An Egalitarian Re-Learns Submission

My journey from complementarianism to egalitarianism began during my sophomore year of college.  It was a course called "Theology and Philosophy of Women in Ministry", taught by one of my favorite professors.  This professor pretty much had us throw out everything we thought we knew about women in the church and start fresh.  We studied women's roles throughout church history, were appropriately appalled by how the reformers viewed women (Martin Luther: "Women...have but small and narrow chests, and broad hips, to the end that they should remain at home, sit still, keep house, and bear and bring up children."), and then had to write position paper after position paper detailing our new understanding of Scripture's take on gender roles.   

Just about all of us went into that class as complementarians, the stance that our school and its professors were all required to hold.  Most students emerged dazed, but still complementarian.  I, along with several other women in my major, wanted to further explore many of the issues we had touched on in that whirlwind semester.  I spent the next several years delving into this topic on my own, with friends and professors, and in class, and finally emerged as a true egalitarian during my senior year of college.

Jason and I, dating in 2007.

My rebirth as an egalitarian has been mostly wonderful.  I have lots of complementarian friends, and enjoy civilly discussing the issue when it comes up (I'm not going to lie, though--I am beyond grateful that my husband is an egalitarian!).  However, in the last few weeks, I've realized something rather...disconcerting.  In my desire to be a GOOD egalitarian, I have discarded submission.

In reading through Ephesians, my eyes glaze over a little at chapter 5.

When someone at church mentions the "s" word, I tune them out.

In discussions about marital roles, I am all "kephale means source" and "MUTUALITY!!!"

"Submission" is so loaded with hierarchical undertones and images of denim-jumpers-of-suppression that I want to extricate it from my theological vocabulary.  But by doing that, I miss out on the opportunity to better serve those around me--especially my husband.  Submission, that act of honoring someone else's needs and desires above my own, is a gift.  One that I don't want to give the complementarians exclusive rights to.

Jason and I have striven for equality in our marriage.  And we've found it, striking an amazing balance of home/work/child responsibilities, at least for this season of life.  Yet, I want to shake that up a little by being a better servant to my husband by submitting (*gulp*, yep, still a scary word) my desires to his.  Not because he's the boss, but because that's what Jesus would do.  I want my marital goal of "equality" to be superseded by "servanthood."

I want to take back submission, because it's Christ-like (Philippians 2), not complementarian.

Disclaimer for the sake of transparency:  While I wrote this blog post, Jason spent about 30 minutes RUBBING MY FEET.  Just sitting on the floor near me, watching his show and giving me a foot rub while I wrote about wanting to serve him better.  And he offered to do it!   I am clearly already waaaay behind in both the submission and awesome spouse departments.