In the wake of the controversy surrounding Paige Patterson, the former president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Albert Mohler, the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and a leading voice in the Southern Baptist Convention, asked a poignant question.

Mohler, wondering out loud about how to think concerning the problems of sexual abuse in Baptist circles asked:

“Is complementarianism the problem? Is it just camouflage for abusive males and permission for the abuse and mistreatment of women? We can see how that argument would seem plausible to so many looking to conservative evangelicals and wondering if we have gone mad.”

Complementarianism is the theological conviction that men and women are created equal in dignity and value in the sight of God, and that this equality manifests itself through different roles in the home and in the church. Specifically, this theology is revealed through loving male headship in the home and male leadership in the church. Females are co-laborers in operating a home, raising children, and doing ministry in the church.

Mohler is wondering if this belief gave shelter to abusive men, and allowed them to justify their abuse by using Scripture to demand that women “submit to their own husbands.” Mohler is asking this question in anticipation of the response by opponents of complimentarianism that will see the controversy around Patterson as proof of their claims that complimentarians are secret abusers.

A few of the proof texts for complimentarianism are:

Ephesians 5:22-23: Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord, because the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. (See also I Peter 3:1.)
Ephesians 5:24: Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives are to submit to their husbands in everything.Colossians 3:18: Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.

Though these are not all of the texts that lay the foundation for this theological system of how the evangelical family and church should be operated, they certainly are the more familiar ones. And these are the text most often criticized by supporters of egalitarianism, the opposing view of complimentarianism.

Are we ready to say that complimentarians are the problem? That this theology is really a way to hide abuse and to empower abusers? No. A proper understanding of complimentarianism reveals a loving, respectful relationship where both males and females are co-equal in dignity and respect, and where abuse is not tolerated.

Sam Storms makes the following observation of how the distortion of headship and submission (complimentarianism) leads to abuse:

“Many think that headship and submission mean that a wife must sit passively and endure the sin or the abuse of the husband, as if submission means she has no right to stand up for what is true and good or to resist her husband’s evil ways. Perhaps some of you come from families in which the husband was an insensitive bully and where it was assumed that it was the wife’s “duty” to tolerate this silently. God’s word does not call upon a wife to acquiesce to brutality or thievery or abuse.”

Perhaps no other text gives a better insight into the mind of the complimentarian theology than Ephesians 5:25 where the Bible says husbands are to “love your wives as Christ loved the church, and gave Himself for her.”

This beautiful verse teaches men that the only way to be a true complimentarian, a biblical husband and father, is to love our wives with the same love that Christ showed for the church. This is a love so deep, so respectful and reverent, that we are willing to die for our wives.

One of the chief characteristics of an abuser is selfishness. At times this selfishness veers into narcissism. The abuser would no more humbly lay his life down for his wife than he would give his life for his friend (something a true friend would do, see John 15:13). What we can see here is the difference between the biblical complimentarian and the abusive relationship of selfish narcissism.

Where in this verse is there room for abuse? Where can the abuser justify his abuse? If love is revealed in our actions, and the Bible calls husbands to love their wife to the point of dying for them, how can abuse exist? Simply put, it cannot.

To be clear, the abuser is not a complimentarian. Mohler makes this truth clear later in his article by stating:

“But the same Bible that reveals the complementarian pattern of male leadership in the home and the church also reveals God’s steadfast and unyielding concern for the abused, the threatened, the suffering, and the fearful. There is no excuse whatsoever for abuse of any form, verbal, emotional, physical, spiritual or sexual. The Bible warns so clearly of those who would abuse power and weaponize authority.”

Indeed, such “weaponizing of authority” is clearly condemned in Scripture. It is sin and any person engaging in this abuse must be called to repentance. Any attempt to hide abuse, or cover it up, must also be brought to light.