The Poisonous Offspring Of Complementarianism

Yesterday, thanks to the freedom of schedule spring break sometimes permits, I spent the majority of the day with my best friend, whose name is Gabi.  We enjoyed talking about many things throughout the day--memory, logic, theology, personal frustrations, and college.  During a conversation before and during lunch complementarianism came up among the multitude of topics.  Gabi recounted how a complementarian once told her that if a male and female pray together, the boy becomes the "head" of the girl and they are obligated to get married.  "Now we have to get married," I joked, leading to laughter from both of us because we had just prayed for our meal.

I found the situation humorous until I dwelt on the fact that some Christians actually believe this nonsense.  I mean, some Christians would already be uncomfortable knowing that me and Gabi are extremely close friends, hang out as frequently as possible, hang out alone, and discuss personal, spiritual, and existential matters all the time.  But the awareness that some complementarians add stupid beliefs like the idea that men and women who pray together must marry to all of this deeply irritated me as a rationalist and as a Christian and provoked thought.

While not actually part of complementarianism itself as a (mistaken) Biblical doctrine, many beliefs that complementarians individually or collectively champion or practice are poisonous to the unity and community of churches, the emotional and personal lives of individuals, marriages, and friendships.  I am going to list some of these things, but I will clarify right here that NOT ALL complementarians practice or believe some of the following ideas, though these absurd positions do damage the lives of others.


It is complementarians who, sometimes by necessity to even persuade others of their beliefs, encourage people to rely on what amounts to subjective, unshared preferences and feelings when investigating the alleged non-biological differences between men and women.

It is complementarians who can engage in extensive legalism to the point where they have incredibly bizarre thoughts about things like an unmarried man and woman praying together, as I mentioned above--or how a woman is morally bound to not work outside of the home.

It is complementarians who commonly segregate Christians based on gender for activities that do not require it at all, such as Bible studies, prayer meetings, and sometimes even driving from one location to another (logically and Biblically, there is no basis by which to even argue for gender segregation to begin with anyway).

It is complementarians who often fear or are not comfortable with the opposite gender and allow their irrational fear to guide their actions, impeding true fellowship and reconciliation between the two genders with asinine things like the Billy Graham rule [1].

It is complementarians who so frequently sexualize everything from friendship to emotional intimacy to the human body, usually with the ironic aim of preventing sexual immorality.  After they implicitly or explicitly sexualize much of human experience and interaction between males and females, they then wonder why so many people in the church are confused about sexuality and allegedly struggle with sexual sin!  These tactics often result in insecurity, jealousy, and anxiety in marriage due to the perceived overwhelming likelihood of a spouse committing adultery.

It is complementarians who are usually willing to perpetuate fallacious and untrue gender stereotypes inherited from a non-Christian society--even though other societies have held widely different gender roles and stereotypes!

It is complementarians who inconsistently say that wives should submit to husbands but both should love each other, despite Ephesians 5 not allowing for incoherent interpretation like that.  Either wives should submit to husbands--without the opposite or mutual submission ever happening--and husbands should love their wives--without the opposite or mutual love ever happening--or mutuality reigns in both regards [2].

It is complementarians who sometimes teach or imply that men have a closer or more direct spiritual status to/with God than women, though I am aware that some forms of complementarianism do not teach this.

It is complementarians who often refuse to admit when they have deviated from "Biblical" complementarianism into the subjective realm of arbitrary, unsound philosophies.


I do not reject complementarianism itself because some complementarians foolishly add to complementarianism using any or all of these beliefs.  But I do reject complementarianism for its fallacies, inconsistencies, and misinterpretation of the Bible.  Complementarianism itself is illogical and cannot truly be justified on the Biblical grounds its adherents will claim, but the ideological offspring its followers often submit to are inherently poisonous to sound theological frameworks, cross-gender relationships (both marital and non-marital), and individuals of both genders.  They say Christian men and women are brothers and sisters in Christ before falsely proclaiming how dangerous and tempting they are to each other.  They assert that they have understood God's Biblical "blueprint" for men and women and then disagree on what the applications of gender roles and differences are and even what those roles and differences are to begin with, unable to argue for their specifics apart from anecdotes, feelings, and preferences.  They claim a reliance on Scripture for their doctrine and then combine secular stereotypes and assumptions with their assumptive interpretation of the Bible.

Brothers and sisters, these things should not be.


[1].  The Billy Graham rule is an extra-Biblical legalistic rule that says men and women should never be alone with members of the opposite gender unless the people in question are their spouses.  The intent is to avert any possible "appearance of evil" in the realm of sexual immorality, but I have yet to see complementarians telling people on a large scale not to be alone with the same gender to prevent any possible homosexual acts.  Inconsistent people will just be inconsistent, I suppose.

[2].  http://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/02/why-ephesians-5-does-not-teach-rigid.html