Richard Beck notes the two aspects:
- Male and Female bring different things to the table and in a heterosexual union there is a “greater than” accomplished by the union.
- only the male is given the gift of leadership.
Since many egalitarians embrace point 1, the term isn’t discrete in terms of the position.
If you want to include pt. 2 Beck recommends it be called “heirarchical complementarianism”. Beck (and RHE) believe it is patriarchal.
As is often the case on Richard’s blog the comments are terrific.
As many of the commenters point out, asserting that heirarchical complementarians are asserting “ontological ineptitude” isn’t fair and is a bit of cheap shot. It is far more similar as one comment points out to something similar to Aaron’s priesthood. God doesn’t say that Aaron is the best priest Israel could have, but rather Aaron is the official priest.
The position is pre-modern not based on the broad implicit assumption of a meritocracy.
While I’m not a heirarchical complementarian but rather a relational one, I think it important to understand those Christians in an accurate light, not a skewed one.
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