Editor’s note: This article is a 2024 CBE Writing Contest honorable mention. Enjoy!
Up for Debate
In 1993, Ronald Pierce wrote that the debate about so-called gender roles “has in a way chosen us rather than vice versa.”1 There are few times I have resonated so deeply with an academic article. Pierce described a sense of compulsion that he and others have felt to continually research the topic, recognizing it as one of the most important issues of our time—a sentiment that still holds true today. Though I don’t enjoy debate—truthfully, I’m quite conflict avoidant—I now read and write about few other subjects.
But I have come to ask why I have such a compulsion to engage in this debate—what is it truly about?2 Yes, it is about women’s (and men’s) true and biblical equality, dignity, safety, well-being, and healing. It is about the church recovering from the harm of restricting half of its leaders. It is about the credibility of the gospel message in a world that increasingly recognizes women as genuine equals, even if some parts of the church do not. Yet, aside from these reasons, I have come to believe there is something more beneath each of these important discussions: the question of women’s very humanity.
Now, that’s a hefty claim, and one that has the potential to add more heat than light to this debate.3 This is not my intention; indeed, it is quite the opposite. I hope women who have felt belittled and dehumanized by hierarchical systems, teachings, and attitudes may gain greater empathy for themselves as they move toward healing and even come to recognize the wisdom they may not know they have. I hope hierarchicalists will, at the very least, have greater empathy for why so many have a visceral reaction to their views.
The True Debate
Is women’s humanity really what is at stake, however? I have come to be convinced that this is the case. Here’s why: every debate between mutualists and hierarchicalists eventually appeals to Scripture, usually a limited number of New Testament texts; every New Testament text eventually relies on understanding the Genesis creation texts; and understanding the Genesis creation texts relies on understanding the image of God. The image of God is the foundational anthropological doctrine, the special status given to humans that separates humanity from any other created thing. It also sets categories, frameworks, and guardrails for interpreting the rest of the Bible, guiding acceptable interpretations of later texts. If a teaching or understanding of a later biblical text suggests women are not made as the image of God, that teaching or understanding is not only wrong but also dehumanizing. Indeed, it is dehumanizing in the most literal way possible.
The image of God is the special, royal status God has bestowed on humanity, the authority and commission to represent God and his reign in his earthly realm.4 I have argued elsewhere that the image of God defines whatever inherent authority someone possesses at the level of their being, and it is a level of authority that is explicitly noted to be the same between women and men (Gen. 1:27).5 To argue women have lower authority than men in marriage and are restricted from levels of authority in church, only because they are female, is to say women have less inherent authority than men on the level of their being. This challenges their royal status as the image of God, and that is to challenge their humanity.
Even more, it is plausible that Genesis 2–3 actively argues that hierarchicalism is a dehumanizing doctrine. In Genesis 1, men and women are jointly endowed with the highest authority on earth under God, the co-rulers of the animals and other creatures. In Genesis 2, both the animals and the woman are brought to the man, both are named, and both are presented as possible strengthening companions as a mirror image of him (Gen. 2:18).6 This type of repetition, characteristic of Hebrew literature, solicits comparative meditation.7 That is, the repetition links the woman and the animals, and we, as readers, are invited to compare and contrast them. In Genesis 2, the point of the comparison is clear: the woman is not like the animals, but a co-image bearer with the man. However, the plot does not end in Genesis 2.
With Genesis 1 as context, and having already been invited to compare the woman and the animals in Genesis 2, readers are primed to see the full force of God’s post-fall pronouncements. As God reveals the new normal of a sin-stained world, he warns the woman that now, rather than being a co-ruler, she will be ruled (Gen. 3:16). She will be treated as a subject like the animals, miscategorized by man into the types of beings whom the images of God should share dominion over, rather than a co-ruling image of God. Note that there is nothing in Genesis 3:16 to suggest this is corrupted authority; it simply states the fact that, as a consequence of sin, men will be in charge. Soon after, nearly identical wording is used when God tells Cain to rule sin, pictured as a beastly animal desiring to devour him (Gen. 4:7). The repetition again invites comparative meditation. Genesis 3:16 and Genesis 4:7 are inverses of one another: the woman’s desire is beautiful, sin’s desire is destructive; Cain ought to rule sin, man ought not to rule woman.8 In the larger narrative, this inversion contributes to the theme of humanity’s spiral into greater and greater sin. Now, humans are ruling what they ought not and failing to rule what they ought! Indeed, instead of fulfilling their commission to co-rule the animals, humans are ruled by an animal while ruling each other. But further comparative reflection can be had. Cain’s failure to rule the beast of sin resulted in murder, the ultimate act of dehumanization. Man’s rulership of the woman resulted in something of a death, too. He has stripped her of humanity, making her like an animal rather than an equal in the co-ruling, human status of the image of God.
Ideas Have Consequences
Sarah Bessy’s book Jesus Feminist is subtitled, “Exploring God’s Radical Notion that Women are People, Too.”9 Earlier in my life, I thought speaking of gendered hierarchy as if it implied women weren’t people was uncharitable toward hierarchicalists, and not the least bit dramatic. But I have come to believe this is not off the mark. Again, I do not wish to stoke the flames of bitterness and combativeness. These can easily dehumanize, the very thing I desire us to stop doing! But, if I am correct that the debate ultimately boils down to the doctrine of the image of God, and if I am correct about what that doctrine entails, the consequences of a hierarchical view of gender must be fully acknowledged. The image of God is at the beginning of the Bible for a reason. It is the defining characteristic of being human, and I have become convinced the hierarchical position ultimately strips women of that status and therefore of their humanity.
Many recognize this at a gut level, even if they don’t understand the biblical logic behind it. It should be no surprise that so many of us have such a compulsion to continue the discussion. This is not only one of the most important issues of our time; it is one of the most important issues of all time.
- Ronald Pierce, “Evangelicals and Gender Roles in the 1990s: 1 Tim 2:8–15: A Test Case,” JETS, 36/3 (September 1993) 344, https://etsjets.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/files_JETS-PDFs_36_36-3_36-3-pp343-355_JETS.pdf.
- A part of my compulsion is that the topic is simply academically fascinating and devotionally fruitful, but that is not what I wish to discuss in this article.
- On a Christian response to heated debates, see Carrie Silveira, “They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Love” (Mutuality, 2024), https://cbeinternational.org/resource/they-will-know-we-are-christians-by-our-love/
- For a popular introduction to the image of God, see Carmen Joy Imes, Bearing God’s Image: Why Creation Still Matters (IVP Academic, 2023). For a more in-depth exploration, see J. Richard Middleton, The Liberating Image, The Imago Dei in Genesis 1 (Brazos, 2005).
- See Aaron K. Husband, “The Image of God as a Statement of Mutuality: An Illustration,” Priscilla Papers, 38/2 (Spring 2024) 18–21, https://www.cbeinternational.org/resource/the-image-of-god-as-a-statement-of-mutuality-an-illustration/.
- I suggest this paraphrase and defend the mutuality of help in Aaron K. Husband. “Neighborly Love in Genesis 2:18–25: The Root of the Second Great Commandment.” McMaster Journal of Theology and Ministry 24 (2022–2023) 3–32, http://mcmasterdivinity.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/24.MJTM_.3-32-Husband.pdf.
- For an excellent, free resource on understanding the Hebrew Bible’s literary techniques, consider the BibleProject Classroom course “Introduction to the Hebrew Bible” at https://bibleproject.com/classroom/. I am not associated with BibleProject and the views presented herein are my own.
- Many commentators consider the woman’s desire negative. The desire spoken of in Genesis 3:16 most likely has connotations of influence, either loving influence, as a spouse desires to have influence over their beloved (Song 7:10), or destructive influence (Gen. 4:7). Many English translations put the woman’s desire for her husband into future tense. However, unique within the pronouncements, the timing of her desire is ambiguous. It is more likely that God is reminding her of her Edenic, positive desire for her husband, so that the tragedy—and contrast with—male authority would be fully appreciated.
- Sarah Bessy, Jesus Feminist (Howard Books, 2013) front cover.
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