"Thinking Eternally, Acting Locally." - Neal August
At the suggestion of a friend, I watched the videos of the
lectures given by the various speakers of the Mature Manhood in an Immature Age event during the 2019 Southern
Baptist Convention. My friend sat through the conference itself and gave what
ended up being a gracious appraisal of its contents. I myself, as an
egalitarian, was startled by his summary but even more startled to see how gracious
his summary was. The conference itself is held within the context of a debate
between what is referred to as “hard” (or “strict”) and “soft” complementarian
positions. Should women be prohibited from preaching the gospel as well as
prohibited from holding the position of leadership within the Church? As an
egalitarian, I am outside this quibble though I hopefully understand and
sympathize with both sides. The stricter complementarian is a swiftly dying
breed, while the softer kind is diminishing only slower. For what it’s worth, I
saw several problems with the rationales given by the speakers of the
conference. Chief among them were the misinterpretations of Paul that were read
back into the Genesis 1-3 account and then said as if that was what Genesis was
teaching. At other points, there was a strange focus on masculine fecundity. In
this, speakers emphasized the importance of male reproduction as highly
significant, while oddly diminishing the role of the feminine. In my mind this
was like reflecting upon the role of hands clapping and then stating that
overall importance belonged to the left hand. Again, such strict
complementarianism (and complementarianism as a whole) is a waning position in
a time of greater gospel recognition. I will allow others to respond to the
finer points of the strict complementarian arguments of this conference.
Interestingly, while I was surprised by what I thought was the
extremism of the strict complementarian position,[1]
I was far more scandalized by one particular lecture and one singular comment. Towards
the very beginning of his lecture titled Mature
Manhood and Sexuality, Owen Strachan makes the following comment: “Jesus
came to do terrible violence to the prince of hell.” The immediate context of
his comment was his interpretation of 1 John 3:8 which reads, “The Son of God
appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil” (NASB). The Greek
word translated “destroy” here is lyō and
can mean “to loose”, “to unbound”, “to untie”, “to break up”, “to dissolve”, or
“to annul”.
The greater context of Strachan’s comment is his emphasis on what
he believes to be a “warrior-king” motif running through Scripture. He believes
that starting from the supposed protoevangelium of Genesis 3:15 and traced all
the way through to Jesus who defeated the Satan, there is a theme of the
warrior-king who defeats the enemies of God. Important to Strachan’s argument
and this thematic strand is the importance of David, the consummate
warrior-king who defeated the Philistines and was a prefigure of the Christ to
come. Strachan notes that the first designation of Jesus Christ in Matthew’s
Gospel (1:1) is “son of David”, supposedly emphasizing Jesus’ status as
warrior-king. Strachan’s overall purpose in lecturing on this warrior-king
motif in the Mature Manhood in an
Immature Age event was to counter claims that traditional conceptions of
masculinity are inherently toxic. He is attempting to argue that male
“aggression” is biologically determined and a positive, biblical attribute
which can be demonstrated as a running theme culminating in Jesus the Christ.
Again, the overall context of the various lectures of this conference is about
the supposed complementarian roles of women and men within the Church, the
home, and the greater society.
While I believe the egalitarian cause is a gospel issue in the
sense that Christ is subjecting fallen and abusive powers under his Lordship –
one of which is patriarchy – I found myself more concerned by the (which I
assume to be) rhetoric which equates the coming of Jesus the Christ with the
methodology of violence. I want to squash such rhetoric here and now if I may
and diminish any possible notions that the Kingdom of God, with Jesus as its
king, is one which associates itself with “terrible violence”.
Certainly, there is a prominent biblical theme of the king
defeating enemies and subjecting them under his lordship. The Davidic Psalm 110
is the paramount example and such an idea is frequently applied to Jesus
himself throughout the New Testament (Eph 1:20-22; Phil 2:8-11; 1 Cor 15:24;
Col 1:13; 2:10, 15; Jude 1:25; Rev 2:26-27; 12:10; Matt 9:8; 21:23; Mark 3:15;
John 5:27; 17:2). And, indeed, Jesus is identified as a king. The Greek word
“Christ” (Christos) is the
translation of the Hebrew word Messiah. The Messiah/Christ was a term used for
the King of the Jews. When Jesus is identified as the Christ, he is being
identified as the King of the Jews (Matt 2:2; 21:5; 25:35, 40; 27:11, 29, 42;
Mark 15:2, 9, 12, 18, 26, 32; Luke 19:38, 23:2-3, 37-38; John 1:49; 12:13, 15;
18:33, 37, 39; 19:3, 12, 14-15, 19, 21; Acts 17:7; 1 Tim 6:15). This is why
Jesus is identified as coming from the line of King David (Matt 1:6; 9:27;
12:23; 15:22; 20:30; 21:9; 21:15; 22:42; Mark 10:47-48; 11:10; 12:35; Luke
1:27, 32, 69; 2:4, 11; 3:31; 18:38-39; 20:41; John 7:42; Rom 1:3; 2 Tim 2:8;
Rev 5:5; 22:16).
However, while Jesus certainly is the king who defeated the
enemies, it’s fundamentally important to understand how he did it. Jesus’
method was not
through violence or force. Rather, it is a method which is counter-intuitive and
truly counter-cultural. Instead of seizing power through violent aggression,
Jesus became a servant (Mark 10:42-45; Luke 22:25-27; Matt 25:28; John 13:3-17;
Phil 2:7) in order to be exalted (Phil 2:5-11).[2] This is why we
read the first shall be last and the last shall be first (Matt 20:16, 26-27;
Mark 10:31, 43-44; Luke 13:30; 22:26). This is why Christian leadership is
about servant leadership (Mark 10:42-45; Luke 22:25-27; Matt 25:28; 1 Pet 5:2-3). This is why being
a pastor is about equipping other believers (Eph 4:11-12). While the world may be run by the aggressive use of force and
while governments may have a monopoly on violence,[3] the Christian pursues the Kingdom of God through the method of
our king: humility, selflessness, submission, and sacrifice (Matt 16:24; Mark
8:34; Luke 9:23). It is through the poor, the mourners, the
meek, the justice hungry, the merciful, the pure, the peacemakers, and the
persecuted that the Kingdom of God comes to fruition. This is a complete
redefinition of power and of what it means to be the people of God.
This is the ethic
found predominately in the New Testament and is spelled out in Jesus’ Sermon on
the Mount, particularly Matthew 5:38-5:42. However, its antecedents are found
in the Old Testament. In the second century BCE, the Jews were engaged in a
violent struggle against the Seleucid Empire for political and cultural control
over Palestine. In this time of cultural persecution and violent resistance, we
have the production of the Book of Daniel teaching a response to governmental
persecution through prayer, service, and non-violent resistance. This is a
later, higher ethic than found in the earlier books of the Bible like that of
Esther with its retributive justice. At the same time, the Book of Daniel
predicts that God will deal with these persecuting nations and governments
through a “Messiah” and through resurrection. You can see much earlier in the
Old Testament that God will establish his Kingdom through a Messiah (Isa 11)
and that a time and ethic of peace will follow where the wolf will lie down
with the lamb and people will no longer need their swords (Isa 2:4; Joel 3:10,
Mic 4:3). It will be a time of freedom (Isa 61:1) and forgiveness (Jer 31:34).
This is an ethic of forgiveness, non-violence, and non-retribution. And it
flows from the character of God himself. In the first case of human violence
recorded in the Bible, God gives Cain grace for murdering his little brother
even when Cain deserved death (Gen 4). This is who God is. And this is who
Jesus is. And Jesus taught an ethic where abuse,
persecution, and violence are to be dealt with by love, forgiveness, and
non-violence. Again, you can see this prominently in the Sermon on the Mount,
but it is the ethic Jesus took all the way to the cross where he rejected
violence (Matt 26: 52-54; Luke 22:51) and proclaimed forgiveness (Luke 23:34).
The power exhibited and unleashed on the cross is that of self-giving love and
forgiveness. This is the heart of the gospel.
With references to Davidic kings, please take as your proof texts
that of 1 Chronicles 22:8 and 28:3. David was prevented from building the
Temple of God because he was a man of war and violence. Yes, Jesus was the Son
of David, but the son of David was also Solomon. And it was Solomon (a
non-warrior) who built the Temple which housed the presence of God. Jesus was a
man of submission, sacrifice, and non-violence who built the Temple - his body
(John 2:19-22; Rev 21:22). We have voluminous references throughout
the New Testament of people being “in Christ” (Rom 8:2, 39; 12:5; 1 Cor 1:2,
30; 15:18, 22; 2 Cor 5:17; Gal 2:4; 3:28; 6:15; Eph 1:3, 10, 12, 20). Indeed,
the followers of Jesus - the Church itself - are frequently called the “body of
Christ” (Rom 12:5; 1 Cor 12:12-27; Eph 3:6; 5:23; Col 1:18, 24). Not only that,
Christian believers as a group are referred to as a Temple (1 Cor 3:16, 17;
6:19; 2 Cor 6:16; Eph 2:21). To put this altogether: believers are in Christ, they
are the body of Christ, they are a Temple, Jesus is a Temple, and believers are
a part of that Temple body.
When David was promised that his son would build the Temple to
house the presence of God (2 Samuel 7), this was later understood (along with
Psalm 110 and Daniel 7) as Messianic prophecies predicting that the Christ
would not only defeat the enemy but build the Temple. Jesus as the Christ did
build the Temple, but it was the temple of his body made up of all believers in
him. And in both tasks (defeating the enemy and building the Temple), Jesus
accomplished them through non-violent submission and sacrificial servanthood.
If one wants to argue for Jesus as the consummate and ultimate fulfillment of
the warrior-king figure, one must recognize that, like most everything else Jesus
did, he radically redefined what it meant to be a warrior-king by establishing
the role as one of peace, submission, servanthood, non-violence, and
non-aggression.
While I sympathize with Strachan’s concern about arguments
denigrating some aspects of traditional masculinity as toxic, I nevertheless
feel strongly that we should understand both masculinity and femininity in terms of
the revelation of Jesus Christ and in the methodology of the gospel. Both men
and women are expected to take part in the process of defeating the enemy by subjecting
the fallen Powers of the world to Christ’s Lordship (see 1 Corinthians 15,
Ephesians, Philippians 2, and 1 Peter). However, it is absolutely fundamental
that we do so by the methodology of our King, Jesus the Christ. And as we
subject those Powers under Christ, we must also be careful to subject our own
rhetoric so that it properly reflects that of the gospel. If the strict
complementarians wish to be truly counter-cultural, then they could find no
greater starting point than developing warrior-kings and warrior-queens in the
Church who embrace the radically redefined gospel methods of submissive
non-aggression and mature servanthood.
[1]
Please understand that I do not think those who hold these positions are bad
people. They are brothers in Christ. I just disagree with them.
[2]
The book 1 Peter is an excellent examination and application of how the
sufferings of Christ (1:11; 2:7, 21-24; 4:1; 5:1) led to his glory (1:11, 21;
3:22; 4:13; 5:1, 4, 10).
[3]
See Rom 13:1-3 for a brief reference to this concept.
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