John Piper and Patriarchal Christianity

John Piper's blog has a piece about women's roles and it's really problematic.

What I find infuriating about John Piper and his ministry (and its popularity among evangelicals) is that they refuse discourse. They consider the Bible to be immutable, but only immutable in their interpretation of it. REALLY, how difficult is it for husbands to "accept" their leadership roles? How difficult is it for men to accept the will of God by accepting their assurance of power in the church?

How insulting to couples who find their own way, making things work with each other. Like there is only one way that couples can "make music."

My husband and I have "inverse" roles in many ways. We work out systems around what is most effective, and what helps us love each other more. We make decisions together. We sacrifice for each other. The idea that I need to submit to him in a first century manner is astonishingly closed-minded. And what about my friends who are in same sex relationships and don't define themselves husband or wife? We aren't allowed to be complementary or harmonizing? Not according to Parnell's (Piper's) point of view--it's "un-biblical," thus un-glorifying to God.

He quotes a "pretend" conversation he had with a woman he heard at a conference. This is how he describes her: "The topic was content strategy on the Web, and the woman doing the talking was a respected author and guru in this particular field. She had brilliant insights on online trends and offered memorable one-liners, and somehow managed to bring up “sexism” at least four times. Her topic had little, if anything, to do with gender, but it became clear that she had been the victim of mistreatment in the past. Her references to gender equality became so prevalent, in fact, that in certain asides it could have passed as a women’s empowerment rally." 

My husband and I read this together and he articulated what I wanted to say so well: "Jonathon Parnell [i.e. also Piper] is a misogynist and an idiot. Parnell is obviously unaware that gender is no longer even popularly (never mind scientifically and theoretically) considered to be binary. For example, we have men with vaginas and women with penises. And it's not shocking. However, I bet he'd be shocked. Parnell wouldn't know queer if it was sitting in front of him. And like so many Christian men, he believes that transgressing traditional roles is a sign of abuse. What is actually shocking is that he jokes about sexual abuse and uses the joke to imply that the real woman he has an imaginary conversation with has been abused. So her problem is patriarchal violence and his solution is more patriarchy."

Right on.

He wants to defend his patriarchal views, against women who stand strongly opposed to sexism specifically in their industry. So he paints them as victims: they're lashing out against men because they're hurt. They sound like feminists but really, it's only because they've been wronged by a bad man out there. Anyway, they shouldn't talk about this at a web content strategy conference--take it to a women's empowerment rally!

Interesting to note that in this imaginary conversation, Jonathon Parnell, the author of this piece, can title himself "JP," yet titles the woman from Silicon Valley "SV." He speaks from his personal point of view. She has no name. A symbolic objectification.