17 May 2020

Stonestreet's Anti-Feminism: An Endorsement of Feminism (Part 1)


It's no wonder people are confused. What we have here is a feminist argument to counter more extreme forms of feminism. Evangelicals have in recent years largely embraced the early stages of feminism, even lionising the likes of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B Anthony – once largely reviled figures in the Evangelical world. And they have in other instances rejected as 'sexism' the Bible's ordering of the family and marriage.


Women are called to submit to their husbands (Ephesians 5.22, Colossians 3.18) – not to all men in general as some advocates of Patriarchy would argue. They are to be keepers at home that the word of God be not blasphemed and that there be no occasion for the adversary to speak reproachfully (Titus 2.5, 1 Timothy 5.14).
In other words if they're not keeping the home and guiding the house  – if they are abandoning the domestic sphere and are out in the world giving their time and energies to spheres other than the family - then somehow that leads to the word of God being blasphemed.
We could talk about why but in some respects there's little point in having that discussion because it would ignore the critical and more pressing point – that Evangelicals are simply disobedient to the New Testament when it comes to this issue. They won't have it. They profess to believe in scriptural authority but in practice they deny its sufficiency on this point and many others. And thus in the end the authority of the scriptures is overturned.
Why do they reject the New Testament's teaching with regard to women, divorce, marriage, parental authority and the imperatives they carry? I think there are many reasons. But with regard to women in general, they don't want to stand out too starkly vis-à-vis the surrounding culture and lose their seeming relevance. Being out of step, they would simply become 'strange' and would no longer resonate with their social peers. Middle Class lifestyle is very important to Evangelicals and since the 1970's this has (for many) become impossible to maintain without a second income.  Money, status, class – these are important enough but there's also the issue of dominion. By putting women out into the cultural context, they too can wage the culture war in their respective spheres and thus Evangelicals are unwilling to reduce their potential impact (as they in worldly terms reckon it) by having their women stay home and guide the house. There are exceptions of course but they are few and their numbers are shrinking.
Stonestreet's discussion is further confused by engaging on more or less equal terms with the larger culture's narratives and their understanding of women. In other words he accepts the culture's framing of the issue. As Christians we should engage but not on equal terms, not on their terms. We don't hear their arguments so to speak when they contradict the Scriptures. We don't embrace their assumptions but Stonestreet (perhaps via a different Dominionist road) finds himself more or less in the same place as they are. He can pretty much embrace their framework but simply wants to 'tweak' it a bit.
Contrary to Stonestreet, the Scriptures present a family and marriage-dynamic that's at complete odds with the culture and the antithesis is growing more radical and pronounced by the day. This process started long before 'house husbands' became an accepted practice in Evangelical circles – before absolute role reversal was embraced as it is now.
An understanding of Scriptural Sufficiency demands that even though a systematic statement is not provided on domestic order we can nevertheless follow the arguments given in the Epistles and determine whether the points made are cultural or creational, merely contextual or abiding and certainly whether these questions are universal or covenantal. A proper Christocentric hermeneutic coupled with an eschatological understanding of New Testament piety, ethics and anthropology leads us to accept these statements at face value – as normative.
In other words we can understand that Christian marriage is not the same as marriage out in the world. The husband-wife dynamic while it exists in the world will be radically different among Christians. Christian ethics and therefore marriage and familial orders will always be different from the world's practice. As we engage with the world, we understand that people are lost. They need the gospel. Trying to use the culture and legislation to twist their arms and make their domestic situations appear Christian does not make them so – and as Romans 8.5-8 teaches us, lost people will chafe and rebel against the commands of God. They are unregenerate and the idea that somehow forcing a moral domestic order upon them is going to make them desire Christianity – is simply not what the New Testament teaches. These people have to be broken and come to Christ. That's the task of preaching and the Holy Spirit, not the arts, culture and the legislature.
Nominal Christians need to be rebuked and corrected and we'll quickly discover that many (including many Evangelicals) in fact will not submit to the Word of God on these points and others – and therefore will reject the discipline of the Word and require (in the end) excommunication. But for Stonestreet and his ilk, a remnant Church just won't get the job done.
The universal command, the imperative we preach is that Christ is Coming – repent and believe. Once this line is crossed, then people may begin to understand, submit and reorder their lives accordingly. There's no New Testament basis for calling upon the culture or the pagan state to become a pedagogical means to bring people to Christ. It's simply not there. Babylon does not take on the role of Mosaic pedagogue in the New Covenant. Even if some charlatans come along and paint the city with crosses – it's still Babylon.
In fact our antithesis to the world, our salt and light presence is a glaring reminder and accusation to them. Stonestreet's model confuses these issues.
And Stonestreet's Dominionism won't allow for some of these distinctions. Everything in his ethical framework is universal – the Covenant and its ethics apply to all of society. While overwhelming numbers of Evangelical Christians are moved and persuaded by the 'all of life' approach of Dominionism, the truth is the New Testament doesn't approach the question in the same way at all.
It's 'all of life' to be sure – but in light of the fact that Christ is coming to judge the world and that this age is passing away (1 Cor 7.29-32). Because our focus first and foremost should be apocalyptic, because we're called to lay up treasures in heaven and not on the Earth, because we know the Church age is one of pilgrimage, sackcloth, life in the wilderness and that the world will hate and persecute us, that what the world esteems is abomination in the sight of God, that we're to eschew the service of mammon and the sword, the very backbones of the world system – then we're all necessarily relegated to the fringes of society. We're not the 'movers and shakers' as it were but those that oppose the world order. Success? Status? These are the things the world seeks after. We're to associate with the lowly and to become 'fools' in the eyes of the world. The whole framework of Stonestreet's thought is rooted in worldliness and sinful worldly values. Meaning, success, worth – these concepts aren't defined by Stonestreet through the lens of Scripture but by the world. And their value is tied to their level and potential degree of impact. If you cannot understand this, you will not understand why it doesn't matter if we as Christians are reckoned as 'nothing' in the eyes of the world. The New Testament ideal is in every way abhorrent to Stonestreet and his theology of Dominion.
In contrast to many pre- and anti-feminist assumptions, New Testament Christianity also rejects the idea that men are 'conquerors' out to shape the world, or that we find our meaning and identity in our work. We work as a means to support our families and we do so with integrity and energy. But our real work is in service to Christ and this should shine through us in whatever we do – and yet that doesn't mean that the daily work we engage is somehow building the Kingdom. It doesn't. It's simply part of the common grace (Providentially restraining) order that is passing away. Dominionism has turned 'work' and the improvement of the world which is passing away into sanctified Kingdom activity and borrowing the world's categories it has now effectively sanctified feminism – a form of rebellion against the God ordained order for the Church's life in the wilderness.
As an Evangelical, Stonestreet believes culture is relevant and the Church must never lose its ability to positively impact culture. Theology must be politicised – it must be able to be acted upon and implemented. Is it any surprise a kind of pragmatism creeps in?
By always thinking in universal terms (a necessity if one wants to shape the culture as whole) he not only loses the force of New Testament argument but he ties his hands as he can only practically embrace what is possible or plausible to implement. New Testament domesticity is not functional in our culture and therefore it's not really on the table. At most he can say like Joel Osteen – Well, God's way is the best way – but the idea of transforming culture to implement these ideas and concepts of New Testament domestic order (which he doesn't seem to actually believe) is impossible or at least a century in the future (as a postmillennialist might think).
So to be charitable we could say the likes of Stonestreet (or perhaps someone a bit more conservative than him) embraces a long term strategy but in terms of tactics they seem to think they can dispense with parts of Scripture as needed in order to score their cultural 'victories'.
Does that kind of compromise represent the method used by the apostles? Of course this begs the question regarding the transformation of society to begin with. If that's wrong (as indeed it is) Stonestreet's entire position collapses and his resulting ethics of compromise are necessarily condemned and must be viewed as subversive to the true faith.
Stonestreet openly embraces and encourages women in business, government, in the home or in any realm – a feminist position – though he would most certainly deny it. Let's not mince words here – Stonestreet is an Evangelical Feminist who is not advocating the theology of the New Testament but instead is merely promoting his brand of feminism against the mainstream cultural version. His answer to secular feminism is Christian feminism.
He thinks a rejection of the feminist view devalues women? This statement painfully demonstrates how far the Evangelical movement has traveled down this path. From my perspective it is Stonestreet that devalues women.
He has no concept of the husband and father as a protector and a shield.  There must be whole sections missing from his New Testament. He would send his wife out into the world, the cut-throat, dog-eat-dog cesspool that is the realm of the coin. She's on her own, out in the world to fend for herself and to find her value and identity in Earthly vocation, seeking the accolade of the world and its approval. She is not a treasure to be protected, a Daughter or Zion to be preserved, a weaker vessel to be cared for – Stonestreet treats Christian women as men, to go out into a world that requires them to act like men, to assert themselves, to fight and scratch (metaphorically speaking), to compete and to rely on cunning.
The Scriptures say they are to be obedient to their husbands, guiding the house, washing the saint's feet and lodging the strangers (all domestically oriented tasks) – but instead they will spend their days (in many cases) answering to other men, pandering and submitting to others, enduring the indignities of having another man in authority over them and all that entails. It's sink or swim for them. It's disgusting and a betrayal of Christian womanhood. Stonestreet thinks these masculinised Evangelical women are building the Kingdom – in New Testament eyes many of them are guilty of disobedience and in Paul's eyes they are in danger of turning aside after Satan. And yet they are not really the one's to blame – it is the Evangelical husbands and the leaders of the movement who have brought things to this state of affairs.
I am of course not speaking of women who have found themselves in difficult situations and are compelled to work outside the home. I realise life is messy and many are unable to follow through on what the New Testament presents as an ideal. That said, normalising and glorifying the exception and even enshrining it is a very different thing. Additionally, the Church could do more to support hard-pressed women and families but instead chooses to spend its money on other things. These issues are not easily divorced from a larger set of questions and a mindset which have overtaken Evangelical ecclesiology.