Patriarchy Or Union

It is actually very helpful when someone clearly states what they actually think. Presbyterian Church in America minister Kevin DeYoung did this in his July, 2022, article, “Death to the Patriarchy?” published on the Desiring God website. As I understand him, the question mark was DeYoung moving his flag to the patriarchy camp, writing, “The biblical vision of complementarity cannot be true without something like patriarchy also being true.” For DeYoung, in order to be safe, men must rule their families, church, and broader society. Let’s pause here. Is that right? Here is just one question that comes to mind, “Can a man protect his wife without ruling his wife?”

Based on “fifty years of social science . . common sense and natural law,” DeYoung thinks that there are only two options for keeping women safe: “The choice is not between patriarchy and enlightened democracy, but between patriarchy and anarchy.” Wow, now that’s a stark contrast. He imagines women cannot be kept safe from “male aggression and male irresponsibility” without being under male rule. Evidently, keeping women safe from men requires patriarchal government in home, church, and society at large.

What is the contribution of social science, common sense, and natural law? DeYoung was helped by studies that found men’s uniqueness in their brute strength, tendency to take initiative, and ability to ignore “the sound of a human in distress.” Men are aggressive, take more risks, and are drawn to violent stories. As I understand DeYoung, these traits ensure the safety of families, churches, and society from men.

Moving on to women, what do common sense and natural law teach us about women? Well, “women were made to be women,” nurturing life in the womb and nursing babies. In dependence on sociologist Steven Goldberg, DeYoung writes that because men cannot do the “one thing most necessary and most miraculous in our existence,” they feel the urge to protect women and children. In return, they look to women for gentleness, kindness, and love, for refuge from a world of pain and force, for safety from their own excesses.” Hold it, wait a minute. Men need women for safety from their own excesses? I thought that patriarchy was the only means of keeping women safe. Now it sounds more like sociologists think women also keep men safe. We wouldn’t call that mutual protection, would we? Suddenly, it seems that women are necessary for more than procreation. Could this be leaning in the direction of some form of that “enlightened democracy,” which was ruled out at the beginning? Maybe we were created to rule together after all.

A similar endorsement of “father-rule” came out in February, 2024, with the title “In Defense of Patriarchy.” It was written by Orthodox Presbyterian Church minister Peter Van Doodeward, published by the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, and republished by Banner of Truth.

What is patriarchy? Van Doodeward writes, “Patriarchy simply means father-rule . . . clearly indicat(ing) an apportioning of authority.” If we use a standard definition for authority, “father” means to have the right to give orders, make decisions, and command obedience. To be a father is to rule your home. Fatherhood implies power over the members of your household. Again, really? Is that what fatherhood primarily means to us?

Van Doodeward’s “defense of patriarchy” confirms my suspicion that many see patriarchy as a gospel issue. He writes concerning the design of patriarchy,

And if you chafe under God’s design — it may simply be that you’ve never submitted to His rule. Listen to this description from the prophet Isaiah of what Jesus came to be and to do, and submit to the Gospel of God’s good and gracious fatherly rule in and by and with His Son.

For Van Doodeward, human patriarchy is integral to the gospel. To “root” patriarchy out of Christianity is comparable to dismissing “the inerrancy of Scripture, the doctrine of special creation, miracles, the Virgin Birth and the resurrection.”

Van Doodeward’s thoughts flow like this:

1. The Bible honors fathers.

2. God is called “Father;” therefore “father-rule” is “God’s language.”

3. God “stamped” creation with patriarchy, and we see this because men are naturally stronger than women and they rule throughout the world. God patterned Adam and all earthly fathers to rule after his own example. Therefore, the voice of God echoes in the man’s home and he says, “I am a patriarch. I am stronger than women . . . creation is stamped with patriarchy.”

4. Patriarchy extends to marriage because marriage points to Christ and his church and Christ rules the church as a patriarch.

5. Those who say that patriarchy is bad must consider whether they are being led by Satan “ever deeper into dark chambers of Fatherless horrors.”

I think we can all agree on point #1, but we could also add that God also honors mothers, and Jesus conspicuously honored women and children alongside men.

His second point is simply misguided. Just because “father” is God’s language does not mean that “father-rule” as he understands it is God’s language. In fact, when “patriarch” is used in Scripture, it means ancestor, not ruler of his immediate family. Furthermore, Christ explicitly warns us against calling mere men “father” in Matt 23:9, “ . . call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven.” We are cautioned against paralleling earthly authority with divine authority. Finally, the actual word patriarch (πατριάρχης) is found only four times in the New Testament, referring to Abraham, David, and the 12 sons of Jacob as founders of national Israel, not rulers of their homes (Acts 2:29; 7:8-9; Heb 7:4). Authoritative rule is not in view in Acts or Hebrews where “patriarch” is found. So, as it turns out, Van Doodeward’s patriarch seems to be his own “language with profound meaning.”

Concerning #3, yes, men are generally stronger than women, but does that make them natural rulers? Leadership is a gift; and according to the New Testament, distributed according to the Spirit’s will, with no indication other than that women also receive this gift. Finally, as opposed to physical strength, God often chooses natural weakness so that God’s own supernatural strength might be magnified (Ps 146:3-5; 147:10-11; Zec 4:6). This theme is ubiquitous in the Scriptures.

Concerning #4, I find it more than strange, maybe even bizarre, that Van Doodeward would call husbands to rule their wives as patriarchs. It is a profound confusion of categories. Adam did not “father” Eve. Husbands are not “fathers” of their wives, so why would they want to rule as such? There is no command in the Old or New Testaments that calls men to rule their wives. The only context in which a husband is given “authority” over his wife is 1 Corinthians 7:4, the same verse which gives a wife that same authority over her husband. Husbands are called to love their wives, not rule them as patriarchs.

Doodeward’s last point is simply pastoral malpractice. Would he be willing to enlarge his mind to make room for those who differ from him on this subject? Or would he have many believe that their salvation rests on conforming to his understanding of patriarchy? In line with 1 Corinthians 4:5, I would hope that he could resist passing judgment on his brothers and sisters, and that he would take notice of Christ’s dissatisfaction with those who add burdens to his people.

Last month, Aaron Mize, also an Orthodox Presbyterian Church minister, wrote an article addressing Van Doodeward’s patriarchy. It seems that it was taken down a week after it was published. The title, “In Defense of Union, Not Patriarchy” directs us to what God is revealing in making us one mankind, male and female, distinct, yet inseparable, in union and communion with one another and with Christ.

Mize writes, “Scripture never presents patriarchy as the created or redeemed norm. It is a feature of the fallen world Christ overturns, not a structure he institutes.” Thank you, Mize, I thought so, especially since we find it immediately after the Fall in Genesis 4 and 6. Van Doodeward thinks patriarchy is the salvation of society, but Mize writes,

(Van Doodeward’s) argument reveals a kind of Christian nationalism and social gospel: patriarchy becomes the linchpin of a sanctified civilization, the structure by which divine authority flows from fathers to families, from families to churches, and from churches to nations.

Mize points us to union with Christ as the answer to our fears in this world.

Mize deals well with Van Doodeward’s interpretative problems. Mize warns against conflating divine fatherhood with human male authority. Mize says that God does not have a body like a man, so “to read gender back into God’s fatherhood . . . confuses him with his creation.”

Mize then lays out the three ways divine fatherhood is spoken of in Scripture: (1) an eternal, internal relation between two divine persons; (2) the Father as Creator of heaven and earth; (3) “Father,” the covenantal name of God who reveals his grace to his people by bringing them into the closest possible proximity to himself. None of these prove a good analogy for a gender hierarchy.

Mize also confronts Van Doodeward’s conception of male rule by expounding Genesis 3:16, a passage often used to justify patriarchy, especially as it is understood in relation to Genesis 4:7. Mize sees something completely different in the text based on the following words: (1) the word “sin” (חַטָּאת) in 4:7, can also mean “sin-offering;” (2) the word “rule over,” (מָשַׁל בְּ) can also mean “to rule with.” Mize believes that what is being set forward in both 3:16 and 4:7 is union, not hierarchy. In 3:16, God tells the woman that her desire, her turning, will be toward her man, her Seed, her Sin Offering who was announced in 3:15, and he will rule with her. (2) Similarly, in 4:7, Christ desires Cain, and in union with him, Cain must reign with him over the temptation to destroy his brother. In other words, in 4:7, Mize sees Cain being invited into union with his Savior, his Sin-offering, so that through faith he might overcome temptation. Christ offers himself to Cain as the answer to his sin, guilt, shame, and eternal death. This is not the first time that Mize has set this forth. He has a 2024 article on the same topic, “The Church’s Desire toward Christ Her Sin Offering in Genesis 3:16.”

Mize further directs our thoughts to union and its benefits with this quote,

Christ’s mediatorial rule in the church is based in his Davidic kingship, not conjugal headship. In Scripture, Christ’s headship is organic and mystical, not hierarchical or official. Christ’s headship signifies vital union—the living bond of grace by which he communicates his life to the members of his body.

This is Mize’s central thesis. Christ’s headship in the church is not a metaphor for ruling over his church as patriarch, but an expression of union with his church. Bound to Christ as his body, the church receives the benefits that Christ has merited for his people.

Mize cautions us against conflating Christ’s “kingship” with Christ’s “headship.” For Mize, headship implies mystical union, not hierarchical reign. Christ rules our enemies on our behalf to bring us to the end he has purposed for us in union with himself. In dependence on Geerhardus Vos’s Reformed Dogmatics, Volume 3, Mize writes that Christ’s outward rule proceeds from this inward life. Christ’s kingship serves communion, not control. Mize writes, “Authority is provisional, serving love until all things are made new. Patriarchy, by contrast, corrupts this pattern—a counterfeit that turns communion into control.”

When Paul uses head-body in Ephesians 5 in reference to marriage, he speaks about distinguishability without separability. Headship language is bone-of-bone and flesh-of-flesh language, not empire language. As Mize explains it, Ephesians 5 evokes two persons in a bond of union where cruciform love reigns. He continues,

When the New Testament calls Christ “head of the church,” it describes inward communion and union, not a chain of command. Every believer—male and female—is directly united to the head through the Spirit. No human “headship” mediates this union. To model male rule on Christ’s headship is therefore a category mistake: It collapses mystical union into governmental hierarchy.

As Mize redirects us from patriarchy to union, he sets our eyes on things above, on Christ. By virtue of his atoning work, he has made us a “new humanity of shared life and love.” This new humanity serves in the new way of the Spirit who brings Christ’s body to humility and sacrificial love.

Mize ends his article by speaking to the problem of abuse in the church. As I understand Mize, he says that patriarchy leads men to a sense of “entitlement,” and from this entitlement comes abuse. Mize writes,

If the husband is divinely entitled to his wife’s obedience, then there is either no practicable definition of abuse, or it is non-existent altogether in the relation between husband toward a wife.

It leads me to the question, “What does a wife owe her husband that he does not also owe her?” According to Paul, they both have “the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law” (Rom 13:8).

I hope this has been helpful. I am grateful to Mize for his hard work in confronting Van Doodeward’s misconceptions about God, himself, and his neighbor, and in his labor, redirecting our eyes to our union with Christ.