Why Patriarchalists Shouldn’t Baptize Females (Dear Dr. John MacArthur on Women)

“The weakness of a woman is that she needs a head.”

“…No daughter of Eve should follow the path of Eve and lead to tragedy by entering into the forbidden territory of rulership that was intended for man.”

“…And the intent of what the Word is saying here is that a woman needs protection, that she has a certain vulnerability. She was designed with the need for a head. She was designed for the need for a leader. She was designed with the need for a protector and a savior.”   —-John MacArthur, from this sermon

Head means leader?  Head means savior?  MacArthur teaches his people that a woman’s male “head” is her savior.  It’s not so far fetched.  After all, I’ve shared before that patriarchy taught me exactly that: that a woman needs a male mediator.  It’s part of what made exiting patriarchy so hard—the thought that stepping out from “headship” and thinking for myself meant that I was wide open to Satan and under God’s wrath. 

This concept of “male as mediator” is taught by groups like Vision Forum who teach the gospel of federal headship (the male “head” represents his family to God), who apply it to church announcments and recieving the Lord’s Supper [males  must give it to females, a son to his mother if the father is not there, etc], but it’s not just taught by fringe groups.  Johnny Mac is pretty mainstream, sad to say, and that implies that the teaching quoted above isn’t all that odd. 

Consider these musings on the meaning of kephale/head: Grudem and kephale,  CBMW, Grudem, kephale,  Household: Head as Origin or Source, or Household: Household Code Lost in Translation, Kephale.   This is not to say emphatically that kephale cannot mean authority.  It is just to say that there are good and valid reasons to doubt that it does. 

John MacArthur’s quotes help dilineate for us just what happens when we think that women are designed by God to be under male authority.  A system of mediation begins to flourish, much like the Levitical priests mediated for the OT Israelites.  At which point we have to ask, did the work of the Cross truly form us all into prophets, priests and kings, or are those roles still partitioned off, only accessible to those who are able to be circumcized on the outside?  

Before Christ, the mark of faith was truly a male-oriented mark.  Circumcision was available to the female only in so far as she appropriated the circumcision of her male leader.  God never said that the Law would save us from the male-rule prophesied in Genesis 3:16, so we shouldn’t be shocked when we find patriarchy after the Fall.  There was One promised, though, who would break the chain of the Fall’s destruction, who would crush the head of the serpant. 

After Christ, the mark of faith was changed.  No longer a cutting of male-only flesh, the mark of faith became something accessible to all believers.  Baptism was and is available to Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female.  The mark of faith no longer demands that you identify with a certain cultural heritage, or belong to a specified gender or economic status.  

So bringing back male-mediation to women makes me think we should get rid of baptism and go back to circumcision—or maybe, to make it a little less painful for all the non-circumcized men out there, we should just stop baptizing females.  After all, I don’t need to be baptized, if John MacArthur is correct.  All I need to do is obey the leadership of my husband.  Hey, I was designed to be saved by following his lead, right?  So isn’t baptizing women a waste of a hard-working male pastor’s time and energy?  Just baptise the mediators—they can get dunked for the rest of us.      

    

HT to Cindy Kunsman, at Under Much Grace, taken from this post.   If your blood pressure can hack it, feel free to read the whole post, if you would like to experience a larger selection of quotes like the one above.