I'm eager to dig in to the new @9Marks journal on the reckoning among complementarians. 9marks.org/wp-content/upl…
I've already read or skimmed a few articles and it looks helpful and clarifying in many respects.
I've already read or skimmed a few articles and it looks helpful and clarifying in many respects.
For example, I agree with @samueld_james that the inter-comp debate is often a matter of different instincts:
That said, the opening editorial by @JonathanLeeman contains this line:
"Turning to the inside of the church and home, broad and narrow complementarians agree on the basic biblical principles, but they tend to *apply* those shared principles differently."
"Turning to the inside of the church and home, broad and narrow complementarians agree on the basic biblical principles, but they tend to *apply* those shared principles differently."
While this may be true about certain biblical *conclusions* (husbands as head of their home; only men can be pastors; which is almost certainly what Jonathan is referring to), that claim elides one of *the* key differences between narrows and broads:
Namely, the authority of biblical *reasoning* that grounds certain biblical conclusions, especially the authority of God's design in sexual teleology in informing, guiding, & even governing the way that we structure and order our households, the household of God, & civil society.
In my judgment, this is *the* major fault line btw broad & narrow comps. It's not merely a matter of differing *applications* of biblical principles upon which we all agree. It's a matter of whether a certain reality attested in Scripture *is* itself a biblical first principle.
For example, in terms of the church, narrow comps often adopt the principle "a woman can do anything an unordained man can do." They think that it is a biblical one. As a broad comp, I reject the principle, because I don't think it's biblical.
In fact, I think it's an *unbiblical* & egalitarian principle that treats all male eldership as a matter of positive law (ordination) rather than something that accords with a deeper natural/creational reality.
Thus, at that point, the debate between narrows & broads about the church is not merely a matter of application of shared biblical principles, but a matter of differing biblical principles. As a result, it's a deeper fault line, which is why we feel the pressure more acutely.
To show the relevance of this difference on first principles, we can apply the slippery slope argument that @colinsmo employs about egalitarianism & affirming homosexuality to this fault line:
If we lose the natural/creational grounding for biblical commands (i.e. if we maintain biblical *conclusions,* narrowly defined, but don't & broadly adopt biblical *reasoning*), how long will we remain complementarian? Are narrow comps on a slippery slope to egalitarianism?
In asking this, I'm not suggesting that those who currently advocate for narrow complementarianism will themselves necessarily slide into egalitarianism (though they might). The question of slippery slopes is usually one of generations:
Will narrow complementarianism so thin out the rationale for complementarianism in general that the next generation will carry the egalitarian logic to egalitarian conclusions? /fin
