Lack of space prohibited detailed discussion of a key hermeneutical point in the essay Women in Holy Orders, written by myself and Bishop and Trinity School for Ministry Professor Grant Le Marquand: biblical metaphors must be interpreted through their narrative contexts, not by readings imposed from external references. I make this point at length in my book Icons of Christ, citing New Testament scholar Richard Hays, among others.¹ We know what it means for God to be Father not from Hebrew or Greek examples of fatherhood outside the New Testament, but from how Jesus Christ redefines what it means to be Father in the light of his own relationship as the Son to the God of Israel who is his eternal Father. We know what it means for Jesus Christ to be “head” of the church, or for men to be “head” in relation to women, from the New Testament context in which the term kephalē (“head”) actually occurs as a metaphor, not from six LXX translations of a handful of Old Testament passages, or from examples in pagan culture from outside the New Testament. The proper exegetical approach is inductive and a posteriori, allowing one’s understanding to be challenged and transformed by following the narrative logic of the actual biblical texts. Biblical symbols, metaphors, and vocabulary are interpreted through a careful reading of the actual texts in order to discover how the metaphors, symbols, and vocabulary actually function in the texts.

In contrast to the inductive approach mentioned above, throughout the Response to our essay from the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word, the writers use a rationalist and deductive hermeneutic to decide that Paul’s use of the metaphor “head” necessarily means “authority.” The approach of the Response is a priori and deductive. That is, the texts are interpreted through the lens of concepts and ideas first derived from outside the text. In a previous essay, I noted that the terms “head,” “authority,” and “roles” are determining vocabulary throughout the Response. “Authority” is the dominating notion. Having decided that authority is the crucial issue, the writers of the Response conclude that when Paul used the word “head” to describe the relationship between men and women, the metaphor of “head” necessarily means “authority.”This can be shown in the following ways:

1) The Responders consistently appeal to sources outside of Paul’s own letters in order to decide what Paul must have meant.

Household Codes

In our original essay, we had mentioned the “household codes” of antiquity, and had stated that “In Ephesians 5:1-6:9, Paul challenges traditional pagan and Jewish ‘household codes’ which typically addressed male householders in their duties to exercise authority over their subordinates (wives, children and slaves), in the light of cruciform spirituality.”

This point concerning the way in which Paul modified and challenged ancient household codes is a standard observation in contemporary Pauline exegesis, recognized by numerous scholars. We included two entire paragraphs in which we explained how Paul modified these codes.

The Responders failed to acknowledge the significance of this discussion at all, but simply took the opposite approach: “It should be noted once more that Paul’s requirements for presbyters/overseers in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, assume the continuation of these social arrangements in the context of the Christian Church. The presbyter is to manage his household in such a way that his children are not rebellious.”

In Women in Holy Orders (and also in my book Icons of Christ: A Biblical and Systematic Theology for Women’s Ordination Baylor University Press, 2020), we had challenged this reading of 1 Timothy and Titus:“It is also significant that these requirements for overseers (bishops), elders (presbyters), and deacons in the pastoral epistles (1 Timothy 3:1-12; Titus 1:5-9) are moral requirements, not job descriptions. It cannot be coincidental that identical language is used to describe women throughout the pastoral epistles” (p. 10). If identical language is used throughout the pastoral epistles to describe women as is used to describe the office-holders of bishops, presbyters, and deacons (and it is!), then these descriptions cannot be an endorsement of a male hierarchy of men over women since identical language is used throughout to describe both the office holders and women!

Note also that the Responders conflate the issue of male/female hierarchy and parent/child hierarchy. No one in this discussion is suggesting that parents should not exercise authority over children. Given that children lack intellectual and emotional maturity, there are good reasons for this. But adult wives and women are not children! To conflate the authority of parents over children and the authority of men over women is necessarily to infantalize women!

The key point is that Paul challenged the pagan household codes of antiquity by transforming them in the light of Christ’s example. The Responders claim instead that Paul rather endorsed these (pagan!) household codes. They make their point not by a careful comparison between ancient household codes and what Paul actually wrote, but simply note that in the pastoral epistles, Paul commands parents to exercise authority over children! Whether parents have authority over children is irrelevant to the issue of whether husbands have the kind of authority over wives that complementarians claim.

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An indication that a particular interpretation of Scripture is being driven by an a priori hermeneutic can often be detected by frequency of vocabulary that appears outside of explicit exegetical discussion. There are three crucial words that appear frequently in the vocabulary of complementarian writers (those opposed to women’s ordination on the grounds of a permanent hierarchy of men over women): “authority,” “headship,” “roles.”

It’s All About Being in Charge

The authors of the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word’s Response to the essay Women in Holy Orders, written by Bishop Grant LeMarquand and myself, embrace a complementarian hermeneutic. Accordingly, these three words – “authority,” “headship,” “roles” – make frequent appearances in the Response. The notion of “authority” is perhaps the most important theme in the Responders’essay – so important that by my count, the authors use the word sixty times in a document of 79 pages, excluding those times in which they are quoting other authors – almost once per page!

A key notion in the complementarian position against women’s ordination is that of “headship.” In modern English, the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, and in Latin, “head” used as a metaphor commonly means to “exercise authority over,” that is, to be a “boss,” someone “in charge.” Complementarians understand the apostle Paul’s use of the metaphor of “head” to mean that in the same way that Christ (as head) has authority over the church, so husbands (as head) have authority over their wives, and men (in general) (as “head”) have authority over women (in general). This metaphor of “head” is so central to the complementarian position that opponents of women’s ordination use the word “headship” to describe their position even in discussing passages where the word kephalē does not appear in the biblical text.

The Greek word for “head” (κεφαλή, kephalē ) that is so central to the complementarian position appears as a metaphor for the relationship between men and women in only two NT passages: Ephesians 5:23 (where the word appears twice), and 1 Cor. 11:2-12, where the word is used nine times to refer to one’s literal head, but metaphorically only three times (in verse 3). While the metaphor of “head” commonly means “authority” in modern English, numerous scholars have argued that the metaphor did not function that way either in ancient Greek or in Paul’s own use in Ephesians and 1 Corinthians (to be discussed below). Significantly, the authors of the Response use the word “headship” eight times, all in sections of the document not discussing the meaning of kephalē in Ephesians 5:23 or 1 Cor. 11:3. (Is it necessary to point out that there is no word that could be translated “headship” in the Bible?)

The Greek word for “authority” (ἐξουσία, exousia) appears nowhere in the crucial discussion in Ephesians 5, and only once in 1 Cor. 11:10, where the Greek states that “a woman ought to have authority over her head.” Context and Greek grammar indicate that the authority referred to in v. 10 is the woman’s own authority, not that of a male “head” over her (again, to be discussed in a later essay). The authors of the Response insist to the contrary that the single word “authority” in 1 Cor. 11:10 must refer to the authority of a woman’s husband over her.

Finally, a crucial notion in the complementarian position against women’s ordination is that of gender “roles.” The claim is that while men and women are ontologically equal, there is nonetheless a distinction of “roles.” It is the “role” of men to be in positions of leadership and authority, and the “role” of women to be subordinate to male authority, especially in the home and the church.

Any Greek word translated “role” does not appear in either Ephesians 5 or 1 Corinthians 11. Despite the lack of any biblical terminology that could be translated as “role,” by my count (excluding those times when they are citing other writers), the authors of the Response use the word “role” in reference to positions of hierarchy 48 times. (The notion of distinct gender “roles” based on authority seems to be an invention of complementarian authors. I am not aware of any use of the terminology before George W. Knight, III’s, The Role Relationship of Men and Women: New Testament Teaching (Philipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1977, 1985).)

Given the disparity in usage of the vocabulary of “head,” “authority,” and “roles” between The Response and the two critical biblical passages of Ephesians 5 and 1 Corinthians 11, it is reasonable to ask whether exegesis is guiding interpretation or rather the reverse.

In what immediately follows, I will respond to the authors of the Response, who, in their criticisms of Women in Holy Orders, claim that Paul’s use of kephale certainly does mean “authority over” and that Grant LeMarquand and myself were simply mistaken to claim otherwise in our essay Women in Holy Orders. In addition, I will also address a single criticism concerning Paul’s source for the kephalē metaphor raised by the writer Matthew Colvin in a Review Essay of my book Icons of Christ. I will use this essay to go beyond what I had written in my book.

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My previous essay focused on the exegesis of Genesis 1 to 3. I wrote this as a reply to the discussion of Genesis 1 to 3 in the “Anglican Diocese of the Living Word’s” Response to an essay I had written with Bishop Grant LeMarquand entitled “Women in Holy Orders.”

The creation accounts of Genesis are crucial to any discussion of the subordination of women to men because these are the single Old Testament texts that lay the groundwork for any discussion of human sexuality. Crucial to this discussion is Genesis 3:16, traditionally translated “Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” This is the first reference in Scripture to the subordination of women to men. Egalitarians point to this verse and its context to claim that the subordination of women is a consequence of the fall into sin, and was not God’s original intention in creation. To the contrary, because complementarians claim that subordination of women to men is a creation ordinance, they necessarily have to argue that Gen. 3:16 is not the introduction of subordination, but rather that there are “hints” of subordination elsewhere in the Genesis accounts. I have addressed these “hints” in the previous essay.

Following the publication of my book Icons of Christ: A Biblical and Systematic Theology for Women’s Ordination, a Reformed Episcopal priest named Matthew Colvin wrote a negative review, to which I responded here. Colvin is critical of my interpretation of Genesis 3:16: “Witt thinks that the woman’s ‘desire for (not against)’ (64) her husband is a neutral and beneficial thing, and claims that the words ‘he shall rule over you’ (Gen. 3:16), are a new postlapsarian imposition of a hierarchy where there had been none before the fall.” To the contrary, Colvin claims “[t]hat the original order of creation was not egalitarian can be seen . . . from a careful reading of Genesis 3.” Colvin’s reading is that “the ‘desire’ here is not a romantic attraction or affection, but a desire that goes against the man’s rule or direction, which are nonetheless asserted by God” (my emphasis).

In this essay, I intend to reply to Colvin.

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Over a year ago, I published a series of essays in response to the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word’s “Response” to an earlier essay entitled “Women in Holy Orders” that Bishop and New Testament Professor Grant LeMarquand and I had written in response to a request of the bishops of the ACNA in 2018. Since then, my book Icons of Christ: A Biblical and Systematic Theology for Women’s Ordination was published by Baylor University Press. My previous essays in response to the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word’s “Response” primarily focused on questions of hermeneutics, or provided correction to criticisms that were misreadings of what we had actually written.

However, The Anglican Diocese of the Living Word “Response” is entirely an example of “complementarianism,” the Evangelical Protestant position against women’s ordination that claims that while men and women have equal ontological worth, women are necessarily subordinate to the authority of men. In consequence, men and women play different “roles”; it is the “role” of men to exercise authority and leadership, and the “role” of women is to obey men who exercise these leadership “roles.” The primary area of leadership of men over women is in the family, where husbands exercise authority over wives, but because the pastoral office is one of leadership, women cannot be ordained because this would involve women clergy exercising leadership over men parshioners.

In order to buttress this claim, much of the argument in the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word’s “Response” echoes complementarian exegesis of a handful of key biblical passages. Moving on from preliminary hermeneutical issues, I now turn to these exegetical concerns. This essay will focus on the creation narratives of Genesis 1-3.

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Around a month ago, Matthew Colvin, a minister of the Reformed Episcopal Church, provided a review of my recently published book Icons of Christ: A Biblical and Systematic Theology for Women’s Ordination. This is now the second time there has been a critique of my position from within the ACNA. About a year ago, there was a criticism of a short essay that Trinity Professor Grant LeMarquand and I had written entitled “Women in Holy Orders.” I had begun an initial series of responses to the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word, but work on another writing project (not about women’s ordination) has kept me away from my blog. I note at the beginning of this essay that Colvin’s review follows many of the same patterns as the original Diocese of the Living Word critique so there will be some repetition in my response.

1) Colvin makes no real attempt at understanding what my position actually is:

My book is largely a response to arguments against women’s ordination, but (as with all books) there is a positive thesis as well. My fundamental thesis would be something like the following:

There is a reciprocal relationship between Trinitarian personalism and the creation of humanity as male and female in Genesis 1 and 2. The creation of humanity as male and female mirrors the equality and relationality of the Triune persons. This means not only that men and women are equal (no more hierarchical subordination between men and women than between Father and Son in the immanent Trinity), but that men and women are fundamentally oriented toward one another and need one another. There are no men without women; there are no women without men. This model of the relationality between men and women provides the fundamental pattern for the relationships between all human beings. As it is not good for the man to “be alone” (Gen. 2:18), so it is not good for human beings in general to be alone.

This has at least two implications.

Our identity as men and women and the relationality toward one another that implies is fundamentally constitutive of what it means to be human. Even apart from the relationship to our spouse in marriage (if we are married) all of us are either sons or daughters, brothers or sisters, nieces or nephews, aunts or uncles, etc. There is then no getting around our fundamental sexuality. Even outside of marriage, the fundamental distinction between man and woman (and our mutual orientation toward one another as male or female) is fundamental to who we are. None of us can be alone. All of us are in relationship to other people. And, most important, neither men nor women can say to one another, “I have no need of you.” Even outside the context of marriage, men and women relate to one another as the primary paradigm of what it means to be human – to be in relationship to another who is both other than the self, but also equal to the self.

The church is not then fundamentally a group of individuals who each do their own thing. Neither however is it a hierarchy where those in leadership positions “rule over” those at the bottom. Rather, the church is a community of both equality and mutuality in which none of the members can say to one another “I have no need of you,” but it is also a community in which those in leadership positions lead primarily by being servants to those whom they lead.

This means that Colvin’s criticisms that my position is “individualist” or “unable to oppose homosexuality,” or would lead to transgenderism, is not only fundamentally mistaken but is a radical misreading. A more plausible criticism would be that my position tends toward “communitarianism,” a critique leveled against people like Alasdair McIntyre and Michael Sandel. If that is the criticism, I plead “guilty as charged.”
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