Journal: Eikon
Volume: EIKON 05:1 (Spring 2023)
Article: Does Complementarianism Lead To Abuse?: A Response To Mimi Haddad, “Helping The Church Understand Biblical Equality” And Kylie Maddox Pidgeon, “Complementarianism And Domestic Abuse”
Author: Jonathan Leeman

Eikon 5.1 (Spring 2023) p. 104

Does Complementarianism Lead To Abuse?: A Response To Mimi Haddad, “Helping The Church Understand Biblical Equality” And Kylie Maddox Pidgeon, “Complementarianism And Domestic Abuse”

Jonathan Leeman

Jonathan Leeman, an elder at Cheverly Baptist Church, is the editorial director of 9Marks and the author of Authority: How Godly Rule Protects the Vulnerable, Strengthens Community, and Promotes Human Flourishing (summer 2023). You can follow him @JonathanLeeman.

My official assignment is to respond to two chapters in the third edition of Discovering Biblical Equality: Biblical, Theological, Cultural, and Practical Perspectives: Mimi Haddad’s “Helping the Church Understand Biblical Equality” and Kylie Maddox Pidgeon’s “Complementarianism and Domestic Abuse: A Social-Scientific Perspective on Whether ‘Equal but Different’ Is Really Equal at All.”

Haddad’s chapter possesses a pastoral purpose — to help readers lead a church toward accepting and following her view of biblical gender equality. Pidgeon’s chapter

Eikon 5.1 (Spring 2023) p. 105

has a polemical one — to persuade readers from social science research that complementarianism creates and fosters discriminatory practices that in turn “facilitate gendered violence” (595).

Both chapters offer a charitable tone toward those who, like me, adopt an “equal but different” complementarian position. Both present their case in measured tones without over-speaking or caricaturing. And both, I trust, seek the good of the body of Christ. I am grateful for all this, and I hope to follow their example in these ways.

Yet I am not convinced either author adequately understands authority or equality, and in that way reflect the weaknesses of egalitarianism generally. Rather than responding line by line to their arguments, therefore, I would like to frame my response around the question, does complementarianism lead to abuse? I will consider the two authors’ claims along the way, yet the larger answer requires us to think more carefully about authority and equality, which means I am attempting not merely to respond, but to offer my own substantive contribution to the conversation. I will do all this in seven points.

1. Complementarians Should Work Harder Than Anyone In Opposing Abuse.

Egalitarians may critique complementarianism for making women susceptible to abuse. Yet a complementarian’s first word of reply should be, “Thank you for opposing abuse. We stand with you against it,” even if some egalitarians will reject that partnership.1 Using authority to harm people, which is how I define “abu...