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Patriarchy has a bad name these days. In most circles, saying of a man, “He’s so patriarchal” can only be topped by saying “He’s such a Neanderthal,” because most 21st-century people, even those within Christ’s own church, assume that patriarchy is not only outdated, but backward, out of touch, and—more to the point—wrong.
Of course, the Holy Scriptures through which God chose to reveal Himself were all penned within the context and limits of patriarchy (which means, literally, “father rule”). He chose to send His Son to a world where women bore and raised babies and men provided for families with the labor of their hands. (Even the most dedicated religious feminist...
doesn’t harbor in her heart pity and disdain for Mary because she was oppressed by a patriarchal society and was kept from having a career to return to and state-run daycare to place her baby in after giving birth.) Being omnipotent and omniscient, He could have sent us His Son and given us His written word in any age or epoch. God could have even chosen to become flesh within our more “enlightened” time, thereby revealing His own nature as progressive and, in the end, less offensive to our feelings about right and wrong.
But He didn’t. And when we humble ourselves before God’s sovereignty, we must admit, not only that God chose to reveal Himself in patriarchal times, but that He Himself is the ultimate Patriarch, the Father from whom all fatherhood gets its name (as our pastor is fond of reminding his flock) and, even more, that God is the author and creator of patriarchy. Rather than being wrong, patriarchy is very, very right. (continue reading...)
