Egalitarian Christianity is Incoherent

Conclusion of The Debate

This is the final (planned) essay in my series on William G. Witt’s book promoting the ordination of women, Icons of Christ.

In the first essay, I showed how those wishing to maintain a “male only” priesthood could read the book of Genesis, not necessarily as a book requiring the exclusion of women from the Christian priesthood, but as a book not at all recommending the sorts of egalitarian convictions that would require Christians or Jews to believe in what is called “gender equality.” Genesis does not suggest such an equality; no man or institution could be blamed for reading Genesis and thinking the rule of men is preferable. There is no clear requirement in Genesis that women be admitted to the priesthood, and there are many reasons to think the book suggests otherwise.

In my second essay, I debunked this idea that everyone who is called a “disciple” in the New Testament is the leadership-equivalent of the Twelve Disciples or the Apostle Paul. I showed that Witt’s attempts to establish a clear Biblical precedent for “equal treatment” in the New Testament was indecisive at best, i.e., no one could be considered a sinner or disobedient, or even “disrespectful,” for rejecting his interpretations and suggestions.

In my most recent essay, I laid out the case against Witt’s brand of egalitarian-Christianity, pointing out that no one could believe that Jesus, his Disciples, and the early Christians would have been bold in denouncing old gods, and attacking, openly, a multitude of regnant hypocrisies, while at the same feeling the need to act “subversively” and “secretely” in matters of “equal treatment” and “gender equality.” The fact is Witt’s egalitarian concerns were not their concerns.

Throughout this debate, as Witt published replies on his WordPress blog, I have replied to him on a Substack (which is like a blog).

In this final essay, I will wrap up the discussion on egalitarian-Christianity, discuss Witt’s attack on the man he calls “the Anglican apologist C. S. Lewis,” and explain what “compromise” means when an issue is labelled “intractable.”

Egalitarian Christianity Is Incoherent

Proponents of women’s ordination are stuck in an indefensible position. They have to prove that Christians are required by Scripture to ordain women to the priesthood.

Hitherto, the egalitarian-Christians believed they could argue that God might very well permit women to become priests; but their position requires much more than this. Egalitarian-Christains are required, by their moral convictions, to show that excluding women from the priesthood is forbidden or sinful. This is impossible though, because Christ was not doing something forbidden or sinful when he picked his Twelve Disciples. When, as on so many occasions, only men were present, as was the case at the Great Commission, there was no sin. It’s impossible to read the Bible and think maintaining a “male-only” priesthood is forbidden by God.

This “freedom to exclude” is inimical to egalitarianism. The egalitarian cannot pledge himself to a religion that only permits women in the priesthood, because that means it likewise permits the exclusion of women from the priesthood. The egalitarian cannot pledge himself to a religion that permits what he considers to be “sexist.” But the Christian religion is such a religion.

Egalitarians cannot sit comfortably with an Authority wherein women are excluded. They have to prove that Christ, the Disciples, Paul, Peter, and others all secretely hoped for an end to “male-only” leadership in the church. There are no direct statements to that effect in the Bible. Egalitarian evidence amounts to this: Christ and the Christians respected women, and from this fact it is claimed that they must have respected women in the same way modern egalitarians think women should be respected:

Jesus taught a woman (Mary) who was kneeling at his feet; that means she might have been called a disciple by Him or the Gospel writers (though we do not see her so called, the posture might indicate it); that means she might have been an equal to the Twelve Disciples; that means we are required to consider women equal-leaders in the church.

All egalitarian arguments are like this. It’s hard to believe any early Christian thought that respecting women as women meant all this; I know traditionalists like C. S. Lewis respected women without believing the priesthood needed changing. I know plenty of men today who think the same way. From what I can tell reading the New Testament, Christ and his Disciples respected women as women, i.e., as different than men, with different virtues and vices than men, suited to different things than men.

Why do Witt and company always have to do the heavy lifting? They have to explain away uncomfortable verses. On the other hand, non-egalitarian Christians need not blush when they read Bible.

To put it plainly and conclude this section: an egalitarian must believe in a Bible that forbids “discrimination against women.” They must believe Christians are required to see women as equally suited to the priesthood of the church. Young people with egalitarian convictions routinely leave the faith because there are no clear commands in the Bible that Christians adopt their egalitarian convictions. Witt and the egalitarians are trying to keep young egalitarians in the faith by assimilating Christianity to their convictions. This is an error. The right course is to improve their convictions so that they are not miseld by egalitarianism into faithlessness.

Why Isn’t C. S. Lewis a Subversive?

Witt finds egalitarianism in the Bible because he must find it there. He doesn’t need to find it in C. S. Lewis, and so he doesn’t take the trouble.

Lewis was saying some very egalitarian sounding things in 1948, which could make him a prime candidate for being one of Witt’s subversives. But Lewis isn’t a required authority, so he gets chastised by Witt for “slut shaming.” (Witt’s thinking goes: when men use the term “priestess,” they are implying a connection between ordained women and temple prostitution.)

The coarse expression used to describe this kind of disapproval is “slut-shaming.” It would seem that the correlation between ordination of women to Christian ministry and “priestess” language is just such an example of cultural shaming behavior. Ordained women do not think of themselves as “priestesses,” but using the term suggests that such women are engaging in sexually inappropriate behavior; for a woman to be ordained is the social equivalence of cult prostitution. “Priestess” language is a form of shaming by associating the ordination of women with questionable sexual behavior. (186)

If Witt were to take all the statements about women made by C. S. Lewis and the Apostle Paul, and line them up beside each other, which of the two would sound more egalitarian? Paul never says anything like this: “I have every respect for those who wish women to be priestesses. I think they are sincere and pious and sensible people.” C. S. Lewis also has books of letters to women, proving that he deeply respected them. Further: his novels have many strong women characters. What about Jane Studdock in That Hideous Strength, who seems to be called to something higher than being a housewife? What if Lewis, like Paul, was just being subversive? Why didn’t Witt take a long hard look at Lewis’ works and find that, according to Lewis’ own principles, Lewis would actually want women to act as priests?

The reason Witt didn’t do this is obvious. Saying “I don’t agree with C. S. Lewis” isn’t the same as saying “I don’t agree with the Bible.” Imagine how Witt would have treated Lewis if he had said the things Paul said, like, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.” That is, imagine how Witt would treat the Apostle Paul if he were not required to respect and follow his teachings. If Witt could accuse C. S. Lewis of “slut shaming,” I imagine more severe chastisements would be formulated for Paul.

Egalitarianism and Reason

“Egalitarian Christianity” can never be unashamed of the Bible; but can straightforward egalitarians be confident in their reason?

A sober consideration of the egalitarian ideal always leads to the conclusion that it must be abandoned. The very man who writes a popular book promoting egalitarian images finds himself honored and enriched by his skill and work. For example, if, following Witt’s arguments, we were all required to “mutually submit” to one another, we would quickly find that those who are better at “mutually submitting” would be honored above those who are not so good at it.

The egalitarian hope comes from this idea: that what is at stake is gain and not hierarchy, or that one can renounce (or “invert”) hierarchy by renouncing personal gain. The egalitarian thinks he is reasonable because he thinks renouncing “gain” is the same thing as renouncing “hierarchy.” This appears more reasonable because it actually is possible to renounce all kinds of gain. Renouncing all kinds of gain is possible, but there is no abolition or “inversion” of hierarchy possible. Hierarchy is unavoidable, and every hierarchy works, dialectically, the same way.

Consider Daniel, who renounced the king’s gifts.

Then Daniel answered and said before the king, “Let your gifts be for yourself, and give your rewards to another. Nevertheless, I will read the writing to the king and make known to him the interpretation.” (Daniel 5:17)

This is renouncing personal gain in the form of rewards. Men can renounce all manner of rewards, but they cannot renounce “being honored” or “doing something people respect.”

A man who hates hierarchy more than anyone else might try to persuade others to hate it too, by publishing his argument against hierarchy. He might publish his work anonymously and forsake all proceeds from it. Even such a man, who gains neither personal honor nor money from his labors, would have established a hierarchy; those impressed by the book, and by the author’s actions, would praise and honor those who emulate the anonymous author, while blaming or ignoring those who do not (or cannot) emulate him.

Everyone who speaks about what is just and unjust, noble and ignoble, beautiful and ugly, and good and bad, contends for a hierarchy of better and worse. If someone goes so far to assert “there is no such thing as unjust, ignoble, ugly, and bad” then all he’s done is raise up those who “recognize this” over those who do not.

Egalitarians can talk of “inverted hierarchies,” but it’s a distinction without a difference. In every hierarchy, however inverted (or perverted) it becomes, there is a ruling ideal by which men are judged as either exemplars (those who exemplify) or deviants (those who deviate). Those who exemplify the ideal are honored; the fact that they are honored means they determine who is “in” and who is “out,” who is “up” and who is “down,” and so on (“high”/”low”; “a success”/ “a failure”; “deserving”/“undeserving,” etc). There is no ideal by which you can destroy these types of distinctions, because every ideal will produce exemplars and deviants. Any attempt to renounce ideals is just a different kind of ideal.

Christianity is not against such distinctions; it is against false and worldly evaluations of these distinctions. There is a worldly success and a Christian righetousness, but there is no egalitarian equality.

An End to Christian Egalitarianism

Egalitarians can never be comfortable with Scripture, because they cannot prove that Scripture requires Christians to admit women into the priesthood. The typically modern concerns over equality are simply not demands of Scripture. The demands of Scripture are clear; and an egalitarian cannot make complex interpretations of Scripture into clear demands. For example: anyone can read Paul and know what is sinful.

But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. (1 Corinthians 5:11)

All Christians can know these kinds of things are sins. Egalitarians, on the other hand, are necessarily left with the discomfort of not finding the things they believe are evils clearly and unequivocally denounced in the Bible. “The Anglican apologist C. S. Lewis” says much stronger things against “misogyny” than Paul ever did.

It has been the delight of anti-Christian thinkers and debaters, in the modern world, to find that almost all of the defenders of Christianity have adopted, conciously or unconsciously, egalitarian convictions that set them at odds with their foundational text. Thankfully, we have reached a point where the dam is breaking.

The Egalitarians March On Nevertheless

A theoretical defeat is not the same thing as a practical defeat. Which is a way of saying that the egalitarian-Christians haven’t yet accepted that their position is discredited. Until the practical instantiation of the spiritual defeat becomes undeniable, “self-evident,” the egalitarian-Christians will continue to assimilate their institutions to the prevailing culture.

In other words, I fear that the decided approach to the critique I am levelling is the silent march. Witt has decided to label the differences between non-egalitarian Christians and egalitarians “intractable”; which is a way of saying, he no longer believes discussion and debate can be fruitful, that continued discussion is pointless. After he claimed that the issue was intractable (on July 16) he did continue to write two voluminous essays (July 31 & August 15), amounting to over 30 pages of material. However, the evident point of these essays is to reassure his supporters while at the same time avoiding debate over the central issues. In these essays, Witt claims he was “tempted to reply with a point by point response” to my criticisms, but decided to explain his theological point-of-view instead.

Readers of Witt’s essays are encouraged to think “Well, those Reactionaries have their point-of-view and we have ours, and the question is intractable. Thankfully, our point of view is very respectable and allows us to hold our heads high in polite society.” I am afraid this tempting “solution” is no solution at all.

A compromise cannot be maintained if one side has decided it no longer will debate and dialogue with the other side. If the issue is intractable, if there is no intention of resolving it through dialogue, then the “compromise” is really a victory for the side that doesn’t need to discuss the issue to get its way.