Pope Francis vs. John Piper: Two views of ‘masculinizing’ the church

“One of the great sins we have had is ‘masculinizing’ the church,” Pope Francis admitted to the International Theological Commission last month in what could potentially become the most impactful theological repentance of the year.

“Women have a capacity for theological reflection that is different from what we men have,” the pope acknowledged. “The church is woman. And if we do not understand who women are, what the theology of a woman is, we will never understand what the church is.”

Francis revealed plans to have “a reflection on the feminine dimension of the church” during the next gathering of the Council of Cardinals. His goal is for theologians to focus their theological study and efforts on “de-masculinizing” the church.

The pope’s apology is a stark contrast to John Piper’s claim that “God has given Christianity a masculine feel.”

“For the sake of the glory of women, and for the sake of the security and joy of children, God has made Christianity to have a masculine feel. He has ordained for the church a masculine ministry,” declared Piper, a conservative Calvinist pastor who is highly influential among Reformed evangelicals.

With both these statements taken together, it’s clear sacralized misogyny in the church extends far beyond the narrow strain of conservative evangelical complementarian Calvinism we so often critique. It has marked the ecclesial structures of the church across entire traditions.

Piper and the pope agree the church has been masculinized. But one seems to think it’s a bug, while the other definitely considers it a feature. If we are going to move into the new year with the intention of de-masculinizing the church, we need to reflect on how deeply rooted sacralized masculine power is in the church.

Leadership trends in society and the church

In order to assess how masculinized the church is, it helps to know how leadership trends in the church compare to leadership trends in broader society. For example, one of the pope’s concerns is that just five of the 28 members of the International Theological Commission are women, despite 54% of the Catholic Church identifying as female.

According to research by the IT job search company Leftronic, the United States is comprised of 50.8% women, with women earning 57% of undergraduate degrees and 59% of master’s degrees.

But despite women being the majority gender while having the majority of degrees, women hold just 31% of CEO positions, 29% of senior management roles,  24% of political offices and 12.5% of CFO jobs.

In the church, the trend for women in leadership has drastically changed for the better over the last half century. Sociologist Wilbur Bock discovered in 1960 that women comprised 2.3% of clergy in the United States. According to the American Communities Survey census data in 2016, women made up 20.7% of U.S. clergy.

Of course, this 20.7% would be in moderate to more progressive denominations. Most theologically conservative denominations and churches have 0% female clergy, and even vocally supportive groups like the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship lag behind their aspirational goals for churches hiring female clergy.

“Capitalism has done more for the affirmation and advancement of women’s leadership than conservative Christianity has.”

But taken as a whole, women in corporate leadership trail the population of women by at least 20%, while the church lags behind by at least 30%. This means capitalism has done more for the affirmation and advancement of women’s leadership than conservative Christianity has.

Masculine echo chambers of authority and theology

When men who think they have a divine right to be in charge because they’re men are the only ones in the top room of a hierarchical tower, it’s going to affect everything from the theology to the ethics.

Not only are conservative Christian churches run exclusively by men, but parachurch organizations as well. Every member of the boards of trustees for the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors, The Gospel Coalition and the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood is a man.

When no women are allowed to have an authoritative voice, their perspectives will not be heard and valued to the same degree as men’s voices. And when these ministries are designed to help people “live out the gospel,” the exclusive presence and authority of men will affect how theology and ethics are developed.

To these men, male headship is an entire theological lens for interpreting reality, establishing authority and defining the gospel.

Hearing the masculinized gospel in a woman’s critique of abusive men

If it’s true that conservative evangelical theology is inherently misogynistic and abusive, then we should expect to see reflections of conservative evangelical theology in the behaviors of abusive men.

Lacy Johnson, an author and professor at Rice University, shared her experience of being abused by a man in a 2018 piece for Tin House.

“He was the one who taught me that it actually didn’t matter how likable I was, there was always the threat of violence or punishment for saying or doing something he didn’t like. … I tried diminishing myself in such a way that I wouldn’t provoke him, wouldn’t anger him, tried to bend myself according to his pleasure so that he would like everything I did and said and thought,” she said. “It didn’t matter, because no matter what I did, it was never enough. I kept at it anyway, until there was almost nothing left of me, of the person I had been. And that person I became, who was barely a person of her own, is the version of me he liked best.”

“When I first read this passage, I was stunned at how her description of an abusive man fit the description of the masculinized god of conservative Christianity.”

Johnson was not writing about theology. She was sharing her experience with abusive men from the perspective of a woman. But when I first read this passage, I was stunned at how her description of an abusive man fit the description of the masculinized god of conservative Christianity.

‘It actually didn’t matter how likable I was’

For conservative Protestants, what matters is our identity, due to original sin, as fallen sinners from birth. Whether we are image bearers or whether God likes us as people is beside the point. To masculinized Christianity, we are born the exiled enemies of God.

We often said, “Some people ask, ‘Why do bad things happen to good people?’” Then we’d answer: “But there are no good people. So the question should be, ‘Why do good things happen to bad people?’”

‘There was always the threat of violence or punishment’

In masculinized Christianity, because we are the enemies of God, we deserve to be violently punished for eternity. For this reality to be true, God not only would torment our bodies, but would have to carefully craft the nerve endings of our bodies to specifications so as to enhance the physical pain we would experience while allowing them to endure such pain forever.

Infinitely violent judgment could come at any moment. And no conservative Christian could escape this threat because if you stray, you will be considered either to have lost your salvation or never to have had it to begin with. However you get to hell, the end result and the threats along the way are the same.

‘I tried diminishing myself’

Making much of God, or decreasing so God can increase, is the heart of all conservative Christian theology. Because it is a hierarchical reality with God the Most High at the top receiving glory through those below either submitting or being violently punished, the way to glorify God the most is to belittle yourself and those you love in fear of being labeled an idolator. You can’t simply love your kids to the fullest because you have to make sure your love for them is less than your love for God. And how can you ever be sure you’ve diminished them and yourself enough?

In masculinized Christianity, God becomes bigger in our minds to the degree we become smaller. Then as the gap of our awareness widens between God’s holiness and our unholiness, the need for and celebration of the violent punishment of Jesus’ body on the Cross increases.

‘Tried to bend myself according to his pleasure’

When I was a conservative Christian, I would say freedom in Christ is synonymous with slavery to Christ. We insisted, “Only one life ’twill soon be past. Only what’s done for Christ will last.” Or another one: “Just two choices on the shelf, pleasing God or pleasing self.”

Doing things for yourself were frowned upon. To this day, when I say loving your neighbor begins by loving yourself, my conservative Christian family and friends respond with suspicion.

“At his right hand are pleasures forever more,” we’d stress. “And that won’t happen until heaven. So in the meantime, keep your hands off yourself in order to please him.” Even our ideas of Christian hedonism bent the knee of our satisfaction to the hierarchical glory of God’s self-pleasure.

‘Everything I did and said and thought’

It seems like virtually every prayer I heard in conservative Christianity included the line, “May we honor and glorify you in all we say and do.” Not only did God know everything you did and said but even your thoughts. If you so much as quickly thought about a woman wearing yoga pants and felt turned on by it, your eternal soul was at stake. That’s why women’s bodies had to be controlled — because they threatened men.

God was constantly invading your mind to discover what could be punished. And if your actions, words and thoughts didn’t bend the knee to pleasing God and diminishing the self, then the threat of violence or punishment would increase.

‘It was never enough’

Salvation had the smokescreen of grace but was ultimately about merit because God was so holy that perfection was required to be in God’s presence. Because merited obedience was required in a theological cosmology of hierarchy, whoever accomplished this perfection could boast in themselves. And if anyone other than God boasted, that would take glory from God the highest. So only God could obey perfectly enough to please God. And that’s why we believed Jesus was born.

Thus, no matter how apparently good we could be, it never would be enough. We always would miss the mark, falling short of God’s glory. And what little righteousness we could muster was as filthy rags, which always were described to me as rags to wipe excrement or scrape off leprosy or soak up women’s menstrual blood. That’s who we are.

‘There was almost nothing left of me, of the person I had been’

In this relational economy of required perfection, the purpose of the law was not to show how God wanted us to love our neighbors as ourselves in order to be a blessing to all the nations, like the Bible claims. Instead, the law was our schoolmaster, teaching us how perfect God was and how evil we were in order to lead us to the merits of Christ.

All our songs were written about who we once were compared to who Christ is in us now. “You are good when there’s nothing good in me,” we sang. And if anyone dared to deconstruct this script, we would arrange special public meetings to hand them over to Satan for the destruction of their flesh while praying God would take them to the bottom so that they’ll have nothing left but to turn to God.

‘The version of me he liked best’

“My identity is in Christ,” we confidently proclaimed with a tearful gleam in our eyes. It sounded so hopeful. But what it really meant, when interpreted through the lens of Christ’s righteousness being imputed to our account, was that God the Father never really saw us for who we are. Instead, when God looked our way, Jesus blocked his view with his merited perfection.

“’When God sees us, he sees Jesus’ sounds exciting on the surface until you realize God never really sees you.”

“When God sees us, he sees Jesus” sounds exciting on the surface until you realize God never really sees you. Instead, God is simply smiling into a mirror at himself and pretending you’re his Barbie.

Masculinized Christianity is spiritual abuse

Many women like Johnson are writing about spiritual health, justice and masculine power today outside the “religion” section of the bookstore. They recognize relational dynamics that those within the church’s exclusively male echo chambers of power do not.

These women know how abuse functions. And it looks just like the God of conservative Christianity. What I have written here is not a straw man. Those who grew up in these environments know it. There may be some doctrinal nuances depending on your particular background. And you may spin it differently. But if we weren’t talking about theology, your brain and body would associate these relational dynamics with abuse.

So if all our relational neurons associate these behaviors and threats with abusive and toxic masculinity, how are we supposed to accept that it’s somehow different when God does it? Because it’s biblical? According to who? According to abusive men who systematize theology through their toxic masculinity lens?

According to Pope Francis, there is a “Petrine principle” and a “Marian principle” to male and female dynamics in the church. But after two millennia, we’ve spent enough time being theologically and spiritually shaped by the toxic Peters of the world.

The Marys know some things.

In order to de-masculinize Christianity, we’re going to have to go beyond the baseline of affirming and advancing female clergy. We’re going to have to start listening to women outside the church as well and being OK with them reshaping Christianity by going underneath its easy stories and exposing its ugly truths.

As Johnson says: “I like it when a piece of writing comes across my desk that is brave and vulnerable enough to tell the hard story that is underneath the easy story people like, that shows me the ugly truth that has been wearing a beautiful mask. I like it when a writer confronts my assumptions and biases and I realize I have been wrong. I like to change my mind. This is the work that stories do in the world and stories are how we will save it.”

 

Rick Pidcock is a 2004 graduate of Bob Jones University, with a bachelor of arts degree in Bible. He’s a freelance writer based in South Carolina and a former Clemons Fellow with BNG. He completed a master of arts degree in worship from Northern Seminary. He is a stay-at-home father of five children and produces music under the artist name Provoke Wonder. Follow his blog at www.rickpidcock.com.