Sex-Abuse Allegations and the Egalitarian Myth
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - We're in a season here in the States
00:00:06.800 | faced with an incredible number of powerful men
00:00:09.780 | getting exposed for making unwanted and unwarranted
00:00:13.240 | sexual advances on women.
00:00:15.720 | Of the alleged perpetrators,
00:00:17.440 | the list includes names like Harvey Weinstein
00:00:20.720 | and Kevin Spacey, Louis C.K., Al Franken, Roger Ailes,
00:00:26.720 | Roy Moore, Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose, Bill O'Reilly,
00:00:31.080 | and Garrison Keillor.
00:00:33.000 | It's on the left and on the right.
00:00:35.440 | It's liberals and conservatives,
00:00:37.400 | it's politicians and entertainers
00:00:39.800 | from Hollywood to Minneapolis to DC and to New York City.
00:00:43.840 | It seems like what makes these stories
00:00:45.280 | especially tragic, Pastor John,
00:00:46.600 | is not merely that these are powerful men
00:00:48.680 | who took advantage of less powerful women.
00:00:51.160 | It's especially tragic because as men,
00:00:52.880 | that they are called by God
00:00:54.800 | to demonstrate sacrificial care for women
00:00:57.080 | beyond what women are called to offer men.
00:01:01.400 | You've written on this in a recent article, Pastor John.
00:01:04.600 | Here, simply debrief for us your thoughts,
00:01:07.360 | and especially now as you see
00:01:08.600 | the news of all these allegations.
00:01:10.920 | - My point in that article and in this podcast
00:01:15.400 | is that the egalitarian assumptions in our culture
00:01:22.560 | and to a huge degree in the church as well,
00:01:27.000 | have muted, silenced, nullified
00:01:30.880 | one of the means that God has designed
00:01:36.320 | for the protection and the flourishing of women,
00:01:40.120 | namely that men as men,
00:01:44.580 | by virtue of their created God-given maleness,
00:01:49.520 | apart from any practical competencies
00:01:53.680 | that they have or don't have,
00:01:55.640 | that men as men have special responsibility
00:02:00.640 | to care for and protect and honor women
00:02:04.880 | that is different from the care and protection
00:02:08.940 | and honor that women owe men.
00:02:11.040 | That's my thesis.
00:02:12.040 | That's my point.
00:02:13.820 | Now, it seems to me that for decades,
00:02:18.440 | Christian and non-Christian egalitarians
00:02:21.960 | have argued, have assumed, have modeled
00:02:25.980 | that peculiar roles and responsibilities
00:02:30.320 | among men and women in the home, in the church,
00:02:33.080 | in the culture should emerge only from competencies
00:02:38.080 | rather than from a deeper reality
00:02:42.520 | rooted in who we are differently as male and female.
00:02:47.220 | Whereas complementarians believe
00:02:50.000 | that while competencies may shape
00:02:54.320 | the details of how our differing roles
00:02:58.080 | and responsibilities are worked out,
00:03:00.320 | nevertheless, God has built in
00:03:04.120 | to male and female profound and wonderful,
00:03:09.120 | even mysterious differences that carry different burdens
00:03:15.440 | and different responsibilities.
00:03:17.680 | Let me put it another way.
00:03:19.620 | If your nine-year-old son asks you,
00:03:23.040 | "Daddy, what does it mean to grow up
00:03:25.060 | "and be a man and not a woman?"
00:03:27.100 | Or your daughter asks, "Mommy, what does it mean
00:03:30.100 | "to grow up and be a woman and not a man?"
00:03:33.000 | It won't do to answer,
00:03:36.720 | and I've read dozens of articles that try to answer,
00:03:39.540 | it won't do to answer, "Well, it means
00:03:41.960 | "that when you grow up, you will have maturity
00:03:44.880 | "and wisdom and courage and sacrifice
00:03:47.940 | "and humility and patience and kindness
00:03:50.320 | "and strength and self-control and purity and faith
00:03:53.920 | "and hope and love," et cetera,
00:03:57.180 | because that doesn't answer the question.
00:04:01.180 | Those traits are absolutely right,
00:04:03.380 | but they belong to both men and women.
00:04:07.180 | And the question was, what does it mean
00:04:09.180 | to grow up and be a man and not a woman?
00:04:12.980 | What does it mean to grow up and be a woman and not a man?
00:04:16.500 | Is there, mommy and daddy, a God-given,
00:04:21.320 | profound, beautiful meaning to manhood and womanhood?
00:04:26.180 | Kids don't say it like that,
00:04:28.660 | but that's what they wanna know eventually,
00:04:31.180 | is there a difference beyond mere anatomy?
00:04:36.180 | Are there built-in responsibilities that I have
00:04:40.860 | simply because I'm a male or a female human being?
00:04:45.860 | There is a pervasive, egalitarian disinclination
00:04:50.860 | to say yes to that question.
00:04:54.620 | The egalitarian inclination is to define
00:04:59.620 | all our relationships by competencies.
00:05:02.620 | And my suggestion or my contention is,
00:05:06.500 | this is hurting us, this refusal to answer that question
00:05:11.500 | or be burdened by it is hurting us.
00:05:15.080 | It confuses everyone, especially the children,
00:05:18.260 | and this confusion is hurting people.
00:05:22.520 | It has moved way beyond confusion.
00:05:25.860 | It's a firm conviction of most of our egalitarian culture
00:05:30.820 | that men as men do not owe women
00:05:35.180 | a special kind of care and protection and honor
00:05:38.900 | that women do not owe men.
00:05:41.240 | I believe they do, and I believe 50 years of denying it
00:05:46.240 | is one of the seeds, there are others in our culture,
00:05:51.260 | but one of the seeds that is bearing very bad fruit,
00:05:56.260 | including all those sexual abuses
00:05:58.820 | you talked about in your question.
00:06:01.500 | So let me just point to a few biblical evidences
00:06:06.500 | for believing men as men have special,
00:06:11.660 | God-intended, God-designed responsibilities
00:06:17.460 | for care and protection and honor toward women
00:06:22.460 | that women do not have toward men.
00:06:26.020 | And lest I be misunderstood, of course,
00:06:29.360 | there are many situations in which women
00:06:31.900 | have responsibilities to care for, protect, and honor men.
00:06:35.900 | I'm simply saying that these are not the same.
00:06:40.260 | Men have a special, God-given responsibility
00:06:44.940 | that comes with being a man, as a man,
00:06:49.640 | not because of practical competency.
00:06:52.300 | So here are, I think I've got three jotted down here,
00:06:56.420 | three pointers in the Bible.
00:06:59.400 | They each take a big article to flesh out,
00:07:02.520 | but here they are.
00:07:04.380 | Number one, when Satan tempted Eve,
00:07:08.120 | it says in Genesis 3, 6, that Adam, quote, "was with her."
00:07:13.120 | In view of everything else that I see in Genesis 1 to 4,
00:07:17.920 | and in view of the way Paul handles this issue,
00:07:21.080 | this text in 1 Timothy 2, 12 following,
00:07:24.140 | I think the author, the author of Genesis, Moses,
00:07:27.880 | wants us to see that part of the collapse
00:07:32.880 | of God's beautiful order in the garden
00:07:36.660 | was the failure of Adam to speak up
00:07:40.280 | and to take some initiative and deal with the devil
00:07:43.720 | and be the leader and protector
00:07:46.000 | that God had designed him to be.
00:07:48.880 | He failed, and he's been failing ever since.
00:07:53.360 | And one reason Jesus came into the world
00:07:55.640 | was to destroy that failure and cause Adam
00:08:00.640 | to own up to the fact that he's got a special burden,
00:08:04.040 | a special responsibility to bear in protecting
00:08:08.080 | and caring for and honoring this woman.
00:08:10.480 | That's number one.
00:08:11.320 | Number two, in Colossians 3, 19,
00:08:15.320 | the apostle Paul told husbands,
00:08:17.680 | "Love your wives and do not be harsh with them."
00:08:23.680 | Now, that is not the same as saying,
00:08:27.960 | "Neither of you should be harsh."
00:08:31.240 | It is a special restraint on typical sinful,
00:08:36.240 | male harshness and roughness and cruelty
00:08:41.000 | that's gone on for thousands of years.
00:08:44.360 | And its positive counterpart is spelled out stunningly,
00:08:49.920 | stunningly, beautifully, counter-culturally,
00:08:53.300 | I would argue, in every culture on the planet,
00:08:56.060 | counter-culturally in Ephesians 5, 22 to 33.
00:08:59.560 | There's nothing like it in any culture in the world
00:09:02.720 | that's not rooted in this text,
00:09:04.880 | where leadership like Jesus and protection like Jesus
00:09:08.720 | and provision and cherishing and nourishing like Jesus
00:09:11.680 | are laid on the man as a man,
00:09:15.180 | not because he's more competent,
00:09:17.740 | but because he's a man, not interchangeable with a woman
00:09:21.640 | any more than Christ and the church are interchangeable.
00:09:25.720 | And I would argue from scripture,
00:09:27.640 | like the creation account and other places,
00:09:31.180 | that this special burden put on man,
00:09:34.840 | this special responsibility toward women
00:09:38.880 | for honor and care and protection
00:09:40.800 | does not evaporate when he walks out the door of his home
00:09:47.000 | as though it were a matter of geography
00:09:49.240 | or a matter of marriage alone.
00:09:52.240 | Manhood does not cease to be manhood outside the home.
00:09:57.240 | That's number two.
00:09:58.600 | Here's the last one.
00:09:59.600 | 1 Peter 3, 7, "Husbands are told to dwell with their wives
00:10:06.440 | according to knowledge."
00:10:11.380 | And then that dwelling according to knowledge
00:10:16.120 | is defined two ways.
00:10:19.000 | And the first one is the one I'm concerned with
00:10:21.360 | because it's the one that applies
00:10:23.240 | whether you're Christian or not.
00:10:24.960 | The first one is based on natural differences.
00:10:29.800 | The second one, fellow heirs of the grace of life,
00:10:32.560 | is based on spiritual uniqueness of Christians.
00:10:36.000 | Peter says, "Showing honor to the woman
00:10:40.760 | as the weaker vessel."
00:10:43.800 | Now, there are ways, of course,
00:10:46.680 | that women are stronger than men
00:10:49.320 | and ways a woman are weaker than men.
00:10:51.920 | And Peter is focusing on that and asking,
00:10:56.120 | "How shall a man relate to a woman if she is weaker,
00:11:01.120 | more vulnerable to his power?"
00:11:05.300 | And the answer is honor, honor, honor.
00:11:09.640 | And my point is that this is a peculiar,
00:11:14.280 | a special honor and a kind of honor
00:11:18.000 | God has built into the man as the stronger.
00:11:22.680 | This is not merely mutual honor.
00:11:25.040 | This is a special honor flowing
00:11:28.320 | from the stronger to the weaker,
00:11:31.800 | the honor of a man toward a woman
00:11:33.840 | precisely because he's a man.
00:11:36.980 | And in general, men are in the position
00:11:40.560 | of physical power and strength over women.
00:11:44.840 | And God inserts between them in that relationship
00:11:49.000 | a special duty, a special responsibility that a man has.
00:11:53.880 | And my point, Tony, in this article, in this podcast,
00:11:57.120 | is that this divine design for men, as men,
00:12:01.420 | to show us a special care, protection, honor to women
00:12:05.840 | is essential for good families, churches, society,
00:12:10.840 | and for women in particular.
00:12:13.000 | Millions of people in our day would rather sacrifice
00:12:18.000 | this peculiar biblical mandate given for the good of women,
00:12:23.720 | they would rather sacrifice it than betray any hint
00:12:29.220 | of compromise with egalitarian assumptions.
00:12:32.400 | So what I'm arguing is that we have forfeited
00:12:37.040 | both a great God-ordained restraint
00:12:41.220 | upon male vice and male power,
00:12:45.560 | and we have forfeited a great God-ordained incentive
00:12:51.640 | for male valor because we refuse to even think
00:12:58.240 | in terms of maleness and femaleness as they are created
00:13:03.240 | by God carrying distinct and unique responsibilities
00:13:08.720 | and burdens.
00:13:10.980 | We have put our hope in the myth that the summons
00:13:15.640 | to generic human virtue with no attention
00:13:20.140 | to the peculiar virtues required of manhood and womanhood
00:13:24.220 | would be sufficient to create a beautiful society
00:13:27.680 | of mutual respect.
00:13:28.960 | It isn't working.
00:13:31.880 | Men need to be taught from the time
00:13:35.260 | that they are little boys that part of their manhood
00:13:39.800 | is to feel a special responsibility for the care
00:13:44.800 | and protection and honoring of women
00:13:47.840 | just because they are men.
00:13:51.760 | - God's design is profound,
00:13:53.520 | and these suggestions are significant.
00:13:55.600 | Thank you, Pastor John, and thanks for listening
00:13:57.880 | to the Ask Pastor John podcast
00:13:59.360 | as we address controversial issues like this one,
00:14:02.280 | hopefully with grace and with care,
00:14:04.520 | and hopefully in an understandable way for our audience.
00:14:07.440 | And let us know how we're doing.
00:14:10.040 | Let us know if you have follow-up questions.
00:14:11.400 | You can stay current with our episodes
00:14:13.600 | through your favorite podcast app, of course,
00:14:16.240 | and every episode is now also published in YouTube.
00:14:19.320 | That's right, every episode now is published in YouTube.
00:14:23.080 | You can go to our feed at youtube.com/desiringgod
00:14:26.840 | and subscribe there.
00:14:28.480 | And if you already knew that,
00:14:29.840 | if you're listening to this through YouTube,
00:14:32.080 | be sure to subscribe to the channel
00:14:34.000 | for the latest from Desiring God.
00:14:36.360 | And if you have a question for Pastor John,
00:14:37.800 | send it to us through our podcast homepage
00:14:40.160 | at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.
00:14:44.000 | Well, we're gonna break for the weekend
00:14:46.240 | and return with an interesting topic
00:14:48.360 | because Pastor John will occasionally allude
00:14:50.520 | to a dark season he faced in his early 40s.
00:14:54.600 | It was a midlife crisis that was very strong.
00:14:57.240 | But Pastor John, you haven't talked a lot about it.
00:14:59.080 | Next time I'm gonna ask you
00:15:00.920 | to go back into this dark season
00:15:03.560 | and for you to offer counsel
00:15:05.480 | to men who are facing these midlife years
00:15:07.960 | who are 40 or close to 40.
00:15:10.360 | It should be a really important episode.
00:15:11.760 | I'm looking forward to it.
00:15:13.440 | Until then, I'm your host Tony Reinke.
00:15:15.320 | We'll see you on Monday.
00:15:16.760 | (upbeat music)
00:15:19.360 | (upbeat music)
00:15:21.960 | [BLANK_AUDIO]