(230)S11E2/3: The False Prophet of Abuse w/Dr. William Witt
Welcome back to the Fourth Way podcast.
Derek:In this episode, I had the privilege of interviewing doctor William Witt. I wanted to speak with doctor Witt because he has written one of the most influential books that I've ever read on the topic of gender roles in the church. His book, Icons of Christ, is well worth your time to explore. But why did I wanna speak with Doctor. Witt in regard to a season on propaganda?
Derek:Well, we recorded this episode just weeks after the Southern Baptist Convention or the SBC came out with a lengthy report detailing a plethora of pastors involved in sex scandals and abuse in the SBC over the decades along with systematic cover ups. Now, this isn't at all to point at the SBC as being uniquely vile as the problem exists in many denominations and in our culture in general. But what I wanted to speak with doctor Witt about was primarily twofold. First, how are certain messages insulated from critique? In regard to complementarianism, we discuss how accusations are levied against those with different views that they don't take the Bible seriously.
Derek:They don't believe the Bible is inspired by God. Rather than deal with logic and arguments on the egalitarian side, complementarians make pejorative attacks oftentimes. In fact, just recently I saw, I think it was on Twitter that Beth Allison Barr was saying, well she was frustrated because she was saying that that she can't make any arguments without somebody just saying, well you don't believe in inerrancy and you don't believe in the Bible and they just dismiss her rather than having a discussion with her. Such tactics are indicative of a propagandized culture. Second, in this discussion, we talk about the fruit of complementarianism and whether or not what it produces is indicative of its veracity or falsehood.
Derek:But
Derek:more
Derek:than exploring the issue of complementarianism and ideology and evaluating the epistemology, we talk about power and love and submission in the church. There are a few big ideas in here specifically related to propaganda that I wanna hone in just a little bit more. We talk a lot about power and control in this episode. Now you can't ever forget that propaganda isn't really about an ideology, though a lot of times it it there is some ideology woven into or or explicit to the message of propaganda. But it's not really about the ideology so much as it is about producing particular results and eliciting particular responses.
Derek:Propaganda cares about the effect, it doesn't care what medium it uses to to achieve that effect. In regard to, you know, our culture and sexual abuse or the the SBC report that came out, Why do so few women report sexual crimes against them? And why do so many male leaders cover up the abuse of women if both of their preached ideologies seem to encourage the opposite responses? Responses that women should report crimes because they know that those things are evil or male leaders not covering up and bringing sin into the light. Now, why are the actions of these groups the opposite of what you think they should be?
Derek:Well, if propaganda elicits reactions, I think part of the reason is because these groups, all of us are propagandized in in some form or fashion and propaganda is often much subtler and and more difficult to see through than the overt ideology or text. But we're often busy and distracted by taking a look at the overt ideologies that are stated on paper rather than looking at the fruit that's born out. So essentially, women know they won't be listened to and churches subconsciously falter in their idea that women are ontologically inferior or maybe churches hold ideas that they have to keep the abused hushed up to prevent a stain on the church's reputation. I don't know. There's there's something there though.
Derek:When we look at the discussion on complementarianism and abuse, you can't simply assess the stated ideology. You have to look at the elicited actions and the methods of defense in in the discussions that are had. When women aren't coming forward, when male leaders are covering things up, and when theological discussions look like essentially ad hominem attacks, there's propaganda going on here. And that leads to something else that you should look out for. And and this is gonna come at the end of the episode, so this is gonna be important to to kind of understand now so that you can kind of also see it come up throughout the episode but less explicitly.
Derek:So throughout our seasons, we've talked about things like systemic racism or CRT. In this episode, egalitarianism. And we discussed how ideas like this are labeled as woke or progressive or, I don't know, democrat, liberal, whatever you want to put on it. And they're labeled as such in order to dismiss the idea without actually having to deal with the idea. Hitler in his book Mein Kampf talks about how this is a strategy that he used when he was assailed by multiple ideological opponents.
Derek:You know, if if you have a particular political view and there are four political individuals who disagree with you or four groups that disagree with you, somebody might look at that and say, hey, wait a second. If most people disagree with you then it seems like you might be wrong. It's gonna be harder to believe you. But Hitler was a brilliant propagandist and he recognized a solution to this. If you appear weak when assailed by four enemies, what if you can actually categorize those four enemies and consolidate categorize and then consolidate them as one common enemy?
Derek:So it's intellectually and theologically tedious to deal with egalitarians and systemic racism and CRT and inerrancy or infallibility or you know, your view of scripture, your view of the atonement, your view on sexuality, all all those things. It's very tedious to have to think through and deal with all of those things. So what do you do? Well, if you don't believe in my view of the atonement, of inerrancy, of sexuality, of you name it, then you're woke. And if you're woke, I don't have to deal with seven different ideologies.
Derek:I just have to deal with one ambiguous ideology, this wokeness, whatever that means. It's a genius strategy but it's a disingenuous one and it prevents us from having to deal with rational ideas through discourse. And unfortunately, it works. And of course, once the lines in the sand are drawn and those people over there are woke and we are not, we take on this other aspect of propaganda which is the polarization or the Manichean side. You're either for us or against us.
Derek:It's either black or white. You either believe the bible and complementarianism or you believe egalitarianism and you aren't a Christian. Propaganda creates these simplistic false dichotomies. It draws the line in the sand not to say, hey, you who are without sin, step up here and throw the first stone. Rather, it draws a line in the sand and begs to be first in line to throw the stone.
Derek:Polarization and demonization are a significant aspect and often indicative of propaganda. Finally, one other thread that comes up throughout this episode is community. And we don't ever really spend a ton of time elaborating on this, but it is very important. Propaganda is propagated through communities and ideologies are held communally. That's really important to understand.
Derek:It's hard to change ideas which are held as a part of a community. But while that's true of the formation and holding of bad ideas through propaganda, it's also true of good ideas and the way that good ideas form and are held. The way that we fight propaganda, I think, as we'll discuss more at the end of the season, is through community. Again, we don't really get into specific discussions on this all that much here, but it's something to listen out for and tuck away because it's gonna be something that we come back to throughout the season. So with all that said and all those things to look out for, let's go ahead and jump right into the episode.
Derek:Let me give you a little bit of background because I I know that in an email conversation, it might be a little bit difficult to kind of understand where I'm coming from. So let me tell you kind of what my thoughts are and where I'm coming from and fill you in. And then my goal is to just ask you some questions and let you do the vast majority of the talking.
Dr. Witt:Okay.
Derek:Alright. So I am I'm doing a season on propaganda. It's something that's in the last couple years, in particular, has seemed to me to be something that's that's really important to understand in our culture. You know, one of the one of the things, that's that's pretty clear is that propaganda is used to to maintain control. And a lot of people think that that, propaganda is, you know, just basically people trying to lie or deceive other people, and that that does happen in propaganda.
Derek:But, really, it's, you know, a lot like the garden and the snake. You know, it's it's as much truth as possible mixed with with as little lying as possible. Because the closer something is to the truth, the more easily it's gonna go down. So the the most effective way, though, that that propaganda functions is that it it creates a a culture or a community that kind of, inculcates, people with ideas. And so there's a there's a famous you know, the in the smoking campaign when they're trying to get everybody to smoke, they had a problem getting the women to smoke.
Derek:Well, there's a famous torches of freedom in 1929 where, they're like, hey. You know, you guys just got the vote a couple years ago. And smoking, it's emancipation. It's freedom. Like, women, this is this is the image that you want.
Derek:You're a community together, band together.
Dr. Witt:Right. Yeah. I I remember when I was younger and they used to allow tobacco commercials on television that there were particular products that were specifically geared toward women, including skinny cigars. I remember those very well. They were cigars very specific, but it was very clear.
Dr. Witt:Yeah. Is
Derek:that, like, the the Cruella de Vil thing? You know?
Dr. Witt:Well, no. It was just these they were cigars that were about the size of a cigarette, size and tube of a cigarette, rather than traditional big fat cigars that that men smoke. That's awesome. Yeah. That's that was a long time ago.
Dr. Witt:Yeah.
Derek:Well, in in this particular section of the season, I've been talking a lot about how how abusers or yeah. Generally, abusers use propaganda in regard to sub the subjectification of women. Yeah. And, you know, the the reason I invited you here isn't because you're you have an expertise in abuse, which which you made very clear, like, not at all. You were kind of nervous about that.
Derek:But the the reason I invited you here is because you wrote a book that was very influential for me, which deals with the Christian view of women, and and I wanna talk about the idea of subjectification of women in the Christian sphere. So if you would, just just give a a brief background about your book called Icons of Christ and maybe explain how you came to write it and why you thought it was important?
Dr. Witt:Yeah. Sure. And and a lot of what you're you're saying has since the book has come out, I have begun to experience kind of pushback that that shows me that this culture is very much still alive. I was raised in a church that was the word that is now used is complementarian. We didn't have that word in those days, but it was very clear that men were in charge.
Dr. Witt:Women were they had a place to be in subjection to men. Certainly, kind of that was the kind of family I was raised in. I wouldn't describe my father as abusive, but he definitely the word that was used in those days would say that he wore the pants in the family, and even that is a gender specific expression. I left that denomination when I was in my twenties, and there were a number of reasons. But one of the reasons had to do with the equality of women, which I had come to accept.
Dr. Witt:And I became an Episcopalian, which at that time was a church that was ordaining women. They had just started ordaining women a few years earlier. And in that church, the the problem of clergy who were women was just never it just wasn't a problem. So I didn't have to deal with it for the most part until recent years. And there have been there has been a split that has taken place in the Episcopal Church, but other denominations as well.
Dr. Witt:The Lutherans, the Methodists, yeah, are are getting ready to have something like that going on. And one of the things that we discovered is that the many of the conservative people and by conservative, I'm not talking about politics necessarily. I'm talking theologically more traditional side. That there were folks who were suddenly retreating back and saying, when did things go wrong? Well, they went wrong when, among other things, we got a new prayer book, and that may not mean anything to you.
Dr. Witt:But we also began ordaining women. And so there was this argument that these two things were connected. And so something that I thought had been settled way back thirty some years ago was suddenly now being brought forward again. There was a woman I knew who I mentioned in the beginning of the book. Her name was Martha Giltonen.
Dr. Witt:She was a professor of pastoral theology at the seminary where I teach. She was an ordained woman. And she was saying, I'm really surprised to hear this. I mean, I've been an ordained priest for twenty some years. I've not encountered this now.
Dr. Witt:Suddenly, I'm encountering it again. She asked if I would write something about it to put on my block, and I I was reluctant. I said, look. I'm I'm a layperson. I'm not ordained.
Dr. Witt:I'm not a woman. I think it would be better if you did this. And her response was and and she was correct. That she was not a writer, and she didn't have the historical background and the theological background that I did. She again, her area was pastoral ministry, how to do the day to day kind of thing.
Dr. Witt:So I said, okay. I'll I'll write a few essays. And and I begin writing essays, and I ended up writing an entire book. And she, unfortunately, got cancer when I was about halfway through writing it, so she never saw it finished. She died.
Dr. Witt:But as to keep my promise to her, I did finish it, addressed a number of publishers, and Baylor University Press agreed to publish it. And, I mean, I I will say as far as I know, it is currently the only book out there that covers specifically focusing on the ordination of women, but covers as much material as I as I cover. So a lot of the material that I'm looking at is biblical and theological material that's very specific. So there are a lot of books talking about Paul on women. There are books talking about Roman Catholic reasons for ordaining or not ordaining women.
Dr. Witt:And then there's a whole ordination question, which is a different question from, you know, what Paul might say. One of the things I wanted to do was to pull this together and put it in one place. So if you wanna find out, you don't have to I'm gonna buy this book on Paul and this book that talks about the Roman Catholic position, etcetera, etcetera. So I wrote that to just sort of pull it all together. And it and it it's been received fairly well for an academic text.
Dr. Witt:The publisher has let me know that it's one has been one of their bestsellers. I get emails on a regular basis for from people who thank me for what I've written. But I've also gotten some vicious criticism, including I mean, some of the reviews of my book, I've been somewhat flabbergasted saying, my goodness. You you're you're not well informed about the current state of the discussion. You you you just don't know what biblical scholars have been saying for the last twenty or thirty years, which is one of the reasons I wrote the book.
Dr. Witt:So that that's sort of an overview.
Derek:Yeah. Yeah. I I actually read read your book twice, you know, once once when it was in the PDF, or I I saved it as PDFs from your website, and and then I bought the book when it came out. So and, yeah, I it was very extremely comprehensive. And and even though you did, you did a Protestant version and kind of a a Catholic version in in in the book and kinda went through all the arguments, I really appreciated that because working in an orthodox context, they're significantly different than than Catholics, but it's it's still very similar.
Derek:They're they're more similar to Catholics than Protestants.
Dr. Witt:Yeah. And, and in fact, two of the main, writers, whom I learned from in that section were Orthodox theologians, a woman writer, and Orthodox bishop named Callistus Weir. For some reason, the woman's name is still to me right now, but I read hundreds of books. But yeah. Well, I'm glad to hear that.
Dr. Witt:So
Derek:Yeah. So I think, like you said, your your book is very comprehensive, and you can get some of the things that you say elsewhere but kind of piecemeal. One of the things that that I got from your book that I don't recall getting anywhere else, and and I'm sure it probably is somewhere else, but the thing that that was really powerful for me because I I also grew up in a complementarian background. I'm still in a complementarian denomination. And it's kind of been ingrained in me that if I if I question that that, you know, then I basically don't believe in inerrancy and, you know, I'm gonna be a liberal who accepts homosexuality and abortion and, you know, that that whole slippery slope thing.
Derek:But one of the things that that kind of took that burden off of me a little bit was your really powerful argument, which you say you you call the argument from tradition is not the traditional argument. You briefly outline that argument against traditional complementarianism? Yeah.
Dr. Witt:Well, this is actually a position that is often taken in these discussions by both I mean, it's more of a a Roman Catholic argument to focus on tradition, but complementarian complementarians use it as well. The argument is basically, look. The church has never ordained women. The church has always thought that only men should be ordained. And so if you agree you know, if you're endorsing the ordination of women, you are also basically rejecting the entire history of Christian faith.
Dr. Witt:And and what is missing from this is an actual discussion of the history of how ideas develop. So and and and including these folks seem to be unaware of their own history. So if if you look at the history of the discussion of why women are not ordained, you will find repeatedly over and over in the tradition is that it has it has to do yes. It has to do with authority, which is a complementary argument, but it also has to do with capacity. And, theologians consistently through the entire history of the church have said that women are less intelligent than men, that women are more susceptible to temptation than men are, and women are highly emotional.
Dr. Witt:And and it's for this reason that women can't be ordained. But not just that women can't be ordained, but that women should not have any do any kind of work that takes place in the public sphere. So there's men's work that has to do with, you know, leaving the house and cut you know, and I'm gonna be a politician. I'm gonna be a farmer. I'm gonna be a soldier, whatever.
Dr. Witt:And there's women's work that has to do with having children, raising those children. And and what this is is it's sort of a a theological endorsement of that understanding of the roles of the sexes. A lot of that has historically has to do with the differences between an industrial and a post industrial culture. I pulled out a huge pile of my books here, and I realized that the the the text is gonna be backwards because it's a mirror image. But this book that I talk about in my book a lot called the redemption of love, rescuing marriage and sexuality from the economics of a fallen world, talks about the changes that have taken place as a result of moving to a post industrial society where women are not confined to having lots of children and being home for basic reasons of of of economics.
Dr. Witt:That in a world of economic scarcity and where most people are are working in agriculture, women, children have to be around women because women have to take care of them, and men are the ones who largely do the heavy lifting. And that's still largely the case, in agrarian societies, for example, most of Africa, where I teach. We get a lot of seminarians who come from Africa, and their cultures are still very traditional in that sense. They often are you know? But they're going through a transition as they are becoming, more and more industrialized.
Dr. Witt:So they will have, they will have cell phones, but often they will also live in areas that are incredibly remote and isolated. So all of that is connected. In one of the things that began happening around the time of the reformation, but more since then, is the modern world has seen more and more of an equality among among people. And we've seen things like civil war, American civil war, and the abolition of slavery here. In England in the nineteenth century, there were evangelicals who were very much at the forefront at eliminating eliminating slavery in the slave trade, man named William Wilberforce, whom you may or may not have heard of.
Dr. Witt:We we've come to realize that racism is a problem. And the the notion that working people should have more say about the kinds of jobs that they do, what they're seeing in the workplace, the rise of unions. And, of course, the freedom and equality of women is also part of this. And as we're now living in a world that's very, very much postindustrial, most people work outside of the home, and it's very common for women to still to have work outside of the home as as well as men, and people have to worry about day care and things like that. And that's true among comletarians as well as it is among even egalitarians.
Dr. Witt:One of the shifts that happened as a result of this, women got the vote in The United States in the earlier twentieth century, the same in other parts of the world. And a a shift took place in terms of how traditional Roman Catholics and Protestants talked about these things. They began talking about the equality of women, which was something they had never said before. The Roman Catholic church, made very public statements about this, and some of it's encyclicals. Modern Protestants have made these statements.
Dr. Witt:And it's interesting that the primary Protestant argument against the ordination of women, like, complementarians are very emphatic about the fact that they believe women are equal to men. Really talk about a difference of roles. If there are certain roles that men are called to, women are called to other roles, but there's a general equality. What is not being acknowledged when they make those kinds of statements is that this actually is a shift that five hundred years ago, you wouldn't have heard people arguing that men and women are generally equal in every way except there are these different roles. In fact, it specifically, the traditional argument against the ordination of women had to do with inequality.
Dr. Witt:So that's that's what that argument is about. So what what I argue is that all three of the the positions, if you wanna call them three, in the contemporary church, whether you're you adopted the Protestant position against the ordination of women, the Catholic position against the ordination of women, or whether the Catholic or evangelical position in favor of the ordination of women, you are basically operating out of a changed understanding of the relationship between men and women and that you're acknowledging right off the bat that men and women are fundamentally equal in terms of intelligence and emotional stability. And so if you so for even, evangelicals, if you don't ordain women, you don't make the argument because women are stupid, which is the argument that that would have been made, hundreds of years ago. So that's that's a short summary of that argument.
Derek:Yeah. They they still might say women are stupid. They just do it in, like, dog whistle types of ways and and, you know
Dr. Witt:Well, they're differently. That there is some truth to that. Yeah.
Derek:So yeah. And I think the reason that that argument was so powerful for me is because church history and tradition is it's not always the clincher for me, but there are a lot of times that I feel like that that highlights, maybe unhealthy shifts in in things where we're, you know, trying to be progressive, but we're we're moving away from something that that's rooted in tradition. And so historicity is something that, in my complementarian circles, was was a huge problem for me thinking about throwing off complementarianism. And I I think your argument to show and especially some of the quotes that that you have from the Anti Nicene church as well as the the con post Constantinian church, it's pretty terrible. And, I mean, their reason for holding to, you know, whatever you call it because it's not complementarianism.
Derek:Yeah. But it's just terrible.
Dr. Witt:That's true. A lot of the yeah. There I mean, there is there's there's a considerable variation. So there are some folks, like Albert the Great and John Knox, who are quite vicious in the way that they speak about women. And I have those quotations.
Dr. Witt:There are other people who are far more moderate. So I point out that that Thomas Aquinas can speak very favorably of the relationships between men and women. He has this beautiful passage that says that the woman was not created from the head of man because she doesn't rule over him. She's not created from his feet because he does not rule over her. She's created from his side because they are bound together by love.
Dr. Witt:You know, it's a beautiful understanding of the relationship between men and women. And and, also, I mentioned Luther is it seems to be somewhat of an exception. He says that if there had been no fault, that men and women would have been completely equal, and he has a very positive view of his wife, Katie. But even among people like Thomas Aquinas, when push comes to shove, he says, well, it has to do with a greater capacity for reason among men. And I think that in terms of practical experience, some of this had to do with people's everyday experience.
Dr. Witt:Very few women very few women would have been educated. Very few men would have been educated, but but women in particular, would have been largely confined to the domestic sphere. So, when you have someone who's, you know, extremely educated, even someone who's a sexist, like Albert the Great or I just forget the I forgot the name. John Knox. The women that they're gonna encounter are not going to be very intelligent.
Dr. Witt:Richard Hooker, who's in my own tradition in Anglican when he talks about women, he says that more women are Calvinists because women are more susceptible to emotional weakness, and and that probably explains why you know, he he doesn't think much of Calvinism. The Puritans are the foe, but he thinks that's why so many women are attracted to Calvinism. So there is yeah. There there's no question. And I think honesty demands that we pay just acknowledge that there is a history of of sexism in the church.
Derek:Yeah. So so your argument, I think, takes away the the problem of of historicity and and that kind of bludgeon that's used. And and, really, what it seems to show is that, okay, if you're gonna call egalitarians progressives, then you need to also call complementarians progressives because they they're not adhering to to the the grounding of of the early church. But, you know, there's still there's still one other hurdle for me in in even considering something that's not complementarianism. It was history historicity.
Derek:But then the other thing is, and and people like Beth Allison Barr and and others who are pushing back in the evangelical sphere are are talking about how, hey. When I when I talk about this, you're saying now that I don't believe in the Bible. You're saying that I don't believe that the Bible is the word of God. You're saying that I don't believe in, you know, inerrancy or in infallibility. And so this is kind of the second cudgel that that's being used to preserve complementarianism.
Derek:Do you feel like it's it's a fair fight to use use such accusations?
Dr. Witt:Or Well, like, I mean, I I don't wanna be rude, but but to me, it just simply reflects an ignorance. Those of us who are advocating for the equality or ordination of women are not doing so based upon the fact that we think the bible is wrong. We're doing so based on the fact that we think that this is the central message of the bible. And one of the reasons I had, you know, so many of authors that I interacted with who were biblical scholars is that they they make that argument much better than I can. So yeah.
Dr. Witt:I mean, so my argument, if you read my book, I'm not saying Paul was wrong. I'm saying that people who interpret Paul to say that women should always be subordinate to men and that women cannot teach or themselves they're mistaken in their in their reading of Paul. They're especially, I would say, mistaken in their reading of Jesus who had women disciples. And, of course, they're mistaken, I would say, in the reading of Genesis, the creation narrative, which is, I think, is central for understanding of the relationship between men and women. In Genesis, the man and the woman are portrayed as being entirely equal with the same creation mandate in Genesis one twenty eight to rule over and subdue the earth.
Dr. Witt:They're all given equal responsibilities. It is only after sin enters the world that we're suddenly told that the woman's desire for be will be for her husband, but he will rule over her. That's not portrayed as nowhere is it said before that that it's the man's responsibility to rule over the, the woman. And this ruling of the man over the woman is indicated as one of the consequences of the fall. In the same way that the man is told he will have to work by the sweat of his brow, that what originally was a kind of harmony between, the human beings and creation and between the man and the woman now becomes a disharmony where, there's a a conflict between the man and nature.
Dr. Witt:There's a conflict, between, the man and the woman. And, basically, what the gospel is largely about is about restoring this harmony that that is a result of sinfulness. So that that's an overview. But but yeah. And and I would just say for people who say that kind of thing, I would just ask them, have you read the scholarship?
Dr. Witt:I mean, have you really read what people you know, again, I have big fat books here. Philip b Payne's book on Paul and women when in Christ. I think that this is sort of, like, the definitive study on the subject. And he argues that that the the complementary in reading is is just mistaken. So if I thought yeah.
Dr. Witt:I mean, I'm I'm a systematic theologian. I have a new book coming out this fall that's about, not about women at all, but about the doctrine of the atonement. If I if I didn't take scripture seriously, I wouldn't be teaching theology and particularly wouldn't be teaching at the kind of place I'm teaching at.
Derek:Right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well Sorry.
Derek:Sorry. Go
Dr. Witt:ahead. I didn't have any idea that I was gonna get going, but yeah.
Derek:No. No. No. I I appreciate that. I I had something in my mind, and it it just slipped, but I'll come back to it.
Derek:So so historicity and and inerrancy or infallibility, those are those are two big things, and those are those are more, you know, logical things. You can you can take a look back at history. You can make a case. You can take a look at theology and, and make a case. But, you know, there there's also a, another concept that I think is typically levied at different ideas, and that is the idea of, the fruit of of ideas.
Derek:And so I wanna talk a little bit about that. And, of course, this is gonna be a bit more subjective. You know, there's always the the no true Scotsman that can come out and say, well, you know, well, they're not really true complementarians if they do this, or they're not true Christians. Nevertheless, you know, we know that ideas have consequences, and we're talking couple weeks after the the SBC reports on abuse just came out. The the Catholic church sex scandal is is still raging on, and you still hear more and more people who are kind of coming to light in that.
Derek:We're seeing Christian leader after Christian leader caught up in sex scandals. You know, Ravi Zacharias for me was was a big one. And and a lot of these leaders hold really significant positions of power. They're in denominations that view women as functionally, if not ontologically lesser, even if they say that they don't. And a lot of these these groups also seek power and results, right, over over integrity, which I I think we've seen play out in politics in the last six years or so, especially.
Derek:But, you know, regardless of the intention of most complementarians, do you think that, a complementarian viewpoint creates the soil in which this kind of abuse is bound to happen and and festers and gets covered up and abetted, or do you think this is that's not something unique to complement or or worse in in complementarian ideology?
Dr. Witt:Yeah. That's a really, really good question. I I taught a course in social ethics last fall, And I I dealt I I did have a couple of weeks on the whole question of abuse of women. We're talking more about sexual abuse than perhaps physical abuse, but but all that was interested going on. And and what you know, one of the reason I wanna do this is because this has become a major issue in the church.
Dr. Witt:And one of the issues that did come up was the whole question of power. And there was some pushback among what I would say complementarian in the course who thought that you know, said, you're saying that, you know, if I'm a complementarian that I am necessarily an abuser. And I I wasn't saying that. But I what I will say is this. I mean and, again, I I have to be quite honest.
Dr. Witt:I have a particular position. I I think that the complementarian position on women is not what scripture really teaches. But I also do think that and I and I also wanna be clear about abuse. The problem of abuse is it seems to be an inherent problem with men and not just Christian men. But I I think that I'm gonna bring up another I I wanted to make sure that I was ready for you.
Dr. Witt:But a guy named Kevin Giles, I don't know if you've heard of him, he wrote a book that, again, I would recommend. All these things have been coming out in the last year or so called the headship of men and the abuse of women. And he studies this and you know, he studied this in in some detail, and he looks particularly at the Southern Baptist, also this diocese of Sydney in Australia, which is a Anglican diocese but is complementarian. And he has noticed that there is a a correspondence. In looking at the social literature, he said that, basically, there are two things that you have to have in order to have the abuse of women.
Dr. Witt:One is what he calls a macro culture. That is an overall view that says men have power, men should be in control, and women should be in subordination to men. And in in cultures where that understanding is more dominant, abuse takes place more often. So he particularly points out that that among certain cultures, particularly African culture and Central and South American culture where there's a kind of big focus on what you'd call machismo in Central South American culture, in Africa where men are very much in charge, there there's a more just in terms of the percentages, there's a higher percentage of abuse of women. If you believe and it's interesting that the the official complementarian position basically overlaps with this characteristic that makes abusing of women abusive women more permissible, that is to say men should be in charge.
Dr. Witt:The second thing that you need in order for abuse to take place is an individual man who often has problems with anger control, who's has low self esteem, who has views about his need to be in control and to have power, and will often believe that the that the women in his life are the few people that he can control. And this is often sometimes connected with alcohol. Not all men who are complementarian are abusive. So you might well believe that it is the responsibility of men to be in charge and to run things. And it's interesting that the SBC, Southern Baptist Church, and the diocese of Sydney, he points out, took out you know, put out strong statements couple of years ago against the abuse of women and and argued complementarianism does not abuse women.
Dr. Witt:It protects women. We should not you know, if if you love your if you love your wife and you're protecting her, you should not be abusing her at all. But in fact, what what seems to happen and seems to have happened is that there is a higher percentage, and some of it has to do with a permission, that is given. And one of the things that Giles points out, is that often Christian men who abuse their wives will appeal to ideas like the Bible says that I am the head. The Bible says that you were to submit, and they will use that as as a justification for what they're doing.
Dr. Witt:Now there is, no justification for men to abuse women, and, complementarians, would say that that should not be taking place. And I have known people who don't believe in the ordination of women who, in fact, are some of the most loving and caring people I I I know. One of the things that Giles points out is that many men who claim to be complementarians when it actually when push comes to shove are very egalitarian in their own home life. And I would say that, you know, in terms of my own experience, I grew up in that culture in which men were supposed to be in charge. My father was a loving, caring person, And I would say that most of the decisions my parents made were pretty much both of them, you know, had something to say about the matter.
Dr. Witt:And if it when my mother had a very strong opinion and put her foot down, my father would generally give away. But I I do think that this theological position that says that men should be in charge does give certain men permission and a theological permission to do to use this to vent their anger anger against wives or significant women in their in their lives. Yeah. The the other question, I think, that's not necessarily to do with spousal or family abuse is the whole question of why so many men in positions of power use that power to sexually abuse women. And that seems to be running I mean, I I think it was probably going on all along, but we just weren't aware of I remember, you know, when the the Roman Catholic thing was going on twenty years ago, I remember that we're hearing, you know, fellow Protestants saying, you know, this is horrendous.
Dr. Witt:This is awful. And this happens because of, you know, priestly celibacy, and this doesn't happen among us. Well, we're it's now very clear it is happening among us. In in the church of which I'm a member, we've had scandal after scandal after scandal where clergy who were pastors of of large churches have been involved in in abusive behavior and even a couple of cases where bishops have had to step down. And, again, I'm not speaking from Anglican point of view.
Dr. Witt:Bishops are basically the the higher ups in the authority. So we we're certainly not exempt from it. Whether there's a direct connection between I mean, I I personally, I I don't understand how clergy could could get involved in sexual abuse of parishioners under any circumstances because it's so clearly against what scripture teaches. Whether that's connected to complementarianism, I I could not say. But I I do think that sometimes that physical abuse and the tendency to domineer and to use anger to control people can at least find its justification in the idea that men should have authority over women.
Derek:Yeah. It's there's a I'll have to read that that book by did you say it was Giles was his last name?
Dr. Witt:Yeah. Kevin Giles. Kevin Giles. Okay. G I l e s.
Dr. Witt:And he's been writing about these things for a long time, but he he wrote this book just a year or two ago called the headship of men and the abuse of women. Are they related in any way? And it's a, you know, it's a 100 page read. You can read it in an hour or two. But it he he does make a strong argument.
Derek:Okay. Yeah. I I recently read the way of the dragon and the way of the lamb, which is which is a lot about power and and interviewing different different, you know, Christian leaders. And, yeah, it it was just very interesting how power how the use of power in placing yourself above somebody, you know, even even if you're in a denomination like your own, which doesn't adhere to complementarianism, you can still, just like you said, some complementarians really act like egalitarians. Some egalitarians probably really act like
Dr. Witt:Yeah. And and I would say that I I remember the Anglican Church of North America, and we are a mixed bag on this question. So there are we're we're divided into these things called dioceses, which are basically geographical groupings, but not all of them are. And some of them were dating women and some of them did not. But the what what's interesting is that the sexual abuse does not seem to have confined itself one way or the other.
Dr. Witt:So we've yeah. I don't wanna go into to details. If people wanna do, you know, do the research, they can find out. But there's been a lot of there have been several cases of prominent figures in in the church who've had to be removed from their positions in the last two or three years because of sexual abuse. Some of it heterosexual, but some of it surprisingly homosexual, which is really odd because the issues of sexuality was one of the reasons the split took place.
Dr. Witt:But I I have come to believe you know, GK Chesterton and Reynold Niebuhr both agreed that original sin was the one dogma that was empirically verifiable, and I think that that is that is the case.
Derek:Yeah. So so talking about fruits. Okay. We we just talked about the fruit of complementarianism. I think another big struggle for me is you kind of you also have the same accusation, levied at Christianity in general.
Derek:Right? So if if Christianity was the true religion, you know, I I would expect that that you would be doing a lot better. Like, it would work, and you wouldn't be as prone to these sexual deviances, to this abuse of power. And the bad fruit of the church, even even if we say, well, we're we're only about as bad as the world, still, if we have the holy spirit residing in us, we should be doing a whole lot better than the world. And and likewise, I also hear this fruit argument levied against, you know, the in regard to homosexuality.
Derek:The the church's treatment of view on homosexuality seems to be leading to a lot of self harm in the LGBTQ community. And so people say, hey. Look. If your if your ideology was really love and good for people and about community, then these people wouldn't be killing themselves because you're you're critiquing them and you're critiquing their lifestyle. How would you how would you respond to this idea that, you know, it's easy to sit here and and poke complementarians and say, hey.
Derek:Your your system kind of proves itself wrong sort of by by the way that you have a tendency towards abuse of power, yet the church as a whole seems to have bad fruits, and and our views on homosexuality seem to produce bad fruit.
Dr. Witt:The yeah. Two different questions here. One, I would say that, you know, for people who've really studied history, humanity produces bad fruits. I mean, if if if if you you know, re the history of the ancient world in particular, this would you know, the ancient world was a a world in which slavery was normal. It was a world in which, you know, people were were commonly crucified.
Dr. Witt:That's why Jesus, you know, Jesus died on the cross. The gospel what I would say about Christianity is that it has made significant changes where it has, become dominant. And there are many ideas that we think of as just part of modern culture that are direct results, I think, of Christian influence on modern culture. Modern ideas like democracy and equality, all of those kinds of things, the modern understanding of politics basically comes out of the West, going back to, people like Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, and the reformation has had a lot to do with this. At the same time, Christians are members of their culture.
Dr. Witt:And traditional I mean, Western culture carry has carried on a lot of the characteristics of the Roman Empire before it. Christians just sort of accepted a lot of those things as normal. So I would say that the relationship between Christianity and culture has been a mixed bag. I I think sometimes a lot of the critique of Christianity is based on a poor knowledge of history. So the the new atheists love to talk about how Christians did, you know, all these horrible things, but much of that, you know, in the religious wars and the crusades and all these kinds of things.
Dr. Witt:Much of that is based on just a kind of shallow knowledge of of what the history actually was. But there's also no question that Christians have done horrible, horrible things. So, I mean, the reformation, whether you're Catholic or Protestant, people on both sides killed one another. The only group at that time that was arguing for separation of church and state, which at least in in The United States, we accept as as normal, where the Anabaptists and and the Roman Catholics and Protestants both agree that they should be killed. So, yeah, there is that there is a whole history.
Dr. Witt:And what I would say, it's it's a mixture. There's much good. There's much bad. What I would say is that a lot of the changes and I I would also say that changes take place over a period of time. So I talk in my book about I I talk about Martin Luther, who when the peasants were sort of you know, read what he said about freedom in his book, the freedom of a Christian, and said, well, then we should be free.
Dr. Witt:And then Luther's response to that was saying, no. No. No. You misunderstood. This has nothing to do with economics.
Dr. Witt:And he basically encouraged the rulers to put down the peasant revolt. But two hundred years later, people like John Wesley were arguing against slavery based on what they read in scriptures. And it was in in the nineteenth century, that it was Christians who were largely the leaders of the movement, that did away with slavery. I mentioned William Wilberforce in, in England, the abolitionist movement here in The United States. It's often been Christians who were at the forefront of things like the civil rights movement.
Dr. Witt:Martin Luther King Junior would be an example of that. But, I mean, one of the I would also say one of the real problems, if you wanna call it to be a problem, is that success can can be problematic in itself. So insofar as Christianity sort of took over Western culture, To be a Western person, European or American, was simply to be a Christian. And I I would say that one of the things that at least certain kinds of evangelicals have understood is that you you you aren't automatically a Christian just because you're part of the culture. And there have been groups who have tried to have a distinctively different kind of social organization that was distinct in many ways.
Dr. Witt:I think, for example, of the Mennonites, for whom I have a great deal of admiration. But overall, to a large extent, yes. Because Chris has been part of the culture, they've often accepted many of the, the characteristics of the culture. You you asked me about, you know, the the the the homosexuality question in in the letter in the things that you sent me. That's a related but slightly different question.
Dr. Witt:So I say that that there's no question that scripture teaches that sexual that that sexual sexual expression takes place within the context of heterosexual marriage, that it should be exclusive. One of the messages that our culture sends to people is that you can only be happy if you can find sexual expression in some way, and singleness is not valued in any sense. And then I think it's problematic. I would also say that one of the things that's happened in terms of contemporary culture as a result of the shifts that's taken place in economics, and, again, I mentioned this book by Carrie Miles, is that people no longer have to be married for socioeconomic reasons. And so in preindustrial cultures, people had to have large families because there was that was know, that's not necessary now.
Dr. Witt:You don't if don't wanna be married, you don't have to be. You don't have to worry about having lots of children to help you bring in the crops. One of the carry one one of the things that is produced in our culture is a kind of individualism in regard to sexuality that I think is equally prog equally problematic to a kind of patriarchy. So I spent about fifteen years of my life after I got my doctorate working in the secular world, and I didn't see anything there to attract me, to be quite honest. In terms of, the church's way in which it has treated people of same sex attraction, I think it has often been problematic, and particularly in the last twenty or thirty years, the way that gay people have been made the sort of scapegoat for everything that is wrong with our culture in the way that Christians have embraced what I call the culture wars.
Dr. Witt:So among among conservative or orthodox Christians, there have been it's interesting that that a really strong antagonism is is the only way I could put it toward people with same sex attraction has often been connected with the same people who are very strongly connected with complementarianism. But there's been another another group of people. My friend, Wes Hill, who taught at the same seminary where I teach, has been involved in this thing called spiritual friendship that has focused on the idea of same sex people finding you know, having French having friendships, recognizing that not all social relationships between people have to lead to sexual expression, And that the church needs to provide a positive support for people. Not not I would say not just people of same sex attraction, but also for divorced people, single people who just never get married. One of the problems with complementarianism, it just doesn't know what to do with people who don't fit in a traditional nuclear family.
Derek:So so I'm thinking out loud here. This might be way way off base and a bad conclusion. But, you know, as as you talk about singles and homosexuals, do you think that like, I think about the churches that I've attended all my life. There is almost never a a meaningful singles ministry or niche or ways that they can express themselves in relationships. And so, essentially, you know, if if somebody's a homosexual and we expect them to be celibate, but we as a church kind of show them through our lack of singles ways for singles to plug in, we're essentially affirming that sexuality is is a a significant part of your identity, and you need to find that.
Dr. Witt:Yeah. And then also re I mean, I I know a couple of folks who've written recently on the whole issue of friendship. A man named Victor Austin, an Episcopal priest in Dallas who lost his wife to cancer. And he he talks about how the church doesn't know how to deal with with single people. That he says, you know, he never intends to be married again, but now it's like, he's the single man in his in his sixties, has grown children, has no intentions to get married, but it's like, he doesn't fit in.
Dr. Witt:And he talks about the significance and importance of of friendship. My friend Wes Hill has also written on spiritual friendship. And he is if if you're not familiar with with Wes, he is a a gay, celibate man. But I I do think that one of the things that the church needs to rethink is not just simply how we think about marriage, but how we think about community, about the church as a distinct community from the the society around us and not simply just buying into the values of the culture, about how we provide support for one another and about how not everyone in the in the church, is going to be married for various reasons. There's some people who, have calls to celibacy.
Dr. Witt:There are some people who just never meet that right person, and there are some people who just would not be good spouses or parents. And the church needs to find ways to minister to those folks. We haven't been good at that. So I had no idea we were gonna go down this road. But
Derek:No. So sorry if that was a surprise.
Dr. Witt:Well, my problem is that, you know, if if I'm a theologian, you ask me to think about something, I I can always say something.
Derek:Yeah. Yeah. I'm a verbal processor sometimes, so I I kind of talk to to think things through. And as long as as long as people agree not to hold me to to what I say in a discussion, I'm good.
Dr. Witt:I I promise I will.
Derek:Thank you. So another thing that I wanna talk about is is the idea of submission because these power relationships seem to be where there's a lot of opportunity for abuse. And at the same time, the idea of submission like, I I think of kenosis in Philippians two as probably my favorite passage in the New Testament. It's just beautiful, but it's the idea of of submission. Jesus Christ in the in the Garden Of Gethsemane and his submission in loving his father, the the Trinity and the the inter submission.
Derek:It it's just it's it's beautiful. And and in the New Testament, submission is a big deal. We're called to to submit to even it it seems, on my reading of it, tyrannical leaders are are leaders that we don't agree with, you know, not obedience to them, but submission and respect. Spouses, particularly wives in the in the Bible, but I would extrapolate, you know, spouses to to to their partners and even slaves, which is probably the hardest one for me, but slaves to their masters. How do you how do you deal with the idea of New Testament submission as a message that that you can treat appropriately without without kind of creating an opportunity for people to wield power?
Derek:How do you how do you keep this as the the Jesus sort of submission, like, we submit versus the use this to to bludgeon other people with? Like, how do you view New Testament submission? Let's just leave it open.
Dr. Witt:Do I have the book here? It's probably on my shelf. Yeah. I do. This this is a really good book on that topic, and this plays a role in my book as well.
Dr. Witt:As Christ submits to the church by Alan Paget. It's a whole book on that topic. In the book, Padgett makes a distinction between the notion of submission as simply power from the top down. And he says that that is generally that I would say that's generally the understanding of a lot of people who talk about power in our own culture, or cultures since you're in Romania right now, and submission as a mutual willing to be servants to one another. And the New Testament model is based on the model of Jesus at Philippians two passage.
Dr. Witt:At the beginning, Paul says, take this mind among yourselves, which is in Christ Jesus. So Jesus, who was in the form of God I mean, talk about being in a position of authority and power, emptied himself to become a servant to us. And so the understanding is that the Christian understanding of authority and submission has to be different from the general understanding of those who have power have their way and those who don't, simply just have to to to buckle under. It's interesting that the passage that has become so controversial in these discussions, Ephesians chapter five, where Paul is talking about the relations between men and women, that in the original Greek, Paul has a participle that is translated properly submitting to one another. And there is no specifics.
Dr. Witt:Paul gives no specific command in that passage to the wives to submit. Rather, he says, submitting to one another, wives to their husbands, and then he talks about husbands, loving their wives as Christ loved the church. It's really clear when you look at the passage that husbands and wives are being asked basically to do the same thing that Jesus did, But nobody's at being asked to do something unique. Where I would say that things get there's a tendency for people to make a false dichotomy between on the one hand, you take authority seriously. On the other hand, nobody no no one has authority.
Dr. Witt:We all just sort of submit to one another. The notion of authority is something that I think is has to it it has to exist. Whenever you have more than two or three people in a group and you wanna get something done, you gotta somehow figure out a way to get it done. An example that I've I've heard used, and I don't know where I got this from originally, but an Amish farmer who's trying to build a barn with a bunch of other Amish farmers, there's somebody who's basically gonna be sort of in charge of the project if you wanna get it done. But they're Amish farmers, so no violence is gonna be involved.
Dr. Witt:But you still have to have some sort of organization. There's a distinction sometimes between authority in and authority over. So there are times in which people exercise authority. I, as a teacher, exercise authority over my students that presumably is based on expertise. I have a PhD.
Dr. Witt:They don't. I've been studying this stuff for years. They haven't. They're here to learn from me, although I certainly, you know, want them to contribute to the discussion and hope that there's mutual learning. But in the end, I'm the one who gives the grade and they don't.
Dr. Witt:But that I think that does mean, though, that as in a Christian setting, that the way that I teach has to be different from the way, for example, that when Mark Twain talks about, you know, when he was you know, in in Tom Sawyer, the the teacher who, you know, who who whacks the kid with the stick because the kid steps out of line. Another aspect of submission. So there there are gonna be people in authority. No no question about that. You're in a mission organization, I'm assuming.
Dr. Witt:Correct. So so there are probably some people that you report to. And if you were to, like you know, if you were to suddenly just, like they found out you were just spending all of your time at the local discos or bars or whatever and just really enjoying yourself, and you weren't doing any anything that you were called to Romania to do except really enjoying being a tourist, that there might be a telephone call or something and say, we don't you know? But you also I'm assuming because you were in another country, have a certain amount of autonomy where people aren't looking over your shoulder all the time. So, yeah, I I would say there's a relationship between submission and authority.
Dr. Witt:As I see it, at least part of the Christian understanding is that no authority is permanent. So I might have an authority in one area. So when I'm teaching, I have authority over my students. If I have a student who's a police officer and I get in the car and I go speeding out of the parking lot, even though that, you know, that student could pull me over and give me a ticket, and I could say, excuse me, mister Jones. I'm your professor.
Dr. Witt:You're a student in my class. You can't give me a ticket. And the professor would say, no. You can give me a bad grade in class if I don't turn an assignment. But when I'm a police officer and you're driving the car, I'm the one who's in charge.
Dr. Witt:So this this idea of of different authorities and different spheres is something that is connected with there's a reformed theologian has written a lot about this which is what they call sphere sovereignty, as have Roman Catholics when they talk about something called subsidiarity. But the point is that there people exercise authority in different areas. Your authority should be restricted to your area of competence in that area, and it's not necessarily always gonna be permanent. So parents have authority over children, but those children grow up eventually. In a workplace, there's gonna be a person who has a certain you know, there's a hierarchy of authority who's gonna have a certain authority over people over them.
Dr. Witt:But, ideally, that should not be an absolute authority. There there should be communication other peep you know? And and and to the extent that people in authority don't listen to those who are their subordinates, that's when often when problems take place.
Derek:So I think the I think maybe the the hard part in in New Testament submission is that, you know, I I'm I'm completely following with what you're saying. But and maybe this is a more modern Western thing, you know, because we're we're recording, like, a week a little bit over a week out from Independence Day in The United States, you know, and revolution. And, well, you've you lost your authority because it's unjust, like, what what you're doing is the idea. And when I think of tyrannical leaders or bad spouses or slave masters and being asked to submit to them, that's hard for me as an American to track with because it seems like they've lost their authority. So so that's where I'm sort of confused with the submission.
Dr. Witt:Yeah. Well, let me put on my ethics hat. I would say, first of all, the the the the bible just doesn't really say submit to those who are in authority. So the the same you know, Paul talks in Romans about in Romans, I think it's chapter 13, about paying taxes and that that the person you know, that the the magistrate does not bear the sword in vain. And so he's talking about there's a sense in which Christians need to submit to these pagan authorities who are over them.
Dr. Witt:At the same time, Paul ended up dying because he did not submit to a pagan authority when it came to the gospel. The same New Testament that does contain that passage in Romans also contains the book of Revelation, where the Roman Empire, presumably, is is who I think, in terms of context, is the writer of Revelation is talking about, is portrayed as as the great beast, that God is going to destroy, and, and Babylon the great is a sort of social personification of that. The book of Daniel shows Daniel resisting in authority. And in books that are not in the Protestant canon, but are in the Roman Catholic canon in between the two testaments, the books of Maccabees are actually about a revolution that Jewish leaders basically led against Antiochus Epiphanes, who was this Egyptian ruler who came in and and tried to impose his way on them. So there have been, historically, grounds which Christians have sometimes rebelled against authorities.
Dr. Witt:And, people like Augustine and Aquinas lay out what are have been called principles of just warfare in which you lay out under what circumstances can you fight a war, but also lay out circumstances under, when should a just ruler be overthrown. And Aquinas has actually go so far as to say that if a just ruler commands you to do something that is inherently immoral, you are obligated to disobey. So the question isn't do we sometimes do we just simply submit to people because they're in charge? There are times when we can't, but there's also the matter of how one goes about it. So one one of the questions that divides Christians has to do with, is violent revolution ever permissible?
Dr. Witt:And some Christians have said, no. All you can do is, offer nonviolent resistance as much as possible and be willing to be murders. And others have said, no. There are times when you can overthrow the government, if need be. You're in a a country right now that, I'm sure you're familiar, has a history of having to overthrow an awful dictator.
Dr. Witt:It was just a couple of dick you know, decades ago. So, yeah, I would say that there is both grounds within scripture and within the Christian tradition to say that there are times when violence can be used against unjust authorities. And I I I mentioned William Wilberforce, who was a member of parliament and was instrumental, in terms of, overthrowing the slave trade. But one of the things that happened as a result of what he did was that the British Navy, used its power to go out and capture slave ships and to, you know, basically enforce their will on the high seas. And, probably if they had not done that, you know, if they just simply said, we don't like slavery, but we're not gonna do anything about it, nothing would have happened.
Dr. Witt:So so I I'm not a pacifist. I I was putting on my as much as I admire Mennonites. But, yeah, I I do think there there can be times in which authorities, simply because their authorities, have to be resisted. And I would also say in terms of the church now, insofar as abuse is taking place, the church has a moral responsibility to do something about it. I think that one of the reasons why the Catholic church was created such a scandal is that it was you know, these things were brushed under the brushed under the rug, and there were people who covered it up.
Dr. Witt:I think that I mean, we'll have to see what happens with the Southern Baptist, but it looks as if there's this new report that came out that there were people who were covering up and protecting people who were clearly abusing, which is shocking. But yeah. So I mean, one of the dangers, I think, when people read scripture is just take an isolated passage and assume that this is an absolute that can never for which there can never be any exceptions. And I think it's better to understand what scripture gives you as general principles, but recognizing that not everything is gonna work in every situation. So, in terms of submitting to governmental authorities, I would say, yes, generally, as long as you're not being asked to do something that is immoral, and it it promotes the common good.
Dr. Witt:But there are there are times, at least according to the the church tradition, that says no. There's sometimes when you have to say no. In The United States, I would say that the civil rights movement in the nineteen sixties was a was a point at which nonviolent, movement rose up against what was going on here in in The States in terms of segregation and said this has to end and and was in the long run successful. And and similarly, in apartheid in in South Africa, eventually, that was sort of, done away with in a way that was largely nonviolent, but but when people just basically said, we're not gonna go along with this anymore.
Derek:Right. I've got one more question for you on the books. And I find it a a bit sort of ironic, I guess, that, you know, in in Paul's day and you point this out. You talked about Ephesians five a little bit earlier. And in your book, you kind of point out that that Paul was really being countercultural in elevating women, whereas today, my group feels like we're being countercultural by not I I don't wanna say not elevating them, but, you know, feeling like this idea of liberation is is beyond liberation.
Derek:It's not it's not what's good. Anyway, so would would you talk a little bit about the idea of of Paul's elevation of women or or the New Testament's elevation of of women in general and just how sometimes that message is used to try to suppress women today, like, you know, keep silent in the church, that kind of stuff. Whereas if you read it through through the lens of of Roman culture, really, it's not it's not pushing women down. It's lifting them up.
Dr. Witt:Yeah. I mean, it's it really does help to know a little bit about the the cultural background. So one of the books that I talked about in my own book was a man by a man named David DeSilva who talks about Mediterranean culture as being a shame honor culture. And how in a shame honor culture, again, it's hierarchical. It tends to be very patriarchal, but it's also very family oriented.
Dr. Witt:And one of the worst things that people can do in a patriarchal honor culture is to bring shame on their family, which is you know? So not bringing shame on your your father is is most important. The bible, again, you know, the the several books I mentioned in my book, like Paget and others, constantly show how Jesus himself subverts the honor culture. So an example of that would be the story of the prodigal son. When the pro what prodigal son does when he comes to his father and says, I want my inheritance, he is essentially saying to his father, I wish you were dead.
Dr. Witt:He then goes off and lives among pagans, and it's point he reaches the point where he's so low that he's eating. He's he's actually a caretaker for pigs, which for a Jew was as low as you could get. He when he reaches a state of absolute as low as he can get, he decides to return home, and he tells his father, make make me one of the servants, to which the father then responds instead and says, no. No. No.
Dr. Witt:You know, we're gonna kill the fatty calf. We're gonna give you a robe. We're gonna give you a ring. The father acts in a way that is entirely subversive of that shame on our culture. In in any Mediterranean village, he would have been shamed.
Dr. Witt:This son would have come back, and a typical father would have said, I don't know you. I just so knew you were dead to me. But Jesus says this is how Jesus how how the father, god our father, treats us as sinners. The story of Mary and Martha, Mary Martha's angry with Mary because she's not doing what would be the appropriate work for a woman in that culture. She's listening to Jesus rather than helping, you know, with with the with the the dishes in the kitchen or whatever.
Dr. Witt:And there's there's lots and lots of stories like that where the the honor culture is subverted. People look, unfortunately, at only there there are basically three verses in all of Paul that keep getting dragged into this over and over again. One is the Ephesians verse, which is taken out of context to assume that only women are submit submitting without recognizing that Paul says submitting to one another in the Greek. The second is this passage in first Timothy, where a law where where Paul has a long discussion of what people are doing, in church, and he says women should not speak in church, but they should be silent. In the context, if you go back a few chapters earlier in in chapter 10, Paul is talking about whether or not women should wear some sort of head covering when they are leading worship.
Dr. Witt:So the very fact that Paul is talking about women leading in worship would have been something really unusual in that culture. What he's talking about later is what appears to be various people, not just women, who are engaging in disruptive activity in the church. So he says that, you know, people who are speaking in tongues, only one of you at a time. And then he says this weird thing, presuming that he actually said it, and we'll get to that in a second. He's basically saying to women, if you have questions, ask your husbands at home.
Dr. Witt:I think what's going on is that Paul is not he's not saying there should be some sort of absolute silence by women in church because a few chapters earlier, he talked about women speaking in church. He's just basically saying, apparently, there must have been women who were disrupting the service. And he's been saying, don't do that. In the the first Timothy passage is the other one where where Paul is you know, it says something about women shouldn't teach or exercise authority over a man. That single verse is often, again, taken out of context.
Dr. Witt:How it should be translated is not exactly clear. People argue about whether it's Paul is saying that women should not exercise authority in the sense of, trying to dominate or whatever. It's clear from the context that he's talking about behavior by both men and women that are creating problems in church. So he says that men should not he talks about they're obviously should pray without anger, which presumes that men are being angry. And it seems to me, again, that in the context, he specifically is talking about women who are doing something that is disruptive in some way.
Dr. Witt:Throughout the the pastoral epistles, Paul is talking about false teachers and people who are creating problems within the church. But if you read the rest of the pastoral epistles when Paul talks about women, again, this this book by by Paine is really interesting. He lists the requirements for male elders and deacons. And then when he talks about what women are doing, if you'd make a comparison of the Greek, he uses the exact same terms. So Paul is basically saying that women he's wanting women to have important roles in the church.
Dr. Witt:As I read that passage, he's particularly addressing one particular issue that is local to that church. Sometimes people say, yeah, but he refers to Eve. But in the context, he's talking about Eve's deception. And so unless Paul is saying that women are naturally subs subject to being deceived, which no one wants to say and which I don't think Paul is saying. He's he's addressing a particular problem, and he's using Eve as an example.
Dr. Witt:He's basically saying to these women, don't make the mistake that Eve made who was deceived by the serpent. Don't be deceived by these false teachers. So, again, I think in in Paul in Romans last chapter of Romans, I think, at 16, I talk about this in the book as well, he addresses that church, and he mentions all of these figures, a great many of whom are women. I think he mentions 10 different women. So it's very clear that Paul had women who were involved in his ministries.
Dr. Witt:Lydia in the book of Acts is just simply described as the woman in whose home the church meets. No no men are mentioned. It's always Lydia. And then, of course, Priscilla and Aquila, if you're familiar with that couple. Her name is always mentioned first.
Dr. Witt:There seem to be some sort of missionary couple. So it seems to be that seems to be that overall, Paul has women very, very much involved in his communities in the same way that Jesus also had women who were disciples of his and following around and whom he gave a kind of role to and importance that they would not have had in the culture at that time. Unfortunately, the the the these two or three verses that about which there's a lot of questions about being of how to interpret them aside from simply the fact that women are being addressed. But, you know, people are like, what's going on in these passages? Is Paul telling you know, in Rome in first Corinthians 10, is Paul telling women they should wear their hair in a certain way?
Dr. Witt:Is he telling them should it have a head covering? Or is perhaps he's not saying that at all? And and scholars have argued about these things forever, but they they focus on these one or two verses really looking at how does Paul talk about women throughout his letters. And it's it's very clear that Paul had women who were his partners in the industry, and and he he valued them. So, again, I would say these folks who you know, you're basically saying that women should not ever have any rules of leadership, that they should just simply submit to men and do what they're told, are reading the New Testament very selectively.
Derek:Yeah.
Derek:Alright. Well, that's that's all that I have for you. And I I know that it you know, we didn't really I think we avoided you talking about abuse and and and that kind of stuff, and we didn't we didn't talk about it like we were experts or anything. And we didn't even really really talk that much about, you know, propaganda specifically. I'm gonna I'm gonna create an intro for this and kind of highlight some things, but the conversation was very helpful for me because, you know, having read a bit on propaganda to this point, I think there there are some big things to be able to pull out.
Dr. Witt:Yeah. And, again, I I would recommend this book by Giles on the headship of men and abusive women because he talks about that to a certain extent. I would say that I have encountered, since my book came out, responses that I would describe as propaganda. That is reviews of my book that actually misrepresented what I had said and then accused me of believing things that I didn't believe. And then because no you know, the the church does not want these these kinds of things, among their leaders, I'm a problem.
Dr. Witt:So, yeah, I I will say that I'll I'll just mention there was something came out just a couple of of weeks ago by some gentlemen in my church who are are doing a podcast on a regular basis, and they talked about the fact that we had just gotten a new seminary professor, in our church. And one of these gentlemen said, bet yes. But you need to be aware that there are these two teachers there who are the word that he used was are totally woke. And so I could not recommend anybody coming to that seminary. And the two people he were talking about were myself and another person who had defended women's women's ordination.
Dr. Witt:And and I have to confess that I've been in the last couple of months, I've gotten emails concerned that we're reteaching things like critical race theory and worried about being woke. This has all this has all been very new to me. I never I didn't even know what woke woke meant, until about a year ago. I I never even heard of critical race theory. But it does seem to be the case that in part of in some of the battles that are going on right now in the culture and, unfortunately, the church has embraced some of this, that arguments that are being used in the secular culture, to debate political in terms of political disagreements, and you mentioned things that have been going on in the culture for the last six years, I would say, the Christians are picking up on this and using it against fellow Christians, which is, unfortunate.
Derek:Yeah. That that, you know, that highlights two of the big things. So if if you ever get a chance to read, I'm sure you have your your own reading list that's probably a mile long. But, Jacques Lule, sixty years ago, wrote wrote a book called Propaganda and also the Technological Society. Both of them go go very well together.
Derek:But
Dr. Witt:The reason I'm smiling because the the one thing I was going to say before I left, if it didn't get said, I was gonna ask, have you ever heard of Jacques Llull? And have you heard of his two books? And you just mentioned the two of them. So, yeah, Jacques Llull is a wonderful, wonderful person. Somewhat forgotten about these days, unfortunately.
Dr. Witt:He was much better known. When I was a young man, he was one of these people who was had been important and was was still alive but died. You know? But he's largely been forgotten, and I would highly recommend those two books. So
Derek:Yeah. It he he's so prescient. I mean, I he he could have been writing today, and and it it's just mind blowing. But, you know, the the thing that you just mentioned, you know, he he identifies a number of different things, but the the idea of of being Manichean, you know, the idea that he's very black and very white. Yeah.
Derek:We we've experienced this. We've had some churches threaten us based on, you know, just a a Facebook post here or there critiquing a political individual that you know just a a warranted critique of, like, hey. Like, this this isn't right. Let's let's call this out or Right. Whatever.
Derek:Yeah. So we we've had threats because you're either all in or you're all out. And then and then there's another one that Alul identified. And, also, reading Hitler's Mein Kampf was was helpful, and and Alul covers a lot of things too. But, you know, Hitler talks about he said, hey.
Derek:Look. I've got I've got four enemies that are that are coming against me. And he said, you know, that's gonna make me look bad because I've got four versus one. And so he says, the trick is you lump them all into one category, and you find some unifying thread, and now you only have one enemy. And so I think what you're seeing with the idea of wokeness is I don't have to deal with your complementarian arguments.
Derek:You're woke. Right? And I don't have to deal with the issue of race because you're woke. There's there's one idea, and I can dismiss that idea because it's only one enemy.
Dr. Witt:Right. Yeah. That's a really good point. Yeah. And I think that that's absolutely and and it's I mean, is incredibly frustrating.
Dr. Witt:I mean, I like I said, I I taught a course on social ethics last fall in which we dealt with issues of sexuality, abuse in the church, politics, racism, you know, all of these various issues, each of which have to be looked at and dealt with separately. But everything in that course we covered can simply be dismissed as well. That's wokeism. You know? And, also, I mean, it is important, I think, that that people are able to have conversations with their with which there's give and take.
Dr. Witt:A friend of mine I I sorry. I keep re throwing these books out, but a friend of mine named David Koises has written a book called political visions and illusions. He taught political science, at Redeemer College in Ontario until he retired. And a central theme of that book is the difference between ideologies similar to propaganda and genuine politics. He argues that what characterizes ideologies is that there's always some single viewpoint that is espoused, through which everything else is interpreted.
Dr. Witt:And ideologies are essentially, he says, also idolatry because they are given the power to do things that only God should actually be able to do. And the nature of genuine politics always involves back and forth discussion compromise. And it seems to me that one of the real problems that we're dealing with these days is a lack of genuine politics, a lack of of a willingness of people to sit down and say, let's have a discussion about this. You know, if if if you hold this particular view, which I don't understand, explain it to me as well as you can, and I'll see if I can understand it. And perhaps we might not end up agreeing, but at least we should be able to understand each other better, and perhaps we might end up changing each other's minds somewhat.
Dr. Witt:And, again, if we're the church, our political ideologies and positions on various things have to always be subordinate to the fact that there's only one lord, and that's Jesus Christ. And the church is always the church. It's not simply one more political community among others. It and so it needs to be distinct from the political communities of either our countries or surrounding cultures or even, whatever the latest social movement has to be that we might be tempted to embrace or not embrace.
Derek:Yeah. That that reminds me of so I'll I'll make this my last question because I I'm I'm sure we could keep coming up with comments. So I'll last question, and then and then you can answer it, and we'll we'll say bye. But one of the things that that has struck me more and more over the years in regard to this idea of, like, democracy and discussions. Right?
Derek:So the goal of a democracy should be to to come to an understanding versus what it is now is, hey. If I can just garner 51 of the votes, then I get my agenda taken care of because we dominate or you. Because democracy is really you know, argues that democracies are really coercive, right, because it's it's majority ruling over minority, which is what it essentially has become. But in the early church, it seems like we've arrived there also theologically in evangelicalism. Because when I look at the early church, I remember it was on the resurrection of the soul.
Derek:I think it is or Nissa. I forget which one. But I was reading it, and I was like, that sounds like something a universalist would say. You know? And you go and you you start doing research, and you're like, oh, there were there were universalist church fathers, and there were, you know, church fathers who believed in conditional immortality and or annihilationism and just different perspectives on women and different perspectives on the atonement, like, all all kinds of things.
Derek:They seem to have very diverse views, yet were, in general, able to to get along and view each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. It feels like that's somewhat democratic, whereas today, it feels like extremely exclusive. Like, I'm in my denomination. We have our theology. We're true believers.
Derek:You guys, I don't know about because you believe x. Do you have any thoughts on whether it's democracy and liberalism versus power and coercion or, you know, theology in the church and and how the church seems to me, at least, to to have been able to hold contradicting views in tandem in brotherhood versus where we are today? Do you have do you have any thoughts on that, or am I off base?
Dr. Witt:Well, you just raised a whole lot of ideas. One of the things that Koises talks about in his book, I mentioned it earlier, is the significance and importance of pluralism in a culture. And that's something I think that as a culture, we're having real problems with. There's some, I think, geographical and ethnic changes that are that are taking place, in not just The United States, but in other Western cultures as a once predominantly white culture, is now finding itself surrounded by more immigrants of various kinds. And and this is, I I think, often made people uncomfortable.
Dr. Witt:But I you know, there's a question, can we learn to get along as a culture to recognize that a culture can be composed of, like, here in The United States, ethnically Anglo Saxon people, but also in the Southwest, many Hispanic people, African Americans, more and more Asian Americans. And that's, that's something that that that at least there's a movement in the culture right now, that seems to be, like, fearful that that if ethnically European people do not continue to be in control of things, that that's gonna be problematic. So and that that is entirely contrary to the gospel gospel. There's only one god. He's created everyone.
Dr. Witt:It's interesting that, you know, the the Pentecost is the undoing of the Tower Of Babel where, you know, all of these different languages are spoken and people hear hear the gospel being preached in their own languages. And Paul himself was a great disciple to the Gentiles. So the church has to be inclusive of everyone ethnically. In terms of theology, denominationalism is a problem. You mentioned, Aarwas, in that it has enabled us to find like minded people, and ignore everybody else.
Dr. Witt:So, my my approach to theology is very ecumenical, which is why I talk to both Catholics and, evangelicals in my book. My book is coming out on the atonement. It's looking at Eastern church fathers, medieval Catholics like Thomas Aquinas, Protestants across the board. So, yeah, I think that the church I think that we need to to to be willing to and talk to one another. And I think that there has I mean, I think there has been largely a shift among evangelicals in last generation, broadly speaking, to being more even more ecumenical in a lot of ways.
Dr. Witt:But, some of what's going on is, I think, a pushback against this because it's viewed as leading toward liberalism or whatever. And I see that in my own denomination. But
Derek:Yeah. You you mentioned being ecumenical. That's one of the words we used in in a newsletter that we wrote and got our hands slapped by one of our supporting churches because they didn't they didn't they didn't like that word. That's too bad. Yeah.
Derek:It's, you know, Jesus' command that, you know, by this, that they'll know that you're my my followers, that you love one another. I guess that that just means Presbyterians. It doesn't mean it doesn't mean everybody else.
Dr. Witt:So, like so now I I didn't realize you were a Presbyterian.
Derek:Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Witt:Some of my best friends are Presbyterians. You know, my my friend David Koizis, I mentioned, but he's actually Dutch reformed, but that's, you know, a skipping and jumping way.
Derek:Yeah. It's I I've just found so much value in in so many different denominations because I I am a pacifist. So, I mean, Presbyterian pacifist, those don't really exist, but I I guess I do. So I identify a lot with Mennonites in some ways, reformed theology in some ways, orthodox. You know, they're so much more holistic than than our focus on, you know, the the atonement as transaction.
Derek:I love the orthodox and having learned from them the idea of, you know, the life of Christ, and Trinitarianism is is more robust. I just think there's there's blind spots in denominationalism, and I like being ecumenical. So Well,
Dr. Witt:when my book when my new book comes out, we'll have to have a talk about that at some point, I'm afraid.
Derek:Yeah. I I I look forward to it. When does it come out?
Dr. Witt:October.
Derek:Okay. Alright. Well, I'm looking forward to it. Again, I I appreciate your your willingness to take take this time out of your day.
Dr. Witt:Okay. I I realize it's I'm looking at your window. It's very dark outside, so you probably should be in bed.
Derek:Yeah. It's 11:30. Yeah.
Dr. Witt:Yeah. Well, I apologize for keeping you so long. I really have enjoyed this conversation. I'm glad that you invited me. And, I mean, I I I don't know whether we'll have any contact in the future, but I would hope that sometime we can bump into each other again.
Dr. Witt:This has been a real joy.
Derek:Okay. Well, if you're if you're in Romania or ever want to visit, just let me know.
Dr. Witt:Okay. Well, that probably won't happen.
Derek:But Right.
Dr. Witt:I I have right now, I last few years, I've had many, many people trying to get me to go to Africa because we have so many students from there. But like I said, you're the only person I met in Romania, and and I can say what I can say now is that all the Romanians I've met, although you're a missionary, are just wonderful.
Derek:Yeah. So Well, I am originally from Pennsylvania, which is Oh. Where you teach.
Dr. Witt:It is. Yes. Which part of Pennsylvania?
Derek:Lebanon, Hershey area.
Dr. Witt:Okay. So you're you're more in the middle of the state then.
Derek:Right. Yeah.
Dr. Witt:Whereas I'm as close as you can get to Ohio without if I make a mistake and make a left turn, I suddenly find myself in Ohio. Yeah. But yeah. Well, have a good evening, or I shouldn't say evening. Have a good night.
Dr. Witt:Get some sleep.
Derek:Alright. Thanks. Alright. Thanks. Bye bye.
Derek:That's all for now. So peace, and because I'm a pacifist, when I say it, I mean it. This podcast is a part of the Kingdom Outpost Network. Please check out the links below to find other great podcasts and content related to non violence and Kingdom Living.
