On the second date with the woman who would later become my wife, I told her that I wanted us to make our relationship “official.”[1] There was a shift in her in demeanor as she went on to explain that this felt like a big, scary leap. I was stunned. We had been talking regularly for months. We had been on two dates that went as well as they could have. In one sense, I wasn’t asking for anything to change. I just wanted us to continue moving in the direction that we had been, only now with the conscious acknowledgement that we were, say, an item, a couple, boyfriend and girlfriend.
I had a two-hour ride home to consider what my next steps would be. She didn’t say that she wanted to stop talking, nor that she wanted to stop seeing me. She was simply hung-up on terminology. And somewhere along the winding road from Lynchburg to Richmond, the wisdom of the Bard came into my mind: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet.”[2] So, I decided that I didn’t care what she called our relationship. I was going to keep pursuing her until she told me to get lost. She never did.
Of Words and Things
I think about that episode in my life whenever I encounter discussions about the substance of a thing and the label that we use to describe it. Like now, for instance, as debates about terminology emerge among conservative Christians who agree that God designed the sexes in complementary and non-interchangeable ways that correspond with callings (in the home, the church, and society) that match our respective constitutions.[3] In brief, some prefer the term “complementarianism” to express that vision of the sexes,[4] while others prefer the term “biblical patriarchy” to describe the same.[5]
I suspect it is tempting for some to dismiss this debate as another iteration of Paul’s infamous charge “not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers” (2 Tim. 2:14). Yet certain words matter, as Paul well understood (Col. 4:4), as did the bishops who debated whether homoousion or homoiousion was the right term to express the nature of God the Son vis-à-vis God the Father. As Mark Twain once put it, “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—’tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.”[6] To say all this in an Augustinian mode: words are verbal signs, so there ought to be correspondence between the sign and the thing signified.
So, then, three cheers for precise terminology. Yet Shakespeare (no ignoramus when it came to choosing the right word for the occasion) knew that words can also get in the way of our ability to see the substance of a thing, whether it’s a rose or a Montague. The same goes for the biblical teaching on the sexes: labels matter, but substance matters more. And it is my contention in this article that a certain form of complementarianism is, in substance, the same as the view known as “biblical patriarchy.” Consequently, debates about terms—while not completely pointless—should nevertheless take a backseat to this concession, allowing conservative Christians to build a lasting coalition that can counter the world’s increasing confusion about gender and sexuality.
The Death of Complementarianism?
Not long after Aaron Renn’s first iteration of his “negative world” article made him a well-known figure in Christian circles,[7] he fired a shot heard round the world of evangelical gender debates. Renn declared that complementarianism—the view that men and women are equally created in the image of God but have complementary roles in God’s design—is a modern system that will die off with the fading influence of the Baby Boomer generation.[8]
Renn offered several reasons for his conclusions, some of which relied on sociological observations about the origins and organizations that promote complementarianism. While I do not agree with every point that Renn makes, he was right on target about the growing trend among many of complementarians to soften their views as much as possible. He writes, “Complementarianism has extended its position of absolute Biblical minimalism to the point where it is breaking down. By absolute Biblical minimalism I mean that they ask: what is the absolute least amount of deviation from egalitarianism we can possibly justify scripturally?”[9]
As an example of this trend, Renn highlighted the work of Kathy Keller in popularizing the slogan-esque statement that “anything that an unordained man is allowed to do, a woman is allowed to do.”[10] Kathy’s husband, Tim Keller, certainly practiced this approach at his church in New York city,[11] as have many of the churches influenced by him. Renn notes,
Redeemer itself has pushed both biblical interpretation and the denominational rulebook about as far as they can towards egalitarianism. The many churches inspired by Redeemer seem to do the same. For example, my wife’s former PCA church—a Redeemer clone right down to the name—attempted to get her to volunteer to be the chair of their pastoral search committee. Their rationale was that since the Bible doesn’t explicitly say women can’t lead the search for a new pastor, then not only is it allowed, but they should deliberately attempt to place a woman into that role.[12]
This trend is far from being a problem unique to the PCA (the late Keller’s denomination). In the same article Renn points to a popular suggestion made in 2018 that erstwhile Southern Baptist Beth Moore should be elected president of the SBC. Because the bylaws of the convention do not prohibit this possibility,[13] Renn observes that this creates a “farcical” scenario in which a confessionally complementarian SBC “holds that the Bible says a woman can’t be the head of a church but can be the head of a denomination.”[14]
Other professing complementarians have followed a similar trajectory. For example, British pastor and TGC mainstay Andrew Wilson has said, “I would have been in a position ten years ago when we did not have women on the preaching rota. And we do now—in both the churches I serve. And I would totally defend that on biblical grounds.”[15]
Renn goes on to predict that complementarianism will die, partly from the passing of the Boomers who popularized it, and partly from the liberalizing “Moseses” within complementarianism, who “may not personally cross the Jordan River. But having led multitudes to the edge of the egalitarian Promised Land, their Joshuas in waiting likely will.”[16] Renn concludes, “Whether intentionally or unintentionally, complementarianism has arrived at a place that is untenable . . . The question is then what comes after complementarianism.”[17]
After Complementarianism, What?
Renn admits that “the future is inherently impossible to predict,” but he predicts that “a small but not insignificant group of people will move in a reactionary [direction], embracing a thicker, more substantive sexual complementarity and even a patriarchal vision.”[18] He also says that “this group will struggle to create an intellectually coherent theology/vision that is viable in the today and tomorrow’s world.”[19]
I think Renn is correct about the trends in complementarianism, even if I do not agree with his assessment of the movement on every point. I further think he was right that a growing number of people would embrace a more substantive vision for sexuality (many have already done so). And just as he predicted, some in this group have begun to use the term “patriarchy” to describe their view.[20] But I disagree with Renn that such moves reflect a shift away from complementarianism, at least in substance. Rather, I think these developments entail the rejection of a certain form of complementarianism that is insufficiently biblical and ahistorical. That form of complementarianism stands in contrast to a second view within the same movement, which, as I said previously, appears to be the same in substance as the view sometimes called “biblical patriarchy.”
My argument is built on two truths: First, there are two forms of complementarianism, a fact that has become increasingly apparent in recent years. Jonathan Leeman refers to the two groups as “broad” and “narrow” complementarians.[21] Kevin DeYoung refers to the same as “thick” and “thin” complementarians.[22] Joe Rigney calls them “natural” and “ideological” complementarians.[23] Andy Naselli has provided a helpful table that contrasts the two views.[24]
I have also written about the differences of these groups at length,[25] so I will not rehash all that here.[26] The basic distinction relevant to this article is that narrow/thin/ideological complementarians hold to a limited number of explicit commands without the biblical vision of the sexes that grounds those commands. In other words, thin/narrow/ideological complementarians have “rules” without clear “reasons” for why the Lord has given them. This not only depicts God’s commands as arbitrary but also renders this group incapable of applying the whole Bible’s vision of the sexes to situations in life that are not explicitly addressed in Scripture (some of which did not exist at the time of the biblical authors). Meanwhile, broad/thick/natural complementarians have both rules and various reasons for said rules, equipping them with a biblical vision of the sexes that is large enough to inform how men and women should think about the import of God’s design in all of life.
The second truth central to my argument is that broad/thick/natural complementarianism is essentially the same as the traditional view of the sexes held by the likes of Tertullian, Chrysostom, Ambrose of Milan, Augustine, Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Herman Bavinck, C. S. Lewis, Stephen B. Clark, the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and most of the authors of Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.[27]All these authors—and hundreds more—represent a kind of “mere complementarianism”[28] which “has been believed everywhere, always, by all”[29] in the church until the downgrade of Mainline Protestantism in the mid-twentieth century. This view understands the differences between the sexes as the grounding for God’s gender-specific commands with a view to the wider application of sexual differences in all spheres of life.
Denny Burk, president of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, argued much the same in his response to Renn’s article.[30] Burk writes that complementarianism “is a new term coined to refer to an ancient teaching that is rooted in the text of Scripture. . . . Some version of what we now call ‘complementarianism’ is what the church has assumed for its entire 2,000-year history.”[31] Or, as Burk says in another article, while the term “complementarianism” is a neologism, the core concepts of the system are “a summary of what the Bible has always said about manhood and womanhood.”[32] I think Burk is right, but only if by “some version of complementarianism” he specifically has in mind the broad/thick/natural version described above.[33] For the thin/narrow/ideological version of complementarianism is indeed a new development, being a significant departure from the core views of the church through the ages.
Returning to Renn’s Critiques
Though Renn does not mention the distinction between two kinds of complementarianism, I think his criticisms largely (if not entirely) apply to those of the narrow/thin/ideological camp. He even comes close to affirming the second form of complementarianism when he predicts the emergence of “a thicker, more substantive sexual complementarity and even a patriarchal vision.”[34]
Yet this development is not so much an emergence but a resurgence, not an innovation but a recovery. It marks the rise of generation of younger complementarians who, for a variety of reasons, are less embarrassed by the Bible’s “unfashionable” teachings on the sexes and who align more closely with how Christian theologians spoke about the sexes for centuries before the modern era.[35]
For example, consider Steven Wedgeworth’s article, “Male-Only Ordination Is Natural: Why the Church Is a Model of Reality.”[36] Interacting with Paul’s argument in 1 Corinthians 14:34–35, Wedgeworth notes that “the logic of ecclesiastical government is . . . consistent with and built upon the more basic hierarchy of husbands and wives.”[37] In view of how Paul argues in 1 Corinthians 11:3–16, Wedgeworth further claims that “1 Cor. 14:34 is not some lonely example of out-of-place patriarchy. It is wholly consistent with the rest of the Pauline and New Testament landscape.”[38] He also shows that theologians like Luther and Calvin interpreted these passages in unequivocally patriarchal (i.e., hierarchical) fashion. Wedgeworth concludes,
The ‘logic’ of the New Testament’s teaching of male leadership in the church is consistently based on the creational pattern of Genesis 2. This is why churches who retain male-only ordination reject arguments that the restriction was based on human custom and only relevant to patriarchal cultures. This teaching was not only a cultural feature of the historical period but was indeed reflective of a natural law, the creation order itself. But if this is so, then we cannot laugh off the more wide-reaching comments of Luther and Calvin. The one and same logic underpins both. And thus we are left to choose. Do we retain their [patriarchal] logic, because it is indeed the logic of the New Testament, even as it conflicts with our modern assumptions about civil arrangement and equality, or do we reject that logic, along with the New Testament logic? . . . In any case, the middle way of narrow complementarianism seems the least intellectually attractive. One will eventually feel the pull to one of the two consistent positions.[39]
It is noteworthy that Wedgeworth’s article preceded Renn’s. This means the former was not writing to defend his own view against the latter’s criticisms. It also means that Wedgeworth anticipated the eventual demise of narrow/thin/ideological complementarianism for reasons that are compatible with some of Renn’s observations. That is to say, there is a form of complementarianism that is dying, just as Renn said, and it is dying because it is both sub-biblical, illogical, and contrary to the consensus of church history, as Wedgeworth ably showed. But none of this holds for broad/thick/natural complementarians who, in essence, are adherents of biblical patriarchy by another name.
Why Not Embrace the Patriarchy?
The essential similarity of the traditional or “patriarchal” view of the sexes and broad/thick/natural complementarianism has not always been appreciated by complementarians. Some have explicitly rejected it. For example, in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, contributing editor John Piper cites J. I. Packer approvingly when the latter writes, “I am not keen on hierarchy and patriarchy as terms describing the man-woman relationship in Scripture.”[40]
Nevertheless, hierarchy has always been a feature of complementarianism. Indeed, it is a central feature that distinguishes it from its ideological rival, egalitarianism. Hence, the subtitle of the first two editions of the egalitarian manifesto, Discovering Biblical Equality, was “Complementarity without Hierarchy.”[41] Furthermore, David J. Ayers repeatedly uses the terms “hierarchy” and “patriarchy” in a positive light in his contribution to Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.[42] Similarly, biblical theologian Andreas Köstenberger and his wife Margaret have argued that “patriarchy” is an accurate description of the biblical teaching on the sexes.[43] Others, like Catholic author Carrie Gress, have openly defended the goodness of patriarchy and the disastrous consequences that have arisen from the world’s departure from it.[44]
Even so, Denny Burk has argued that the term “patriarchy” is unhelpful and need not be defended. In a recent podcast episode on the topic, Burk remarked,
My argument is that that term, patriarchy—not patriarch, but patriarchy—is so loaded with feminist propaganda. And it wasn’t our term to begin with. I don’t even know why we would waste energy on it, because every time you use the term, you’re having to define what you don’t mean by it. You’re having to tell people, ‘I know that the dominant usage of this term by the feminists is that it refers to systems of misogyny and abuse in the culture, and we need to cast those off. That’s not what we mean by it. We mean biblical patriarchy.’ Then they say, ‘Well, that still sounds like misogyny.’ And so, you’re having this argument about words, when, for me, prudentially, I want to get to biblical reality. I don’t want to get tripped up on arguing over words. And it doesn’t make any sense to use a word that’s not ours to begin with and becomes an unnecessary stumbling block to people that I want to persuade to believe what the Bible teaches about the way that men and women are to relate to one another in the church, in the home, and actually outside of that. Because there are implications for what the Bible says about every sphere of life, because we’re men and women in every sphere of life.[45]
It is true that Kate Millett popularized “patriarchy” among feminists[46] and that she used the word in reference to systems of misogyny and abuse (which no broad/thick/natural complementarian or defender of biblical patriarchy would ever defend). Yet she did not coin the term itself, nor does she have the authority to dictate the word’s original or proper meaning.
The Oxford English Dictionary cites the first use of “patriarchy” to 1561.[47] The English term was coined by Thomas Norton, son-in-law of Thomas Cranmer, in his translation of Calvin’s Institutes.[48] In context, Norton (via Calvin) was speaking about ecclesiastical authority, but other authors soon used the term to refer to broader social organization. For example, Francis Bacon wrote about “patriarchy” as a synonym for “paternity” in reference to governance or rule by men.[49] By the mid 1800s, the term “patriarchy” was used with sufficient commonality to find newspaper references like the following: “A great commonwealth blossoms in the wilderness: a political trinity appears, founded on the principles of theocracy, hierarchy, and patriarchy.”[50]
But even if these early uses of patriarchy did not exist, I wonder if the word designating “father rule” is the most fitting term for the biblical vision of the sexes in the social order that God instituted for humanity. Ephesians 3:14–15, which assert the rule of our Father in heaven over all persons, certainly describe a kind of divine patriarchy. Furthermore, the biblical use of the term “patriarch” (patriarchēs, e.g., 1 Chron. 24:31; 27:22; 2 Chron. 23:20 LXX; Acts 2:29; 7:8–9; Heb. 7:4) establishes lexical continuity between the kind of authority that father-rulers possessed and the concept of “patriarchy.”[51] And, speaking of the rule of fathers, texts like Numbers 30 and Ephesians 5:22–6:4 certainly seem to lend support to this notion (cf. 1 Cor. 11:3–16).
In other words, the concept of patriarchy (i.e., father-rule), if not the term itself, seems to pervade the Scriptures.[52] Indeed, this was the conclusion of feminist Mary Daly, who argued that the Scriptures are so “hopelessly patriarchal” that it was impossible to salvage anything of the Christian faith while remaining a committed feminist.[53] The alternative, of course, is to embrace both the Christian faith and its vision of benevolent father-figures who serve as heads in the family (Eph. 5:22–6:4), the church (1 Cor. 11:2–16; 1 Tim. 2:8–3:15; Heb. 13:7, 17; cf. 1 Cor. 4:15), and society (cf. Gen. 3:16–17; 1 Tim. 2:12; Isa. 3:12[54]), all serving to reflect the rule of our Father in heaven.
Embracing the Patriarchy by Any Name
I suspect that Burk would not disagree with what I have just written, though he might point out that the term “patriarchy,” like the rainbow (flag), has been so thoroughly abused in our time that defending the word is a foolish gambit. That is to say, the substance—what Burk calls “the biblical reality”—is all that matters. Perhaps he is right, but he did not always seem to think so.
In 2005, Burk wrote about “the best paper presentation that I have ever heard at ETS,” saying the presenter was “right on target in what he was arguing.”[55] Somewhat surprisingly (given the author’s current persuasion), the paper was written by Russell Moore. It’s title was “After Patriarchy, What? Why Egalitarians Are Winning the Evangelical Gender Debate.”[56]
Drawing on the work of Brad Wilcox in Soft Patriarchs, New Men,[57] Moore highlighted research showing that the surpassing benevolence of evangelical fathers “is a result of patriarchy, not an aberration from it. When men see themselves as head over their households, they feel the weight of leadership—a weight that expresses itself in devotion to their little platoons of the home.”[58] At the same time, Moore worried that evangelicals were increasingly guilty of “integrat[ing] biblical language of headship with the prevailing cultural notions of feminism—notions which fewer and fewer evangelicals challenge.”[59]
The problem, Moore says, is that “evangelicals don’t seem to speak often of male headship in terms of authority (and certainly not patriarchy), but usually in terms of a ‘servant leadership’ defined as watching out for the best interests of one’s family—without specifics on what this leadership looks like.”[60] In this way, as Wilcox says, “headship has been reorganized along expressive lines, emptying the concept of virtually all of its authoritative character.”[61] Moore continues, “This understanding of ‘servant leadership’ (read as titular, undefined, non-authoritative leadership) is precisely the model of ‘complementarianism’ several other recent works have observed in the evangelical sub-culture.”[62]
So, as Frasier Crane would put it, what is a broad/thick/natural complementarian boy to do? Moore suggests, “If complementarians are to reclaim the debate, we must not fear making a claim that is disturbingly counter-cultural and yet strikingly biblical, a claim that the less-than-evangelical feminists understand increasingly: Christianity is under-girded by a vision of patriarchy.”[63]
Moore acknowledges that the use of this term is risky: “Even to use the word ‘patriarchy’ in an evangelical context is uncomfortable, since the word is deemed ‘negative,’ even by most complementarians.”[64] Yet Moore insists,
Evangelical[s] should ask why patriarchy seems negative to those of us who serve the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—the God and Father of Jesus Christ. . . . a Fatherhood that is not just eternal and abstract but realized in a divine relationship with Jesus as the representative Man, an [sic] historical Father/Son covenantal relationship that defines the covenantal standing and inheritance of believers. Patriarchy then is essential—from the begetting of Seth in the image and likeness of Adam to the deliverance of Yahweh’s son Israel from the clutches of Pharaoh to the promise of a Davidic son to whom God would be a Father (2 Sam 7:14; Ps 89:26) to the “Abba” cry of the new covenant assembly (Rom 8:15). For too long, egalitarians have dismissed complementarian proof-texts with the call to see the big picture ‘trajectory’ of the canon. I agree that such a big-picture trajectory is needed, but that trajectory leads toward patriarchy. . . [And] the patriarchal structures that exist in the creation order point to his headship—a headship that is oriented toward redemption in Christ (Heb. 12:5–11).[65]
Later in his paper, Moore anticipated some of Renn’s critiques of the health of the complementarian movement, pointing out that “the vitality in evangelical complementarianism right now is among those who are willing to speak directly to the implications and meaning of male headship—and who aren’t embarrassed to use terms such as ‘male headship.’”[66] Moore also sounded like Renn in saying, “Ironically, a more patriarchal complementarianism will resonate among a generation seeking stability in a family-fractured Western culture in ways that soft-bellied big-tent complementarianism never can.”[67]
Related to this point, Moore reminded his listeners that “the question for us is not whether we will have patriarchy, but what kind.”[68] He states,
Right now, Western culture celebrates casual sexuality, cohabitation, no-fault divorce, ‘alternative families,’ and abortion rights. All of these things empower men to pursue a Darwinian fantasy of the predatory alpha-male in search of nothing but power, prestige, and the next orgasm. Does anyone really believe these things ‘empower’ women or children? Instead, the sexual liberationist vision props up a pagan patriarchy complete with a picture of a selfish, impersonal, cruel deity. And ironically, the kind of patriarchy feminists rightly oppose—the capricious use of power by men to objectify and use women—is itself the product of changes the mainstream feminists championed. It does not bear the imprimatur of divine revelation but of the Darwinist/Freudian myth that sex is the measure of all things. This turns out to be a patriarchy too, but there is nothing ‘soft’ about it.[69]
In 2005 Moore lamented that “egalitarians are winning the evangelical gender debate.”[70] Given all the trends that Renn highlighted, I think egalitarians still are winning the gender debate. But the situation need not remain this way. And, as Moore concluded, “The complementarian response must be more than reaction. It must instead present an alternative vision—a vision that sums up the burden of male headship under the cosmic rubric of the gospel of Christ and the restoration of all things in him. It must produce churches that are not embarrassed to tell us that when we say the ‘Our Father,’ we are patriarch[ist]s of the oldest kind.”[71]
Concluding Thoughts
In the final analysis, I concede that the choice of whether to use the term “(biblical) patriarchy” or the term “broad/thick/natural complementarianism”—or something else[72]—is largely a debate about strategy. And despite my efforts in this article to show that “patriarchy” is a biblically and historically defensible concept, I suspect many broad/thick/natural complementarians will continue to prefer the latter term.
Yet, as I said from the outset, substance matters more than labels. For this reason, broad/thick/natural complementarians who maintain their preference for that designation over against “(biblical) patriarchy” do well to acknowledge the essential similarity of the two.[73] Furthermore, these groups should stop pitting themselves against each other, as if they held to differing conceptions of the biblical sexes, for by and large they do not.
Instead, these groups share the same frustrations and aims of Kevin DeYoung, who writes,
One of my great concerns—which, sadly, seems to be coming more and more true with each passing year—is that complementarianism, for many Christians, amounts to little more than a couple of narrow conclusions about wives submitting to husbands in the home and ordination in the church being reserved for men. If that’s all we have in our vision for men and women, it’s not a vision we will hold on to for long. We need to help church members (especially the younger generations) see that . . . God created the world with sexual differentiation at the heart of what it means to be human beings made in his image. We cannot understand the created order as we should until we understand that God made us male and female.[74]
For my part, I wonder if the trajectory of complementarianism that DeYoung is concerned about might soon usher in a day (if it has not already) when “patriarchy” is the only word left to quickly distinguish the biblical vision of male headship from both feminism and syncretistic “Christian” forms of the same. At the very least, as Zephram Foster observed, the use of a word like “patriarchy” would “make the right people angry, and the rest of us chuckle.”[75]
1. I almost certainly didn’t use the term “official,” but younger readers of this article will recognize that conversation as the DTR, that is, the attempt to “define the relationship.” For older readers unfamiliar with such terminology, I was essentially asking her to “go steady.” ↑
2. William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene 2. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine, eds. (Washington, DC: Folger Shakespeare Library, n.d.), accessed June 21, 2025. ↑
3.For a brief defense of this view, see Doug Ponder, “A Biblical Vision of the Sexes: Harmonious Asymmetry,” Eikon 6, no. 1 (Spring 2024): 28–40. ↑
4. See Denny Burk articles “Mere Complementarianism,” CBMW, November 11, 2019, “Complementarianism? What’s in a Name? The Meaning and Origin of ‘Complementarianism’,” CBMW, August 1, 2019, and “Is Complementarianism a Man-Made Doctrine?” CBMW, June 8, 2021. ↑
5. See Zachary Garris, Masculine Christianity (Ann Arbor, MI: Reformation Zion, 2020). See also Eric Conn and Zachary Garris, “What Is Biblical Patriarchy?”, Hard Men Podcast, June 23, 2021, and Brian Sauvé, Zachary Garris, et al., “Reformed Resourcement: Recovering Biblical Patriarchy with Zach Garris,” The King’s Hall, July 12, 2024. ↑
6. Mark Twain in George Bainton, ed., The Art of Authorship: Literary Reminiscences, Methods of Work, and Advice to Young Beginners (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1890), 87–88, emphasis original. N.B. Twain’s famous quip is an adaptation of a similar line first written by Josh Billings (the penname of Henry Wheeler Shaw), whose words appeared in several U.S. newspapers in 1869, before being published in Josh Billing’s Farmer’s Allminax [sic] for the Year 1871 (New York: G. W. Carleton, 1871), 25. ↑
7. Renn later turned his newsletter into an article for First Things (“The Three Worlds of Evangelicalism”) before writing a book that developed the concept further. See Renn, Life in the Negative World: Confronting Challenges in Anti-Christian Culture (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2024). ↑
8. Aaron Renn, “Newsletter #30: Complementarianism Is a Baby Boomer Theology That Will Die with the Baby Boomers,” Aaron Renn, February 14, 2019. ↑
9. Aaron Renn, “Newsletter #30: Complementarianism Is a Baby Boomer Theology That Will Die with the Baby Boomers,” Aaron Renn, February 14, 2019. “Egalitarianism” is the contrasting view of complementarianism, which holds that whatever differences between the sexes exist, they are neither prescriptive nor proscriptive for the callings God gives to men and women. ↑
10. Kathy Keller, Jesus, Justice, & Gender Roles: A Case for Gender Roles in Ministry, Fresh Perspectives on Women in Ministry (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012), 21. ↑
11. For example, Keller appointed women to the “diaconate,” despite the PCA’s prohibition of women serving as deacons. He also had women regularly read Scripture in the corporate gathering, despite long-standing Presbyterian arguments against this practice. For a summary of these arguments, see O. Palmer Robertson, “Who Should Read the Scriptures in Worship?” Elder to Elder, March 22, 2025. ↑
12.Renn, “Newsletter #30: Complementarianism Is a Baby Boomer Theology That Will Die with the Baby Boomers.” ↑
13. See Leonardo Blair, “SBC Says Women Not Barred from Presidency,” The Christian Post, June 7, 2018. ↑
14. Renn, “Newsletter #30: Complementarianism Is a Baby Boomer Theology That Will Die with the Baby Boomers,” emphasis added. ↑
15. Andrew Wilson as quoted in Sam Halles, “Andrew Wilson Says the Church Needs to Rethink Gender and Complementarianism,” Premier Christianity, September 27, 2017. ↑
16. Renn, “Newsletter #30: Complementarianism Is a Baby Boomer Theology That Will Die with the Baby Boomers.” ↑
17. Renn, “Newsletter #30: Complementarianism Is a Baby Boomer Theology That Will Die with the Baby Boomers.” ↑
18. Renn, “Newsletter #30: Complementarianism Is a Baby Boomer Theology That Will Die with the Baby Boomers.” In the same place, Renn seems to affirm something like patriarchy in theory while noting the difficulties of putting it into practice in the modern world: “Starting with God’s revelation of Himself as Father and incarnation as the Son, the Bible is pretty obviously patriarchal in that it is literal rule by the Father. But believing in patriarchy is kind of like believing in the divine right of kings. You may have noticed that we don’t have a king. Similarly, we live in a legally and culturally egalitarian society. What then do you do?” ↑
19. Renn, “Newsletter #30: Complementarianism Is a Baby Boomer Theology That Will Die with the Baby Boomers.”↑
20. See footnote five for examples. ↑
21. Jonathan Leeman, “A Word of Empathy, Warning, and Counsel for ‘Narrow’ Complementarians,” 9Marks, February 8, 2018. ↑
22. Kevin DeYoung, “Four Clarifying (I Hope) Thoughts on the Complementarian Conversation,” TGC, May 7, 2020. ↑
23. Joe Rigney, “Empathy, Feminism, and the Church,” American Reformer, January 26, 2024. ↑
24. Andy Naselli, “Does Anyone Need to Recover from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood? A Review Article of Aimee Byrd’s Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood,” Eikon 2, no. 1 (Spring 2020), 116–17, table 1. ↑
25. See Doug Ponder and Bryan Laughlin, “Complementarians and the Rise of Second-Wave Evangelical Feminism,” Sola Ecclesia, February 26, 2024. ↑
26. Editor’s Note: Christ Over All also interviewed Doug Ponder about this subject, after he wrote “Slaying Feminism: Ending the Impossible Quest for Sexual Interchangeability.” ↑
27. For a comparison and defense the views of these authors, see Douglas Brent Ponder, Male and Female He Created Them: The Implications of a Paradigmatic Reading of Genesis 1–3 for the Complementarian-Egalitarian Debate (DMin thesis, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2024), 5–10, 147–160. ↑
28. See Denny Burk, “Mere Complementarianism,” Eikon 1, no. 2 (2019): 28–42. ↑
29. Vincent of Lérins, A Commonitory for the Antiquity and Universality of the Catholic Faith Against the Profane Novelties of All Heresies 2.6, trans. C. A. Heurtley, in A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Series 2, vol. 11, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995), 132. ↑
30.Denny Burk, “Is Complementarianism a Man-made Doctrine?” Eikon 3, no. 1 (Spring 2021): 23–29. ↑
31. Denny Burk, “Is Complementarianism a Man-made Doctrine?” Eikon 3, no. 1 (Spring 2021): 24, emphasis added. ↑
32. Denny Burk, “Mere Complementarianism,” 24. ↑
33. As an added bonus, this distinction also lessens the critiques of those like Garris, who has taken shots at the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and the Danvers Statement for an alleged failure to root gender roles in nature. See Zachary Garris, Masculine Christianity (Ann Arbor, MI: Reformation Zion, 2020), chap. 3, “Complementarianism’s Compromise.” Yet the Danvers Statement explicitly states, “Distinctions in masculine and feminine roles are ordained by God as part of the created order”—with “created order” functioning as a traditional designation for “nature.” ↑
34. Renn, “Newsletter #30: Complementarianism Is a Baby Boomer Theology That Will Die with the Baby Boomers,” emphasis added. ↑
35. For an example of this kind of theological retrieval, see Zachary Garris, Honor Thy Fathers: Recovering the Anti-Feminist Theology of the Reformers” (Ogden, UT: New Christendom Press, 2024). Even readers who do not agree with all of Garris’s conclusions will be hard-pressed to dismiss the clarity and consistency of church tradition when it comes to the sexes. ↑
36. Steven Wedgeworth, “Male-Only Ordination Is Natural: Why the Church Is a Model of Reality,” The Calvinist International, January 16, 2019. ↑
37. Steven Wedgeworth, “Male-Only Ordination Is Natural: Why the Church Is a Model of Reality,” The Calvinist International, January 16, 2019. ↑
38. Steven Wedgeworth, “Male-Only Ordination Is Natural: Why the Church Is a Model of Reality,” The Calvinist International, January 16, 2019, emphasis added. ↑
39. Steven Wedgeworth, “Male-Only Ordination Is Natural: Why the Church Is a Model of Reality,” The Calvinist International, January 16, 2019. Wedgeworth is not alone in making this argument. Michael Foster has called complementarianism “a halfway house for egalitarians.” I think that is true, if by “complementarianism” Foster specifically means the narrow/thin/ideological version of complementarianism that Wedgeworth critiques above. ↑
40. J. I. Packer, “Understanding the Differences,” in Women, Authority, and the Bible, edited by Alvera Mickelsen (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1986), 298, in John Piper, “A Vision of Biblical Complementarity,” in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, edited by Wayne Grudem and John Piper (Crossway, 2021), 53, emphasis original. ↑
41. See Ronald W. Pierce, Rebecca Merrill Groothuis, and Gordon D. Fee, eds. Discovering Biblical Equality: Complementarity without Hierarchy, 1st and 2nd editions (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004 and 2005, respectively), emphasis added. ↑
42. David J. Ayers, “The Inevitability of Failure: The Assumptions and Implications of Modern Feminism,” in Piper and Grudem, eds. Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, 371–96. ↑
43. Andreas Köstenberger and Margaret Köstenberger, God’s Design for Man and Woman: A Biblical-Theological Survey (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2014), 59–60. Note, however, that due to negative connotations, they argue the term “patricentrism” should be used instead. ↑
44. Carrie Gress, The End of Woman: How Smashing the Patriarchy Has Destroyed Us (Regnery Publishing, 2023). ↑
45. See Denny Burk, Colin Smothers, and Jonathan Swan, “What about the Term ‘Patriarchy’?” The CBMW Podcast, March 17, 2025. ↑
46. Kate Millett, Sexual Politics (New York: Doubleday, 1970). ↑
47. See the Oxford English Dictionary, “Patriarchy: meaning and use.” ↑
48. John Calvin, The Institution of Christian Religion, trans. Thomas Norton (London: Bonham Norton, 1561), IV.vii, f. 39. ↑
49. Francis Bacon, Concerning the Post-nati of Scotland in Three Speeches of the Right Honorable Sir Francis Bacon (London: Sameul Broun, 1641), 7↑
50. “Items of News,” The Mount Alexander Mail, Oct 22, 1889, 2/1. ↑
51. The Greek word for “fathers” (pateres) is also sometimes translated “patriarchs” when the context suggests that the same group is in view. See Romans 9:5 and 15:8 in the ESV, for example. ↑
52. Perhaps there is something an analogy with the term “Trinity.” Like “patriarchy,” that term does not appear in Scripture. Nevertheless, the church found it an appropriate term to systematize the scriptural teaching on the nature of God’s three-person existence. ↑
53. Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation (Boston: Beacon, 1973). ↑
54. The Masoretic Text of Isaiah 3:12 reads, “My people—infants their oppressors, and women rule over them,” but the Septuagint has “extortioners” (apaitountes) instead of “women.” The discrepancy stems from the vowel supplied to the Hebrew word nšm. Most commentators and translators favor the Masoretic Text, though many of them interpret “women” metaphorically. That is to say, they contend that the problem with Judah’s rulers was not that they were women, literally, but that they were effeminate. For example, Theodore Beza takes this view, writing that these rulers “would be manifest tokens of [God’s] wrath, because they would be fools and effeminate.” (See Theodore Beza’s commentary on Isaiah 3:12 in The Geneva Bible.) However, the metaphorical interpretation does not diminish the point. If it is inappropriate for male rulers to be effeminate, it is also inappropriate for women to rule. This was John Knox’s argument in The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, ed. Edward Arber, The English Scholar’s Library, No. 2 (1558; repr. London: 1878). ↑
55. Denny Burk, “Russell Moore’s ETS Paper: The Best Yet,” Denny Burk, November 27, 2015. Burk was not alone in his praise of Moore’s presentation. Peter Leithart affirmed the paper’s central argument—that “patriarchy or headship cannot be isolated from a whole range of theological issues.” See Leithart, “Rehabilitating Patriarchy,” Leithart, November 17, 2005. ↑
56. The ETS publication is no longer available, but an archived version of the paper can be found online. ↑
57. W. Bradford Wilcox, Soft Patriarchs, New Men: How Christianity Shapes Fathers and Husbands (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004). ↑
58. Moore, “After Patriarchy, What?”, 2. ↑
59. Moore, “After Patriarchy, What?”, 2. ↑
60. Moore, “After Patriarchy, What?”, 5. ↑
61. Wilcox, Soft Patriarchs, New Men, 173. ↑
62. Moore, “After Patriarchy, What?”, 5. ↑
63. Moore, “After Patriarchy, What?”, 5. ↑
64. Moore, “After Patriarchy, What?”, 5. ↑
65. Moore, “After Patriarchy, What?”, 5, 7. ↑
66. Moore, “After Patriarchy, What?”, 6. ↑
67. Moore, “After Patriarchy, What?”, 8. Also of note, given Moore’s recent stances on the handling of sexual abuse allegations in the Southern Baptist Convention, Moore argued that patriarchy “will address the needs of hurting women and children far better, because it is rooted in the primary biblical means for protecting women and children: calling men to responsibility.” I think he was right. ↑
68. Moore, “After Patriarchy, What?”, 8. ↑
69. Moore, “After Patriarchy, What?”, 8. ↑
70. Moore, “After Patriarchy, What?”, 8. ↑
71. Moore, “After Patriarchy, What?”, 8. ↑
72. Michael Foster has told me that he prefers to say he believes in “biblical sexuality,” which gives him the freedom to define the term, while avoiding negative associations in any direction. Such a move certainly has that advantage; however, it seems to me that every figure in the gender debates would claim the same for their view. ↑
73. Though he strongly prefers the term “complementarian,” Kevin DeYoung has argued against “dismantling the [concept of] patriarchy” in the name of Christianity. See DeYoung, “Death to Patriarchy? Complementarity and the Scandal of ‘Father Rule’,” Clearly Reformed, August 19, 2022. ↑
74. Kevin DeYoung, “Death to Patriarchy? Complementarity and the Scandal of ‘Father Rule’,” Clearly Reformed, August 19, 2022. ↑
75. Zepharam Foster, “Loss of a Good Word (Again),” Touchstone, May/June 2024. ↑
