No, the Husband isn't the "Spiritual Head of the Home"

If you’ve hung around the Christian corners of social media for any length of time you’ve probably seen some variation of the “umbrella of protection” meme (popularized by Bill Gothard). It looks something like this:

The idea that the husband is the “spiritual head of the home” is a popular one, and I understand that it may ruffle more than a few feathers when I suggest that it’s absolute poppycock. Though we assume it’s found in Scripture, the notion of the husband’s spiritual headship is a lot like the old proverbial statements like “cleanliness is next to godliness” and “God helps those who help themselves.” People often assume it’s there, but in fact it isn’t.

The assumption that the man is the “king of the castle” as it were is common in complementarian and egalitarian circles alike. In my newest book Your Daughters Shall Prophesy, I tackle this topic as it relates in the chapter “Is Charles in Charge?”:

I suspect that most egalitarians are functionally patriarchal in the home. While they believe women and men can and should serve alongside one another, when they get home, the man is the head of the home. In speaking with many Christians over the years, I’ve found that for most, this is not a matter of a well-developed theology that insists upon a man’s role being one to dominate and rule and a woman’s role is to submit and be ruled over. Instead, it is often the default assumption because of cultural, societal, or religious assumptions and because complementarian household theology has dominated the Christian media landscape for years (p. 69).

But permit me a few moments to consider what this may actually not be the case––why God’s design was not that the man be the head of the home, but that man and woman would steward Christian households together, with mutuality and interdependence.

Headship and Scripture

Marg Mowczko is one of my favorite writers on the scriptural basis for egalitarian thought. I agree with her reading of “head” in the Pauline texts that are often used to justify male dominance over women (Eph. 5; 1 Cor. 11, etc.). You can read some of her thoughts here and here. You can also can also check out Tom Wright’s 2017 address to the Christians for Biblical Equality where he takes a similar approach here:

If we reject this reading—that head refers to “source” (such as the head of a river) and not dominance, then we have to reconcile with the fact that such a hierarchy between peoples appears to contradict Paul’s own words in Galatians 3, that in Christ there is neither male nor female. As Wright notes in the CBE address, this does not mean that we shed our distinctives but instead that the socio-cultural implications of those distinctives are rendered meaningless at the foot of the cross. Paul says that while remain identifiably male and female, the impact of that maleness and femaleness upon how we function together as God’s people is equal.

This harkens back to the picture we see in the Genesis account of the creation of Eve. In his book The Lost World of Adam and Eve, John Walton notes how what we see in Genesis 2 is a vision whereby YHWH communicates to man what the function of woman is to be—which is his co-equal, his “other half” as we say, entrusted with stewarding sacred space alongside man.

God’s design is that woman and man would lead together. This the pattern Paul is beckoning the church to return to, and that he himself models in his elevation of women in the New Testament churches (c.f., Rom 16).

Coupled with the classic interpretation of Joel’s prophecy in Joel 2, that our sons and daughters would prophesy, this forms the basis for how egalitarians generally think about male and female leadership in the Church. That, in Christ and through the continuing ministry of the Spirit, both are equally empowered for Christian service.

Headship in the Home

For egalitarians especially, the assertion that man is the “head of the home” simply cannot hold weight. There’s no biblical justification for an “egalitarian at church, complementarian at home” framework. Some might point to Paul’s charge in 1 Cor. 14 about women asking their husbands at home if they have questions rather than disrupting the assembly. But the reason for this charge was 1) to ensure the questions of the women were getting answered. Paul wanted women better educated in Corinth and 2) not rooted in gender superiority, but out of educational disparity. Simply put, men were educated in Ancient Rome and women generally were not. Paul is discipling the Corinthians against that cultural norm and insisting that the more educated (who happen to be men) raise up the less educated (who happen to be women). This is how Paul can hold in tension his words here with Priscilla, under Paul’s ministry, discipling Apollos (Acts 18).

Well, what about Spiritual Headship?

Still others will say, “Well, no, husbands don't rule over their wives, but men are entrusted to be the spiritual head of the home.”

Says who? Certainly not the Bible.

Again, this is an assumption we read into the Text because it has been so commonplace, even among egalitarians. Yet, this concept would have been entirely foreign to the cultures of the Bible.

Why? I explain in Your Daughters Shall Prophesy:

The way “spiritual” is used in this context is in contrast to the physical. Men and women might do their finances, household chores, meal planning, etc., together—the physical things—but the spiritual matters are the domain of men—or at least where he might have the final say.

But this way of dividing the cosmos, between unseen/spiritual/supernatural and the seen/physical/natural is born from the Enlightenment, not Scripture…[The cultures of the Bible] rightly viewed everything, including that which is seen, physical, and natural as inherently spiritual…

…Instead, the ancients divided the world not by spiritual and physical, but by creator and creation. All of creation, both seen and unseen, corporeal and incorporeal, stood in contrast to its loving creator, who was intimately involved in its innerworkings—in both ways we can see and in ways we cannot see (p. 72).

So this idea that men have exclusive leadership in “spiritual” matters, in contrast to other more “physical” matters where men and women can be equal, is given to us not by Jesus but by John Locke. Locke was one of the first to put forward the categories we draw in the West between the different spheres of our lives. But ancient Christians would have perceived all their life as inherently spiritual in nature, being transformed into the image of Christ by the work of the Holy Spirit.

Again, we see that God’s design is that in every area of human relationship—church, home, government, the arts, the academy, etc.—Christian women and men are to flourish together, stewarding sacred space to the glory of God in mutuality and interdependence.

It may be a fair caveat to say that I am not suggesting that husbands are not the head of their homes. I’m insisting that wives are to be right their alongside them as equals.