The Surrendered Christ: The Christological Confusion of Evangelical Feminism

For too long complementarian Christians have assumed that the gender debate is simply one more important but intramural discussion among likeminded evangelicals-similar to the differences between Calvinists and Arminians, or between paedobaptists and Baptists. It is increasingly apparent that evangelical feminism is a far more serious development. As demonstrated at the 2005 annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) meeting, the gender debate ultimately boils down to Christology.

We often use the cliché, "I could hardly believe my ears," but at one ETS session, I literally found myself turning to those around me and asking, "Did he say what I think he just said?" Alan Padgett, egalitarian theologian at Luther Seminary, presented a paper seeking to reconcile evangelical feminism with Ephesians chapter 5.

Ephesians 5 has always been difficult for egalitarians since the apostle Paul clearly grounds the submission of a wife to her husband and the headship of a man for his wife in the archetypal structure of the Christ/church relationship. The "mutual submission" gambit of egalitarians has never proven all that persuasive, even to feminist-minded people, since Paul outlines what the various aspects of headship and submission are to look like. Few people, for example, would ask whether Paul is suggesting that parents sometimes obey their children. Moreover, the structure of the argument itself precludes a mutual submission between husband and wife since Paul suggests that the husband loves "as Christ loves the church" and the wife submits "as the church submits to Christ." Are we to suggest that Christ submits to the church? Some have advocated this, but no one so publicly and forcefully until now.

Padgett argued in his paper that mutual submission doesn't just exist between husband and wife but also between Christ and the church. Using passages such as that of Jesus giving himself for the church in Eph 5 and pouring himself out in Phil 2, Padgett argued that sometimes Jesus submits himself to his church. When a perceptive listener wondered when the church ever doesn't submit to Christ, Padgett's answer was stunning. In the eschaton, he said. Then, he said, "the church will be ‘knocked up a bit'" and will therefore no longer submit to Jesus as Lord but instead serve alongside him as friends.

This would be easy to ignore if Alan Padgett were a loose cannon theologian. But he is one of the most cited members of the egalitarian corps, writing for Christians for Biblical Equality (CBE) and debating the position around the country. Likewise, it would not be so problematic if Padgett didn't arrive at his conclusions by consistently applying the same hermeneutic that evangelical feminism has been touting for years.

This proposal wrongly assumes that service means submission. In fact, the church did not send Jesus on the redemptive mission; the Father did. Jesus everywhere notes that he is freely offering his life in obedience to the Father's mission. Moreover, Jesus in his love for the church refuses to submit to the foundation stones of his church, when they demand that he will never be delivered over to the Romans. Instead, he sets his face like flint toward Jerusalem. That is servant leadership, and that is headship.

But, even more importantly, the proposal openly does what egalitarian proposals have always done subtly: it tears at the fabric of the Christ/church mystery embedded in human gender roles. This is precisely why the prophets and apostles insist on a biblical ordering of husband-wife relationships; not just because it makes for happier marriages (although it does) but because it points us to something that is even more glorious and even more beautiful-the headship of Christ and the submission of his church.

Last year's ETS was significant in that egalitarianism's Christological confusion is now out in the open. And it is a scary sight. The Padgett proposal is sub-Christian at best; Canaanite at worst. If this is where evangelical feminism is going, it is even clearer that the movement is more self-consciously feminist than evangelical; more egalitarian than Christian.