Why Complementarians "See" Male Leadership as God's Design: The Psychology of Perception (Seeing What We Already Believe)

All of us have blind spots. I think every one of us, as human beings, can safely conclude that we don't know everything. Some of the things we do not understand today, we may understand tomorrow. Some of the things we do understand today, we may understand better (i.e. differently) tomorrow.

One of the reasons we all have blind spots is a result of something called "top-down processing." Top-down processing refers to the way we experience the world around us. We do not, in fact, see the world as it is. We see it as it is meaningful to us. In other words, we see the world through the lenses of our past experience, previous learning, deeply held beliefs, assumptions and expectations.

Details in the environment that do not align with our assumptions can be missed altogether – due to top-down processing.

Details in the environment that do not align with our deeply held beliefs can be misinterpreted so that our beliefs are not shaken – due to top-down processing.

What complementarians do not seem to recognize is that top-down processing impacts how people read the Bible. Please allow me to explain.

Before a word can be translated it must be interpreted. In my grammar text for New Testament Greek, for example, one verb (ago) can have multiple meanings: "lead," "go," "depart," "guide" or even "celebrate a feast." What determines our interpretation? The immediate context of the word and top-down processing. In other words, our interpretation consists of what we expect the word to mean given its immediate context. Our expectations come from our own previous learning and experience.

Imagine being a Bible translator in a culture that assumes women to be morally and intellectually inferior to men. (This would be true, for example, of all the men who helped translate the King James Version of the Bible.) Then imagine coming across a particular Greek word in the Bible that refers to a woman. The word is "prostatis." This is the noun form of the verb "proistemi." You can translate this word to mean "someone who presides over others," "a woman set over others," or simply "someone who gives aid to others" (i.e. a helper). Because of your previous learning and past experience in a deeply patriarchal culture, any interpretation assigning authority to a woman would simply not be cognitively available to you. In other words, the possibility may never enter your mind.  It would be unthinkable, literally.

Interpretation leads to translation, and now henceforth, Phoebe shall be known as a "helper" in the Church at Cenchrea, rather than a "leader" (Romans 16:2 NKJV).

Another Greek word used to describe the role of Phoebe in Romans 16 is "diakonos."  It could be translated "servant, deacon, or minister." Equipped with an understanding of top-down processing, I'd be willing to bet you can accurately guess which word was selected for the King James Version of the Bible.

Complementarians have told me that contextual factors in Romans 16 dictate that Phoebe must have simply been a "servant" and "helper" rather than a "leader," "deacon" or "minister." I wonder what those contextual factors are, since the passage is simply an introduction of Phoebe and a commendation of her work in the church.

I was reading a complementarian blog earlier today. In it, the author explains that egalitarians go awry because we rely on a subjective understanding of the Bible's original context. What we should be doing, he says, is relying on "the written word of God" because its meaning is "concrete."i Apparently, this blogger doesn't recognize that the "written word of God" is also subject to human interpretation, which is determined in part by top-down processing.

Similarly, the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood states that a Christian's subjective interpretation of God's call to ministry should never contradict the clear instruction of God's written word.ii Does this statement presume that God's written word is not subjectively interpreted? Apparently so, and that is a significant blind spot.

Wayne Grudem, well-known complementarian, says that Christian egalitarians undermine the inerrancy of the word of God.iii I don't believe that's an accurate accusation. What we are questioning is not the inerrancy of God or his word, but rather the subjective interpretation of complementarian believers, who are human beings, with blind spots that exist due to top-down processing.

i http://jacoballee.com/1/archives/09-2012/1.html

ii http://cbmw.org/core-beliefs/

iii http://jacoballee.com/1/archives/09-2012/1.html

taken from HERE

This not a matter of perception, psychology or blind spots. It is strictly a matter of the Bible and the Bible only.

Taking one or two ambiguous word choices as proof that thousands of years of biblical direction and example should be disregarded is clear evidence of interpretive contamination by topical culture.

Really?

Galatians 3:25-29 But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. 26 For you are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. 27 For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you be Christ's, then are you Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Do you believe it? I do!

While we should not disregard the past, age and repetition are not reliable guides.

There is no excuse for anyone in taking the position that there is no more truth to be revealed, and that all our expositions of Scripture are without an error. The fact that certain doctrines have been held as truth for many years by our people, is not a proof that our ideas are infallible. Age will not make error into truth, and truth can afford to be fair. No true doctrine will lose anything by close investigation. CW 35.2

or by faith in it. Sincerity will never save a soul from the consequences of believing an error. Without sincerity there is no true religion, but sincerity in a false religion will never save a man. I may be perfectly sincere in following a wrong road, but that will not make it the right road, or bring me to the place I wished to reach. The Lord does not want us to have a blind credulity, and call that the faith that sanctifies. The truth is the principle that sanctifies, and therefore it becomes us to know what is truth. We must compare spiritual things with spiritual. We must prove all things, but hold fast only that which is good, that which bears the divine credentials, which lays before us the true motives and principles which should prompt us to action.—Letter 12, 1890. 2SM 56.1

While we should not disregard the past, age and repetition are not reliable guides.

There is no excuse for anyone in taking the position that there is no more truth to be revealed, and that all our expositions of Scripture are without an error. The fact that certain doctrines have been held as truth for many years by our people, is not a proof that our ideas are infallible. Age will not make error into truth, and truth can afford to be fair. No true doctrine will lose anything by close investigation. CW 35.2

or by faith in it. Sincerity will never save a soul from the consequences of believing an error. Without sincerity there is no true religion, but sincerity in a false religion will never save a man. I may be perfectly sincere in following a wrong road, but that will not make it the right road, or bring me to the place I wished to reach. The Lord does not want us to have a blind credulity, and call that the faith that sanctifies. The truth is the principle that sanctifies, and therefore it becomes us to know what is truth. We must compare spiritual things with spiritual. We must prove all things, but hold fast only that which is good, that which bears the divine credentials, which lays before us the true motives and principles which should prompt us to action.—Letter 12, 1890. 2SM 56.1

I do not advocate "age and repetition" as a biblical foundation. Nor do I seek to reject new Light. What I do, wholeheartedly, reject is the rapidly increasing practise of higher criticism; whereby, the plainest declarations of scripture are spiritualized away in a flood of temporally skewed, cultural interpretations.

Taking a small number of debatable texts as proof against the ponderous weight
of numerous lessons that have been reiterated from beginning to end, can never lead
to greater Light.

Every verse, every reference, however old or oft repeated, however apparently antiquated or out of style, must be included and accounted for: only then can the Bible's teaching be known.

Every verse, every reference, however old or oft repeated, however apparently antiquated or out of style, must be included and accounted for: only then can the Bible's teaching be known.

What I do, wholeheartedly, reject is the rapidly increasing practise of higher criticism; whereby, the plainest declarations of scripture are spiritualized away in a flood of temporally skewed, cultural interpretations.

Taking a small number of debatable texts as proof against the ponderous weight
of numerous lessons that have been reiterated from beginning to end, can never lead
to greater Light.