JBMW Forum: Q & A on Cultural Issues

JBMW: What are some of the specific cultural factors that are affecting—for better or for worse—the evangelical understanding of biblical manhood and womanhood?

David W. Jones: In the fall of 2003 I delivered a paper at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society entitled, "Egalitarianism and Homo­sexuality: Connected or Autonomous Ideologies?" It was later published in the Fall 2003 issue of this journal (vol. 8, no. 2). While my work merely contained primary source documentation detailing the historical slide of some denomina­tions and parachurch organizations from embracing feminism in one generation to endorsing homosexuality in ensuing generations—what I called "a non-req­uisite but logical progression"—it was met with a fair amount of opposition from egalitarians. Yet despite their pro­tests, the egalitarian effort to deconstruct and to minimize differences in gender roles continues to lay the philosophical groundwork upon which pro-homo­sexual Bible interpreters build their case. This, accompanied with the general ac­ceptance of homosexuality in the culture at large, continues and will continue to affect an evangelical understanding of biblical manhood and womanhood, for it constitutes yet another distortion of the biblical model against which the church must stand. Readers who question the logical connection between feminism and homosexuality should bear in mind that my 2003 article appeared before the discussion concerning Gene Robinson in the Episcopalian Church (USA), the events involving Judy Brown (a contrib­utor to the first edition of Discovering Biblical Equality),¹ and before the 2005 and 2006 national debates concerning the official sanctioning of homosexual­ity among several of the mainline Prot­estant denominations.

Peter Jones: Among the powerful cul­tural factors that are affecting for worse the evangelical understanding of bibli­cal manhood and womanhood, there are two that should be mentioned: popular political theory and postmodern phi­losophy.

(1) Politics. Not many are aware of the religious pagan agenda. Most red-white-and-blue-blooded Americans only hear the issue of gender framed in the highly emotive terms of twenty-first century popular political theory concerning democracy, civil rights, and human rights. Who could be against these? The effect has been massive. To­day, feministic views of gender are seen as the very savior of the modern world. The pagan thinker, Thomas Berry, is able to hide his deeply-held religious com­mitments concerning gender behind a generally accepted contemporary po­litical theory, and can thus state, with little fear of contradiction: "Without the newly assertive consciousness of women, Western civilization might have continued indefinitely on its de­structive path,"namely, the destructive path of "patriarchy," or the "rule of the father." Patriarchy is blamed for hu­man conflict, international wars, global capitalism and the ecological disaster. It follows for Berry that "the primary condition for every other change that is needed in shaping a future worthy of either men or women... is the transfor­mation of men and of Western [patriar­chal] civilization." ² And many, even of God's people, are saying, "Amen"!

The granting of additional civil rights to women, like the end of racial discrimination, is surely an important development of social justice, which all responsible citizens should support. But when Berry speaks of the "transforma­tion of civilization" he is not thinking of additional voting booths for minor­ity women or the opening of Augusta National to female members. Profiting from the political egalitarian mood, he is actually referring to the redefinition of gender beyond the normative biolog­ical binary of male and female.

(2) Philosophy. This "transforma­tion" will surely happen because it has not only become a driving religious and political issue, but has also become an essential element of contemporary phi­losophy. Philosopher David Harvey, in his book The Condition of Postmoder­nity (1990), notes a number of "sche­matic differences" between modern­ism and postmodernism. In the area of sexuality, he argues that modernity can be described as "genital/phallic," thus definitely "patriarchal," whereas post-modernity is "polymorphous/androgy­nous." He also notes that, in the area of thinking about the divine, in modernity the emphasis is on transcendence [the­ism], and in post-modernity, the em­phasis is on immanence [monism]. In recent years, both God and man have had a radical makeover.

When shown to be tied to the general postmodern condition, we can believe that these radical notions about God and sex that have deeply changed the way we think about reality (even without thinking about it!) are here to stay.

In light of the above cultural fac­tors, it is not surprising that the "World Congress on Families," held May 11-13, 2007, in Poland admits that we are in deep trouble and speaks of the "shak­ing of the very pillars of Western soci­ety." It must be said that the "evangeli­cal understanding of biblical manhood and womanhood" is, alas, a mere blip on the graph of present cultural trends, be­cause, as Rom 1:32 notes, in addition to the movers and shakers, there are mul­titudes of people who, willingly or in ignorance, "approve" of the changes the radical movers and shakers are propos­ing. The wind is in the sails of pagans like Berry who, with this general "dem­ocratic/egalitarian" approval, envision nothing less than the "transformation of civilization" through a new view of gender, what Virginia Mollenkott calls "omnigender."

The future belongs, clearly not to patriarchy, nor even to matriarchy. It belongs to androgynarchy, the "rule of the pansexual androgyne," who even now is constructing the "civilization" of the coming eschatological Sodom and Gomorrah. Eventually, this "cultural factor"—the rising homophile soci­ety—will "for worse" define the "evan­gelical notion of biblical manhood and womanhood" as out-of-bounds "hate speech" and will banish its message from the culture as constituting both a grave criminal offence against the social order and as an intolerable religious insult to the goddess of spiritual oneness.

Paige Patterson: The overall feminiza­tion of society in America is taking a tremendous toll on the family and the church, to say nothing of society as a whole. Just take for example the fact that 60 percent of the nation's college and university students are now female. I do not object to these women being in the colleges and universities. In fact, I think they ought to be. Well-educated women are essential to our society, not only in rearing the next generation, but also in countless other ways of contributing to society. I do object to the fact, however, that there are not more men. In a few years the major part of the intelligentsia will be female, and men will be more and more marginalized in the society. In addition to the rapid feminization of the social order, "popular postmodernism," with its uncertainty about the possibili­ty of actually discovering truth and with its emphasis upon general acceptance of a wide variety of view points, no mat­ter how contradictory, just goes against the grain for the average man. He does not work in his daily job that way. He does not go hunting or fishing that way, and he is not going to go to church that way either. These two cultural factors are damaging homes and churches perhaps more than any others.