“I’d be as dead set against hierarchy as any egalitarian, if I thought it meant the mere exercise of power. But power and hierarchy are very different things.

Despite the protestations of Rousseau, hierarchy does not create power inequalities. Such inequalities exist in nature, arising from all the natural differences between people. Hierarchy rather responds to this preexisting state of affairs. It is an ordering of power within a system of responsibility. That is, it consists of obligations owed by the members of the hierarchy to one another.

When we think of hierarchies, we often dwell on the obligations that the lower members owe to the higher ones. So we think of the taxes a medieval peasant owes to his lord, or the obedience an army private owes to his sergeant.

But these are not the most important elements of a hierarchical relationship. Indeed, in the absence of hierarchy, the stronger member would be able to simply compel such things from the lower by dint of superior strength. The lord, due to his riches and military power, could do whatever he wished to the poor farmers who worked on his land, anything from treating them as slaves to annihilating them down to the last babe, if he did not recognize them as belonging to the same system of relation as himself.

What hierarchy recognizes is that the stronger members also owe obligations to the weaker. So the lord owes his peasants defense from the predations of bandits and invaders. His own extractions from the peasants are also limited to the agreed upon taxation rates, rather than leaving him free to bleed them dry at his whim. Because he is related to his subjects in an ordered system, the lord is compelled to recognize that in order to be a good man, he must be a good lord to his peasants.

In the same way, inequality of power between the sexes is a fact of nature. On the simple physical level, men possess greater strength than women. History is also filled with evidence that the masculine temperament, unrestrained, is easily capable of exploiting the feminine in the worst ways. There is no way to escape this fact, though we’ve certainly taken every technological step to try.

Of course, this is commonly taken as evidence of the evils of sexual hierarchy, usually pejoratively called “patriarchy,” a term I happily embrace. But true patriarchy is actually the restraint of this power to dominate, the replacement of the simple capacity to exploit with an obligation to lead.

This is precisely what Jesus and Sts. Paul and Peter are talking about in all their discourses on the proper relationship between men and women: he who would lead must become the servant.

But this is impossible when the very idea of leadership is dismissed. I don’t think the enemies of patriarchy realize how dangerous their position is. For as the reflective Christian knows, when the idea of leadership goes, so too goes the idea of servanthood. The absence of hierarchy is not equality. The absence of hierarchy is tyranny.”

From Ethan C. at Sanctified Incoherence: The AEF Call Revisted

I am drawing an analogy here. A theological modalist effaces the critical distinctions between members of the Godhead by reducing the Persons to functions or modes of existence of a single member. Classically, under the influence of strict monotheism, the existence of a Son and Spirit were admitted, but they could only be “modes” of the existence of the one God–not the discrete personal existences (hypostases) recognized by Christian theology.

An egalitarian is an anthropological modalist who effaces the critical distinctions between man and woman by making the sexes into functions or modes of existence of the “human.” The idea of humanness is thus made to serve a scheme in which the differences between the man and the woman, which include the priority that orthodox anthropology recognizes in the man, are subject to egalitarian reduction.

Because of the relation of God and man in Christ, any anthropological heresy also inescapably infects theology and becomes a theological heresy as well–although some egalitarians with more conservative instincts do not understand this or will not admit it. A Christ who is Human in the egalitarian sense cannot be Man in the orthodox sense, but is merely the apotheosis of the egalitarian ideal. He cannot be the head of the man as the man is the head of the woman as God is his own head; the ordinal relations of which the Apostle spoke, and in which the Church believes, are utterly broken on the egalitarian wheel. That is why egalitarianism is a heresy and no orthodox Christian can be an egalitarian.”

From Note on “Anthropological Modalism”

“Satan is a theologian who despises God with every bit of his being. When he turns to Eve and says, “Did God really say…?” he brings Eve into a dialogue that opens her mind to a new realm of possibility, one she would not have thought of on her own.

Satan takes the command of God and rephrases it as a question. “Did God really say?” What was a clear statement suddenly becomes hazy. Posing as a theologian he asks, “Are you sure about this, or is this only Adam’s testimony as to what God said? Are you sure? How do you know? Is this really a command? Can we discuss this a little bit? Is it possible that you misinterpreted what God said? Is it possible that there is some context here we’ve ignored?” Waltke says, “Within the framework of faith, these questions are proper and necessary, but when they are designed to lead us away from the simplicity of childlike obedience, they are wrong.” And so we see Satan raising questions of interpretation and authority necessarily designed to create doubt and confusion and to lead away from the simplicity of a childlike obedience.

Satan carefully and deliberately distorts, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden” into “You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?” He overlooks the great freedom God gave Adam and Eve and instead overstates the one prohibition. He gets Eve to focus on the prohibition rather than the gift and the freedom. Instead of focusing on the Tree of Life, from which she was free to eat, and on the millions of other trees available to her, Satan got her to focus her heart on that one tree from which she was not allowed to eat. And Eve began to focus not on what she had been given, but on what had been forbidden. And suddenly nothing but what was forbidden could satisfy her.

He convinces Eve that God is limiting her, that He is not giving her the full measure of humanity. He is holding back, reserving for Himself things that she deserves to know and to experience.

In the final step, Satan flatly denies what is true. “You will not surely die.” The fruit of all of the doubt and the resentment is unbelief. If God’s words happen to hinder us from becoming what we want to be or from doing what we want to do, Satan convinces us that we can safely ignore them.

In the face of such temptation, the woman yields to Satan’s denials and half-truths. “Having stripped Eve of her spiritual defenses, Satan’s work is done.”

And Eve is only the first to be drawn in and to succumb to the temptation. Every one of us has fallen for the same old trap.”

Excerpted from (but please read it all): The Shape of Temptation

“And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.” (1 Timothy 2:14)

“I had scrambled peacock eggs for breakfast,” said Christina, over her shoulder, as she stepped inside. “I need all the primal peacock energy I can get, to do battle with the bishops!”

And within an hour, turbo-charged by egg power, she’d explained the Anglican Communion to me, unravelled all its competing theologies, and made it appear suddenly quite clear that despite his recent nod in the direction of the conservatives, the Archbishop of Canterbury will eventually have to go with the liberal flow, to follow in the wake of America and embrace not just women bishops, but actively gay clergy as well.

Christina knew better. She picked up a cat from between her sandals, and said: “You want to know what the headlines will be on July 10?” Yes please. “They’ll all say the same thing: ‘C of E votes for women bishops!’ So hooray! It’ll be a wonderful day and a step towards redressing the great mistakes that were made in the first few centuries of the Christian Church.”

What mistakes? Christina looked surprised. “The suppression of women, of course. The early Christians were so keen to separate themselves from Goddess worship that they began to treat women as inferior. It was something Jesus himself never, ever intended.” So Jesus would have wanted women bishops? “Absolutely.” And actively gay bishops like Gene Robinson, would he have minded them? “No, not if they were in a faithful relationship, of course not.”

I, Russell Moore, Denny Burk, and Pastor Tommy Nelson will observe from afar and affirm Tommy when he preached: “the egalitarian view must not be considered a viable evangelical option because it is a deadly “cancer” within the church and that egalitarianism is Satan’s new ploy to get into the church.”

Denny Burk: “Dr. Moore is right. Pastor Tommy is fearless, and I am grateful to him for standing in the gap on the gender issue. Not only did Tommy himself preach an outstanding message, he invited two guests who hit the ball right out the park as well (Dr. Bruce Ware and Dr. Russell Moore).”

Pastor Tommy Nelson: “Citing Wayne Grudem’s book, Nelson said that egalitarianism is the “new path to liberalism” because it effectively sets aside the authority of the Bible. He said that the egalitarian view must not be considered a viable evangelical option because it is a deadly “cancer” within the church. Pastor Nelson says that egalitarianism is “Satan’s new ploy to get into the church.”

One for all! And all for one!