Great post here from @scottrswain on important theological categories for thinking about sex identity (who and what we are as male and female). scottrswain.com/2020/05/14/mor…
Three additional thoughts: 1/
Three additional thoughts: 1/
1) An additional fact that Swain doesn’t directly highlight is that the “common” Adam starts off in the body of a single man. In other words, the common Adam is not de-sexed or de-gendered, but is in fact male. 2/
This establishes the temporal progression and polarity of Adam as original (and therefore, head) and Eve as eschatological (and therefore, glory). 3/
Adam’s temporal primacy is significant in the Scriptures, as Paul highlights it to establish fitting social relations in the home and the church. A wife submits to her husband because he is her head. A husband loves and cares for his wife because she is his body and glory. 4/
Likewise, because Adam is created first, men are to teach and exercise authority in the church, and women are to learn in quietness and submission (1 Tim 2). (This fact is also highlighted in 1 Cor 11 and 14 in Paul's discussion of the church's gathered worship). 5/
A significant area of disagreement in our present debates is over whether these two examples (marriage & church) are *isolated and restricted*, or *illustrative and exemplary*? 6/
Put another way, does Adam’s temporal primacy & originality only have implications for these two contexts, or does this fundamental theological fact influence & guide other social relations (granting that other social relations may not have the formal authority structure)? 7/
2) Swain casts his article as an attempt to get back to first principles & address a potential structural weakness in our discussions of manhood and womanhood. 8/
He sympathizes with those who are tired of these conversations, & dissatisfied with the current state of the discussion, which is "often repetitive, sometimes silly, and rarely self-reflective or self-critical." 9/
I found this criticism ambiguous, since he didn't specify whom he had in mind, but the criticism came immediately after recounting recent instances of the conversation by @aimeebyrdhwt , @AndyNaselli , Mark Jones, and @RevKevDeYoung. 10/
I don’t *think* Swain intended to suggest that these authors are examples of the repetitive, silly, and un-self-reflective contributions, but the placement might easily lead one to think that. 11/
I am confident that Naselli, Jones, and DeYoung would “Amen” everything in Swain’s post, recognizing their own positions represented well. (Having read Byrd's recent book, I'm less confident that she would embrace the totality of Swain's account of the first principles). 12/
3) Hannah Anderson (@sometimesalight) adds a significant point (one that she's made in these conversations before). 13/
Hannah is right to make being a son or daughter of God basic to our identity. I'd simply want to stress that this basic vertical dimension of our identity *includes within it* the horizontal relations that Swain highlights. 14/
Being a son of God entails being 1) an actual son of human parents, 2) a potential biological father & brother, 3) as well as all of the analogical relations that Swain mentions (analogical fatherhood, brotherhood, & sonship). 15/
These are not *additions* to my basic identity as a son of God, but included in it as the necessary constituents of it. Put another way, these human relations are con-created with me when God makes me as a man. Our identity is layered from the beginning. 16/
Having said all of that, Swain's article is excellent and is a great place to start in beginning with first principles and reasoning theologically about what it means to be men and women. /fin
