Soft Complementarians: Holding to Headship and the Gifting of Women

About My Soft Complementarian Friends

• We disappoint people on both sides. Egalitarians think we are limiting women. Some complementarians think we have compromised Scripture. Both criticisms are a challenge to us because we champion women using their gifts and place women in significant ministry roles knowing the body of Christ is blessed. And we love the Scripture, believing it is breathed by God for our benefit.
• We want to keep our position on women in ministry as secondary—in other words, we have gospel partnerships with those who differ. We are perplexed when some leaders joke about differing views on other secondary issues but go scorched Earth on this secondary issue. For example, some ministry leaders make jovial jokes about differing modes of baptism in the same style of banter one would employ talking smack over sports, yet declare someone with a different view on women in ministry to be a heretic or on a slippery slope to apostasy. I’m deeply thankful for committed complementarians and committed egalitarians who are preaching the gospel and doing good, gospel work. We long for our view on women in ministry to be rightly viewed as a secondary issue. Because of our desire to keep the topic secondary, we don’t write much, talk much, or post much about it.
• At the same time, we know this discussion is really, really personal to gifted women. Yes, intellectually we know this doctrine is secondary. We long to keep it there, but we never want women to feel secondary. I have never had the experience of listening to people debate if I should be able to use gifts and in what settings. For a woman who is gifted to lead or teach, the discussion isn’t merely intellectual. It is very personal as she longs to steward her gifts for Christ and His Kingdom.
• Most of the complementarians are kind to us. While the aforementioned is painful, it is a rarity. Most of the not-soft complementarians who disagree with our position appreciate our commitment to Scripture, our desire for consistency, and say, “Though I am not where you are, I see how you got there.”
• We know we must be clear on sexuality. Because the culture has linked conversations about gender, minorities, and sexuality together and because we are viewed by many as being more “for women” than other viewpoints, the burden is on us to provide gracious clarity around God’s design for sexuality.
• We believe our position is biblically faithful. We are not looking for a middle position to appease two different groups. We are looking to hold on to two clear biblical truths at the same time. We can’t let go of either male headship or women using their gifts in the whole body. This position allows us to hold both.
• We hold our position humbly and happily. Some of us have been a stronger version of complementarian and struggled that we were not helping women use their gifts adequately enough. Some of us have been egalitarian and struggled to see headship as a result of the Fall in light of New Testament passages. Because we have moved into this position through reading, praying, and learning, we don’t feel we have it all figured out. Yet because we view the position as secondary, we aren’t overwhelmed by being less certain on this than we are on the atonement, the inerrancy of Scripture, the gospel, etc.

A Personal Word

Jesus called my mom to Himself when she made a New Year’s commitment to read through the Scripture. She didn’t get far before God rescued her in Mark 8:34. Because she was converted reading the Scripture, she found a church down the road in the New Orleans area that taught the Bible—a Southern Baptist church. We became the only ones in our extended family who went to a Baptist church. After God rescued me, in part because of the ministry of that church, He called me to preach and used the ministry of the Baptist Student Union at my college campus to do so. I received my master’s and doctoral degrees from Southern Seminary, a Southern Baptist institution, and I am profoundly grateful for the education I received. I served churches through the ministry of Lifeway Christian Resources, owned by the SBC, as senior vice-president for seven years and loved my time there. When I left Lifeway to become the Senior Pastor of Mariners, people asked me if I would ever write about why I left the SBC. I had never and still have never considered it. Moving to Southern California to serve Mariners was overwhelmingly about what God was calling me to, not about what I was leaving behind. In my mind I was not leaving friends. They are still friends. Nor was I leaving what I learned: to have a heart for people to meet Jesus and a conviction that the Bible is the sole authority for faith and practice.

Clearly, on a secondary issue (the role of women in the church), I was moving toward a different place for years and ultimately landed there, but that hasn’t changed my relationship with friends who are still in the SBC. Honestly, I wasn’t certain I was actually moving toward a different place, as many of my friends in the SBC believed the phrase in the Baptist Faith and Message (the doctrinal statement of the SBC) about the office of pastor being reserved for men was about the office of senior pastor—which I also believe as a soft complementarian. While in my roles within the SBC I submitted myself to my leaders and the doctrinal positions. Today, I don’t view my narrower complementarian friends as against women. Yes, I know some try to paint complementarians that way, and surely there are some who are, but my friends desire to see women flourish. And they don’t view me as against the Scripture. When we are together, we talk about primary doctrinal issues anyway, or about the joy of gospel ministry, our families, sports, or cigars.

What I appreciate about them is they articulate our position—the broad, gift-based complementarian position—as we ourselves would. They don’t hold us up as a straw man just to tear us down. Attached is our church’s position paper.

This article originally appeared here and is used by permission.