Majoring in Submission

The Constructive Curmudgeon (Doug Groothuis) blogged today on Majoring in Submission. It's timely to link to his post given the discussion on submission we have been having here on the Complegalitarian blog. Doug points out that a World On the Web (WoW) article left out a critical part of what his wife, Rebecca, had submitted to WoW when it quoted her about a new homemaking major for women at a seminary. Here is what was omitted:

The Genesis creation account never says the woman was created to serve and obey the man. When God formed the woman out of the man, the man did not see her as his subordinate. No, the man identified the woman as one who was like him—in contrast to the animals, over which woman and man had joint authority. Yes, the woman is a help (Hebrew: ezer) to the man, but God is also an ezer to humans; yet God is not subordinate to humans!

The idea that God created the woman to serve the man and the man to have decision-making authority over the woman logically entails that women are not equal but are necessarily and intrinsically inferior to men (see Discovering Biblical Equality, chapter 18).

“Equal but different” makes a good slogan, but it doesn’t make good sense.

HT: Mike Aubrey