Male Headship, male covering, male leadership – by any name it is called – is a false teaching.
Christ died to save men and women from their sins. Until recently, nobody disagreed with that. But this false teaching of male headship has Christ dying for men, and then the husbands becoming like Christ as the head of women, and Jesus being obedient to God by dying for our sins.
This is their scripture. 1 Corinthians 11:3 “Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.”
This false teaching is this:
- Christ died for men and is the head of men, and becomes co-head with husbands over wives.
- Christ’s death for unmarried women becomes secondary to a father’s headship.
- Man now becomes divine – he has taken the place of headship of women over from Christ.
- Jesus had a decision to make whether or not he died on the cross, and by choosing to die, he showed his obedience to God.
When I told that pastor recently that the same blood that washed over him washed over me, he didn’t understand what I was saying. But if Christ’s blood gave Christ headship over men, then what gives men headship over women? The husband hasn’t died for anybody. Surely they don’t believe that the blood of Jesus gave men headship. That is making false gods of husbands.
It is also not Biblical.
Now they want to tell you that the head of Christ is God means that Christ was obedient to God by the cross.
That is a false teaching also. Christ is God. Christ was not just being obedient to God when he came to earth and died for our sins. This was not a “Mission Impossible” episode where Jesus was told that if he did not accept the mission the briefcase would explode.
The decision was made before eternity in Heaven and before the prophets ever foretold the coming of the Messiah. There was not another Jesus in the background waiting to see if this Jesus would accept the mission.
NOTE: The Apostle Paul was not talking about the Fall, or the creation or anything like that.
This male headship, male covering, male leadership is a false teaching – and I denounce it, and all who teach it. I’m just a nobody, with no authority over anybody, but I have read the Bible, and know the Bible does not back up this false teaching and I will speak against it and ask you to do the same.
Read 1 Corinthians 11:3 this way: “Now I want you to realize that the head of every man and every woman is Christ (remember the illustration I gave you about how you husbands are the head of your wives in your marriages) and God is head of everything. (verse 12b “but everything comes from God.”
The Apostle Paul, more than any of the other preachers in the Bible, would not blaspheme against God by giving something that belonged to Christ, to men. He above all, would not make men divine.
Wednesday the post will be on why this is important.
bWe Baptist Women for Equality's Blog 
I think the word “head” in 1 Cor 11 means “origin.” The context of the chapter is about who comes from whom– that the first woman came from the man, but thereafter every man comes from a woman. It makes sense to read “the origin of man is Christ (without Him nothing that has been made, was made) and the origin of woman is man (she shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man,) and the origin of Christ is God (the Son came from the Father and became the Christ).” But I agree that the Son didn’t “obey” the Father when He came– for that would imply that in their divine Oneness they had a difference of will– and that cannot be true. In His humanity, the Son had to be obedient, but in His Divinity, obedience had no meaning, for Father, Son and Spirit were of One will and purpose.
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The complementarians want everyone to pick up an English Bible from their pew and read that the head of the woman is the husband. No arguments, no discussion, no idea that the word head could mean anything other than what it means in English today.
Thanks for your comments.
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It has always amazed me how the fallen man (male) can be totally forgiven and totally absolved. So much so, that his past (Adams) is never held against him. As a matter of fact when the fall is mentioned is always Adams willful transgression that is simply bypassed on thier way to Evil Eve. Let me give you a quote from, “A Costly Obedience”, from a sermon by Cindy Harp Johnson. “ONe day Adam and Seth were plowing the field, watering a dusty furrow by the sweat of thier brows. When they stopped to rest, Seth’s gaze wandered to the horizon, Where he saw a lush, verdant garden. “Dad! Dad! What’s that?” he asked. “Well, son,, it’s a sad story,” Adam replied. “That’s where we used to live. But then your mother ate us out of house and home.” And the world has been a a hard place from which to wring a blessing for a woman ever since! Since then, every choice we make regarding our lives is suspect.
The issue of male headship is considered a given and is now considered a salvific issue. I have always used a corrective when anybody talks about Rahab. She was always, “Rahab the Harlot”. And I would say yeah, that’s what she WAS, but Rahab was forgiven, drop the harlot please.” They just give you that bewildered look and walk away. For pastors/preachers/teachers to constantly interject the husband between the wife and God just will simply make the blood of Christ (which is sufficent for the husband) “not enough” for the wife. You sister, are simply stating the ending result of this false teaching. Women cannot be forgiven and the thier sin cast as far as the east is from the west……never to be remembered. They have to be constantly reminded that they were bad, and indeed, can be that way again if they are not obedient to their mediator god like husband.
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Jocelyn Anderson said on her radio blog interview by B.J. last night that this theology of ‘complementarianism’ has become mainstream and is in many of the churches today. I truly do not believe that most of those people sitting in the pew have any idea how bad and to what depth this theology goes. It makes man divine. We now are into pluralism, instead of One God, the Creator, I AM. We have elevated husbands to god-like status over men, and soon it will be sons, uncles, and anybody male unless we come to our senses.
Thank you for your comments.
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I thought you would find these sites interesting.
http://churchformen.com/
http://www.crosswalk.com/1354488/
testosterone theology?
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I wasn’t sure about the churchformen site, but the crosswalk has Al Mohler, Charles Stanley all over it, so I wouldn’t recommend that site.
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I posted a comment on “churchformen” about unrestricted leadership roles for women– and the blog owner agreed with me. Good for him!
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Good. They need to know what women think!
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Is it not amazing that a passage about headcoverings is used as a foundational verse for not only some strange idea of authority for men but also for the ETERNAL subordination of Jesus Christ?
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Quote from the cross walk article. “The nice thing about women is that they respond well to a masculine tone and imagery whereas men do not respond well to feminine imagery.”
On my writer’s site, it was noted by a fellow in children’s ministry that boys don’t relate well to a story with a girl as the main character but girls relate well to both male and female main characters. So in an effort to reach both boys and girls, they leaned toward stories with boys and the main character.
There was no ‘male-headship’ or comp doctrine going on. It was just noting what works and what doesn’t.
If what Kristen says is true and these manchurch people are fine with women in leadership positions and not prodding women into secondary roles, then perhaps we ought to step back and see how this works.
But after saying all this, let me add…
Isn’t it awesome how adaptable women are. I’ve heard it said that people who are adaptable live longer than those who don’t.
Perhaps some of these men could learn a thing or two about adaptability from the ladies because I think that adaptability is one form of mutual submission that many men miss out on as pointed out by the comment quoted at the top and the info shared by the children’s worker I related.
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I guess from Crosswalk’s comments that women should stop teaching little boys in Sunday school, in school, and certainly should not home school our little men.
He is probably right about the relating bit, but that is a conditioned response. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Thanks for the comment.
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Mara said:
“. . . boys don’t relate well to a story with a girl as the main character but girls relate well to both male and female main characters.”
I would definitely say this is a conditioned response. Our son was brought up reading stories and watching shows that had strong female and male characters. I remember how much he liked the Power Puff Girls, and how he admired Hawk Girl just as much as Superman. And we didn’t discourage him or call him “sissy” for liking the female heroes, so he never learned not to like them. To this day (he’s now 11) he doesn’t care whether the protagonist in a story he’s reading or a show he’s watching is male or female. It’s the quality of the story that appeals to him– not whether the characters are the same gender as he is.
There are only three reasons that I can see why a boy wouldn’t like a female character. One is if the story is geared towards traditionally “feminine” things like makeup and dating (but hey, my daughter never liked those stories either). The second is if the story is badly written or plotted. And the third is if he gets negative feedback for enjoying a good, interesting plot about things he’s interested in (like adventure and humor) just because it happens to have a female character.
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