Egalitarian Chivalry

It is arrogance in us to call frankness, fairness and chivalry ‘masculine’ when we see them in a woman; it is arrogance in them, to describe a man’s sensitiveness or tact or tenderness as ‘feminine’.
-C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

I’m working my way through John Stackhouse’s book, Finally Feminist. Dr. Stackhouse sets out to present a theology of gender that is faithful to New Testament record, despite it’s apparent contradictions. In broad strokes this is what he proposes followed by my initial reaction.

The Paradigm

As is evident in the world around us there is a continued tension between the kingdom of the world and the Kingdom of heaven. Stackhouse says, “God’s direct and glorious rule is already and authentically here, through Jesus Christ, but it is not yet fully realized in this world still marred by sin.” This is the context then for the New Testament teaching about gender.

Jesus’, and by extension Paul’s, goal is to have the news of the Kingdom of heaven’s presence made known to as many as possible. In the early church then, there wasn’t an imperative to crate social change since the full manifestation of the Kingdom was understood to be imminent with Jesus triumphant return. This is the context of the “socially conservative” teaching of the New Testament with regard to women (and also interestingly with regards to slavery). Stackhouse calls the priority of the announcement of the Kingdom’s in-breaking over and above revolutionary social change, “holy pragmatism”.

Stackhouse quickly follows this up though by explaining that parallel with the announcement of the Kingdom, “we would expect to see kingdom values at work overcoming oppression, eliminating inequality, binding disparate people together in love and mutual respect and the like.” There are examples in church history where this has been the case but we have been slow to realize that the imminent return of Christ doesn’t exempt us from the work of joining with Jesus in expanding the Kingdom even now. While a conservative sociology was reasonable in Paul’s day, it’s hard to hold that excuse valid today. The pragmatism of announcing the Kingdom come still holds but the creation of a new social order, in partnership with the Sprit, under the authority of Christ, follows closely on its heals.

Gender inequality then is no different than poverty or stealing or lying in that as the Kingdom expands we the Church, play a role in bringing each under the lordship of Christ and his authority.

There are valid verse-by-verse and Greek-word-by-Greek-word critiques of Stackhouse’s paradigm and I’ll simply refer you to the book for a full discussion. For me the interesting bit is that the social understanding of gender is being redeemed as the Kingdom breaks in, no different than the rest of our fallen world.

The Implication

So if Stackhouse is correct and women and men are equal, both in worth and capacity, I wondered if chivalry was finally dead? I’ve concluded probably not.

As the Kingdom is realized and egalitarianism becomes normative I suspect we have the opportunity to be equal in one of two ways. It is possible that women and men could become equally selfish as too often seems to be the case or equally loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, gentle and self controlled.

Selfishness has been the default model of behavior for those with power. The examples are far too numerous: abusive husbands, corrupt CEO’s, absentee fathers, cheating boyfriends, parent’s-basement-dwelling-30-year-olds and too-busy-because-of-work friends. It was once just the men who had the power and the ability to act selfishly, but as egalitarianism finally began winning societal acceptance, women followed this model and became corrupt CEO’s, too-busy-because-of-work friends etc.

There is another way though. We can strive for an “egalitarianism of the fruit”. What if chivalry is not patriarchal because its core (values of sacrifice, love, gentleness and courage) could be extolled in both men and women? What if parenthood is still a viable vocation because gentleness, patience and love were valued in both men and women?

That is the kind of Kingdom I’d like to be a part of.