THE FALL OF PATRIARCHY: Its Broken Legacy Judged by Jesus & the Apostolic House Church Communities
Del Birkey
Paperback, 6x9 in, 392 pages, Index
Fenestra Books, February 2005
ISBN: 1587363747
Description
Discriminatory practices that impair community life among Christians are frequently denounced by authors in quest of biblical equality. This book takes the thoughtful reader a step further. It identifies the root cause of such practices as the systemic curse of the patriarchal rule that resulted from the fall. Not only does this work provide us with a careful analysis of the nature and workings of patriarchy, but it also presents a vibrant challenge to repudiate the legacy of sin and to uphold the standards of redemption in Christ's new community.
Gilbert Bilezikian, Professor Emeritus, Wheaton College
In addressing head on the topic of patriarchy, Del Birkey has uncovered some challenging materials that bear on the gender issues in the Catholic, Orthodox, and Evangelical church traditions. The patriarchal system is squarely confronted and exposed to full view with its manifest consequences for male-female relations. I warmly recommend this book to all concerned to understand what patriarchy is, and how it may express itself harmfully in the modern Christian family and church.
Alan F. Johnson, Emeritus Professor of NT & Christian Ethics, Wheaton College and Graduate School
Many Christians believe that male dominance is dictated by the Bible. In his provocative new book, Del Birkey challenges this oft-held assumption, critiquing the debilitating battle between Scripture and tradition. Patriarchy is the inevitable theological result of the biblical Fall, Birkey argues, leading to devaluation of and violence against women worldwide. As a fallen system, patriarchy cannot be a legitimate component of biblical Christianity.
Filled with compelling historical and scriptural evidence, The Fall of Patriarchy is a must-read for everyone who has decried the scandal of patriarchal power in Christian ministry today.
About the author
Del Birkey, D.Min., served in pastoral, evangelistic, and teaching ministries both in churches and as visiting seminary professor. He is author of The House Church: A Model for Renewing the Church.
Contents
Foreword, Dean E. Arnold, Professor of Anthropology
Preface
1 Encountering a Patriarchal Ruse
2 The Inevitability of Primitive Patriarchy
3 Patriarchy as a Fallen Worldview
4 Christ Against the Patriarchy
5 Paul Against the Patriarchy
6 The Post-Apostolic Fathers & Ecclesiastical Patriarchy
7 The Fourth Temptation: A Categorical (Male) Authority
8 Gender Patriarchy & the Good News
Appendix A
Patriarchalism and the Word of God—Six Views
Appendix B
Contrastive Summaries on Patriarchy and the Gender Debate
by authors Rebecca Merrill Groothuis, Kevin Giles, William
Webb, Susan Sumner, and W. Bradford Wilcox
Appendix C
The Current State of House Church Studies
Notes 301
Index 367
Preface
Pa.tri.archy: government, rule, or domination by men. Growing up I adopted the typical assumption that patriarchy was probably the right thing to believe in—because of the popular notion that the Creator benevolently endowed in male genes some kind of innate authority.
Patriarchy is intimidating by its very definition and grants audacious men heady ideas of preeminence.
So I took for granted the model I experienced in church. In my church the men were appointed by God to oversee the church's programs and to preach the Word, and gender differences were visually and experientially dramatic. We boys got to sit on the right side of the church with dads and brothers; while moms and sisters comely seated themselves on the opposite side. Although the women were quiet in the church service, their a cappella four-part harmony with the men was memorable. The entire arrangement seemed so decorously proper and orderly. But I eventually wondered about women's missionary work all over the world. Their sacrificial work seemed much more difficult than the men's work in church.
Soon after entering Bible College I became a student pastor—and did I ever need a champion to assist in my new responsibilities! I had a deep-felt need for a viewpoint to support the idea that I, too, have authority to succeed as a pastor. Having no idea of its larger implications, patriarchy came to assist my youthful arrogance. As a twenty-year-old pastor, I suppose the congregation was impressed with my authoritative biblical teachings that I had learned even before Bible College. Most of the teaching, however, was detailed on my huge charts of the dispensations, with emphasis on Daniel, Revelation, and the any-moment rapture.
After a decade of ministry and added maturity, in seminary I became disheartened with the mounting discrepancies and divisions among believers over gender issues. Although the professors did not address patriarchy directly, its worldview and assumptions about gender in the Scriptures prodded me to begin searching for valid answers. With this struggle came the accompanying problem of hierarchical church structures that negate authentic fellowship and render body life nil.
So I set out on a pursuit to create an experimental church community around the basic essentials, as found in the New Testament house church communities. Soon the quest opened a door of opportunity for Doctor of Ministry studies. This, in turn, resulted in my first book, The House Church: A Model for Renewing the Church (Herald Press, 1988). The book is a theology of renewal, focusing on the NT house churches and the principles of small-group house church movements and how they can bring revitalization to any church body. The book also includes research on the egalitarian unity of men and women grounded in the NT house church documents.
A second venture grew out of the first—the investigation that focuses on the tortuous issue of patriarchy and its relationship with the people of God. But, you might ask, why study patriarchy? The idea came rather suddenly. The more I studied the hierarchical arguments for men's domination over women, the more I realized that patriarchy is the driving force behind all masculine priority debates. And most disturbing is the realization that patriarchy is increasingly being propagated in hierarchical complementarian writings as a Christian doctrine. Adding to the entanglement is the fact that egalitarian scholars usually mention patriarchy only in a passing manner, as an unfavorable or threatening kind of influence, but little else.
So I decided to go to the crux of the gender battle by documenting patriarchy itself, researching its composite domination in the historical, social, cultural, and biblical environments. The first foray into the patriarchal matrix began with an essay titled "The Patriarchs Are Coming!" published in Priscilla Papers (Spring, 2000). Three more articles followed, in which I examined and critiqued "Authority and Complementarians' Role Theology."
I do not profess to have arrived at an exhaustive knowledge of patriarchy, but I have become keenly alert to its perverse consequences. Foremost is the unimaginable worldwide violence patriarchy terrorizes upon women and young girls. And even among Christians, the undiagnosed and irreconcilable legacy of patriarchal domination and devastation persists in whatever ecclesiastical guise it is wrapped.
Sadly, most Christians have had little opportunity to understand patriarchy for what it is, and so they possess rose-tinted images of an indistinct idea with an undetermined conclusion. Thus the foundations and worldwide influence of patriarchy have yet to be critically judged by the historical and biblical data from an evangelical egalitarian perspective. It is my intent to inform that formidable void in this monograph.
Several conclusions from my theological and historical investigations stand out. The most misunderstood fact about the New Testament is that every NT document was written to and for a house church community. Modern Christianity is generally very removed in structure and function from those small group fellowships. Furthermore, many modern Christians have little if any conception of the relevance of those first-century churches for our twenty-first-century church life.
Moreover, the investigation into patriarchy brings to light the appalling fact that, when Christian scholars advocate a return to the traditional Christianity of the church fathers, they seldom express even the slightest outrage over the sins of these fathers in their patriarchal gender discrimination in the post-apostolic church. Their un-Christlike attitude reflects why so many American Christians appear to have little knowledge of the fallen powers on which patriarchy's system is structured. Of all people, Christians should be most keen to discern the deception being perpetuated upon God's people—and Christian scholars ought to awaken to the disgrace being propagated.
Finally, my goal in this book is not to critique evangelicalism per se. Many others will continue to excellently analyze the positive and negative characteristics of American evangelicalism. Rather, my intent is limited to the focus on patriarchy in its historical, social, and cultural intersection with evangelical Christianity and the other major expressions of the Christian faith.
My intent is to write with two reader groups in mind. First, I intend to write for scholars, by interacting with and critiquing the relevant academic data. But at the same time I want to pique the interest of those who have not had the opportunity of higher education. So if you are intimidated by high-sounding academics, I hope you will move on to other sections where you just might feel right at home.
The inimitable Charles Spurgeon said of a commentator's writings, "they set ideas wafting through your mind like sparrows twittering in a barn." One of my critics reading this manuscript commented that some of what I have written has probably not been thought of by many. If indeed that is the case, I will have reached my major goal, and hopefully, you the reader, will acquire some new and significant ideas twittering like sparrows in your mind.
