Al Mohler: Misuse of complementarian theology 'can and has' led to the abuse of women in the church
“Sinful men will use anything in vanity and in anger, in sin of every form. Sinful men will distort anything and will take advantage of any argument that seems to their advantage, even to the abuse of women.” - Christian Post
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The headline is intentionally edit here. Christian Post’s version is misleading… “Al Mohler: Complementarian theology ‘can and has’ led to the abuse of women…”
Mohler is not blaming the theology. He’s blaming humans who distort and misuse it.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
and by extension, your sister in Christ, as Christ loved the church, why would you ever cover up abuse?
Answer: You wouldn’t.
So why have people apparently done that?
At least 2 reasons:
1) They were evil, unsaved men. Yep, has happened more than you think. Maybe they just forgot to put on the new man that day…
2) This is the more interesting one. The line between affair and sexual abuse can be fuzzy. Rachel Denhollander refuses to admit this, but it is true. Now let me be clear. I am only talking about adults here (read as, not minors!). Take the Jennifer Lyell case in the SBC. The basic facts are a graduate student says an SBC professor groomed her and led her into a years long abusive relationship. People act like this is cut and dry. Clearly it is sexual abuse they say. I’m not so sure. There are other cases like this. Is it adultery or is it sexual abuse? May not be as clean cut as you think. To be clear, you never “cover up” a situation. But there can be cases where what one person considers abuse is taken to be a sexual relationship that is not abusive.
Mark, allow us to put this question to rest in your mind. If there is a woman involved, it’s sexual abuse. She rarely if ever is culpable, especially if the man has any perceived or real authority over her. When power dynamics are in play, the woman cannot make an informed, consensual, self-directed decision.
[/jaded]
One example I saw recently—yes in the Twitter kerfuffle we’ve been discussing—was a (since deleted) tweet that argued that a particular woman was somehow “unqualified” to comment on these issues, as if the doctrines of the perspicuity of Scripture and Sola Scripture somehow did not apply if the person using them lacked a Y chromosome. Given that I’m about 95% sure that Mrs. Denhollander is also a complementarian by persuasion, totally unnecessary. Male headship does not mean (as John MacArthur is on video doing) basically patting women on the head (Beth Moore in his case) and telling them to “go home”. (I think Moore is basically complementarian, too)
Regarding Mark’s point, about the Jennifer Lyell case, keep in mind that the offender, Dr. Sills, was also her advisor. A PhD and professor like Mark should, ahem, be painfully aware of the “pull” that one’s advisor has in making or breaking one’s career, and all the more in a seminary setting where all students, and especially women, are strongly conditioned to submission. Combine that with students generally being fairly poor, and aiming for poorly paying jobs, and you’re asking for trouble.
And really, in that light, any relationship between an advisor and a student, especially in a seminary, ought to be seen as some degree of sexual assault. Same thing as forcible stranger rape? No, but it’s still tremendously damaging, especially given fundagelical views towards people who have “experience” outside of marriage. That’s why a lot of colleges and universities specifically ban such relationships, sometimes even if the professor isn’t even that student’s instructor.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
Why is it that we’re told that women are helpless to make an informed, consensual, self-directed decision in situations like this? If my VP (who’s female) hit on me and wanted to engage in an inappropriate relationship, I’d say, “No!” If that endangered my job, I’d take legal action. However, I wouldn’t sleep with her regardless of the outcome. Is this just my white, male (cisgender, etc.) privilege showing?
Matthew 16:2–3 (ESV): He answered them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.
My advice: understand the times, what’s sensitive and why, and behave wisely.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
[T Howard]Why is it that we’re told that women are helpless to make an informed, consensual, self-directed decision in situations like this? If my VP (who’s female) hit on me and wanted to engage in an inappropriate relationship, I’d say, “No!” If that endangered my job, I’d take legal action. However, I wouldn’t sleep with her regardless of the outcome. Is this just my white, male (cisgender, etc.) privilege showing?
Beyond the obvious “consider the advisor’s pull over a poor student’s career and ministry”, you’ve got the fact that the Torah (Exodus 22:16-17) clearly tells us that the father of a girl who is seduced does have veto power over her continuing in that relationship, even after the seducer pays the bride-price. Note; she is of age, and not (Song of Songs 8:9) in the category of pre-pubescent girls who shall be protected with “walls of cedar”.
OK, to what degree we’re under the law of Moses can (and should) be debated and all that, but the long and short if it is that the Torah does in fact give us some cases where existing systems (family, church, government, etc.) ought to be protecting vulnerable people from unlawful and manipulative relationships. You see the same thing vis-a-vis slavery, really, and the marriage of a man to a captured woman from a pagan land. A wife taken from the ranks of slaves actually had a somewhat stronger position than a native born Israelite (Deut. 21:10-17). For that matter, one basic reason government has gotten involved in family law is about the same; it issues marriage licenses only to those who are judged eligible to marry. We (rightly) see things like polygamy and child marriage as out of bounds. Along the same lines, you will in some contracts see a line asking if the contract was signed under duress (large pressure/threat to life, etc..), and contracts are in general null and void if signed under duress.
Which is a long way of saying that while we would indeed commend someone who realizes the sin that is afoot and willingly risks adverse consequences to avoid that sin, up to and including death, Scripture simultaneously tells us that where there is the likelihood of a coercive motivation on the part of those with power, there also ought to be an institutional barrier to using it.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
Beyond the obvious “consider the advisor’s pull over a poor student’s career and ministry”…
Please.
So, one’s only response in this situation is to go along with the advisor’s advances and sleep with said academic advisor? Not once, but multiple times over the course of multiple years? Are not women strong enough to be able to say “No, you creep! I don’t care what you do, I’m not sleeping with you!” and then report his advances to the seminary administration / local media? I know … that’s victim blaming.
Look, if we’re rearing our daughters to believe that their only recourse in said situation is to sleep with their academic advisor / boss / etc, we’ve failed as fathers to instill in them courage and self-respect.
[T Howard]Why is it that we’re told that women are helpless to make an informed, consensual, self-directed decision in situations like this? If my VP (who’s female) hit on me and wanted to engage in an inappropriate relationship, I’d say, “No!” If that endangered my job, I’d take legal action. However, I wouldn’t sleep with her regardless of the outcome. Is this just my white, male (cisgender, etc.) privilege showing?
Uhh… T Howard I thought you said all interaction with women in the situations is a power play by the men? How come your story has a woman hitting on you? How can such a thing be possible?
[Bert Perry]One example I saw recently—yes in the Twitter kerfuffle we’ve been discussing—was a (since deleted) tweet that argued that a particular woman was somehow “unqualified” to comment on these issues, as if the doctrines of the perspicuity of Scripture and Sola Scripture somehow did not apply if the person using them lacked a Y chromosome. Given that I’m about 95% sure that Mrs. Denhollander is also a complementarian by persuasion, totally unnecessary. Male headship does not mean (as John MacArthur is on video doing) basically patting women on the head (Beth Moore in his case) and telling them to “go home”. (I think Moore is basically complementarian, too)
Regarding Mark’s point, about the Jennifer Lyell case, keep in mind that the offender, Dr. Sills, was also her advisor. A PhD and professor like Mark should, ahem, be painfully aware of the “pull” that one’s advisor has in making or breaking one’s career, and all the more in a seminary setting where all students, and especially women, are strongly conditioned to submission. Combine that with students generally being fairly poor, and aiming for poorly paying jobs, and you’re asking for trouble.
And really, in that light, any relationship between an advisor and a student, especially in a seminary, ought to be seen as some degree of sexual assault. Same thing as forcible stranger rape? No, but it’s still tremendously damaging, especially given fundagelical views towards people who have “experience” outside of marriage. That’s why a lot of colleges and universities specifically ban such relationships, sometimes even if the professor isn’t even that student’s instructor.
Inappropriate is not the same a sexual abuse.
Mark, what the professor did was abuse by the very definition of the word. The professor mis-used his position to obtain sexual favors. In doing so, he treated a woman who should have been someone’s wife as a whore. A synonymn for “mis-used” is “abused.”
Come on, Mark, you can do better than this.
I notice, by the way, that the forum is not discussing the evidence I presented that in Scripture, there are a number of places where Scripture emphatically says that certain decisions are out of bounds, and that God’s people ought to be protecting people from making those decisions and experiencing their consequences. Come on, guys, if we’re going to call ourselves fundamentalists, let’s proceed from the Bible, not Ayn Rand.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
[Bert Perry] I notice, by the way, that the forum is not discussing the evidence I presented that in Scripture, there are a number of places where Scripture emphatically says that certain decisions are out of bounds, and that God’s people ought to be protecting people from making those decisions and experiencing their consequences. Come on, guys, if we’re going to call ourselves fundamentalists, let’s proceed from the Bible, not Ayn Rand.
Bert,
I don’t disagree that the Scripture provides protections for certain classes of vulnerable people (e.g. widows and orphans). I don’t disagree that it’s inappropriate for a professor / boss to have a relationship with his student / direct report. What I disagree with is the idea that women have no other choice other than to sleep with their professor / boss / etc. if he propositions them for sexual favors. What I disagree with is the idea that women lose all ability to make informed, consensual, self-directed decisions when there is any power differential (perceived or actual) involved. What I disagree with is that women apparently can’t be guilty of using their sexuality to get what they want from men. What I disagree with is that any opinion contrary to the current #metoo dogma is viewed as victim blaming.
I don’t buy it and neither should you. I want to stand up for real victims of sexual violence and abuse. An adult woman choosing to sleep with her professor multiple times over the course of multiple years is not sexual abuse.
Tom, perhaps you (and others) ought to buy a copy of Rachael Denhollander’s book and read the chapter where she discusses her high school experience—she’d just been abused by Larry Nassar—with discussing Bathsheba’s case, where it was noted “well, she could have let herself be killed.” Is that your position for Ms. Lyell? She could have ended up dead, or perhaps at best unemployable in her chosen profession and with a mountain of student loans to pay off?
We can argue there was another choice until the cows come home, but what we have here is clear cases of a “choice” between two horrendous alternatives, either of which will be judged by people in the church. Let’s be honest; guys here are blaming her for submitting to sexual abuse, and if she’d refused and ended up bankrupt due to student loans, some here would blame her for foolishly going to seminary, or cast doubt upon her story and tell her she brought it on herself. I’ve seen all of this on these threads.
Maybe we should actually, you know, blame the guy who abused his authority and his student instead? Maybe give that a try?
On another note, how many of us have ever had to make a difficult choice like this, where it was between moral purity and financial and career ruin? Closest I’ve ever come is when I elevated a reliability issue to the VP level at a company where I worked, and I ended up on the layoff list. But I wasn’t deeply in debt, and nobody was going to ruin my career going forward. Plus, I was right, and it was good I was gone when the fertilizer hit the fan.
So maybe if you haven’t been there, don’t be so quick to judge.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
[Bert Perry]Tom, perhaps you (and others) ought to buy a copy of Rachael Denhollander’s book and read the chapter where she discusses her high school experience—she’d just been abused by Larry Nassar—with discussing Bathsheba’s case, where it was noted “well, she could have let herself be killed.” Is that your position for Ms. Lyell? She could have ended up dead, or perhaps at best unemployable in her chosen profession and with a mountain of student loans to pay off?
First, let’s clarify my comments are directed toward adult women, not minors.
Second, let’s clarify that, yes, Ms. Lyell as an adult woman has the ability to make informed, consensual, self-directed decisions. She’s not a poor, helpless seminary student with no choice over her life. If she didn’t want to sleep with her professor, she should have said, “No! You Creep!”, and she should have reported him to the seminary administration. Her life wasn’t threatened. Her choices weren’t between death and rape. But, I admit standing up for herself in that situation does take courage. It takes self-respect. According to you (and other #metoo advocates), women apparently don’t possess these virtues … at least, not until they become victims.
…Guys here are blaming her for submitting to sexual abuse, and if she’d refused and ended up bankrupt due to student loans, some here would blame her for foolishly going to seminary, or cast doubt upon her story and tell her she brought it on herself. I’ve seen all of this on these threads.
To clarify, your statement here is unprovable. You don’t know what would have happened if she had refused and reported the professor to the seminary admin. Perhaps the seminary admin would have conducted an inquiry and fired the bum. Perhaps Ms. Lyell would have gone on and finished her degree and entered ministry just fine. Or, perhaps the seminary admin would not have believed her. Regardless, you’re saying the only choice she had once she was propositioned was to sleep with her professor. Really?
Maybe we should actually, you know, blame the guy who abused his authority and his student instead? Maybe give that a try?
To clarify, I did say he was a creep. I did say his relationship with her was inappropriate (and, I’ll add, immoral). But I will not take away Ms Lyell’s ability as an adult woman to make an informed, consensual, self-directed decision. She had a choice. She wasn’t raped. Her life wasn’t threatened. I know, to admit this means that there may be some culpability for her actions. In an effort to remove that culpability, we turn her into a victim of “sexual abuse” and claim that victims can never make informed, consensual, self-directed decisions. I don’t buy that, Bert. And, neither should you.
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