This book is an excellent extended series of explorations in the Christian concept of marriage by Timothy and Kathy Keller. I've been meaning to read it for a while, because my liberal-to-begin-with views on gender have broadened considerably over the last year or so and are increasingly at odds with much of what most other christians seem to think. While aware that some attempts to present a 'christian' position on gender are abysmal, I'm realising that my views are starting to risk conflict with the actual biblical basis of it all, and so, having trusted and massively grown thanks to his expositional guidance on work and justice, I turned to Tim Keller's book on marriage. Kathy, his wife, had a significant collaborative role in writing it, and she herself wrote the chapter and appendix on gender roles, so even further seeming like a legitimate source of argument on untangling the matter. I've had to be quite careful reading this book, as I'm sure any young single christian will be able to empathise with; as if anyone saw me reading it I would undoubtedly suffer a brief and awkward inquisition as to "oooh are you planning to marry someone sometime soon Isaac?" [no]. I also might have to be quite careful having read this book, as I'm mildly concerned that someone, upon seeing this blog post (or any of my other posts that discuss gender), may subject me to a disciplinary explanation of the real biblical case for complementarianism and why 'overly' egalitarian demands contradict God's plan for men and women. It was only my deep, habitual respect for this blog that drove me to write this post at all - and, since if anyone who's going to read it is going to be exposed to my honest exposition of my own views on the matter, I may as well try my best to make and justify my points of thought on the matter in full. As such, this will be a very long post, and quite a lot of it won't be about the book. In fact, I may as well get that out of the way early on.
Kathy and Tim Keller have here written an extremely well-presented, strongly grounded in scripture, and persuasive account of the biblical notion of marriage. Chapter one explores the symbolic nature of it, with human union a physical imitation of God's interpersonal trinitarian love, an image fulfilled and perfected in Christ's marriage to the church as he unites it to himself and brings all those 'in him' into God. Chapter two explores how dependence not on each other but as a twosome on God through his Holy Spirit drives and helps sustain an ideal marriage. Chapter three explores the problem of marriage as a covenant bond of love, given the changeable nature of romantic feelings that we think of as necessary to 'love'; and how in changing our concept of what love is and how we can enact it, this failure of passion can be overcome by willpower. Chapter four explores the point of marriage as a worldly institution, and how it functions best when grounded on firm friendship. Chapter five explores what is entailed in getting to know, to a very full and deep extent, one's spouse, and having seen their best and worst, being able to consistently love them. Chapter six (and the appendix which is relevant to this chapter) explores how spouses can overcome the division of gender, loving and serving one another across it while recognising the social and theological constraint that it poses (more on this later). Chapter seven explores how marriage is actually not necessary for a human life; and how single people are to think about it and act accordingly. Chapter eight explores the purpose of sex as an aspect of human life in God's intention, and how and why it fits in with marriage in the ways that christians conventionally argue. It's all very readable and reasonable, laying out marriage's theological background and how the implications of this can be best practiced, with much food for thought throughout. I'd strongly recommend this book to any Christian, single or married.
Right (if you were only reading this to find out about the book, you can stop now; from here onwards this post will be my attempt to explain how I've reconciled what has felt like a major inner conflict within my expanded worldview).
So.
I have saved, paused, and returned to the published-but-unfinished draft of this post so many times that it's now over a fortnight [make that a month] since I actually finished the book - I just can't bring myself to commence this explanatory bit. Please accept this apologetic placeholder until my motivation to justify my position coincides with a suitably long time in which I can sit and write it all. These posts, especially this post, can take a while, and I do have to do other things like eat and work and talk to people sometimes. If you really are itching for some of my liberal-Christian-feminist perspectives on gender to be aired, you're gonna have to wait. Sorry.
[Finally getting round to tackling this, even though it shouldn't take too long. I'm leaving the placeholder in so that posterity can laugh at what a haphazardly procrastinatory blogger I am.]
Basically, I believe that gender should be largely abolished. This is because it is responsible for upholding, and therefore perpetuating, deep-rooted inequalities and injustices. Susan Moller Okin convinced me of the moral/political points to this effect; my only qualms were that Christianity traditionally holds a fairly conservative view of gender that would not take kindly to a suggestion like this, and also, I wasn't convinced that gender was entirely normative. Cordelia Fine later persuaded me of the latter; she puts forward a pretty robust case that psychological sex differences are broadly unsupported by actual scientific findings, and instead makes compelling arguments for how socially normative constructs, such as gender, affect individuals in such an insidious way as to seem real and propagate themselves.
Following conversations with Christian friends who seem naturally suspicious of 'feminism', I was repeatedly brought back to the idea of complementarianism. This is the theological view that men and women are created equal, but with differing roles, that complement each other in a relational sense as a man and woman together emulate the marriage-as-God's-love image that Tim and Kathy discuss in this book. The central part of this view is the man's headship; much as the Father is the most active agent of the trinity, the husband is to be the most active agent of a married couple. I still feel uncomfortable about this idea but the biblical case for it is quite clear. However. Kathy and Tim also explain, at great length, that the within-marriage dynamics of love absolutely should not be a power dynamic comparable to any human relationship that we are used to observing. If emulating trinitarian love, then both the wife and the husband should be constantly seeking to serve the other's best interests as reasonably and humbly as they can. This detooths all proper interpretations of complementarianism from excusing exploitation; the man's headship isn't to be seen as a heavenly justification of male dominance (and anyone who says or implies that it is should be outright challenged) but a trump card bestowed almost arbitrarily by God upon one of the genders so that individuals within a marriage have something to turn to if they ever come to an immovable standstill between their working out conflicts of loving each other in the best possible way. Of course, real humans are sinful, so we need to take such allowance of headship with a large pinch of salt and a much larger pinch of feminism-inspired church accountability. But headship in this very minimal final sense, something not supportive of inequality but demanding Christlikeness and self-giving, ultimately something that has only a theological component and is not intrinsic to the moral worth of either gender, is something with too strong a biblical case to ignore, and that I think can be included into a workable model of Christian feminist social justice in promoting equal rights and opportunities.
The other thing I think should be kept, as it were, is the physical component; i.e. the direct correlation between sex and gender. I realise that when expounded even slightly within the Christian framework of marriage, this is literally homophobic, biphobic and transphobic - and that makes me very uncomfortable. Scripture is very clear on these points, and while my views on social policy are strongly pro-LGBT+ rights, my theological/philosophical view on the matter can't ignore the full weight of scripture, no matter how much I wished it weren't so. But anyway, the binary distinction between men and women in sexual partnership is another aspect of gender's theological basis that I feel has too strong a biblical case to disregard. Note however - this distinction is purely physical; any psychological, socioeconomic, cultural or otherwise normal personal variation in what one can reliably assume about a person's preferences and capabilities should be completely emptied out (thanks Cordelia). It's crucial to stress that the Christian view on gender need not be pegged to traditional views on gender; in fact I think the inegalitarian tendencies of those conservative views demand that with justice in mind Christians should move toward a more 'gender neutral' (in the cultural sense) position. Women having the same level of autonomy, in all social spheres, as men, is not an affront to God.
So I'm left with a very minimal form of complementarianism, in which the entirety of gender can roughly summated in two points (each with hefty caveats):
What would this look like in practice? Hopefully a thoroughly fair co-incidence of Christian theology of sex and feminist social criticism. I'm sure, dear reader, you'll excuse me if I don't feel the need to draw a detailed picture of such a world, and let me finally finish this post, which, fortunately, I can now direct people to via hyperlink if ever I need to explain my views on gender, and therefore avoid having to ever think much about it again. Good night.
Kathy and Tim Keller have here written an extremely well-presented, strongly grounded in scripture, and persuasive account of the biblical notion of marriage. Chapter one explores the symbolic nature of it, with human union a physical imitation of God's interpersonal trinitarian love, an image fulfilled and perfected in Christ's marriage to the church as he unites it to himself and brings all those 'in him' into God. Chapter two explores how dependence not on each other but as a twosome on God through his Holy Spirit drives and helps sustain an ideal marriage. Chapter three explores the problem of marriage as a covenant bond of love, given the changeable nature of romantic feelings that we think of as necessary to 'love'; and how in changing our concept of what love is and how we can enact it, this failure of passion can be overcome by willpower. Chapter four explores the point of marriage as a worldly institution, and how it functions best when grounded on firm friendship. Chapter five explores what is entailed in getting to know, to a very full and deep extent, one's spouse, and having seen their best and worst, being able to consistently love them. Chapter six (and the appendix which is relevant to this chapter) explores how spouses can overcome the division of gender, loving and serving one another across it while recognising the social and theological constraint that it poses (more on this later). Chapter seven explores how marriage is actually not necessary for a human life; and how single people are to think about it and act accordingly. Chapter eight explores the purpose of sex as an aspect of human life in God's intention, and how and why it fits in with marriage in the ways that christians conventionally argue. It's all very readable and reasonable, laying out marriage's theological background and how the implications of this can be best practiced, with much food for thought throughout. I'd strongly recommend this book to any Christian, single or married.
Right (if you were only reading this to find out about the book, you can stop now; from here onwards this post will be my attempt to explain how I've reconciled what has felt like a major inner conflict within my expanded worldview).
So.
I have saved, paused, and returned to the published-but-unfinished draft of this post so many times that it's now over a fortnight [make that a month] since I actually finished the book - I just can't bring myself to commence this explanatory bit. Please accept this apologetic placeholder until my motivation to justify my position coincides with a suitably long time in which I can sit and write it all. These posts, especially this post, can take a while, and I do have to do other things like eat and work and talk to people sometimes. If you really are itching for some of my liberal-Christian-feminist perspectives on gender to be aired, you're gonna have to wait. Sorry.
[Finally getting round to tackling this, even though it shouldn't take too long. I'm leaving the placeholder in so that posterity can laugh at what a haphazardly procrastinatory blogger I am.]
Basically, I believe that gender should be largely abolished. This is because it is responsible for upholding, and therefore perpetuating, deep-rooted inequalities and injustices. Susan Moller Okin convinced me of the moral/political points to this effect; my only qualms were that Christianity traditionally holds a fairly conservative view of gender that would not take kindly to a suggestion like this, and also, I wasn't convinced that gender was entirely normative. Cordelia Fine later persuaded me of the latter; she puts forward a pretty robust case that psychological sex differences are broadly unsupported by actual scientific findings, and instead makes compelling arguments for how socially normative constructs, such as gender, affect individuals in such an insidious way as to seem real and propagate themselves.
Following conversations with Christian friends who seem naturally suspicious of 'feminism', I was repeatedly brought back to the idea of complementarianism. This is the theological view that men and women are created equal, but with differing roles, that complement each other in a relational sense as a man and woman together emulate the marriage-as-God's-love image that Tim and Kathy discuss in this book. The central part of this view is the man's headship; much as the Father is the most active agent of the trinity, the husband is to be the most active agent of a married couple. I still feel uncomfortable about this idea but the biblical case for it is quite clear. However. Kathy and Tim also explain, at great length, that the within-marriage dynamics of love absolutely should not be a power dynamic comparable to any human relationship that we are used to observing. If emulating trinitarian love, then both the wife and the husband should be constantly seeking to serve the other's best interests as reasonably and humbly as they can. This detooths all proper interpretations of complementarianism from excusing exploitation; the man's headship isn't to be seen as a heavenly justification of male dominance (and anyone who says or implies that it is should be outright challenged) but a trump card bestowed almost arbitrarily by God upon one of the genders so that individuals within a marriage have something to turn to if they ever come to an immovable standstill between their working out conflicts of loving each other in the best possible way. Of course, real humans are sinful, so we need to take such allowance of headship with a large pinch of salt and a much larger pinch of feminism-inspired church accountability. But headship in this very minimal final sense, something not supportive of inequality but demanding Christlikeness and self-giving, ultimately something that has only a theological component and is not intrinsic to the moral worth of either gender, is something with too strong a biblical case to ignore, and that I think can be included into a workable model of Christian feminist social justice in promoting equal rights and opportunities.
The other thing I think should be kept, as it were, is the physical component; i.e. the direct correlation between sex and gender. I realise that when expounded even slightly within the Christian framework of marriage, this is literally homophobic, biphobic and transphobic - and that makes me very uncomfortable. Scripture is very clear on these points, and while my views on social policy are strongly pro-LGBT+ rights, my theological/philosophical view on the matter can't ignore the full weight of scripture, no matter how much I wished it weren't so. But anyway, the binary distinction between men and women in sexual partnership is another aspect of gender's theological basis that I feel has too strong a biblical case to disregard. Note however - this distinction is purely physical; any psychological, socioeconomic, cultural or otherwise normal personal variation in what one can reliably assume about a person's preferences and capabilities should be completely emptied out (thanks Cordelia). It's crucial to stress that the Christian view on gender need not be pegged to traditional views on gender; in fact I think the inegalitarian tendencies of those conservative views demand that with justice in mind Christians should move toward a more 'gender neutral' (in the cultural sense) position. Women having the same level of autonomy, in all social spheres, as men, is not an affront to God.
So I'm left with a very minimal form of complementarianism, in which the entirety of gender can roughly summated in two points (each with hefty caveats):
- Theological component: male headship (though its assignment to 'him' is arbitrary between the genders, and in the context of proper Christlike love, as those within any Christian relationship but especially between members of a marriage should already by emulating, will also be invoked rarely and prayerfully and solely for the couple's good as a tool of lovingly jumping impasses in collective decision-making)
- Physical component: male and female partnership ('complementarianism' then is more or less reducible to heterosexuality and basic sex-related physical differences [i.e. cis-genderedness], as all other aspects of gender that one may expect here are normative and should have been abolished, by which I mean should not exist as restrictive forces on any male or female individual)
What would this look like in practice? Hopefully a thoroughly fair co-incidence of Christian theology of sex and feminist social criticism. I'm sure, dear reader, you'll excuse me if I don't feel the need to draw a detailed picture of such a world, and let me finally finish this post, which, fortunately, I can now direct people to via hyperlink if ever I need to explain my views on gender, and therefore avoid having to ever think much about it again. Good night.
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