the brief survey if you’re interested!
Think Deeper Podcast this week looks at the challenge of being authentic and genuine as Christians in an age of so much fakeness and cynicism
You speak the truth it is a judgement upon our nation, the church and the home. I know some whose mother went through a bad marriage and divorce and have raised their daughters from childhood to demand equal or superior positions to men in the home. They have ways up to divorce to ensure their husbands allow total or superior decision in the home. There is but one true church that of the New Testament and the restoration movement. Anything else will be brought into judgment.