Complementarian Deviations, Part 1

Tim Keller’s Narrow Complementarianism in the Home

In the late 1980s, a conservative response to “evangelical feminism” arose, known as “complementarianism.” This term was used to communicate that men and women “complement” one another in their differences¹, with adherents affirming male headship in the home and male leadership in the church (i.e., opposition to the ordination of women as pastors and elders). However, complementarianism intentionally distanced itself from the earlier Christian view, which has been described as “traditionalism” or “patriarchy.” 

Broad vs. Narrow Complementarianism

This new movement—formally inaugurated with the creation of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood in 1987—soon divided into two distinct camps, which some have termed “broad” and “narrow” complementarianism. While broad complementarians affirm something close to the classical Reformed position,  narrow complementarians barely resemble our Reformed forefathers. 

However, there are still differences between broad complementarians and the traditional Reformed position, as the former generally adopt a newer and narrower interpretation of 1 Corinthians 14:34–35, in contrast to the near-unanimous view of the earlier Reformed theologians that this passage parallels 1 Timothy 2:12 as a prohibition on women speaking publicly in worship. Further, some broad complementarians still express discomfort with the earlier Reformed language of hierarchy, superiority and inferiority of rank, and the differences between men and women as rooted in nature. Some broad complementarians even attempt to ground wifely submission in the Trinity (instead of just nature), in what is known as the Eternal Subordination of the Son (ESS)—a doctrine at odds with classic Trinitarianism and the orthodox Reformed.²

Yet narrow complementarians have moved even further away from the traditional Reformed position on male headship. Narrow complementarians pay mere lip service to male headship in the home, always speaking of it as “servant leadership” (although leaders are indeed supposed to serve) and downplaying the wife’s duty to submit to her husband. While narrow complementarians do not permit women to hold the office of pastor or elder, they have blurred the line of church leadership by separating the tasks of the office from the office itself. 

Accordingly, even within denominations that do not permit the ordination of women as pastors (like the Southern Baptist Convention and the PCA), some churches have allowed women to take on the duties of pastors and elders without the label. Examples include women teaching men in Sunday school and other settings outside the worship service, women reading Scripture and leading prayer in public worship, women participating in the administration of the sacraments, women preaching to men at college chapel services and campus ministry meetings, and the creation of a women’s advisory council to the session. A popular phrase among narrow complementarians is that “a woman may do anything a non-ordained man may do.”

This is to say nothing of the growing number of Christian women who are pursuing careers outside the home that interfere with the bearing and raising of children, along with many pastors who refuse to challenge this trend. And the question of women in civil office is rarely even considered, under the pretense of the “separation of church and state” (as if the civil government is exempt from natural law and biblical norms). It is obvious that contemporary pastors feel the pressure of feminism, and many are caving. 

We cannot cover every possible deviation from the teaching of the Reformers and the Reformed orthodox on this subject, so we will focus on one of the most prominent proponents of narrow complementarianism, Tim Keller (1950–2023). Keller was the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, a congregation of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). Keller’s teaching is worth addressing because it has been deeply influential both inside and outside the PCA.

Is Motherhood a Vocation?

We will begin with Tim Keller’s approach to women in the home. In 2014, Keller wrote Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work, in which he discussed the theology of vocation—that is, one’s calling in life. Keller provided examples throughout of women who have careers outside the home, and he even co-wrote the book with an egalitarian career woman, Katherine Leary Alsdorf, who at the time served as executive director of Redeemer’s Center for Faith & Work.³

Yet somehow Keller never addressed the vocation of motherhood in the book. Indeed, he did not use the word “motherhood” even once. Keller did speak of “being a father or mother” as “God’s calling,” but he did not make any distinction between the respective duties of husbands to provide for their families and of wives to bear children.⁴ In fact, the word “mother” only appears four times in the book, three of which include “father” next to it. The fourth instance belongs to a quote by a man who explains that his wife, a professor, “occasionally” brings her children to work so that “she can create a culture where family is not an interruption from work.”⁵

Thus, Every Good Endeavor highlights Keller’s failure to address the significance of motherhood and of woman’s home-oriented obligations. Considering the Bible’s teaching on a mother’s duties and on the culture’s animosity toward them, motherhood is worthy of an entire chapter in a book on vocation. But instead of facing the culture head on, Keller chose to ignore the central vocation of half the population. His silence is deafening. Unsurprisingly, he also ignored the two most pertinent biblical texts on the subject:

Therefore, I want younger widows to get married, bear children, keep house, and give the enemy no occasion for reproach. (1 Tim. 5:14)

Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored. (Titus 2:3–5)

These are two of the clearest passages in Scripture that emphasize the domestic and child-oriented duties of women, but Keller never mentioned them in his book.⁶ Instead, his theology of vocation assumed that all women are called by God to take on careers outside the home, a clear capitulation to feminism. Bearing children is the most unique part of womanhood, and it is a task worthy of high praise (Ps. 128:3; 1 Tim. 5:10). Any theology of vocation must affirm God’s calling of motherhood, as did the work of earlier Reformed theologians. Despite the cultural pressures of feminism, which urge women to pursue careers outside the home like men, Keller seemed to have little interest in calling women to have more children and to raise them in the home. 

However, Tim Keller did briefly address gender roles in his book, The Meaning of Marriage, which he wrote with his wife Kathy. Considering tasks such as the “primary responsibility for daily child care” and “oversee[ing] the finances,” the Kellers said, “The Scripture does not give us a list of things men and women must and must not do. It gives no such specific directions at all.”⁷ However, only two pages later, they said, “Wives are more directly and more often exhorted to be gentle supporters, to be encouragers (1 Peter 3:1-2, 4), and more directly and more often to be nurturing children and the home life (Titus 2:4-5). Husbands are exhorted more directly and more often to lead, provide for and protect the family, but are not let off the hook for the education and nurture of the children (1 Timothy 3:4; 5:8).”⁸ 

The Kellers are to be commended in their citation of Titus 2:4–5, but we would note that men are never commanded in Scripture to be “working at home” as women are in this passage. Thus, it is incorrect to say that the Bible does not specify respective duties for men and women as the Kellers stated (“The Scripture does not give us a list of things men and women must…do”). The husband’s primary responsibility is to provide for his family (Gen. 3:17-19, 23; Ex. 21:10; 1 Tim. 5:8). And the wife is specifically told to focus on childbearing and keeping the home (1 Tim. 2:15; 5:14; Titus 2:4; cf. Gen. 3:16). Of course, the husband also has an important role in raising children, which includes educating them in the Christian faith (Eph. 6:4).

The Problem with “Servant Leadership” in Marriage

Tied with this, the Kellers have described male headship as “servant leadership,” emphasizing headship in the context of breaking a “stalemate.”⁹ They spoke of the need for men “to submit to their gender roles” as “servant leaders.”¹⁰ And they stated that “Jesus redefined all authority as servant-authority. Any exercise of power can only be done in service to the Other, not to please oneself.”¹¹ 

Now it is true that Jesus teaches that “rulers” are to “serve” those under their rule, just as Jesus came to serve (Matt. 20:25–28). However, there are several problems with the way the Kellers have explained male headship as “servant leadership.” 

First, the husband is the leader in the home and has greater authority than a mere “tie-breaking” or “stalemate-breaking” authority. This language does not do justice to the command for wives to submit to their husbands “in everything” (Eph. 5:24). Second, the Kellers’ description of headship as “servant leadership” ignores the fact that the husband has his own mission in life, his own vocation. God calls the husband to love and lead his wife, but He also calls the man to work in business and the church, meaning he is to serve others outside his home. The servant leadership of a man ought not to be construed as if a husband’s only duty is to serve his wife. 

Third, it does not follow from male headship that a husband’s service to his wife is entirely at odds with pleasing himself. He may make decisions that are mutually beneficial and that do not feel like a sacrifice at all. Fourth, the husband’s leadership is not simply about doing things that make his wife happy. He is a leader, for the good of himself, his wife, his children, and others. Accordingly, he may make decisions for the good of the family that also temporarily displease his wife. Paul says that man was not “created for woman, but woman for man” (1 Cor. 11:9). 

Thus, the wife does not dictate how her husband will lead so as to serve her (though she may provide counsel). That is the husband’s decision. Rather than servant leadership, when the apostle Paul speaks of headship, he emphasizes the man’s duty to love his wife (Eph. 5:25, 28). The husband is to lead his wife unto holiness, for her spiritual good (Eph. 5:26–27). He is always to consider her good, out of love, but his leadership involves more than serving his wife.

Therefore, Tim Keller’s approach to familial duties and male headship is a prime example of narrow complementarianism and a clear departure from the Reformers and Reformed orthodox (and thus also from Scripture). In the next article, we will examine Keller’s narrow complementarianism in the church, including his push for deaconesses.

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*This article was adapted from the book by Zachary Garris, Honor Thy Fathers: Recovering the Anti-Feminist Theology of the Reformers (New Christendom Press, 2024).

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