with thanks to Zondervan and the book For the Love of Women for sponsoring this post.
I remember the first time I heard a fellow Christian defend slavery.
I was in my late thirties, and my husband Keith and I had been joking with “John” (who is now a pastor) about something—I don’t remember what now. And I threw in, “and obviously God didn’t want slavery!”
And John stopped laughing, looked at me, and said, “how do we know slavery is bad?”
I was dumbfounded and young and rendered mute in disbelief, so I didn’t reply as convincingly as I would today. But I was just so flabbergasted that he thought slavery might actually be okay!
Over the last few years, we’ve seen many high-profile complementarians defend the institution.
John MacArthur said:
It is a little strange that we have such an aversion to slavery because historically there have been abuses. There have been abuses, there have been abuses in marriage, we don’t have an aversion to marriage particularly.
And you can watch the whole thing here:
Doug Wilson largely got his platform by arguing that American chattel slavery was beneficial for the slaves, and wasn’t that bad at all. Countless influencers are defending slavery too. Joel Webbon, Joshua Haymes, and more. And I frequently have commenters defend slavery when we end up talking about complementarianism.
Of course the defence of slavery is related to the racist resurgence in the American evangelical church, and to Christian nationalism being virtually indistinguishable from white supremacy.
And please hear me—what black and brown Christians are going through in this increasingly racist era in the church is an abomination, it is disgusting, and it is inexcusable. And because so many corners of the evangelical church are supporting racism, then government policies are now as well. This is atrocious and highly concerning.
I’d like today, though, to point to another reason I believe the support of slavery has become so vocal lately: complementarians are painted into a corner, so that they have to embrace slavery if they’re going to keep complementarianism. And I’d like to explain why.
How the anti-slavery movement won
During the abolitionist movement, the argument was that even though the Bible, and specifically the New Testament, includes instructions to slaves to obey their masters, this does not mean that the Bible approves of slavery. And that argument was more or less won—maybe not in every corner of the church (the Southern Baptist Convention, of course, was founded by people who wanted to preserve slavery), but over the years anyone defending slavery was largely seen as out of the fold, as being unorthodox.
People largely agreed: even though the Bible talks about slavery without outright condemning it, the trajectory of Scripture, and its calls for justice and the imago dei in everyone, makes slavery impossible to defend.
And this is what paints complementarians in a bind.
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Let me explain.
Beth Allison Barr shows in The Making of Biblical Womanhood how the modern concept of complementarianism—how men and women are equal in value, but have different roles—is, indeed, modern. Up until the late 1800s, people tended to just believe that women were inferior to men. So you didn’t have to defend men being in leadership—they had to be because of women’s weak intellect, vulnerable constitution, etc.
When those arguments became untenable, then patriarchy needed another way to keep women out of power in church, and the “equal but different” argument was born.
Theologically, this largely rests on standing on a few “clobber verses”, like 1 Timothy 2:12, and not looking at the breadth of Scripture, or how Jesus and Paul treated women in real life.
I won’t make more arguments about that here—I’ve done it in plenty of podcasts, such as this one asking “are we making a strawman out of complementarianism”, or this one with Marg Mowczko.
But here’s where the trouble comes:
The way that complementarians defend complementarianism with the Bible is indistinguishable from the way slavery apologists defended slavery.
And we can see this by looking at how the anti-slavery movement dealt with Paul’s writings. Here’s what Paul wrote in Ephesians 6:5-9 (NIV):
Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. 6 Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. 7 Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people, 8 because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free.
9 And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him.
Here’s how the anti-slavery movement understood these instructions:
Understanding the Bible’s take on slavery
- Paul did not try to overthrow the institution of slavery, as we can see because he gave instructions for how masters were to act and how slaves were to act.
- He didn’t try to overthrow it because Christianity was a small sect with no political power. The point was not the transformation of society from the top down politically, but rather the subversion of power-dynamics by living as Christ would wherever you find yourself
- In his personal life and ministry, he treated those who happened to be slaves as co-laborers and equal in every way, declaring there is no “slave nor free” (Galatians 3:28)
- When instructing both slaves and masters how to act as Christians within the relationships they found themselves, he subverted slavery, instructing masters to care for their slaves, and instructing slaves to think about obeying God and serving God as they serve their masters, giving at least part of their agency back to them (or at least acknowledging that they had little of it!)
These assertions are honestly not that controversial when it comes to slavery. It would be hard to find a church where people would argue against this in large numbers, despite the MacArthurs and Wilsons of the world.
But the problem is that if you are going to agree with this perspective of Paul’s attitude towards slavery, then to be intellectually honest, you have to see that you can make the exact same arguments about women.
The same passages where Paul upholds the current “household codes” and defends slavery without really approving of it are the same passages where Paul appears to upholds the current power dynamics in marriage.
You can’t argue that one part of the household code passages in Ephesians 5 and 6 is Paul trying to subvert power dynamics, while the other part is Paul agreeing with the power dynamics, and saying that God wants men to be in authority over women for all time.
If you’re going to allow that Paul’s instructions to slaves were to address how people could live in the climate they were in, rather than putting his stamp of approval on that climate, then how can you say he had the opposite attitude a mere four verses earlier? And considering the original letter had no verse numbers, they’re really arguing that in the exact same passage Paul switched from approving of power dynamics to wanting to subvert them, though he never signalled that he was switching.
You can’t actually defend complementarianism in marriage and also argue that slavery is wrong.
Biblically, the same arguments have to apply to both.
And that’s the bind complementarians are in, and they know it. And that’s one of the reasons why, I think, there’s been such an increase in the number of complementarians going on the record defending slavery.
This has horrible repercussions in the political realm, as racism is normalized once again.
If you’re going to argue that Paul wasn’t actually supporting slavery, then you have to be intellectually honest and argue that he wasn’t actually promoting patriarchy either.
If they can’t let go of patriarchy, then it’s clear they’re the ones not taking the Bible seriously, because they can’t even be intellectually honest when looking at it. And I hope one day they’ll just admit it out loud.
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What do you think? Are the arguments about complementarianism and slavery the same? Have you personally witnessed more pro-slavery talk? Let’s talk in the comments!
I really never thought that there would actually be people honestly defending slavery just as I am surprised that they also don’t think women should have the right to vote. I think I mentioned this once or twice but my husband is Chippewa Indian and a lot of these same people are also minimizing or ignoring the harm in the past the missionary force has done to Indigenous people and it is quite sad. My husband’s tribe was relatively lucky in that they are from the upper part of Michigan where not a lot of people really wanted to settle with the exception of some Finnish immigrants who were used to that climate that settled there and mostly left them be except to trade with them occasionally, but there are many other tribes and peoples that aren’t so lucky.
Whenever we mention this, these people get really defensive when all we want is future missionaries to do better in respecting the native culture because I truly believe that you can still be a good Christian without having to give your cultural traditions and identity up like many in the past seem to believe. Infact, freedom to practice their native traditions was outlawed in many places the US until the 70s which many people don’t seem to realize.
Can’t remember where I read this (from one of our training materials before going overseas), but this reminds me of a great story about a Canadian First Nations Christian who asked a European missionary:
“To follow Jesus I had to give up my [can’t remember exactly what but some items associated with his previous religion]. What part of your culture did you have to give up?”
It’s a good question for all of us!
yeah especially since a lot of Easter, Halloween, and Christmas and even Valentine’s Day have a lot of pagan origins to them and many traditions were carried over from that time despite being Christianized. If people can still celebrate those holidays that way and be a good Christian (though some still debate whether or not Halloween, which originated from Samhain and Christianized as All Soul’s Day is okay to celebrate as a Christian), why can’t other cultures do the same?
Courtney:
“Upper part of Michigan” as in “Da U.P.”?
(Which would make the Chippewa the original indigenous Yoopers.)
Yes! Then as now, you had to have eyes to see it. And the humility to accept it.
Paul was a smart man. He always urged Christians to maintain the church’s reputation in the midst of a wicked and perverse generation because he wanted the message of the Gospel to advance without forcing the Roman government to step in and immediately squelch it. So he didn’t promote *obvious* insurrection by encouraging oppressed Christians (wives, slaves, children) to rise up and overthrow their designated “masters” (which only would’ve resulted in trading their present pain and oppression for one found in a Roman prison cell.)
But…Galatians and Philemon are two (of many) powerful examples of the fact that Paul strongly admonished all Christians to embrace and walk in the freedom and unity found in the body of Christ. In his instructions to the Christians living under the hierarchical household codes he exhorted the ones with the most to lose (the one in the socially recognized seat of power) to carry the heavier (and most radical) burden. And Christ was the perfect example of this.
Paul, in fact, admonished Filemon to receive Onesimus back “not as a slave” (verse 16) but receive him as he would receive Apostle Paul himself (verse 17). That’s some instruction! “If you consider me as your friend, receive him in the same way as you would receive me.” Hardly possible to imagine how Filemon could have put Onesimus back to slave’s work after such an admonition. He could as well have made Apostel Paul his slave…and I’m sure he would never have done that!
He was a smart man indeed. The letter to Filemon is my favourite among Paul’s letters.
+1 for the Philemon fan club. My favorite bit is when, after saying the bit you’ve summarised, Paul asks Philemon to get the guest bedroom ready for him, just in case! He’s all very nice about it, but in reality makes it really clear that Philemon only had one option.
Just looked it up and it’s even less subtle than I remembered it!
“Since I was confident that you would obey, I wrote to you, because I knew that you would do even more than what I am asking you to do. At the same time also, prepare a place for me to stay, for I hope that through your prayers I will be given back to you.” (v21-22, NET)
I find it wild that people can think that the letter of Philemon or Galatians of all things can be used to actually defend slavery when the whole message undermines the very concept by saying well hold on how can I enslave someone who I am called to see as my brother?
Sheila, I live on the other side of the globe and this slavery stuff makes my face look like that young teenager girl’s face on your advertisemen “What Goes Where” , introducing the “whole story” etc.
Haha I feel the same way and that is a perfect description but if they are also saying women shouldn’t vote then I am not surprised they would also advocate for actual slavery especially since they already seem to think it is okay to treat their wife as a glorified slave.
HAHA!
Yes, lots of old bad ideas are recently being resurrected in order to defend and hold on to men’s superiority sadly.
I have heard “well slavery wasn’t THAT bad” from multiple acquaintances/ family friends within the last year or so, and I could hardly believe my ears.
Another extremely dangerous heresy getting resurrected is the subordination of Jesus to the Father. Wayne Grudem (and others) use this “doctrine” to defend the subordination of wives to husbands by claiming that a woman’s role is to submit to her husband the way the Son submits to His Father. Functional Subordination is fine and biblical (Jesus chooses for a limited time to set aside His glory and power), but these guys are advocating for Eternal Subordination–that Jesus was and always will be subordinate to His Father. Or in other words, Jesus is lesser God than His Father. Uh, nope!! Don’t think so. This is basic, Trinitarian 101 stuff, but somehow people are falling for it and clinging to it.
These ideas needed to stay in the past! There is a reason we discarded them.
Yes! And I wonder what Grudem et al. do with Isaiah 9:6, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given, . . . and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father . . .”
When scripture clearly states that the Son IS the Father (and the Spirit, too, if “Counselor” is a reference to the Holy Spirit), how do you get away with your pathetic excuse that of course Jesus and God are equal, they just have different roles. It’s the same nonsense they teach about men and women, equal but different roles, meaning equal except that one is subordinate to the other. The Son and the Father cannot have different roles if their very being is so intertwined that the Son’s name is “Everlasting Father.”
When I hear complementarians, echoing Grudem, state that 1 Cor. 11:3 teaches that men are in authority over women (“the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman/wife is man/husband, and the head of Christ is God” — man and husband are the same word in Koine Greek, as is woman/wife, so there is wiggle room in which pair of words Paul intended) because they want to believe that “head” (kephale) carries the metaphorical meaning of “boss” as it does in English (but which it does not in other languages, such as French and Koine Greek), I want to scream. They are so desperate to uphold patriarchy that they are happy to throw Jesus under the bus to do it. They are happy to revive and teach the old heresy of Arianism, which the church rejected at the Council of Nicaea in 325. Clearly, preserving their own power matters more to them than understanding who Jesus is.
“Head” in this verse almost certainly carries the metaphorical meaning “source”. At any rate, it cannot mean “boss, authority” because then it would mean that God is eternally in authority over Jesus (rather than for only those few years when Jesus voluntarily gave up his equality temporarily to take on human form). So the verse cannot mean that men are in authority over women. Yet complementarians present themselves as the only Christians upholding the “traditional” teachings of the church, even as they lead their followers away from the church’s teachings and into heresy.
Exactly!
I think we’re safe. The 13th Amendment outlawed slavery and the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote.
The only amendment ever repealed was the one that gave us Prohibition.
I wish I could feel as safe as you do. If public opinion shifts sufficiently (or if a given administration chooses to act even without a majority of support from public opinion), then other amendments can also be repealed.
It would take three fourths of the states to repeal any amendment or to ratify a new one. That’s not going to happen with the country as polarized as it is.
I don’t feel safe at all. Too many so called Christians in the Christian Nationalist Movements talk about taking away a married woman’s right to vote especially by advocating for votes by households. Single women and divorced/ widowed women can vote as they are heads of their own households, but married women would be subsumed under their husband’s household as he would be the one to vote. A slippery slope to take away all women’s rights to vote. This is just bringing back coverture. No thank you. Thankfully I am older so I may not be impacted by this as much, but I fear for the younger generation of women.
That wouldn’t make sense. All you’d be doing is giving up votes and giving more power to single liberal women.
If you want to get control then bring back the requirement that you have to own property to vote. This was the case in the colonies and the early days of the US.
And the property thing was brought up as well by Doug Wilson and his ilk. I hope to God you are right that these amendments can’t be repealed, but the fact that men on the right think taking away half the populations right to vote is very concerning to me.
Being that this is Doug Wilson, does “owning property” include “animate property(TM)”?
Thanks for writing this, this is such an important point! Modern American Christians claim that we just read the bible and simply believe what it says, but the reality is there’s a whole history to how we have interpreted the bible, and the reasons why, and it has a lot to do with white people trying to use the bible to justify slavery. It’s really important to learn from this, so we don’t get it wrong in the same ways that they did.
In regards to complementarism and use of it to justify slavery is just abhorrent! I found it very ironic and contradictory when he says masters are good, kind, helpful, and to treat their slaves as Christ would. How would Christ treat slaves in his time on Earth? With love, compassion, provision, equalization,freedom, and courage. In my opinion, it takes God’s strength, limitlessness, and more to be the kind of owner that Mr. Wilson discusses in the video. I cannot think of a single time in US history of slavery of anyone being kind and providing opportunities to the people they owned. In fact, it was quite the opposite. They horribly abused their slaves (beatings so severe at times caused death) and then held up their Bibles declaring this is what God wants and go to church service right after. It makes me want to throw up.
(This may be too long, but…)
From the appendix of The Autobiography of Frederick Douglass:
“Come, saints and sinners, hear me tell
How pious priests whip Jack and Nell,
And women buy and children sell,
And preach all sinners down to hell,
And sing of heavenly union.
“They’ll bleat and baa, dona like goats,
Gorge down black sheep, and strain at motes,
Array their backs in fine black coats,
Then seize their negroes by their throats,
And choke, for heavenly union.
“They’ll church you if you sip a dram,
And damn you if you steal a lamb;
Yet rob old Tony, Doll, and Sam,
Of human rights, and bread and ham;
Kidnapper’s heavenly union.
“They’ll loudly talk of Christ’s reward,
And bind his image with a cord,
And scold, and swing the lash abhorred,
And sell their brother in the Lord
To handcuffed heavenly union.
“They’ll read and sing a sacred song,
And make a prayer both loud and long,
And teach the right and do the wrong,
Hailing the brother, sister throng,
With words of heavenly union.
“We wonder how such saints can sing,
Or praise the Lord upon the wing,
Who roar, and scold, and whip, and sting,
And to their slaves and mammon cling,
In guilty conscience union.
“They’ll raise tobacco, corn, and rye,
And drive, and thieve, and cheat, and lie,
And lay up treasures in the sky,
By making switch and cowskin fly,
In hope of heavenly union.
“They’ll crack old Tony on the skull,
And preach and roar like Bashan bull,
Or braying ass, of mischief full,
Then seize old Jacob by the wool,
And pull for heavenly union.
“A roaring, ranting, sleek man-thief,
Who lived on mutton, veal, and beef,
Yet never would afford relief
To needy, sable sons of grief,
Was big with heavenly union.
“‘Love not the world,’ the preacher said,
And winked his eye, and shook his head;
He seized on Tom, and Dick, and Ned,
Cut short their meat, and clothes, and bread,
Yet still loved heavenly union.
“Another preacher whining spoke
Of One whose heart for sinners broke:
He tied old Nanny to an oak,
And drew the blood at every stroke,
And prayed for heavenly union.
“Two others oped their iron jaws,
And waved their children-stealing paws;
There sat their children in gewgaws;
By stinting negroes’ backs and maws,
They kept up heavenly union.
“All good from Jack another takes,
And entertains their flirts and rakes,
Who dress as sleek as glossy snakes,
And cram their mouths with sweetened cakes;
And this goes down for union.”
When we discuss complementarianism, I perceive some nuance may be in order. We must acknowledge the biblical truth that God created us male and female, with differences identifiable through biological science. Clearly men and women have different abilities and needs. The idea is to build theological and legal structures to best accommodate such differences. Have there been abuses perpetrated in the name of complementarianism? The answer is clearly yes. I vigorously oppose any form of complementarianism that commands wives to obey their husbands. It definitely distorts the Bible to apply a word to wives that St. Paul applies to children. I remember my step-grandfather who clearly thought in terms of having my grandmother obey him at every step of the way. However, the flip side is how many people want to live in an absolute gender egalitarian society? Numerous women have made their rejection clear of such egalitarianism. Could it be a case of “abusum non tollet usum” (abuse is not an argument against proper use)? `
Being treated equally does not mean that differences don’t exist. Why do men need to lead just because they have a penis? It makes no sense.
Yes, what are these different abilities and needs that men and women have, besides those stemming directly from biology? (For example, women need hygiene products because of their monthly cycles, while obviously men do not)
And what is a “proper” use of gender hierarchy? Such a relationship will always be unfair and unreasonable because there is nothing inherent in being created a man or women that makes one superior or inferior to the other. You can look for it, but you won’t find it–in Genesis or anywhere else. Like Sheila said, being equal does not mean you are the same. It just means your value doesn’t determine your role.