"You're gonna have authority problems in your marriage."

Rejecting unimaginative narratives and finding space to live our stories

"You're gonna have authority problems in your marriage."

I’ll never forget when a worship leader I respected said this to me shortly before Christa and I got married. It shocked me, honestly. But I guess it shouldn’t have. Growing up Southern Baptist in Georgia, it’s safe to say the vast majority of people in the mega-church I was raised in had strong convictions that men were supposed to have and excercise authority in the home (and the church too, but that’s a story for another day). For a time, I was one of them. I knew the arguments from Scripture that led to that perspective—they went something like, “God said it. I believe it. That settles it.”—and the all-male pastoral staff there would have considered it a foregone conclusion and taught that true Christians believed the same.

But before I met Christa, I never did my own investigation about men and women and what they are supposed (or allowed) to do in the home and church. As a male, no one ever told me “No!” when I said I wanted to do what I felt God called me to, so I honestly never had reason to consider other narratives. At the time, I didn’t realize that there was, in fact, quite a bit I was being told I couldn’t be: a husband who fully supported his wife in her teaching gifts, a stay-at-home dad, a submissive partner, a man who saw his wife as an equal in all things, a nonbeliever in male headship. As I write this, I’m in Austrailia taking care of my kids while my wife speaks at conferences on human flourishing in Christ. I know some men who would be quite disappointed in me right about now.

The moment my mind changed

Sitting outside the seminar room where Christa was teaching at a summer camp the year we met, I changed my mind about women. I’d never heard such passion, such clear gifting. I sincerely never heard a sermon before that moment (nor many since) that made such a mark because of the content and delivery. I’ve got some grumpy ramblings coming about sermons, but, I’ll save those too, for another day. I clearly thought, “Wow. She was made to teach, and it’s good for everybody.” That moment was the first domino that led me to ask my own questions and get my own answers, not just take someone else’s word for it. I read some formative books¹, and had some enriching conversations that were helpful in developing my own beliefs. I also had a bunch of moments of turmoil and discouragement.

I should also say that I didn’t change my mind about women because I was swooning over my future wife. Quite the contrary. We actually couldn’t stand each other when we met and for several weeks after. But, I recall that in the moment I first heard Christa teach, my mind began changing on more than just the merits of men and women having equality. It was actually the start of deep respect and admiration for Christa. Then we became friends, and after a bit, we felt called to marry. And somewhere in there came the swooning.

Our conversations about marriage centered around how our gifts complemented each other, but that those gifts were not given or restricted because of our biological sex. Given our context, we also wanted our marriage to encourage others to see relationships in similarly freeing and empowering ways, and perhaps foster new narratives. So, we began to frame our future around tenets of partnership and mutual submission, and we imagined lives together where we could jump higher than we ever thought we could on our own.

I’ll also say here, that this is our story, and our thriving is mutually intertwined. I believe with all my heart that God’s call on each person is unique, and marriage is just what God had for Christa and me as individuals in order to best serve in our surrounding community—not some ideal for all people to aspire to, or a reason to say that those called to singleness lack anything. We don’t thrive because we remain single or marry; we thrive because we embrace God’s call for us with obedient fervor.

"You’ll be the butt of men’s jokes in the locker room."

Back to the worship leader who said I’d have authority problems in my marriage—he also said this to me. Now, you may be wondering why I sat down to lunch with this guy in the first place. But, I really did respect him. He led worship at church camps throughout my high school years, and he would often tell really powerful stories about God calling him to do wild things. He listened to God in those moments, and cool stuff happened. He also knew Christa for a few years before I did, and I honestly just thought he would be excited for us. At first, I even think he may have been.

When I told him Christa and I were getting married, that we wanted our relationship to be something God used to challenge and encourage others, and how we were excited to partner with one another, his tone changed. “She’s gonna have to give up some of her strength,” was the first thing he said. Then the thing about authority. Then about men making jokes about me. I remember he came to our wedding. He didn’t make eye contact with me when we thanked him and his wife for coming. I wondered what jokes he made about me in the locker room.

As hurtful as this was, all this isn’t to chuck that guy under the bus as though he is the problem. He loved (and I’m sure still does love) Jesus. But I’m convinced that this sort of thinking is symptomatic of a broader culture of dogmatism and fear in Christian evangelicalism. The goal of discipleship for many I grew up around (and this was true of myself for some time) is learning all the right ways to think about Jesus and the Bible, and becoming an expert at pointing out where others are wrong. Since God is perfect, and the Bible is inerrant, interpretation becomes conflated with the Spirit’s intent. So, conversations like the one I am describing become normal.

Photo by Dino Reichmuth on Unsplash

Finding space for new narratives

But this sort of thinking also fosters the adoption of uninspired and unhealthy narratives, especially for those who don’t feel they fit the script they’re given. If you disagree, you become an outsider. And the “God says so” trump card makes these suffocatingly inescapable. For those who reject the prescribed gender roles of men leading and women submitting, in particular, they reject God’s very design for humanity. Women become threats when they don’t submit; men spurn their very purpose and become something contrary to nature. Something weak. Something feminine. Something to be made fun of by real men. There is power behind these narratives, and they end up being adopted innately and conformed to by most people.

For myself, I would have loved different narratives to embrace. I wonder how my life would have been different if I had more people sit me down and tell me:

• Men can be nurturers

• Submission should be mutual (in marriage and among all brothers and sisters in Christ)

• Marriage is a partnership

• Leading and following aren’t fixed based on sex, but gifting/strength, context, and the call of the Spirit

• Cross-sex friendships are to be celebrated, not feared

• Authority belongs to God alone, not people

Instead, I had to learn as I went and find new outlets for questions I was asking. For example, I knew supporting Christa in her PhD was what we were meant to do several years ago. It meant me quitting my “breadwinning” job and our family moving from Los Angeles to St. Andrews, Scotland. It meant me becoming a stay-at-home dad to a then six-month old daughter. It meant I was often the only man at weekly song-and-dance groups I took my daughter to, and organising play dates mostly with moms. It meant I often felt isolated and exhausted. When we added a second kid to my stay-at-home-dad life, I thought I was going to die (maybe that’s a slight exaggeration)—for a lot of reasons. Beyond the expected physical and mental toll of two children, I was struggling to find where I belonged. Many of the narratives I was given growing up didn’t fit my life at all anymore. Almost none of the ones I heard about being a dad were relevant at all.

Over the last few years, I have slowly settled into living out the story I am meant to, the one I think that God always had for me. And I am finding pockets of people here and there who are hungry for more imaginitive and inspired narratives. My narratives might not be “right” in all cases, and I know I have often lacked imagination and inspiration along the way. But broadening the scope of what can be has been liberating, and the Spirit is far more about freedom and thriving than getting everything “right.”

One of the reasons I want to write is because I believe in the power of narratives, that if we tell our stories, then we can challenge and change what “normal” is.

So, here’s to new narratives.

1. Discovering Biblical Equality eds. Ronald W. Pierce and Rebecca Merrill Groothuis, How to Read the Bible for all it’s Worth by Gordon Fee, among many others. I also read a few of the staple books by complementarians to hear arguments from that perspective.