The Eternal Functional Subordination Debate: Why It Matters

Something strange is happening in the Fundamentalist world. For a few decades now, Wayne Grudem and a few others have been teaching that God the Son is eternally subordinate to God the Father.

The argument is as such:
Because
a) The Father begets the Son, and
b) The Son economically submits to the will of the Father
Therefore,
c) The Son is immanently (eternally) subordinate/submissive to the Father

The position is termed "eternal functional subordination," or "EFS" for short, and for a time, it was coupled with the position that the Son did not exist from eternity. Its advocates also attempt to maintain that while despite such subordination, the Son is not less than the Father.

The position becomes even more convoluted because EFS advocates then take this bewildering attempt at Trinitarian theology and try to apply it to human gender relations. It has become a long and mind-boggling way of arguing that women should submit to men while also trying to maintain that women are not inherently inferior to men.

The major disconnect is that subordination is inherently inferiority. To say that the Son is eternally subordinated to the Father is to say that the Son is immanently less than the Father. It is true that the Father takes precedence in the order of being (that is to say, the Son and Holy Spirit are begotten and precede, respectively, from the Father). This so-called "monarchy of the Father," (spelled out by the ELCA and Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America in this document; cf. para. 4) though, does not relate to obedience and submission. To suggest otherwise is to suggest that somehow the Persons of the Trinity have different eternal intentions or goals that the Son must relinquish to obey the Father. Or, using the terminology of the Athanasian Creed, would be to suggest that the members of the Trinity are not co-equal in majesty and glory.

(And, while we're at it, to say that women must submit to men is to say that women are inherently inferior to men. Of course, the claim is always just under the surface of Fundamentalist complementarian writing, but they refuse to acknowledge it. The Son is eternally begotten by the Father, and is consubstantial/of one being with the Father. In a lesser way, according to Genesis 2, Eve is made after Adam from a part of Adam's body; she is made of the same stuff. In Genesis 2 -- and notably, not in Genesis 1 -- Adam takes precedence in the order of Creation, but there is no reason to believe that Eve is therefore inferior to or must be submissive to Adam. Substance matters far more than order.)

For whatever reason, this debate exploded onto the scene during the summer of 2016. I won't go into the full details of the debate (there's simply not enough time), but you can read some of the main arguments as summarized by Scot McKnight here, as well as a longer rebuttal published on "Mortification of Spin" here and a snarky post "guest written" by John Calvin. patron of so many EFS advocates, here.

Interestingly, both complementarians and egalitarians sided against the EFS advocates. This is a minority position, even within the Fundamentalist/Complemenatrian/Pseudo-Calvinist camp.

The debate spread to the Evangelical Theological Society's annual meeting, where Bruce Ware (one of the EFS advocates changed his position to admit that the Son is eternally begotten after all. (Here's Southern Baptist Theological Seminary's article on the matter.)

There are a number of reasons to completely discount this position. I won't go into them in detail (again, there really isn't time -- these are debates that have already raged  and lasted for decades leading up to Nicea and later Chalcedon), but I will offer a brief summary:

1) The Creeds -- As to the position that the son is not eternally begotten (now, thankfully, cast aside), it is one of the key elements of the Nicene Creed. To confess otherwise is to venture into the Arian heresy. As to EFS, in general: the Nicene Creed confesses that Father and Son are consubstantial. There is no lesser deity in the Trinity. The Athanasian Creed spells it out further:

But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one, the Glory equal, the Majesty co-eternal....
....And in this Trinity none is afore, or none other; none is greater, or less than another; but the whole three Persons are co-eternal together and co-equal.

The Athanasian Creed goes explains that the Son is only subordinate in the Incarnation -- that is, economically. EFS, then, is right out.

2) The Trouble with the Trinity -- Discussing the Trinity is remarkably difficult. There's a reason that councils were convened and otherwise noble theologians were deemed heretics. It's easy to get on the wrong track; as when traveling a great distance, changing your bearing by a few degrees can put you off course by hundreds of miles. Turn too far in one direction, accidentally end up becoming a tritheist or a unitarian. In over-emphasizing the distinction between the Father and Son (and, let's be honest, ignoring the Holy Spirit through and through), the EFS advocates start down the shockingly short path to tritheism. If the Son is subordinate, and therefore lesser, then what we end up with is a set of three gods rather than one God who exists in trinity.

3) "God is not 'man' said in a loud voice." -- The basis for EFS is the assumption that because human sons should submit to human fathers, therefore the Son submits to the Father. Despite all of Fundamentalist rhetoric about God's holiness, that God is so much further above humanity (rhetoric that, while taken in weird directions, is at least rooted in sound theological thinking), how strange it is then that EFS advocates are attempting to take a model for human relationships and read it into the inner workings of the Holy Trinity, that blessed mystery which exists beyond human understanding.

So...why does this matter? Why spend time giving a crap about an esoteric point of theology within the Fundamentalist world? By and large, the Mainline and Progressives have ignored this debate. A few have pointed to it as an entertaining side show, but few bloggers have actually weighed in -- as though Mainline and Progressive Christians don't really care.

A few things.

First, and this one is personal: Fundamentalists, including EFS advocates, spend so much time calling progressives heretics, claiming that we are not truly Christians for our openness to the findings of modern science, for the ordination of women and an egalitarian understanding of Church and family, for a willingness to discuss, let alone affirm, the role of LGBT+ persons in the Church. And yet when Grudem, Ware, and others leaders in the Fundamentalist world accept an outright heretical opinion, Albert Mohler does mental gymnastics to explain why they are not heretics. Mohler is one of the men who led the crusade against moderates in the SBC. At SBTS, he is venerated as the patron saint of Baptist fidelity, the champion of orthodoxy, and yet he is unwilling to turn his inquisition upon his friends. Rampant hypocrisy matters, and we should be prepared to call it out while defending our position in the Church.

Second, and as importantly, orthodoxy matters. I'll write more about this in a coming post (this one has already turned out much longer than I expected), but let me offer a quick summary. Progressives have been far too quick to say that the only thing that matters is loving, but we have been unwilling to do lay theological groundwork about what Christ means when he commands us to love God, neighbor, enemy, and each other. Theology, for all of its complications, is vital to the Church. We cannot claim we are willing to ask difficult questions if we are unwilling to wrestle with how these questions might shape our theology. Otherwise, what's the point? If all we care about is a general sense of love and community -- noble goals, certainly -- but without a clear theological framework for what they look like, why not become secular humanists? It'd certainly be easier to preach on Steinbeck than Job. It'd be simpler to preach that the key to community is emotional vulnerability rather than Christ crucified and risen. This means, though, that we must be prepared to enter into debates over points of theology, to interpret Sacred Scripture and the Tradition and make arguments rather than "I feel..." statements. The EFS position is an attack on orthodoxy and women's rights
. If progressive Christians want to have a voice in the Church, we must be prepared to but forward an orthodox theology.

Husbands, You Will Benefit From Your Wife's (and Other Women's) Theology

Lottie Moon
Baptist Missionary
Egalitarian Icon?

Some odd stuff is going on over at the SBC and within fundamentalist circles. There's the ongoing struggle over "Calvinism" (by which they mean only a Calvinist view of Divine Election) between Southern Baptist seminaries and leaders. There's the debate over eternal subordination within the Trinity. And then there's the odd move within the circle of ESV translators to say that Eve's desire will be "contrary" to Adam (a translation choice they moved to make permanent before backtracking).  So many of these debates have taken aim at a single issue: feminism. Women's rights are in the crosshairs. Even in the debate over subordinationism, the issue isn't the Son's obedience to the Father; rather, it's an attempt to make an argument from the inner workings of the immanent Trinity to the inner workings of human marriage (more on this in a later post).

Many of these odd debates and massive breaks from tradition are part of an attempt to argue that women are lesser than men. For the likes of Grudem, Piper, and Mohler, it is no longer enough to claim that Scripture forbids women from preaching or serving as elders and deacons; rather, they are attempting to reshape all of theology in the image of 1950s suburban America. In the new Fundamentalist understanding of gender, men are men only when they rule over the household, and women are women only when they stay at home to produce dinner and children.


The Fundamentalists are playing a dangerous game. While they confess with their lips that men and women are created as equal, their theology undermines this at every turn. In turn, their theology gives way to rampant abuse. With all of their language of men as protectors, they fail to stand up to the abusers hiding in their congregations. Look no further than CJ Mahaney and Sovereign Grace Ministries. Mahaney refused to take action to protect women and children in his parishes, and he is welcomed with open arms -- and a quick dismissal of his critics -- to address Together for the Gospel. This wasn't some tiny, no-name congregation with an "under-the-radar" scandal; that would have been despicable enough. Rather, this was a scandal at the heart of the complementarian movement, and it was largely ignored.

Consider The Gospel Coalition's attempt to argue for male superiority from the first three chapters of Genesis:

In Genesis 2:15-17 he speaks to Adam, commanding him to “cultivate” and “keep/guard” the Garden of Eden (v. 15). God forbids Adam from eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (v. 17) and warns him that disobedience leads to judgment. The word of God comes to Adam before Eve is even created (v. 22). This suggests that Adam, as Eve's leader, was tasked with conveying God's commands to her.

The article goes on to suggest that God interacts with women (Eve) through men (Adam), while the serpent attacks men (Adam) through women (Eve). This convoluted argument has led some theologians in these circles to argue that Adam's original sin was listening to Eve rather than eating the forbidden fruit:

Adam as head must take responsibility for the fall. God commissioned him to rule and subdue all creation. Ironically, a reptilian creature and a piece of fruit brought down the man who was meant to rule them. In the process he failed at leading his wife.

And then the reverse must also be true: that Eve's sin was her failure to submit to Adam's authority. Grudem himself makes a similar argument in Biblical Foundations for Manhood and Womanhood, suggesting that independent women become "usurpers" (cf. p 39). While self-styled "complementarians" say that Adam is at fault for failing to fully lead, their arguments arrive at the logical conclusion that Eve's sin was to disregard her husband's authority rather than acting contrary to the command of God.

Building on this complex understanding of pre-original sin within the Fall, the SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission's Ronni Kurz boldly proclaims: "Husband, your wife will benefit from your theology." His gist:

Imagine Adam standing up at the beginning of the dialogue and saying, “Eve, no. We know that God, who gave us each other and the garden, is our satisfaction and delight. We lack nothing when we have him.” While we’ll never know if this hypothetical situation would have changed the outcome, the moral of the story remains: husbands should seek theological awareness—and obedience to that knowledge—for the good of their marriages.
...
Husbands, your wives need you to deeply know the Lord and his ways. She needs you to have thought critically about the gospel. She needs you to have sat in awe at the depth of Christ and be ready with all your might to show and lead her to the truth. She needs your theology.

Now let me be perfectly clear: I affirm the title, that wives benefit from theologically sound husbands. But I also affirm that husbands benefit from theologically sound wives, and parents benefit from theologically sound children.

Fundamentalists in the complementarian camp would have us believe that women have little to offer to the Church, that they need defending and guidance because God did not bless them with the full imago Dei. Somehow, in the complementarian world, women lack something that men have. The complementarian position is, to paraphrase Orwell, that all people are equal, but some are more equal than others.

This could not be further from the truth.

First, they apply a twisted heremeneutic. They ignore Genesis 1, in which male and female are created together on the sixth day, in the image of God, as equals and the capstone of all creation. This poor exegetical method also assumes that by being created at the end, from Adam, that Eve is somehow inferior rather than seeing men and women as bookends of creation. And, lest we forget, Adam is formed from such mundane material as dirt, whereas Eve is created from something as noble as Adam.

(There is plenty more to say about scriptural arguments, and written by people far more experienced than I. As a starting point, head over to the Christians for Biblical Equality website.)

Secondly, though, and more importantly, let us consider the real, lived value of women in the community of faith. And since Kurz is playing fanciful games of "What if the Fall didn't happen?" let me propose my own sceneario: Imagine if, rather than Adam standing up (as Kurz suggests), Eve had said to the serpent, "Uh. No. Nice try, but the Lord has commanded that I not eat of this tree. The Lord has provided a garden for my beloved and I, and I will put my faith in God the Creator rather than in a creature." Boom, problem solved. No Adam necessary.

But since, hypotheticals aside, sin has entered the world, let us consider the role of women in Scripture: Miriam and Deborah led the people of Israel. The Blessed Virgin Mary brought Christ into the world -- and without asking her betrothed for permission. Mary Magdalene was the apostle to the Apostles. Phoebe and Junia led the early Church.

Saint Clare of Assisi

Throughout history, women have been vitally important to the Church. Helena and Monica shaped the thoughts and devotion of their sons, Constantine and Augustine. Consider the import of Clare and Julian and Teresa. Where would the Church of England be without the reign of Elizabeth I? Think about Lottie Moon and Mother Teresa.

From personal experience, I cannot tell you how important the voices of women have been in shaping my thought. Women in ministry -- professors, seminarians, and clergy -- have brought forward issues I never would have considered. Even in areas of disagreement, women have pushed me to clarify my own thought and, in cases, convinced me of my own shortcomings. Some of the most innovative parishes are those being led by women in clerical collars. The entire Church catholic has benefited from their vocation.

My wife, through her own inquisitiveness, research, insight, and brilliance, has pushed me to deeply wrestle with issues I would have never given a second thought without her prodding. She is my most valued sounding board, editor, and reviewer; my preaching would suffer were it not for her. My wife, a dedicated and faithful laywoman, points out issues that I, after a decade of education in religion and theology and work in ministry, have never considered.

I have benefited from her theology, and I have benefited from the theology of women across the ages. Women are leading the Church, from the Pulpit and the Altar and from in the pews. Women have much to offer -- not just for the benefit of men, but for the entire Church. This argument isn't just about what women can do for men. Men most certainly do benefit from strong women. Rather, this is about what God is doing through Creation and the Church. It's about the vital role women have in the Body of Christ and the role of the Church as an in-breaking of the restored Creation.

The Holy Spirit is at work across the Church, sending us to call all people to God; and She has given women a strong voice.

Russell Moore and SBC Infighting

Shortly after the election, I mentioned, in passing, the Fundamentalist failure to decry Donald Trump's racism and religious bigotry. One name stood out among the rest: Russell Moore, the president of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. Think of him as the SBC's chief lobbyist.

Moore was the most prominent Fundamentalist voice criticizing Donald Trump -- and he was largely alone. Moore was among the few willing to criticize the president-elect not only for Trump's adultery but also for his verbal attacks on women, people of color, immigrants, and Muslims.

Moore stood alone as most of his colleagues caved in: Wayne Grudem, Jerry Fallwell, and Richard Land (Moore's predecessor at the helm of the ERLC).

Now Moore is facing the predictable back-lash.

The Religion News Service is reporting:

[...]The Wall Street Journal reported some of Moore’s critics are considering withdrawing support for the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, which Moore has led since 2013. 

The Journal quoted Robert Jeffress, senior pastor at First Baptist Dallas and a Trump supporter, who said members of his church don’t believe the ERLC “represents our church’s beliefs.” 

Some SBC members fear Moore’s stances will limit their access to the new administration. And Louisiana Baptists have asked their leaders to study recent actions of the ERLC, though the convention’s executive director, David Hankins, called defunding the agency “a last resort.”

Moore, for his part, is apologizing if Baptists thought he was attacking their faith (a marginal courtesy he has not extended to those of us who support LGBT rights).

Evangelical columnist Jonathan Merritt's take on the controversy is well worth reading in full, but here's the gist:

Apparently, funds should go toward mission efforts unless they can buy Baptists access to the president. 

Many Southern Baptists believe Trump represents their best hope at social dominance, or at least social renewal. They naturally want someone who is well-positioned to capitalize on their political agenda, not someone sitting in the bleachers watching it from afar. But unlike these Southern Baptists, Moore will not trade his principles and positions for a seat at the president’s table.

 I disagree with Russell Moore on no shortage of issues, but I applaud his bold willingness to stand up to the political hungry voices of his own denomination.

Call Off Your Ghost: The Need to Build Our Own Identity

Part III in my series of reflections on the Wild Goose Festival
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Back in my high school days, I only listened to "Christian" music, and I had a Christian-themed parody shirt for every day of the week. I firmly believed that the faithful copycats of the Christian rock industry were every bit as good as the acts they were imitating. Why listen to bands that cuss when there are Christian bands playing nearly-identical songs?

Two caveats: 1) I'm mostly tone-deaf and so any difference in ability was largely lost on me. 2) I'm eternally thankful for bands like Thrice and mewithoutYou who were out there making interesting and thought-provoking music which explored the deeper implications of the Christian faith without sacrificing artistic integrity in the name of mimicking successful mainstream bands.

Like many people who don't go on to be youth pastors, I eventually grew out of that stage. I went to college and realized that maybe Christians actually can engage with the larger cultures around us while contributing to the arts and music without resorting to large-scale pseudo-plagiarism. And maybe, just maybe, Christians could listen to Blink 182 without "backsliding."

I sat in my "Religion and Literature" class with a practicing Catholic professor, and we devoured the works of Toni Morrison, Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Oliver, and many more besides. We discussed the intersection of baptismal and Middle Passage imagery at the beginning of Tar Baby. We debated the importance of food to religious identity and memory in Mirriam's Kitchen. We read about a Baptist-Buddhist and discussed what, exactly, that meant in Dreaming Me.

That class came to define my undergraduate, and the lessons it proved have followed me through the past five years of academic work. Throughout seminary, I became more engaged in the conversation between theology and art, especially insofar as it applies to the liturgy.

Oh how joyous! To find a place of genuine cultural engagement without resulting to imitation. To find a place where faith and creativity met.

This brings me to Wild Goose. How do you describe a weekend-long festival of music, art, and lectures?

"Oh, it's like the Christian Bonnaroo."
"It's like adult Vacation Bible School."
"It's kind of like a merger of church camp meets Woodstock for progressive Christians."

These descriptors, in their own right, did not bother me -- and they still don't, really. Wild Goose is sui generis within American culture. Sure, it's an attempt to replicate the Greenbelt Festival in the UK, but there isn't really a place like it in the US.

What does bother me though, is the way that we -- progressive Christians -- talk about ourselves.

For many of us, we have a background within conservative evangelical culture. Many of us were raised within fundamentalist households and parishes (I hasten to add that I am not in that number). And so, when we try to explain where we are now, the first words out of our mouths usually have to do with where we've been. It makes sense; our identity is bound up in our history. Who we are now depends on who we've been in the past.

Unfortunately, the conversation tends to remain anchored in the past in very unhealthy ways.

One of the biggest complaints progressives have about conservative evangelicals is the evangelical's tendency to define themselves as normative and turn any opposition into the "Other." It's "us" -- the normal, good, God-fearing Christians -- versus "them" -- the atheistic communists, the pagans, and the sodomites. We complain about how conservative evangelicals reduce relationships with their opponents to an "I/it" relationship rather than an "I/Thou" relationship. (Five minutes on Fox News or the comments on a conservative blog will convince you that this is fairly accurate.)

But here's the big confession: we do the same thing. One presenter at Wild Goose, in a presentation of  St. Francis of Assisi and the life of the Church, smugly commented, "Conservatives are great at history. They dominate the field. We need to get better at writing history." One speaker, the son of a prominent conservative theologian, lamented about the presidency of an "EVANGELICAL FOOL!" (emphasis and tone are all his) and about this speaker's days as a harsh, patriarchal Calvinist.

One of the closing bands, by the name of Gungor, performed to a packed main stage. All in all, I liked this band. I really did. But they performed their satirical hit "God is Not a White Man." At the line, "God is not a Republican," the crowd cheered. Fair enough, but this song left me wondering: is this symptomatic of progressive Christianity as a whole? Is this really all that we can say about who we are? It reminded me of the bumper sticker which proclaims, "God is Not a Republican," followed (in much smaller print) by an after thought: "...or a Democrat." (This, of course, is the tame version; others leave off the after thought.)

What is wrong with us? Why must we continuously define ourselves against others? Why do we insist on building an identity by what we are not?

The Church must be built upon or relationship to God and to our neighbors rather than on our relationship to our intellectual opponents. Some might say, "Aren't our intellectual opponents also our neighbors?" To them, I say, yes. Exactly. Let's start treating them as neighbors.

Now certainly our relationship with God informs our relationship to our opponents, and we must be prepared to engage those with whom we disagree. But it is a relationship of love, not enmity.

I firmly believe that we will not make progress until we stop defining ourselves over and against conservatives and secular culture, and until we give up any pretense of being "cool" by copying other cultures. (Sorry, we shouldn't have a "Christian" Bonnaroo or Burning Man.) We must -- MUST -- be holy fools who engage with culture rather than poseurs who mimic that which we don't understand.

Our identity can neither be apophatic nor stolen from somebody else. Our theology cannot be based on negation and claims of what God is not, what the Church is not, and who we are not. We MUST construct an identity based around God's self-revelation.

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The post title is taken from Doomtree collaborator Dessa's song by the same name:

If you're not listening to any of the Doomtree artists, you should be.