Journal: Eikon
Volume: EIKON 05:2 (Fall 2023)
Article: Male Headship Or Servant Leadership? Yes.
Author: Michael Carlino

Eikon 5.2 (Fall 2023) p. 34

Male Headship Or Servant Leadership? Yes.

Michael Carlino

Michael Carlino is the Operations Director for CBMW and is a PhD student at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

In this essay, I take aim at a false antithesis pertaining to God’s purposes and calling for men. For true masculinity to be pursued and attained, we must not fall prey to a false antithesis, which wrongly posits an either/or in place of a both/and. As D.A. Carson asks and answers:

So which shall we choose? Experience or truth? The left wing of the airplane, or the right? Love or integrity? Study or service? Evangelism or discipleship? The front wheels of a car, or the rear? Subjective knowledge or objective knowledge? Faith or obedience? Damn all false antithesis to hell, for they generate false gods, they perpetuate idols, they twist and distort our souls, they launch the church into violent pendulum swings whose oscillations succeed only in dividing brothers and sisters in Christ.1

We could easily and legitimately add the following questions to Carson’s fine list: Which shall real men choose? Courage or gentleness?2 Nature or cultural customs (stereotypes)?3 Male headship or servant leadership? It is this last false antithesis I take on in this essay. Of course, the correct

Eikon 5.2 (Fall 2023) p. 35

answer for each of these questions is: yes. As fallen human beings, we are liable to label masculine virtues as vices or to label male vices as virtuous. And as Carson does well to draw out, the damnable lie at the heart of such false antitheses breeds violent pendulum swings that divide the body of Christ. It seems to me that in the broader evangelical world, the common cycle relating to gender and sexuality (and more specifically for this essay, masculinity) debates, is a swing toward an egalitarian or narrow complementarian view on one side of the false antithesis, which is met by an equal and opposite overcorrection by the biblical patriarchy movement,4 leaving evangelicals with whiplash and blame toward the other side for the injury.5 In what follows, the “camps” of egalitarianism, narrow complementarianism, broad complementarianism, and biblical patriarchy provide a conceptual framework through which I will think through the false antithesis of male headship and servant leadership. I will begin by unpacking the historical movement from egalitarianism to complementarianism to biblical patriarchy in evangelical circles, ar...