Fertility & faith

Maybe it's just because my undergraduate major was in the social sciences, but I've long believed that sociology is more important than theology if one wants to understand functional ecclesiology. "Fertility, Faith, and a Secular America?" by Philip Jenkins is a treasure trove of information on the recent decline in fertility rates across the western world and, increasingly, in the rest of the world as well.

Jenkins makes an important demographic observation and offers a useful ecclesiological/theological point. The former is that religious participation rates across a nation tend to go down along with its fertility rates (the number of births per woman; the commonly accepted "replacement rate" to keep a population stable is 2.1). The secularization of western Europe accompanied a severe decline in population growth through reproduction (as opposed to immigration). His insight is that participation in religious communities is not the same thing as belief in religious tenets: an individual may hold to the basic Christian faith and at the same time not be a member of a local congregation.

These two come together because having children tends to drive men and women to participate in religious life; that family participation, in turn, enculturates their children into religious life and makes it more likely to continue when they are grown. In other words, "belief" and "belonging" are severable practices which Churches must strive to put back together. 

My inner sociologist was fascinated by the data Jenkins offers. For example, Iran's fertility rate has dropped below 1.7 and "[b]y some estimates, Iran’s rates of mosque attendance run at perhaps 1 percent or 2 percent of the population, and barely 3,000 of the country’s 57,000 mosques are fully operational." Demography may be the United States' best ally in containing the potential threat of the Islamic Republic.

Most interestingly, Jenkins is not concerned by these trends, but (as is only fitting for a Christian)

hopeful:

Finally, my argument isn’t that Euro-American religion is dying, but that it’s changing. Many millions believe without belonging, and that number will grow. The challenge for churches, then—for all churches—is to decide how to respond to this new world, so hostile to institutions and hierarchies, so resentful of intrusions into what’s so widely seen as private space and private morality. How do you speak to those who wish to believe, but dread belonging?

A few observations whilst we frame our questions

Paul makes an interesting move after his blunt statement in 1 Corinthians 11:10, "That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels." He seems concerned to preclude a patriarchal overinterpretation of his admonition and qualifies it by adding, "Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God."

Observe:

•If all things are from God, then both man and woman are from God. In other words, woman is not subsidiarily derived from the man and related to God only through the man (or, by extension, her husband). If she is as immediately derived from God as is the man, then she enjoys all the privileges of access to God that he does.

•While the creation order of woman from man (1 Corinthians 11:8-9; Genesis 2:21-22) necessarily means that the man is the head of the woman and therefore the husband is head/authority over his wife, the subsequent providential order must be given equal weight. After Adam and Eve's creations, every man thence was born of a woman. While we must say that woman is derivative of man, we must also say that man is derivative of woman. Accordingly, we ought not get too carried away by considering only the creation order and ought also recognize the mutual derivation and interdependence of man and woman.

•The Apostle himself wants to guard against excessive emphasis and prescriptions in gender relationships.

From which we can conclude, at the very least: honor your mother.

Another thing I don't know

I've been reading David Bentley Hart's translation of The New Testament. He translates 1 Corinthians 11:10 as "Therefore a woman ought to keep ward upon her head on account of the angels."

To this he appends a lengthy footnote which he begins with "No one knows what this verse means."

Thoughts (not answers) regarding the questions you should be asking

1 Corinthians 11:2-16 is difficult to translate, not least because New Testament Greek does not employ distinct terms for "husband" and "wife" as we currently and most commonly use those terms  (i.e. as referents to the male and female partners in a marital relationship). However, given 1 Corinthians 11:3 ("But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God."), I believe it is wisest to assume that Paul's discussion of gender relationships in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 is directly applicable to a husband and his wife, rather than to male/female relationships in general.

That being so, one immediate application of 1 Corinthians 11:14 is that married men should cut their hair short. This has been a major concession for me personally, since my wavy flowing locks were once the envy of many a man and/or woman. But these are the sacrifices one makes for rigid Biblicism and the decision to take a wife.

When Paul says "Judge for yourselves" and "Does not nature itself teach you…?" (1 Corinthians 11:13, 14), he seems to be appealing to our intuitions about these things. That attitude can be kind of crazy-making when we're not entirely sure whether long hair is the same thing as having one's head covered and, more especially, when we're having trouble following the thread of his argument. Nonetheless, I believe he's on to something, especially when it comes to long hair on men. Men with long hair (often, not always, please don't anger-tweet at me) appear beautiful. There's something unseemly about a man who's more attractive than his wife. 

Case in point: it's a little weird that Elvis was prettier than Ann-Margaret. Which is just a fact.

Thus, it makes sense to me that a man must subordinate his own glory in order to highlight his wife's physical glory. Accordingly, I think Paul is on to something when he writes, "Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair it is a disgrace for him, but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory?" (1 Corinthians 11:14-15) Male vanity is disgraceful, and doubly so when a man is vain about his looks. Nature itself teaches us that a man should set aside preening when he gets married and instead focus on making his wife's glory prominent.

How should he do that? I only have questions, not answers.

The questions you should be asking

For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels. Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God.

(1 Corinthians 11:7-12, ESV)

So here's the 100% most important question for gender relations today: what does it mean that woman is the glory of man?

I don't know, but I wish I did. I also, quite humbly, suggest that (nearly) anyone who claims he does know is very likely driven by an agenda which has made him unable to ask, or answer, the question in any genuine sense. In what follows, I will attempt to establish what we know and what we do not know in order to point out the questions which we should be asking.

Exegetically, the answer to our question must be related to 1 Corinthians 11:3: "But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God." (ESV) The meaning of the term "kefale" ("head") in 1 Corinthians 11 has been much debated over the last several decades, but I believe Wayne Grudem has demonstrated conclusively (in Appendix 1 of Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood) that it denotes a position of leadership and authority.

An observation: the "headships" of 1 Corinthians 11:3 are not presented as mutually exclusive, but overlapping; i.e. the man whose head is Christ is also under the headship of God (the Father).
[In Pauline usage, "God" is frequently shorthand for "God the Father, first Person of the Trinity," especially when used in conjunction with "Christ" or "Lord," terms which he uses to refer to the second Person of the Trinity, the Son of God, incarnated as Jesus of Nazareth and anointed by the Holy Spirit to be the Christ. He uses these terms in these ways frequently, but not necessarily always.]
Otherwise, it would make little sense to say that man is the image of God, rather than the image of Christ. Woman is also the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27), which means that Paul considers "glory" to be distinct from "image" (which sentence I carefully constructed to allow for the possibility that "glory" and "image" are related in a manner which I cannot currently grasp). Man is the glory of God and woman is the glory of man, and Christ is the glory of God. "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 1:14, NKJV)

The Father's glory is made known in his Son, Jesus Christ. It would follow, then, that the husband's glory is made known in his wife. How should the husband so organize his life and his family's life that his wife makes his glory known to the world?

What does "glory" even mean when applied to fallen human beings? What glory does a miserable and sinful man have, and how is that conveyed in and through his wife?

Over the years, I have come to realize that the theophanies (appearances of God) of the Old Testament are appearances of the Second Person of the Trinity and not the First. (I'm open to being proven wrong on this point, but I'm pretty confident that God the Father did not appear, in himself, but instead made himself known during the Old Covenant era through the Son and the Holy Spirit.) In both the Old and New Testaments, then, God the Father does not make himself known directly, but rather puts his Son front and center, making the Son the focus of his worshipers' attention and letting himself be manifested entirely in his Son.

If the analogy is
God the Father : Christ :: the husband : the wife,
then should not the husband make himself entirely known through his wife? How would that even work?

I'll be honest: I am entirely satisfied with the "traditional" understandings of Genesis 1-3, 1 Corinthians 14, and 1 Timothy 2-3, but I'm not satisfied with "traditional" understandings of male/female and husband/wife relationships. I believe that's because there's a set of questions which emerge from 1 Corinthians 11 which we have not yet answered.

Let's start asking the right questions. The answers may be very illuminating.