I listened to the podcast with author Rachel Green Miller on Theology Gals in anticipation of her new book, Beyond Authority and Submission: Women and Men in Marriage, Church, and Society, and was looking forward to it.  To say that I was disappointed would be an understatement.

I don’t want to be ungracious to Rachel, who I believe was well-intentioned, but this book is really, really bad.  I’ll probably address I’ve addressed much of the book point-by-point over a series of posts, because I think the arguments raised need to be examined.  But in this post, I’d like to start by giving a general overview of my concerns with the book.  To use the terminology of the polarizing blog post about courtship a few years back, the book is fundamentally flawed. 

Good Questions; Bad Answers

I was looking forward to reading Beyond Authority and Submission because Rachel, in the podcast, raised several important concerns I fully agree with and which I believe need to be the subject of increased discussion in the church.  These important points are reiterated in the introduction.  To summarize them:

1. Some of what we believe to be “biblical” manhood or womanhood is, in fact, “traditional” manhood or womanhood, and we need to disentangle the two.
2. Many traits typically considered “masculine” or “feminine” are not biblically specific to men or to women.
3. Authority and submission are rooted in roles, not biology.
4. “What the Bible teaches about men, women, and gender is both simpler and more difficult than we are often told.  The Bible doesn’t give us detailed lists with bullet points to answer all our questions.  Thankfully, it does give us guidelines and boundaries to help us know where to begin and how to address these topics.” (p. 17)

Unfortunately, she seems to approach the topic with a heavy dose of bitterness, bias, and flawed logic, and spends the whole book telling us what “bullet points” the Bible doesn’t give us (from her perspective), while failing to demonstrate the guidelines and boundaries it does.  This is largely  because she throws out the guidelines from the very beginning.

Beyond Authority & Submission?

Early in the book, while laying the groundwork, Miller tells us that “the Bible doesn’t start and end with authority and submission–it is Jesus’ story from first to last.” She goes on to say that while authority and submission “aren’t unimportant,” “they aren’t the focus of the Bible.” (p. 36)  She’s wrong.

The Bible is Jesus’ story from first to last; that much is true.  But it’s all about authority and submission.  Jesus’ story is the story of His redeeming for Himself a Bride who will be wholly and perfectly submitted to Him, and over whom He has complete authority. (Eph. 5:25-27, 32;  Rev. 19:7-9)  It is about bringing the entire earth under submission to Him. (Ph’p. 2:5-11)

Moreoever, the human family is an earthly picture — if not the earthly picture — of His relationship to us (See, e.g. Eph. 3:14-15), and His relationship with us is the model for all earthly relationships.

This creates some very important boundaries!  Misunderstanding of authority is what causes us problems.

Authorities Should Reflect Christ

First of all, godly authority should reflect Christ.  That is, He should be the model for the behavior of those in authority.  It seems that Miller considers this equivalent to putting a husband in the place of God, as some sort of mediator for his wife, but that’s missing the point.  When Scripture tells a husband, for instance, to love his bride the way He loves His Bride, that’s an instruction to the husband to use his authority in a way that loves and honors his wife, and refrain from wielding his authority in a way that is selfish or prideful.

Authorities Have Authorities

The big picture is even bigger than that, though.  A right understanding of authority goes beyond the husband-wife relationship, or even human relationships in general.  It recognizes the entire hierarchy.  A husband is the head of his wife (his wife, not everyone’s wives!), and he also has a head. (1 Cor. 11:3)

Every authority has an obligation to carry out his (or her) responsibilities in a way that honors the authority of the one(s) over him (or her) and cares for those placed under his (or her) leadership.  This is true in every relationship involving authority, not least of which is marriage.  A husband’s task is to lead his family in a way that cares for them, and honors God, who is in authority over him.  A wife, likewise, should carry out her duties in a way that cares for her children (if she has them), and honors her husband and God.

This single principle provides the guidance we need to settle almost any practical-life question in this arena.  Does it honor those in authority over me?  Is it loving toward those under my authority? (exemplified in Eph. 5:33)

Miller strips all this away by pushing us to move “beyond” authority rather than understanding it accurately.

Misunderstanding Authority and Misunderstanding Traditional Views

Miller doesn’t seem to understand authority well herself, as evidenced by the list she offers of “situational” relationships where submitting is “common sense.” (p. 23)  This list is a mixed bag; it includes doctors, “teachers, counselors, police officers, coaches, and even traffic signs.” Some of these do, in fact, bear authority, but others do not.

She also seems to overlook the concept of headship (much of 1 Cor. 11 is referenced, but the part about headship is notably missing), fail to grasp the distinction between “superior” and “inferior” as descriptions of value and descriptions of functional position, and neglect to discern the difference between behaviors and motivation.

This last one, in particular, leads to gross misunderstanding and misrepresentation of more-or-less “traditional” Christian views of men or women.  (I’m using the term “traditional” here to broadly encompass the longstanding views of the Church, not to support the entanglement of only-traditional ideas with actually biblical ones.)  Her tone drips with disdain for those who uphold a traditional (and, I would argue, biblical) structure in their homes, presuming a man-centered (in every sense of the term) motivation to be the universal operating principle.

This is so strongly not the case (that a man-centric motivation is universal) that she is forced to use unbelievers as representative of Christendom, and to baldly misrepresent the words of Christian men.

A Few Gems

There are a few good bits to this book.  By and large, she represents church leadership well (which makes one wonder why she so egregiously misses the motivation for similar authority in the home).  And her chapters on what the Bible teaches about the nature of men and women are, ‘though only one piece of the picture, useful additions.

But the whole of the book is so riddled with bias, misrepresentation, cherry-picked Scripture, and logical fallacies that it isn’t worth the trouble to wade through and pull out the few nuggets.  Chances are, if you’re discerning enough to separate the wheat from the chaff here, you don’t need the book, and if you aren’t, you need to avoid the book.

Go to the first page of the analysis.