Ch 5 The Gender Equation in the Church

As witnessed in the primordial garden, the gender equation became the primary determinant for its persons and relationships, and continues to be in churches today. No other basis underlying church theology and practice has been as consequential for the church. Based on a church’s gender equation—either paragender or with gendered distinctions—persons gather together in likeness (give or take some variation) of their identity and function from this gender equation, which they reflect, reinforce, promote, and sustain in gathered likeness. These church gatherings are not surprising or unexpected, because a church’s gender equation encompasses a church’s identity and function determined in likeness of what or who it is based on.

This final chapter of our current study addresses this key issue in the defining process for the church: Does the church gather together in likeness of human shaping, or in likeness of the Trinity? And whatever the variation of theological views, is the church’s gender equation in likeness of human terms in variable referential language, or in likeness of God’s relational terms in irreducible relational language? In other words, is the church known by its common distinctions, or by its uncommon wholeness?

The primary identity and function used by the church will determine its persons and relationships in likeness, which will gather together according to its gender equation. This process must be understood as axiomatic since Jesus stated unequivocally: The measure we use will always determine the measure we get (Mk 4:24). That’s why Paul made imperative only one primary determinant for the church: “the wholeness of Christ” (Col 3:15). As mentioned in the previous chapter, for the relational outcome of our persons and relationships together to be “one as we are one” (Jn 17: 21-23), we must vulnerably submit in order to “let the wholeness of Christ’s person rule in our hearts” as the only determinant for our identity and function as paragenders integrated as the Trinity’s family.

Moreover, the calculation from any gender equation and its algorithm is directly intertwined with its gospel. That is, the results of a gender equation emerge from the gospel claimed and proclaimed by a church. This calculation is clearly understood when seen from the whole gospel. Assuming the whole gospel (“the gospel of peace,” Eph 6:15), there is a gospel reality we need to be clear about:

Wholeness and reductionism are antithetical and in ongoing conflict for our persons and relationships. One or the other composes the gospel claimed by churches today; and any hybrid that functions with reductionism always fragments wholeness to render it without salvation from sin—just as a little yeast leavens the whole dough, as Jesus’ warned against “the yeast of the Pharisees” (Lk 12:1; Mt 16:5-12; 1 Cor 5:6-7). The gospel of either wholeness or of some variation from reductionism underlies a church’s gender equation and that equation’s results, thereby shaping those persons and relationships of the church, and thus determining their identity and function according to the gospel claimed—which in turn reflects the God of that gospel. No other measure can be calculated; it’s either wholeness or reductionism, with the former irreducible and nonnegotiable to anything less and any substitutes.

Therefore, the church must set the eyes of its heart both beyond and deeper than the usual gender debates, both sides of which are incompatible and incongruent (i.e. merely common) with the wholeness and well-being (shalôm) of its persons and relationships in both creation and the new creation. Accordingly, the whole-ly Trinity cannot, as Jesus said, “come to them and make our home with them” (Jn 14:23) in a merely common context—no matter how doctrinally rigorous, inclusive, or “alive” that context is composed. Help us Spirit, to further listen carefully; convict and correct us wherever and however you deem necessary—and raise us up as your whole-ly dwelling.

This is a pivotal and urgent time in church history for the church to distinguish itself by its true identity and function as God’s uncommon paragender family. But to be clearly distinguished we need to clear out the pervading theological fog that allows the primary human shaping of church locally and globally. Ever since the earliest church in biblical times, while some churches embraced and practiced God’s relational terms, others did not clearly identify the antithesis between wholeness and reductionism in their practice, but practiced a hybrid theology and fragmentary gospel. The latter churches are important for us to learn from, and an examination of them follows below. Having either intentionally or unintentionally turned a blind eye to the conflict between the wholeness or fragmentation of persons and relationships, the churches’ interpretive lenses gave primacy to secondary matters, due to referentializing the Word, which includes its incomplete or selective embracing.^{^[1]}

This shift in focus away from the primacy of God’s whole qualitative-relational terms gave rise to theological relativity and thus fog, which in turn became norm-alized. The consequences have endured throughout the rest of church history, and are obvious in church theology and practice today. Without question, the church and academy have failed to fight reductionism in its expressions of distinction-making based on gender and other secondary human distinctions, a condition more common than uncommon—that is, less and less distinguished (in their persons and relationships). This is the current state that the church must recognize and address. And this condition will continue until we take to heart Jesus axiomatic paradigm: “The distinctions you use will be the church you get”—which may require the same house cleaning by Jesus.

When Jesus cleansed his Father’s house, (Jn 2:14-17; Mt 21:12-13; Mk 11:15-17), he was redeeming it from its common-ized functions of (1) making distinctions among persons (by segregating worshipers on the basis of gender and race), and (2) giving priority to secondary concerns (e.g. crowding out worshipers’ space to make room for the marketplace within the temple courts, and likely exploiting the poor).[2] Jesus was outraged at these abuses from the sin of reductionism that replaced the temple’s whole relational purpose: “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations” (Mk 11:17). These dynamics promoted distinctions and fragmented relationships in comparative processes within God’s house, which is the most important issue that churches today must understand because “My church shall be the intimate family fellowship of all persons without distinctions.”

What are churches promoting? Consider the contrast made by the psalmist for God’s people:

The Psalmist declared joy for “the house of the LORD,” its condition of well-being in wholeness (shalôm), and, in relational terms over referential, that “For the relational purpose of the house of the LORD our God, I will seek your good” (Ps 122). ‘Good’ (tôb) once again emerges with a subtle challenge to be defined either by God’s whole relational terms (as this psalmist is) or by our reduced referential terms (even well-established by tradition with good intentions). That is, the nature of the challenge is who defines what’s good for the church, and what determines who the church is. Without listening carefully to this subtle challenge and paying close attention to the subtlety of its counter-relational workings, such a perceptual-interpretive lens narrows down “good and evil” to a “good without wholeness” and an “evil without reductionism”—in other words, what was really promised in the primordial garden about “knowing good and evil.”[3]

In the primordial garden, the Creator declared the whole of creation as “very good,” yet Adam’s relational condition before Eve as “not good to be apart” from God’s relational whole context. God’s good is only about wholeness in God’s relational context and relational process, in the image and likeness of the whole-ly Trinity—nothing less. However, since the primordial garden, this wholeness has been fragmented. Nevertheless, humans continued to live and multiply and fill the earth, not to extend the Trinity’s relational context and relational process, but with what they themselves determined was good. With the influence of human shaping, ‘good’ evolved in many forms, yet all of them constitute ‘good without wholeness’ because they exist apart from God’s relational whole. Churches practice these forms of good—such as ‘the common good’ and other notions of good as defined by sociocultural norms. These all formulate good intentions as well, which, if not whole, are only illusions and thus in subtle practice don’t address the human condition “to be apart.” The common good is an apt description for good intentions of the church that appear or sound good but don’t get to the heart of “not good to be apart.”.

Conjointly, the breadth of God’s ‘not good to be apart’ from God’s relational context and process, necessary for persons and relationships to be whole, constitutes the full significance of ‘evil’. As discussed in the previous chapters, gender distinction-making in the primordial garden was the original evil that fragmented the wholeness of persons and relationships. Thus sin must be understood as reductionism, so any view of ‘sin without reductionism’ is always incomplete and weak. Churches that hold to ‘good without wholeness’ and ‘sin without reductionism’ do not understand why God declared creation “very good,” and do not understand the human condition as “not good to be apart” from God’s relational context and process; and their theology and practice will reflect these lacks, most notably in how members are defined and their relationships function.

The antithesis between wholeness and reductionism has been present ever since the primordial garden, and is a common thread throughout Scripture because it is at the heart of God’s theological trajectory to respond to our inherent human need and the human condition. The wholeness-reductionism conflict constitutes the inherent conflict between the ‘holy’ (uncommon) of God, and ‘the common’ of human contexts. In all your Bible study and reading, you’ve likely perceived different terms of antithesis, such as ‘good and evil’, ‘life and death’, ‘light and dark’, ‘wisdom and folly’, God’s ways and humans’ ways; these word-pairs all refer to relationship with God on God’s terms or on human terms, and signify on whose terms persons live. Throughout Scripture, these terms integrally point to the one conflict between the wholeness of God and the fragmentation from human shaping—the whole + holy (whole-ly, i.e. uncommon) or the common—or, simply, between God and Satan, whose presence in the church is more covert than overt, as Paul exposed (2 Cor 11:14-15).

Ever since the primordial garden, human interpretive lenses narrowed down God’s relational language with the consequence of creating theological fog, obscuring what God really meant (Gen 3:1-5). The church has been existing in this theological fog that allows re-defining ‘good and evil’. Theological fog allows for churches to decide what’s good or sinful for our persons and relationships together based on biases, which allows for gender equations and other distinctions to pervade the church’s identity and function, thereby rendering the church undistinguished from the common. The consequences develop thus:

What existed in “my house” may seem obvious in the Gospels’ accounts, yet the
underlying issues are composed subtly with a ‘good without wholeness’ and an ‘evil without reductionism’. This subtle dynamic continues to unfold in the global church today, along with assuming that churches can shape the Lord’s house on their renegotiated terms. Evidence of this in churches in the global North and South is indicated when a church professes what’s good and promotes that good with various aspects yet without its inherent wholeness—focused on only well-meaning parts, for example, “good for food” and “to make one wise”—which then God would say “It is not good.” Conjointly, when churches proclaim salvation from ‘sin without reductionism’ and ignore sin as reductionism, or don’t pay attention to its counter-relational work reducing the primacy of relationship together in wholeness—for example, allowing relational distance, stratified relationships, preoccupation with the secondary (even by serving)—then such churches reflect, reinforce or sustain reductionism in their theology and practice, to which God would say “It is not good to be apart from wholeness.” What exists in the Lord’s house is critical for the global church to examine about its condition in order to clarify and/or correct its theology and practice in need of urgent care, perhaps emergency care for any subtle condition threatening its significance. Listening to the Word will provide the light and understanding needed to illuminate what exists, penetrating the fog of any illusions and getting down to the heart of any simulations.[4]

Because of our ongoing failure to perceive the uncommon qualitative-relational terms that compose God’s whole (the Trinity’s relational context and relational process of love), we are misguided and distracted by secondary or even false antitheses, for example, as when two seemingly oppositional positions (e.g. complementarians and egalitarians), are really two sides of the same coin—with the coin being the reductionism that is antithetical to God’s qualitative-relational whole. This consequence emerges less from our theological task and more from our experiential task in everyday living.

Therefore, living whole from inner out without gender distinctions (which indivisibly includes all other distinctions), or continuing to live fragmented by gender distinctions (and other distinctions) is the key issue for churches to address for their persons and relationships. In other words, does the relational involvement of God’s family love in intimate and equalized relationships together define the church’s identity and function—or does the current state of the church reflect all that we are and can ever be? This focus needs to be given precedence over ministries because it gives top priority to what constitutes the essential identity and function of persons involved in ministries, including evangelism or social service (Peter’s challenge in Jn 21:15-22). Churches need to cease operating under the illusion of embodying the gospel—for example, in evangelistic missions and community service projects—without having undergone the turn-around change of their gender equations. What churches use is all that churches get. Therefore, churches need to assess what constitutes the ‘good’ of their good news, along with the ‘sin’ that they battle against, and discern if ‘sin without reductionism’ resides hidden in their ‘good’ intentions. This self-examination unfolds by first understanding that:

The reality confronting the global church in its theology and practice is this
undeniable reality: from the beginning the human self distinctly emerged with the perception of ‘good without wholeness’, and has been sustained and justified by sin without reductionism. The subtle choice defined by good without wholeness has unfolded to increasingly become the norm for human ontology and function—the default mode for Christians who don’t enact ongoingly the choice for whole ontology and function.[5]

We know that God grieves or rejoices over God’s people. Jesus wept over his people for failing to make the relational response to God’s vulnerable presence and intimate involvement necessary to be whole (Lk 19:41-42, cf. 13:34). Which is it for us today? Which gender equation characterizes the global church prevailing in the world—the church of gender and other human-shaped distinctions, or the whole paragender church family of the new creation on only the Trinity’s whole relational terms? Can the uncommon Trinity dwell within us as we currently are?

At this point in church history, theological fog in the church and academy has created an ambiguous identity and function in their human contexts, though of course even a referentialized Christian theology and ontological simulations or illusions of being the church (e.g. having their own vocabulary and religious rites) still mark them as different. As we saw in Chapter Two, the prevalence of gender distinctions (representing all other human distinctions) is the most damning evidence against the church today—ranging from overt sexual abuse to subtle benevolent sexism.

We might wish to attribute theological fog (and blindness) to biblical illiteracy. Biblical illiteracy in the U.S. church is steadily increasing, with religious education disappearing from church schedules. Yet illiteracy about the words of God is not the critical problem as some observe.^{^[6]} The critical and primary problem for both the local and global church is the biblical insensitivity to the words from God and thus unawareness of (1) God’s communication to us in relational language, and (2) the relational terms constituting the relational context and process of God’s qualitative presence and relational involvement with us in the primacy of relationship together. This insensitivity and unawareness have been consequential for the church, and which have rendered the church, its persons and relationships to a gender equation based on, reinforcing, and sustaining qualitative insensitivity and relational unawareness. Since the church and academy are comprised, supposedly, of Jesus’ disciples, then it is quite apparent that in their individual and collective discipleship (assuming they are Jesus’ disciples), they have not paid attention to the Trinity’s relational imperatives.

This condition for the church is not new for God, because God confronted the Israelites for the same condition. Insensitivity to the words from God and the lack of awareness of God’s relational primacy and relational terms compose the hardness of heart (as in Zec 7:12; Heb 3:8,10,12-15; cf. Eph 4:19). Its opposite is the openness, humbleness, and vulnerable heart of childlikeness that Jesus makes requisite for his followers, notably for church leaders (Mt 18:3-5; cf. Lk 10:21), which has always been the relational imperative for relationship together with the uncommon God’s whole relational terms. God communicated these terms to Israel in unmistakably relational language (Dt 7:8; 10:15-16; 11:13,18); and God’s relational language composed the book of Deuteronomy as a love story and not about the law in referential terms as is commonly perceived (Dt 23:5; 33:3).

Despite God’s imploring, disciplining, and ongoing vulnerable relational involvement with the Israelites, they kept reverting to their default mode of outer-in practice focused on secondary matters of what to do. Observing God’s law in referential terms from outer in reduced their faith practices to ontological simulations, which God hated (Amos 5:21-24; Isa 29:13; Mt 15:6-9).

The relevant example in our discussion is, of course, the gender equations of complementarians and egalitarians. These gender equations (and their respective theologies) are the bases for separate churches filled with likeminded individuals. It seems obvious that the gender equations of complementarians and egalitarians are incompatible with each other, and that using both equations in church would not be functional. Yet, there is a congruence between them that makes each equation even more incongruent for the church, that is, the church family in likeness of the Trinity.

First, both equations highlight a human distinction that focuses on the self from outer in over the person from inner out. This limited focus creates an imbalanced consciousness about self as a substitute for person-consciousness—a self-conscious practice that is not often apparent because of how commonly and readily it is engaged. Self-consciousness, as discussed in the previous chapter, first emerged in the primordial garden as the shame of gender. For church relationships, self-consciousness prevents persons from being vulnerable with each other, which is antithetical to the depth of love with which Jesus loves us, just as the Father loved him, and in turn just as we are to love each other. To reiterate from the previous chapter, the uncommon relational involvement of love requires the vulnerable submission of persons, not about gender, in order to relationally respond without the distinctions of secondary aspects of persons. In other words, uncommon love cannot be expressed with self-consciousness in the presentation of self, which is how much Christian love is expressed.

Self-conscious egalitarians and complementarians are both (1) incongruent with the person created in God’s image and incompatible with the relationship together of persons in the Trinity’s likeness, and (2) thus, persons and relationships in either equation counter the identity and function that must distinguish the church in the Trinity’s likeness.

Second, the priority given to self centers on the individual rather than the primacy of relationship together involving whole persons. This re-ordered priority of creation reflects, reinforces and sustains the human condition “to be apart,” which is incongruent for the persons created and re-created in likeness of the Trinity. Therefore, all such individuals are incompatible for the church family and counter-relational to the church’s practice.

Furthermore, trying to reconcile the two gender equations is ill-served by efforts to compromise, because even if they compromised, for example, by co-existing and holding their differences ‘in tension’, their persons and relationships composing their churches are still fragmentary, lacking wholeness. The result would be nothing more than

some irenic illusion or simulation marked by harmony, a version of ‘good without wholeness’. However, illusions and simulations have negative consequences in that they fool persons into believing something that has no substance, like the metaphorical house that was built on sand that Jesus foresaw (Mt 7:24-27).

The inescapable reality from the primordial garden is that the default human mode for persons and relationships is “to be apart” from the whole created by the Trinity and recreated by the gospel. “To be apart” has become this default mode through norm-alization in all human contexts, including the church. While the condition “to be alone” may not be considered good in Christian gatherings, the deepest condition “to be apart” from the whole is the most basic issue facing the church. Thus, whether church members are complementarian or egalitarian, they have yet to address the human relational condition.

For the church to declare with creator God that “it is not good for the human person to be apart from the whole” (Gen 2:18), its view of the person and relationships must be congruent with God’s. This whole understanding requires that the church’s view of sin must be also congruent with God’s. “To be apart” from the whole is the human condition generated by reductionism; and the church is in the pivotal position (1) to embody the experiential reality that saves us from this condition, and (2) to enact the relational reality that saves us to the whole created by the Trinity and newly created by the gospel in whole-ly likeness of the Trinity.

Person-conscious Christians are needed for the church to go forth. But this turn-around change requires paragenders to rise up in the paragender equation in order to distinguish the church “whole-ly as we are in the Trinity.”

The early church’s persons and relationships, even with the benefit of experiencing the embodied Word in person, were often incongruent and incompatible with the Word’s relational terms—not least among whom was the prominent church leader, Peter (discussed in Chap. 4). As the earliest churches became established and grew (Acts 2:43-47; 4:32-37), how well they continued to function in the uncommon identity and function in the Trinity’s likeness is not clearly indicated from Scripture except for some affirming words from Jesus (e.g. Rev 2:6,13,24-25; 3:4,10-11) and Paul (e.g. 2 Cor 8:2-3; Phil 1:3-7,10,15; 1 Thes 1:6-10). We have more biblical witness to their critiques, especially in Paul’s letters and Jesus’ post-ascension correction for some churches in the Book of Revelation, the latter discussed next.

What the above ecclesial process keeps reinforcing and sustaining is how the church has been common-ized by the surrounding human context throughout its history. From its beginning, the common-ized church has been critiqued by Jesus’ post-ascension feedback (Rev 2-3). Four of the representative churches, and the modern counterparts, have their theology and practice clarified and corrected by the Spirit, in order to be transformed to the uncommon-ized church—both whole and uncommon in likeness of the Trinity. Common-ized churches exist and even thrive accordingly by criteria lacking the primacy of relationship, even when their particular church-speak includes relational-sounding words. But God, who sees persons hearts (as in Rev 2:23), can distinguish between illusions (like masquerades) and when churches “worship in spirit and truth” (Jn 4;23-24).

Most churches today probably have unmerited high estimations of themselves; otherwise, they would change. It is not overstating an important reality to say, however, that too often churches operate under illusions of who they serve and on whose terms. Three illusions shaping the churches addressed by Jesus (Rev 2-3) are helpful for us to examine our church practices today: biblical compliance by working against unbiblical views, popularity and success, and tolerance of differences.

The first is the illusion of biblical compliance and persevering against contrary views, as critiqued in the church at Ephesus (Rev 2:1-7). Jesus’ critique of the Ephesian church highlights the primary issue for all the critiqued churches, with each church constructing alternative identities in varying ways. Jesus acknowledged this church’s hard work and its strong stance against false teaching. Yet Jesus critiqued them for having “abandoned the love you had at first” (v.4; “forsaken your first love,” NIV), that is, the primacy that God gives to relationship together. Lacking their qualitative and relational involvement on God’s relational terms, this meant that their narrowed-down interpretive lens could only perceive the words of God in referential terms, and respond in those terms, as illuminated here:

The list of the Ephesian church’s deeds is impressive: their “toil”…their “endurance”…they maintained the doctrinal purity of the church under trying circumstances and did not tolerate falsehood, unlike the Thyatira church and its hybrid theology; they even suffered repercussions for Christ’s name and yet endured the hardships to remain constant in their faith…..[T]heir theological orthodoxy appeared uncompromising and spotless, maintaining their integrity in the surrounding context. This list forms a composite picture…which essentially was extremely dedicated in major church work, and which can also describe a number of successful churches today.
Jesus knew…about their deeds [and] the nature of them, and the extent of their functional significance. It may seem somewhat perplexing that Jesus was not impressed with this church and even felt to the contrary about their church practice: “You have abandoned the love you had at first” (v.4). We may wonder “how can a church so involved in church work abandon its first love?”…. Yet, his discourse here for the integrity of ecclesiology raised a serious issue of church function, which is crucial to account for in how we practice church ourselves. His critique makes conclusive the very heart of his desires for ecclesiology to be whole.
The term “abandoned” (aphiemi) means to forsake, abandon persons, to leave, let go from oneself or let alone; and this also includes functionally maintaining relational distance even while in close physical proximity or in mutual activity. Aphiemi is the same term Jesus used in his promise to “not leave his followers orphaned” (Jn 14:18). Connecting these relational messages provides the context and process for the function of ecclesiology to be God’s whole family. In the church context at Ephesus this strongly describes not paying attention to the whole person and not giving primary priority to whole relationship together. They worked hard doing things for God but the relational process necessary for their “works” to have functional significance was deemphasized or misplaced in their effort. This often

happens as churches develop and the goals of church growth become the priority of church practice. In the process, as the Ephesian church demonstrated, there is a subtle shift in which the means become the end and its primary purpose for relationship together to be whole is abandoned or made secondary.[7]

The Ephesian church was essentially reduced to an ontological simulation of God’s church because it no longer functioned in the primacy of relationship, which is God’s irreducible and nonnegotiable relational imperative; instead, they substituted with an identity of ‘what to do’. This first illusion of biblical compliance is propagated by many conservatives/complementarians. Notably, the primary determinant for their identity and practice is the self-perception that they are the truly—and, for some, the only—faithful keepers of God’s word as authoritative for all of life. Such churches demonstrate, however, insensitivity to the qualitative and relational unawareness by virtue of their gender equation that renders both females and males to less than whole persons in reduced theological anthropology. Additionally, many of these churches’ members are vocal opponents of others who are different from them—making distinctions as a norm-alized aspect of their self-determined identity.

The second illusion is the illusion of popularity, and its counterpart of success in the status quo, as critiqued in the churches at Sardis and Laodicea, respectively. The church at Sardis (Rev 3:1-3) had, according to Jesus’ critique, “a name [onoma, reputation, brand] of being alive,” indicating that it was likely a very popular church, but Jesus perceived them as “dead.” The reasons are as follows:

Jesus exposed what actually existed beneath the outer layer (and onoma) of “being alive”: the simple…truth was, “contrary to your esteemed identity, you are dead” (nekros, the condition of being separated from the source of life, thus being unaccompanied by something, i.e. “to be apart”); this reality based on the fact that “I have not found your practice complete [pleroo] in the sight of my God” (NIV); that is, their ergon (works denoting what defined them) was incomplete (contrary to pleroo, to make full, complete or whole) and fragmentary based on God’s whole terms, not as defined by the surrounding context. This church assumed that ‘the measure they used’ for their ecclesiology and practice would not reduce or fragment their ontology and function; yet the often-ignored subtle reality is that such a consequence was ‘the measure they got’—just as Jesus earlier made axiomatic as well as paradigmatic (Mk 4:24).
….Since no explicit sins such as idol worship and sexual immorality were mentioned (as in Thyatira), their incomplete deeds point to something more subtle or lacking. Their activity was perceived as alive, yet likely in the quantitative aspects of bios, not the qualitative function of zoe. Their reputation signified only a substitute (onoma) of the integral identity of who, what and how [God’s] church is, consequently lacked the integrity of wholeness. While Jesus’ polemic about soiled and white (leukos, bright, gleaming) clothes described those incomplete and a remnant who weren’t incomplete respectively, bright clothes symbolized those who participated in God’s life (3:4).This is about reciprocal relationship and involvement together, which soiled clothes symbolized a barrier to, precluded or maintained with relational distance. Any type of “soiled” clothes—whether stained by blatant sin or dirtied from subtle incomplete work, including preoccupation with the secondary—would have this relational consequence.[8]

The illusion of a popular church can be difficult to recognize in our social climate because our common-ized mindset places a high premium on quantitative comparative measures, such as numbers of attendees at church services. This is the illusion of church reputation propagated by megachurches (churches with an average weekly attendance of 2,000 or more). Yet, large or small, Jesus’ critique is a ‘wake-up alert’ to all churches today.

A problem related to popular churches is that they usually emerge with the popularity of a celebrity preacher/pastor (usually a man). An obvious example is Willow Creek Church (WCC), which has become a ‘brand’ enjoying a reputation of being alive. However, WCC’s popular founder Bill Hybels resigned this past April (2018) due to sexual misconduct. Moreover, WCC’s leadership failed its members (notably the women targeted by Hybel’s misconduct) by being more concerned about the brand than those women. Jesus’ critique is pertinent to Willow Creek’s leadership failures:

In spite of how well the Sardis church presented itself (its appearance) and how
well it was perceived (its image), qualitative substance was lacking. This reflected a shift in how they defined themselves from the inner out to the outer-in aspects and functions (metaschematizo, change outward form). Their lack of deeper qualitative substance exposed the credibility of their reputation as essentially meaningless—though worth an image in comparative reductionists terms—while the validity of their work (apparent service and ministry) was relationally insignificant because they were separated (“to be apart”) from the substance primary to wholeness of life. These are severe critiques Jesus made of a church that at least was doing something to earn that reputation of being alive….The choice essentially of style over substance is not unique to the church in Sardis. In fact, the distinction between style (for appearance and image) and substance is blurred in many current church practices. Yet, the credibility gap between what appears to be and what actually exists is not readily apparent to a church and observers, when a church relies on what it does to define itself. Reputation becomes one of those valued indicators of success that many churches depend on for feedback to evaluate their work—or value to validate their position in God’s kingdom. Jesus asks, “What are we filling our churches with?” The above is not the dynamic of pleroo (making complete, whole) that distinguishes the pleroma (fullness, i.e. whole) of Christ (as Paul illuminated for the church’s wholeness, Eph 1:23).[9]

As I was writing this chapter, the news broke just within this past week that Willow Creek’s new co-pastors and entire elder board resigned in acknowledgement of their failure as the church’s leaders to properly addressing the allegations, which included

not believing the women who came forward. That is a step in the right direction, but how new leadership will address Willow Creek’s failures moving ahead, and what they address, will be very telling. If any changes are only from outer-in—for example, only adding a layer of accountability in the face of any future sexual misconduct, which alone would constitute only a band-aid fix—that would be ‘good without wholeness’ and not the kind of inner out turn-around change that God’s church needs to address its root problems.

The second illusion of a successful church in the status quo was exemplified by the church at Laodicea. This church was the target of Jesus’ familiar critique about being lukewarm (Rev 3:14-22). This church thought of itself as successful “I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing,” and likely saw itself as a good model (like a ‘brand’); but using that criterion for their identity and function relegated the primacy of the Trinity’s qualitative-relational terms secondary, if considered at all, which rendered Laodicea distasteful—as explained further here:

This was a rich city known as a prosperous banking center, for its textile industry and it renowned medical school—cultivating great pride by their residents in their financial wealth, fine clothes and famous eye salve. The church there wasn’t isolated from this context but shaped by these secondary substitutes for the primary…. Whether or not they considered themselves “hot” as a church, they certainly thought they were a good church compared to a “cold” church. It is unlikely that anyone would consider them “not good,” particularly in comparative church history. In prevalent ecclesiastical terms, they were good indeed, yet measured only on the basis of outer-in quantitative terms focused on the secondary (cf. a marketplace). Their narrow lens and fragmentary basis reflected how they defined persons from outer in by what they did and possessed, which signified how they engaged each other in relationships, thereby determining the basis for how they practiced church. Underlying their practices was a theological anthropology of reduced ontology and function ….This was the fragmentary condition that the embodied Word…clarified and corrected to expose the true state of their church from inner out in qualitative relational terms, the reality of which composed an inconvenient truth for the church: “You do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked,” which certainly then is “not good”—even by common comparative terms.

The strength of Jesus’ feedback—which doesn’t appear to be loving or, at least, irenic—was necessary to penetrate their self-assessment illusion shaped by reductionism and to expose their functional simulation with substitutes composed by reductionism. Since they were not paying attention to reductionism, he reminded them that “the measure they were using was the measure they were getting,” and that they could neither boast of nor even hope for having anything more. Just as their water supply turned lukewarm by the time it reached the city and was an inconvenience to their lifestyle, the reality for this church was the condition of being lukewarm. For Jesus, their lukewarm church practice was not only inconvenient but distasteful—if you’ve ever had lukewarm water on a hot day—“I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” Even if they were “cold,” at least they wouldn’t operate the church with illusions. Lukewarm, however, is a subtle practice from reductionism that promotes the status quo; it signifies what is common in the surrounding context and serves to maintain the status quo of the common—with no thought, desire or need to be distinguished as the uncommon.[10]

Laodicea could easily have been blended right into the contemporary U.S. church scene, much more at home in today’s common context than in the uncommon relational context of the Trinity.

A modern-day church that also defined itself by its brand was Mars Hill, which despite its quick exponential growth as a network of churches in Seattle, officially disbanded as an organization in January 2015 (some of the individual churches continue to exist).[11] Under Mark Driscoll’s authoritarian leadership—characterized by complementarian misogynist views accompanied by a toxic masculinity gender equation—Mars Hill became a multi-site mega-church. According to some pastors of the multi-site campuses, Driscoll kept pushing for financial efficiency through technology, reducing those other pastors’ teaching responsibilities, and engaged in unethical actions to advance the church financially, leading to the church’s ultimate demise. Driscoll’s demands included prioritizing making new converts over maturing those already coming. And in general, the others went along. As noted in an article in the Atlantic.com:

And that’s why Mars Hill’s demise can be read as an object lesson in the dangers of building a church—or any brand—on a single magnetic leader. Lots of people liked Mark Driscoll, and they liked the idea of him even after his flaws began to show. But when he proved to be all too human, his church couldn’t survive without him. Driscoll apparently once told staff, “I am the brand,” and he turned out to be right.[12]

This was a case when it is better for a church to die than continue in its illusions. The church was too embedded in its common-ized practices—of which their gender equation was the most deplorable—to be saved, that is die in order to be raised new. It is heartbreaking to recognize that at some point(s) along the way, Jesus stood at Mars Hill’s door and knocked to be let in (as in Rev 3:20)—but they didn’t listen and thus couldn’t hear his voice.

The third illusion of tolerance and inclusion was practiced by the church at Thyatira. This church was situated in the Greco-Roman economic context that required membership in trade guilds, which provided members with social and economic connections. Participating in these guilds involved eating food sacrificed to idols and prostitution, so it was challenging for Christians in this environment:

In the nature of this surrounding context, Jesus acknowledged this church’s
extensive Christian practice: love, faith, service, patient endurance, and that their “last works are greater than the first,” indicating not a status-quo church but actually performing more practice than before. Yet, what Jesus clarified and corrected was that their practice also “tolerated” (aphiemi, to let pass, permit, allow, v.20) a prevailing teaching and practice from the surrounding context (likely related to trade-guilds), which compromised the integrity of whole theology and practice. Significantly, their hybrid process was not simply an issue about syncretism, synthesizing competing ideologies, or even pluralism; and the issue also went beyond merely maintaining doctrinal purity…to the deeper issue about participation in (en) a surrounding context having the prevailing presence of reductionism and its subsequent influence on their perceptual-interpretive lens. Their lens, of course, determined what they ignored (or tolerated) and paid attention to, which shaped their practice.
Theologically, the Thyatira church demonstrated a weak view of sin, that is, sin without reductionism, consequently what they certainly must have considered good works was ‘good without wholeness’. Functionally, this exposes their lack of reciprocal relational involvement with God in the indispensable ek-eis [out of-into] reciprocating dynamic necessary to distinguish their whole identity as God’s family en the surrounding context without being fragmented by it in a hybrid process. What converges in a hybrid process is critical to listen to carefully and pay attention to closely: ‘sin without reductionism’ subtly composes ‘good without wholeness’, so that the church’s theology and practice are not distinguished whole in the world—though perhaps having longstanding, popular or uncompromising distinction in the surrounding context (as other churches demonstrated). To what extent does a hybrid process shape the global church today? Added attention needs to be paid to global South churches, who must adapt to a global economy, fixed cultural traditions, and even the spirit world. Yet, common practices by global North churches already demonstrate having absorbed the limits and constraints from the common into their theology and practice, although the hybrid process is much more subtle.[13]

A major claim made by complementarians against egalitarians is that the latter is influenced by Western culture’s emphasis on equality for females, rather than adhering to “biblical manhood and womanhood.” There’s a degree of truth in that claim, although complementarians also have no meaningful basis from which to judge. Still, churches embracing liberal and progressive views need to hear Jesus’ critiques to the church at Thyatira. The concerns for all marginalized groups and the need for radical change against all forms of discrimination are ones I certainly embrace, but not on the same basis as such churches. To be inclusive of persons who are ‘different’ and thus considered as less was Jesus’ practice, but there’s a critical difference to understand. Jesus only defined all persons in terms of their whole person from inner out created in the image of God—without partiality to any distinctions—whereas liberal and progressive churches define such persons by their non-gender human distinctions, which is a fragmentary theological anthropology. Conservative churches also define persons by their secondary human distinctions.

All the above churches receiving Jesus’ correction illustrate their focus on the secondary aspects of persons, thereby reflecting reduced theological anthropology and a weak view of sin, that is, sin without reductionism. Because of this, they all functioned in conflict with the Trinity’s whole ontology and function. Making the secondary the primary determinant is antithetical to the wholeness and uncommonness of the whole-ly Trinity, which Jesus’ wake-up alert to churches makes unmistakable. It is critical to churches today to understand that their practices are more likely than not merely illusions and simulations of the new creation church family. Even if the church uses many words such as relationships and intimacy, such language is mere ‘churchspeak’ without relational significance to God if their practice revolves around the secondary from outer in. Churches need unequivocal response to the relational imperative to listen to the Father’s Son, and consider carefully what they hear; the Son’s incisive words to the churches at Laodicea and Sardis are directly applicable for all the churches in existence today.

It’s not surprising that many Christians’ lenses don’t pay attention to Jesus’ critiques of the churches in Revelation 2-3—for example, there’s much more interest in the heavenly worship scenes, from which many contemporary worship songwriters get their inspiration. At this urgent and pivotal time in church history, Jesus’ relational language communicating the Trinity’s family love needs to be heard, received and responded to. In light of current gender issues in the churches, consider why the church today needs to wake up:

Family love functions for the integrity of relationship together to be whole, and for accountability for anything less and any substitutes. Thus, Jesus’ critiques were ‘a critique of hope’ in his call to be whole—a functional key in his involvement for ecclesiology to be God’s whole family. When Jesus confronted them to “wake up,” the sense of this two-word combination (gregoreuo and ginomai, v.2) is to emerge as new, whole persons. This was not about self-determination but redemptive change—the relational imperative for transformation. They needed to be transformed in the inner-out aspects and functions (metamorphoō, the inward change of transformation) of the person and relationships, while being redeemed from the outer-in aspects and functions (metaschēmatizō) that did not give full importance to the qualitative function of the whole person (signified only by the heart) and the primacy of relationships together in likeness of “my God.” Their outer-in over inner-out way of defining themselves determined what they paid attention to in how they did relationships and how they practiced church—which were not complete but fragmentary and thus without wholeness. The Father makes it a relational imperative for us to “Listen to him in his wake-up call.”[14]

From its inception, the early church combatted both heresy from outside and fragmentation (schism) from within, which the epistles address. This is relevant not as mere church history but for application to contemporary church practice. The second wave of church leaders, the Apostolic Fathers (1^st-2^nd C.) continued to face these challenges, and their writings attest to this constant conflict between the whole gospel of Christ and its reduction and distortion; the latter distorted theological anthropology by shifting the focus away from the primary to the secondary in the sin of reductionism (e.g. by Gnosticism and Montanism).[15] A few centuries later, the Church Fathers from roughly the 4^th through 6^th centuries wrote extensively to help the church continue to combat heresies, and here is where gender distinctions come to the fore with “theological” validation. These Fathers’ influence on the church’s gender equation has been immeasurable, and is sustained to this day. Patristic scholar Elizabeth A. Clark notes some context for their writings as pertain to women here:

Leaving aside other possible motivations for the Father’s exclusion of women from such offices [of priest or public teacher], we can note an historical one: from the second century on, various sects on the fringes of mainstream Christianity, often proclaimed to be heretical or schismatic by the Church, allowed women high leadership positions, including sacramental ones. Various Gnostic sects probably let women baptize. Charismatic movements that appealed to the Holy Spirit’s inspiration were also natural ones to allow women a larger role, for it could be argued that God did not discriminate sexually in distributing the charismata, the spiritual gifts. It is likely that the Catholic Church reacted to such sects, that were indeed a genuine danger to orthodox Christianity’s survival and power, by drawing firm lines of differentiation between the types of church office permitted to women in the sects and the offices and roles permitted women in the Catholic Church. When the Fathers cite Biblical verses depicting Jesus’ twelve male disciples as a justification for an all-male priesthood, we see that they are appealing to the norms of Palestinian Judaism as a sanction for the practices of later Christian churches in the larger Graeco-Roman world.[16]

These Fathers demonstrated both a bias from common-ization, and likewise made such distinctions against females—biases which I suggest they always had and were never redeemed from. Many of them strongly believed that the Fall was only Eve’s fault. One particularly negative statement came from Tertullian’s treatise addressed to women On the Dress of Women:

God’s judgment on this sex lives on in our age; the guilt necessarily lives on as well. You are the Devil’s gateway; you are the unsealer of that tree; you are the first foresaker of the divine law; you are the one who persuaded him whom the Devil was not brave enough to approach; you so lightly crushed the image of God, the man Adam; because of your punishment, that is, death, even the Son of God had to die. And you think to adorn yourself beyond your “tunics of skins” (Gen 3:21)?[17]

The Fathers believed that the order of creation constituted the basis for women’s submission to their husbands, a familiar argument made today by complementarians. As Clark notes:

With the Fall, that subjection was only increased. The Fathers were nonetheless eager to assert that the subjection was actually for the good of human society and resulted in a happy complementarity of male and female roles.[18]

Also, some of these writers disparaged women as inferior in intellect and scholarly ability (notably Augustine).

The Fathers also had positive things to say about women, idealizing women in the NT who followed Jesus, as well as the Fathers’ contemporaries who lived exemplary lives devoted to God—particularly some wealthy women who chose a life of asceticism. Asceticism was held out as a way that women could find freedom from the burden of marriage, yet, according to Clark, “the Fathers read the Scripture selectively to find legitimation for their advocacy of asceticism” for women.[19]

Because the Fathers highlighted these women, Clark allows that this reflected their ambivalence: “One undoubted manifestation of [their] ambivalence [toward women] lies in the Fathers’ selective appeal to the Bible.”[20] This fact—selective use of Scripture—exposes their bias in referentializing the Word from God to the Word of God, thereby ignoring the whole theological trajectory and relational path of the complete Christology of the gospel of wholeness. These Fathers vacillated widely in their comments (sounding like certain segments of the church practice today), as Clark summarizes:

Women who wholeheartedly dedicated their lives to such religious activities received extravagant accolades from the Fathers that provide a striking contrast to the denunciations many Fathers heaped on women in general.[21]

Their seemingly conflicting views about women (‘ambivalence’ is too irenic for the reality of the Fathers’ gender equation) are two sides of the same coin of gender-based distinctions, creating stereotypes of both females and males. Past and present, this conflicting position has rarely been apparent, much less resolved.

Because of the Fathers’ authority and influence on shaping the church, their misguided selectivity, and the gender distinctions they clearly made, this only further solidified the prevailing gender equation for females (and males) both throughout the church’s history and embedded in church tradition. The theological fog created by these early theologians has had disastrous effects for innumerable girls and women. These Fathers are indeed the forefathers of ‘the church of gender distinctions’, and the founders of church tradition that many churches today reinforce and sustain in likeness, whether intentionally or by default.

It is not surprising that complementarians appeal strongly to the Church Fathers to back up their own biases; it serves their interests to sustain the ancient theological fog created by selective appeal to Scripture. Complementarian churches (with their gender equation) try to be distinguished from the sociocultural context by adhering to inerrancy of the Bible for doctrinal purity. However, by reinforcing and sustaining gender distinctions in their male-dominated traditional gender equation, they have lost the primacy of relationship on God’s relational terms (thus unaware of the relational) defined solely by God’s relational terms of grace (thus biblical insensitivity). The insensitivity and unawareness of the primacy of whole persons and whole relationships is expressed by their gender equation that places females in subordinate status to males, which in the inevitable comparative process stratifies their persons and relationships.

In the Trinity’s view, however, complementarians cannot continue to spin their fragmentary theological anthropology as the design and purpose for the creation of human persons. That is utterly false, incongruent, and incompatible with the original paragender equation of whole persons defined from inner out. What is true, however, is that biblical insensitivity and relational unawareness leaves those church members and relationships in the default relational condition, namely the inclusive sin of reductionism, which leaves persons in the inherent human condition “to be apart” from the whole of the Trinity.

Any appeal to preserving church tradition as sacred must be very specific about what is being affirmed, and what is to be rejected. Those segments of the global church who prioritize church tradition (as it includes gender distinctions, and any other secondary distinctions) are accountable for making human shaping the primary determinant for church identity and function. Therefore, when church leaders appeal to the sacred tradition of the church—whose founding Fathers established gender distinctions for the church—then those current leaders need to be held accountable for their incongruence and incompatibility with the whole gospel of Christ (not their version). In relational and functional terms, to call ‘sacred’ anything from human shaping that is incompatible and incongruent with God’s relational whole is to be antithetical to the whole-ly Trinity’s self-disclosures. In other words, ‘holy’ is often not synonymous with ‘whole-ly’ in church theology and practice.

As noted previously, egalitarians simply practice a more nuanced version of reduced human identity and function. Egalitarian intentions appear to be more in line with impartiality and against excluding persons as biblical principles. These good intentions—over against complementarian subordination of women—comprise the illusion of being more open to others who are ‘different’ and thus more loving. Simply stated, there is a whole lot of ‘good’ in egalitarian churches’ ideals, which has failed to address their theological anthropology based on other distinctions. But, as Jesus critiqued the above four churches, good intentions mask ‘sin without reductionism’, and this subtle condition invariably leaves the shame of gender unresolved, and persons and relationships in the condition ‘to be apart’. This brings us back to the old algorithm of the old gender equation lacking wholeness.

To reiterate Paul’s incisive statement, it is only the wholeness of Christ that is to be the sole determinant of the church’s identity and function (Col 3:15). All else is from human shaping, and good intentions do not have significance to God. Furthermore, the only thing that matters, as Paul stated emphatically and without equivocation, is the new creation of whole persons in intimate and equalized relationships (Gal 6:15); that is, our persons and relationships together function in the Trinity’s image and likeness only in equalized and intimate relationships (2 Cor 3:18; Eph 2:19-22). For Paul, anything less was a different gospel, and any substitute was not the new creation.

There is a very fine line that the church has always had to walk between their uncommon identity and function in the Trinity’s likeness, and the illusions of this likeness. Both complementarians and egalitarians blur this line because they still function with theological fog. For example, on one hand, complementarians blur the line with their referential lens of selective use of Scripture, and by articulating rules to follow that help earnest Christians know not only what to do, but are outer-in parameters defining so-called biblical femininity and masculinity. This structured primary identity and practice gives a sense of certainty and false sense of security about who they are, without having to face the inconvenience and uncertainty of being vulnerable before God and each other with their whole persons without those veils. As noted earlier, this intentional or default practice diminishes wholeness of persons and relationships, and keeps persons functioning in self-consciousness, with very distinct genderized practice in everyday life. An entire Christian culture of this nature is practiced as if gospel truth.

On another hand, many evangelicals today—including those in the academy—blur the line between the uncommon and common by their primary focus on participating in our sociocultural context, and participating in its spheres of influence (e.g. politics, media, business). The thinking is that Christ also engaged culture in order to transform it and to extend God’s kingdom on earth (variably defined). The complementarian/egalitarian debates have roots in the question of engaging culture and politics, which consistently have neither addressed their tap root nor understood what that depth involves.

Generally, complementarians are labeled as conservative, and egalitarians as liberal-progressive. While this would not be incorrect, it is problematic for the church in both its theology and practice. First, the association of conservative or liberal with a theology on gender becomes confused with political categories (e.g. right or left), which then conflates sociopolitical ideology with theology. This conflation is not a recent phenomenon in church history, but it prevails in the U.S. church to make indistinguishable the church’s unique identity and function—unable to be distinguished in the theological fog. This politicizing of gender is inseparable from politicizing the church, having the same root sin of reductionism. Church leaders involved in politicizing the church are often involved in the deceptive practice of claiming to promote God’s agenda in the broader culture. That is, they claim (falsely) to have a spiritual mandate to influence culture and society, thereby to spread God’s kingdom on earth. It is a false claim because Jesus expressly declared that his kingdom is not of this earth but is distinguished from it (Jn 18:36), not to be confused with living in this world (Jn 17:16-19).

Second, the politicizing of gender also impacts church practice. Without being distinguished in the unique identity and function of the church embodied by Jesus, the church is reduced to a voluntary association of likeminded individuals. Churches become occupied by mainly those who think and act alike, and church growth takes place accordingly. In other words, the church’s identity and function are like most other associations, organizations, and institutions common to the human context. Some may argue that this church practice is valid as long as the church’s integrity is not compromised. But that in fact is the problem here. The church has not only been politicized but more deeply been common-ized. The church, the whole and uncommon church, whose identity and function are distinguished only in likeness of the Trinity, has relinquished its whole-ly integrity (cf. “forsaken your first love, Rev 2:4) for that which is merely common—that is, reduced and fragmentary, albeit in the name of Christ (cf. Mt 7:21-23).

The third and obvious consequence for the general population is the divided and distorted witness the fragmented church gives. The politicization of gender and church creates confusion or even barriers for persons who want to know the one true God but find themselves having to associate with a politicized group in conflict with ‘the other side’, a division that they may find to be completely distasteful. Not to mention that any fragmented church presents a common-ized God in place of the whole-ly Trinity who cannot be shaped by human biases, political and otherwise. The current Federal government leadership counts Christians among its prominent leaders and influencers, whose self-interests are so obvious, to the detriment of the church’s witness of God and God’s church. Who holds whom accountable, and on what basis?

Furthermore, and closer to home, for the church’s persons and relationships, the gender equation unfolding in this consequential politicizing process leaves unresolved the bôsh intrinsic to the sin of reductionism, rendering persons to the relational condition “to be apart.” And the church and its persons and relationships will continue in this human condition—“Wake up! I have not found your works complete by God’s lens (Rev 3:2)—until its theological anthropology is restored to whole ontology and function “just as we are one” (Jn 17:22).

Inherent in politicizing gender is the use and abuse of power and influence. Church leaders in particular are accountable for their misuse of power and influence, which has been tied to many of the cases of sexual abuse and harassment of females. Recent popular church leaders who have gained political status in the public sphere have also been woefully compromised in their integrity—not least of which is their disparaging treatment of women, or silence when their peers treat women hurtfully. It is impossible to separate their sexist actions from their politics, for upon close examination, it appears that most of the time the two go hand in hand. Even in the absence of overt actions of sexism, the benevolent sexism in churches renders females (and some males) to the condition of lost or wandering lambs (discussed in Chap. 2). Such church leaders and their churches will continue to misrepresent who, what, and how the Trinity is, and the good news of the gospel.

A prominent example of the politicizing of gender in the U.S. is the unfinished journey of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which would guarantee equal rights in the Constitution for all persons regardless of sex. First proposed in 1921, the most recent version proposed in 1972 states:

Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.

Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.

This is a politicized issue about civil rights of all persons; and it is a current topic of conversation because the #MeToo campaign has exposed the need for a Constitutional basis for lawsuits against perpetrators of sexual violence and discrimination. The ERA would provide that basis. Christians supporting the ERA are, of course, those considered to be left and progressive (e.g. Evangelical and Ecumenical Women’s Caucus, a.k.a. Christian Feminists Today). Persons against the ERA are politically right and conservative, although it’s difficult to find any position statements by specifically Christian conservatives.[22] Phyllis Schlafly’s well-known successful campaign against the ratification of the ERA is not specifically theologically based, but her arguments are clearly ones that conservative Christians affirm for their traditional family values.

Despite some gains for females in the U.S. in terms of equal opportunities (e.g. higher education), such as the increasing numbers of women making headway into traditionally all-male jobs, sexism still pervades this society. This is reflected in the fact that whatever gains women make, there is always powerful backlash. Backlash in the contemporary U.S. politicized gender climate—which includes LGTBQ issues—concurrently takes place in the church (e.g. the emergence of CBMW to counter evangelical feminism in the 1970s). Since that time, evangelicals have become so polarized that some (notably less conservative evangelicals) don’t want to be associated with the name ‘evangelical’ any longer due to the name’s association with the Christian right’s politics. Common-ization is killing the uncommon roots that should determine the Western church. We urgently need God’s perspective and correction.

The politicizing of gender by the church is, of course, inextricable from the culturizing of gender, the latter of which has gone on since the primordial garden. Culture in the human context is the various expressions in everyday life of human-determined theological anthropology, evolving over generations, and forming societies’ identities. The fact that the spheres of influence in the human context pivot on gender distinctions leads gender sociologist Michael Kimmel to ask:

Why is it that virtually every known society is also based on male dominance? Why does virtually every society divide social, political, and economic resources unequally between the genders? And why is it that men always get more?^{^[23]}

Kimmel’s questions are relevant and urgently need to be asked of the common-ized global church.

The deeper issue is, to reiterate, the common-ization of the church by its involvement in using these gender distinctions as the primary determinant to define persons and relationships in church practices. Human contextualization of gender prevails in the church to render the church incompatible and incongruent with God’s paragender creation and new creation in Christ, and will continue to prevail until the church is de-contextualized from the primacy of human shaping of gender, and recontextualized in the Trinity’s relational context and relational process, embodied by the Word. This is the relational outcome of Jesus’ dynamic of reciprocating contextualization (noted previously), or, to use Jesus’ words in prayer to the Father, “for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth” (Jn 17:19).

Reciprocating contextualization is discussed further below, but we first must make the necessary connection of gender equations with race (and ethnicity). A common-ized church, which unavoidably reinforces and sustains incompatible and incongruent gender equations, without question also reinforces and sustains the human distinctions of race and racial discrimination. With globalization of the world, the church has been increasingly struggling with racial divides and bridging these divides because we’re all coming face to face with more and more others who are racially/ethnically different from ‘us’, along with economic and religious differences. Thus, we need to understand that common-ized churches cannot or will not—intentionally or unintentionally—bring about racial reconciliation, even with stated intentions promoting it.

We need to highlight the parallel between incongruent and incompatible gender equations and the divisions based on race and ethnicity in U.S. churches. There are gender equations, and there are race equations. The prevailing race equations make clear distinctions among various people groups based on skin color and ethnicity. (Note: for the rest of this section, I use ‘race’ as shorthand for ‘race and ethnicity’ for the sake of simplicity). Efforts at racial reconciliation rarely if ever get below the surface of racial distinctions shaping persons’ own identity and function, as well as their views of the ‘other’. Just recently the New York Times featured an article about black worshipers leaving white evangelical churches, basically because racial distinctions keep emerging from white members (notably since the 2016 presidential election) to the extent that they don’t feel they belong.[24] In one church, some black worshipers initially liked a church that was majority white, but when the pastor wholeheartedly endorsed a racist presidential candidate on the grounds that he represented the values that his church did, these black sisters and brothers deeply felt the relational condition “to be apart” in that church.

Yet, the issues here are twofold, as in two sides of the same coin, just like the complementarian/egalitarian coin. On one side are white evangelicals who are biased and discriminate against persons of color function in the comparative process of better-less, taking the position of ‘better’ for themselves. This racism can be overt (hostile racism) or covert (benign racism, as in paternalism). On the other side are persons of color, who want to be treated as equal—equal opportunities, equal pay, and the like—just as egalitarians want for women. These persons of color may or may not attend racially segregated churches; they may intentionally work to create multicultural churches.

As with gender, the ‘same coin’ that all these persons inhabit is the pervasive distinction-making based on human differences. That is, the secondary distinctions constitute these persons’ identity and function, which includes viewing all others with this same lens focused with priority on the ‘outer’. It is as incongruent and incompatible with wholeness to give primacy to these secondary criteria to constitute our identity and function as it is to use gender distinctions. Again, they share the same tap root sin of reductionism; that is, the same coin is fragmentary theological anthropology and pervasiveness of the sin of reductionism.

This coin has various other expressions of good intentions. Churches seeking to integrate racially-ethnically have good intentions, trying to bridge this gap, especially in diverse communities. These churches are likely also concerned about the divisiveness in the church as a whole, and want church to look more like heaven, citing the vision of worship (Rev 7:9-10). Then there are those who prefer segregated churches for one of a number of reasons: (1) Some persons feel more comfortable or at home with ‘their own kind’; (2) some persons experienced discrimination in other contexts and seek the comfort and healing in a safe space—which means to be among their own kind also; (3) still others congregate based on language and country of origin due to the need for social support in a new country—which may be a necessary interim situation, but must not be permanent.

The church cannot address only one ‘-ism’ and expect transformation to wholeness from inner out. This is the challenge and fight Paul was devoted to: the fight against reductionism and for the whole of God’s new creation church family.

Racial reconciliation is a false hope held out by many well-intentioned Christians (and non-Christians). It is a false hope because persons who have not been redeemed from their identities based on the secondary fragment of race/ethnicity—and this is true for all sides—cannot make the deep vulnerable relational connection that constitutes reconciliation of the gospel of wholeness, namely redemptive reconciliation. Just as persons who haven’t been redeemed from gender distinctions cannot be reconciled with the reconciliation of the new creation, so too persons whose primary identity and function are defined and determined by race do not experience redemptive reconciliation of the new creation (as Paul clarifies, 2 Cor 5:16-20; Eph 2:14-22). This is a difficult reality to embrace by Christians with high hopes. This is where the bold reality of the Word from God is necessary to cut through any virtual reality in our thinking and action (as in Mt 10:34-36). For the wholeness of Christ to be our reality, it can only emerge from the relational reconciliation between persons from inner out. Anything less results in only simulation or illusions.

Though this study focuses on gender distinctions, to be paragender—by the nature of wholeness—must encompass all such secondary distinctions. That is, for our theological anthropology to be transformed whole and uncommon from inner out, it is imperative for the church to repent of its sin of reductionism in all its expressions in order to experience the redemptive reconciliation of transformation. Only then will it be able to emerge in wholeness of persons and relationships together in the image and likeness of the whole-ly Trinity.

Perhaps the most critical lesson for our transformation is the relational truth in Jesus’ words: “For their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in the truth” (Jn 17:19). It’s true that Jesus interacted with political structures and religious culture of God’s chosen people, less so with the Greco-Roman structures, although the latter came with the territory of his theological trajectory and intrusive relational path. How Jesus interacted while in the human context is the key for us to understand the difference between being contextualized by it in common contextualization, and his uncommon dynamic of reciprocating contextualization.

Christian leaders (e.g. in missiology, ecclesiology, and worship leaders) commonly say that Jesus’ incarnation contextualized the gospel in the human context. This can be confusing. When persons make such statements, they tend to mean that Jesus shaped his message into the cultural forms familiar to his hearers—for example, by using parables about farming and sheepherding—so that they could relate to his teachings. The problem with this approach is that secondary aspects of culture unavoidably become primary, and shape the message. U.S. churches engage in essentially the same practice by contextualizing the gospel to a consumerist, technology-savvy, and entertainment seeking population. This approach is always susceptible to common-izing the gospel, notably the incomplete Christology and truncated salvation discussed in Chapter 3. The reductionism may be perceived as the lack of qualitative substance, either clearly perceived, or as a nagging feeling of “something’s missing.”

Jesus did not contextualize his message in the above manner, because while he was ‘in the world’ his primary context was always in the Trinity’s relational context and relational process. It is from this primary relational context and relational process, that Jesus functioned in the world, but not be of the world (not defined or determined by human shaping, Jn 17:14-19)—though the world (including his disciples) tried, unsuccessfully, to shape him to fit their biases. This relational dynamic is what defined his whole person and determined his involvement—in the relational process of triangulation (as in navigation using the North Star) and reciprocating contextualization:

The primacy of relational involvement with our Father is the guiding point of reference for the function of our primary identity in the surrounding contexts and in relationships with persons in those contexts, including in his kingdom-family. Furthermore, this involvement is the dynamic necessary for Jesus’ followers to embody the reciprocating contextualization to clearly both be whole and make whole without being co-opted by human contextualization.[25]

With reciprocating contextualization, Jesus connects us to an even greater context and an even deeper process of life and practice beyond the limits of sociology…to the theological anthropology which coheres with the embodied light. As the light, Jesus functioned to embody the relational design and purpose of the human person created in the image of (and his relational context in) the whole of God, and he embodied the function of the relational ontology of human persons together created in likeness of (and his relational process with) the Trinity. This involves going further than moral ideals, values and virtues, and deeper than ethical character and conduct, to engage human persons together not only for optimal function but for the ongoing relationships in everyday life and practice necessary together to be whole, God’s whole.[26]

… [W]hat prevails in (en) any context of the world is reductionism. Jesus calls his followers relationally out of (ek) these contexts in order to be whole together as his family, then also relationally sends them back into (eis) those surrounding contexts to live whole together as his family and to make whole the human condition (as defined in his formative family prayer, Jn 17). Without the reciprocating dynamic of this ek-eis relational involvement, church practice is functionally based on just en (in) the surrounding context and thereby shaped in its influence. Modern contextualization of the gospel, for example, has not made this distinction and thus has been subject to reductionism. This is problematic in function for the ongoing relational involvement with the whole of God and God’s terms to constitute the whole of who we are as church and whose we are.
Without the ongoing function of the reciprocating ek-eis relational involvement, there is no engagement of a culture’s life and practice in the surrounding context with the necessary process of reciprocating contextualization. In conjoint function with triangulation, reciprocating contextualization provides the relational process imperative for the qualitatively distinguished identity of a church to function in the surrounding context without being defined or determined by what prevails in that context, even in its culture. That is to say, without this reciprocating relational process in church practice, there is no consistent functional basis to negate the influence of reductionism. This leaves church practice susceptible to subtle embedding in the surrounding context, or engaging in ontological simulation and epistemological illusion, despite the presence of apparent indicators of important church practices illuminating its identity.[27]

Relational triangulation and reciprocating contextualization are nonnegotiable for the church to be ‘sanctified’, which means to be uncommon-ized—made holy by being set apart from the common’s identity and function. Jesus embodied this sanctification conclusively during his incarnation, for our sakes to also be uncommon-ized just as Jesus was (Jn 17:19). The church needs to understand that sanctification is not a mysterious process that ‘somehow’ takes place inside a person after being ‘saved’. It doesn’t happen by regular church attendance and participation in Communion, that is, if persons participate without the submission of their whole persons to the Trinity’s whole relational terms. Just as Jesus was notably distinguished and different from others while in the world, so too we are to be distinguished and different—whole-ly defined and determined in our identity and function as paragenders, vulnerably involved in the primary relational context and process of the Trinity—while sent into the world to be and live whole-ly in order for the world to receive the whole gospel (Jn 17:21-23).

The unaltered reality for the global church is that Christ’s sanctified identity and function comprise a minority identity while he was in the world. Neither enhanced nor idealized, his essential minority identity is our identity and function also to embody as we are sent into the world just as Jesus was. Therefore, church, hear Jesus’ wake-up alert! Persons who want to be just like everyone else (as my mother wanted her kids to be) or merely don’t want to be marginalized will remain in their majority identity, fragmented in gender distinctions, along with all the other human distinctions that the world makes. The choice between these two identities places the church before the narrow gate and its narrow road leading to life, or the wide gate and its comfortable and convenient road that leads in the status quo of the human condition (Mt 7:13-14).

To begin this final section of the study, it is helpful to review the significance of the paragender equation as the only equation that necessarily defines persons and determines relationships by the nature of the Trinity’s new creation family. This is the only valid alternative to human shaping in the question posed at this chapter’s outset: Do we as the church gather in likeness of human shaping, or in likeness of the Trinity? The original persons were created in the image and likeness of the Trinity. God as Subject (not mere Object) transcends gender—God is neither defined nor determined by the limits of gender—and we were created as subject persons in God’s likeness yet created with biological sex, though not as gendered objects. Thus, the original ‘male and female’ were persons as paragender subjects. Paragenders are: (1) beyond gender, meaning they are persons whose identity and function are beyond the limits and constraints of gender, and (2) integrally beside gender, in that gender is only a secondary reality in everyday life, and always integrated into the primacy of whole relationship with God and each other. Paragenders’ identity and function are integrated from inner out, which puts their biological sex into whole perspective as only a secondary reality. Anything less than paragender fragments identity and function by gender, which becomes the default equation in likeness of human shaping.

Now in the new creation reality (that has yet to become the churches’ experiential truth), the prevailing gender distinctions of ‘male and female’ also are not to define and determine persons’ identity and function. This has nothing to do with being asexual, or unisex (which I can well imagine Paul has been accused of saying), but has everything to do with being transformed to the wholeness of our person that God originally created and recreated new by Jesus’ relational work of salvation—the complete soteriology (not truncated) that both redeems us from the sin of reductionism and inseparably saved us to the Trinity’s wholeness and well-being (shalôm).

Paragenders and paragenderism are presented in this study for the global church to examine and weigh with open hearts and minds as the only valid alternative for our theological anthropology (identity and function) to be whole from inner out, just as the Trinity created the original human persons in the image and likeness of the Trinity. Paragender identity and function are antithetical to the fragmenting distinction-making process based on gender (sexism) that pervades human life today, the latter which egalitarians and complementarians have yet to counter at its tap root. Experiencing God’s relational grace as the basis for human theological anthropology to be whole in the image and likeness of the Trinity in the primacy of relationship together, paragenderism integrally resolves all distinctions that exist in human contexts (racism, ethnocentrism, ageism, able-ism, etc.) based on secondary human differences, because these all come from the shared tap root of reductionism (refer to Chap. 3, Fig 1).

The new creation paragender church family is the gathering of persons who (1) are redeemed from their fragmented identity and function (the sin of reductionism), and (2) take their place of belonging in the Trinity’s whole relational context and process in family love to which we are saved—the relational outcome of the whole gospel composing complete salvation. Nothing less than complete salvation in these distinguished relational terms can bring the church to its whole and uncommon life together; and anything less is common-ized and thus fragmentary. As Jesus made definitive of his family gathering, “Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven composes together my uncommon family” (Mt 12:50). The “will of my Father” (thelēma) signifies nothing less than the Father’s deepest desire, the fulfillment of which brings the Father—indeed the whole Trinity—pleasure and joy (as in Ps 147:10-11).

I can imagine that persons reading these pages will balk at the very idea of ‘paragender’—the idea that we can and need to be beyond and beside gender. But keep in mind that the distinction of gender was the first human distinction resulting from the original sin of reductionism in the primordial garden, thus burdening all humans thereafter with the shame of gender. The new creation in Christ penetrates this reality, and distinguishes its wholeness from this original evil and its shame. Therefore, churches’ leaders and members who are uncomfortable, even resistant to Jesus’ relational imperatives necessary to constitute his family, and thereby to please the Father, still need to become vulnerable and humble their persons before Jesus without the veil of distinctions, to let Jesus wash their feet. He is waiting, and asking “Where are you?” and “Do you love me?”

We have biblical record of the difficulty the early church had shifting from being contextualized in the common practice of making distinctions to the relational process of reciprocating contextualization in the Trinity’s relational context and process. In the earliest beginnings of the church, a dispute emerged among its members because the needs of the Hellenists were being ignored by the Hebrews (Acts 6:1). This exposed a critical issue existing in the church centered on distinction-making based on secondary practices of two groups of believers. The persons first responding to the gospel were from the Jewish people—of the Trinity’s theological trajectory in the human context establishing Jesus’ human lineage. Among them were the Judaizers, or “circumcision faction,” (Acts 11:2; 15:1,5; Gal 2:12), who held fast to the Law of Moses. The defining bias of those distinctions favored circumcision and kosher practices, which the circumcised believers tried to make requisite to be saved, and thus for church membership.

Peter, the leading church leader, had this bias and openly practiced its underlying theological anthropology of defining his person on the basis of secondary outer-in criteria (discussed previously). Therefore, by necessity Jesus corrected Peter’s theology and bias (Acts 10:13-16)—which he had clarified earlier for his disciples (Mk 7:17-19)—in order for the church to have defining change, because God makes no distinctions between persons but defines persons only from inner out (Acts 15:1-11). Peter needed to be corrected by Jesus, and later by Paul, because Peter hadn’t vulnerably involved his person in the relational dynamic of triangulation and reciprocating contextualization, by which secondary distinctions would not have defined and determined Peter’s practice.

In contrast, Paul was unambiguously defined and determined by the Trinity’s relational context and process, and thus unequivocally put secondary distinctions into perspective in his claim that “neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation defined only from inner out is everything!” (Gal 6:15). While the circumcised church slowly changed from this point, other human distinctions still prevailed, with gender the most prominent. But the fact that gender continued pervasively in church history might indicate something about the early church’s halt of the practice circumcision, and where the church has been contextualized.

I suggest that the practice circumcision was an easier bias to change than gender biases were, because it is easier to stop an overtly ‘outer’ practice just by not doing it anymore. In fact, Gentiles didn’t have this practice to begin with and still engaged in its underlying reduced function. However, Paul’s point is critical; that is, not circumcising has no significance either (as Paul stated, Gal 6:15) because it was always a secondary issue for God. For God, “real circumcision is a matter of the heart” (Rom 2:28; Dt 30:6; 10:16; cf. Lev 26:41). That is, circumcision in OT times was only a secondary ‘sign’ of being relationally submitted to God’s irreducible terms for the covenant relationship together, thus to integrate their identity and function from inner out—and thereby to be set apart as the uncommon people of the uncommon God (the significance of consecration, Ex 13:2; 29:36).

The genderized church has yet to make significant change analogous to the circumcision issue. This is not surprising, but signals the persistence of reductionism in the church throughout its history, even though circumcision is now absent from the church. No doubt all along the journey of the church, reductionism is rejected when recognized, but just re-emerges whenever churches are swayed by subtle illusions and simulations, and cross that fine line between God’s uncommon whole relational terms and the human shaping of the words of God. Egalitarians need to take note here. They certainly have the right idea that women can serve in any capacity in church life, and should not be prohibited from doing so on account of their female gender—which is, of course, discrimination. Yet because they are shaped more by other distinctions (such as abilities and resources) from the human context than reciprocating contextualization in the Trinity, their illusion of ‘good without wholeness’ leaves them susceptible to the deeper human shaping of their churches’ life and practice; and in the simulations from distinction-making, it is inevitable that gender distinctions will again resurge at some point. The reason that evangelicals keep witnessing the push for women as senior pastors as taking one step forward and two steps back—or being all the way back at step one—is because illusions of ‘good without wholeness’ have a shaky foundation to begin with and at best can only simulate the church family.

The tap root of reductionism from Satan is always present to counter wholeness of persons and relationships, and when allowed to remain, hidden behind a veil of distinctions and its simulations, it will always eventually give rise to any form of distinction-making. This is also the dynamic behind the persistence of racial/ethnic divisions fragmenting the church.

Jesus’ alert to “Wake up” is ongoing for all of us to pay attention and to respond to God’s relational imperative of the heart’s vulnerable involvement for the wholeness of persons and their relationships together (with God and corporately with each other). Indeed the whole-ly Trinity has not wavered over the millennia as to what constitutes uncommon-ization of human persons and relationships to be God’s very own family, the living dwelling for the Trinity. Just as the Lord told the ancient high priest to distinguish between the common and the uncommon (Lev 10:10), so too does Jesus expect all of us comprising “a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people” to distinguish between the common and uncommon, and “be uncommon, for I am uncommon”—as Peter declared decisively in his new uncommon-ized identity and function (1 Pet 2:9; 1:16).

What Peter eventually learned is that he needed to submit ongoingly to Jesus’ relational terms and be established in reciprocating contextualization for his own identity and function to be uncommon-ized. For Peter, this meant being freed from his self-consciousness from bôsh (cf. 3:13-16,21). And he would also learn that this required his active (not passive) and ongoing relational commitment of discipline to be whole-ly (1 Pet 1:13; 5:8). I am thankful for Peter’s life, for I readily relate to and have learned from his journey.

These are the relational terms necessary to gather in likeness of the Trinity as the uncommon-ized church. To paraphrase Paul’s heart-felt and urgently stated new creation principle—neither masculinity nor femininity is anything; but the new creation of paragender wholeness is everything! This is the defining rule of faith essential for the church to be whole-ly (Gal 6:15-16; Col 3:15).

These are among the theological realities for us to weave together in our understanding, in order for us to know how to make functional this new identity as the Trinity’s new creation paragender family. We are faced with life-changing realities that have eluded Christian theology and practice for too long because of the theological fog creating in us insensitivity to the qualitative and unawareness of the relational. The process involved in this transformation from our old gender equations to our new paragender identity is, thankfully, only a relational process, for which the Spirit dwells in our hearts for the primary purpose to be involved in reciprocal relationship together both individually and corporately. We are no longer relational orphans having to figure things out alone, no longer apart from God our Father, Jesus, and the Spirit.

For this new life, we must “be born again” (i.e. born from above, Jn 3:3,6-7), signifying being redefined from inner out as paragenders and therefore no longer defined by the limits and constraints of gender and any other secondary human distinction. To be ‘in Christ’ means our identity is as paragenders is the experiential truth of having died to the old and raised new by following Jesus behind the curtain that his death ‘tore open’ for full access to the whole-ly Trinity in face-to-face relationship without the barriers of the veil (2 Cor 3:16-18; 4:4-6). The relational belonging of adoption (Eph 1:4-14) is to be paragender; our familial references as daughters and sons, sisters and brothers acknowledge that we have gender—yet all subsumed under the shared primary identity as the Trinity’s new creation family (Jn 1:12; 8:35; 2 Cor 5:17). In other words, hers and his are equally integrated to become h-e-i-r-s, ‘heirs’ together belonging as family (Rom 8:15-17).

Being the new creation family is the integrally interrelated life of paragenders in equalized and intimate relationships together illuminating the paragender equation of wholeness on God’s irreducible and nonnegotiable relational terms of grace. That is, paragenders together compose the new creation family in likeness of the Father, Son, Spirit, and in congruence with the Trinity make no distinctions among ourselves as daughters and sons, sisters and brothers. It must be apparent by now that the process of uncommon-ization (i.e. sanctification, also consecration) conflicts with the common perception of vague ethereal and even dualistic senses enshrouded in theological fog (as in Gnosticism), because it is distinguished only as the experiential relational reality for any of us to participate in, individually and collectively. We, as person without distinctions, are active subjects (not gendered objects) participating in our uncommon-ization, which can take place only in our corporate relationships together.

One initial step the church needs to take is to embrace how God views the shame of gender.

In the primordial garden, the shame (bôsh) of gender was demonized because it presented opposition to God’s created whole for persons and relationships (cf. Col 1:21). This shame has largely submerged while other, more sensational notions of sin (e.g. rape, murder, genocide, human trafficking) are demonized in our understanding. Even less sensationalized notions of sin (e.g. drunkenness, addictions, theft, lying, cheating) get more visibility than the shame of gender. This shift in focus has led to submerging this shame, which has then been adapted in the church by norm-alizing its condition as acceptable or, at least, tolerable—and more individualized than understood for its relational consequences. The gender equation that evolved in the church has rendered bôsh as either insignificant or redefining its meaning for human life. Perhaps not surprisingly, what evolved in the church emerges from the church either ignoring the reality (not necessarily the history) of the relational consequences from the primordial garden, or not understanding its dynamics still unfolding today.

The gender distinction was demonized in the primordial garden (not in creation, but later in the garden) because it conflicted with human persons created in the image of the Trinity. That is, reductionism influenced human persons into a paradigm shift that refocused their primary identity and function to their secondary human distinctions, thereby obliterating wholeness from their awareness. Ever since, the defining influence of reductionism has gotten lost in persons’ awareness because the definition of sin has evolved into many things other than reductionism. Equally important, the shame resulting from reductionism’s influence is obscured when the theological anthropology used for persons and relationships is fragmentary, reduced, and thus not whole. Indeed, the argument can be made that shame and its partner fear together underlie all the other sins. Thus it is a travesty in the church that the shame of gender is overlooked or ignored.

The church throughout human history has operated with a weak view of sin and a reduced theological anthropology, and the consequence has been subtle variations that fail to demonize gender as having distinctly emerged from the primordial garden. Thus, the gender equations defining the church today, both locally and globally, should not be surprising. It should also not be surprising to egalitarians and complementarians that they enable the bôsh of gender since they haven’t demonized it and its interrelated distinctions.

That’s what emerged from the primordial garden and this is who will continue to evolve in the church—that is, until redemptive change takes place in the church and transformation unfolds with paragenders constituting its persons from inner out and its relationships both equalized and intimate in the whole-ly likeness of the Trinity. This outcome, however, will not emerge without an ongoing fight with what and who counters it. Only paragender will disable the existing gender condition in the church, because only paragender demonizes gender in its fragmentary condition of reduced identity and function.

Therefore, the church must, by its new creation nature, be the most vigorous opponent of reductionism. Like Paul, the church is integrally engaged in the vigorous fight against all forms of reductionism and for the wholeness of Jesus’ gospel. If the church doesn’t fight all out against reductionism first within itself and then in the world, the gospel it claims is diminished, distorted, or simply “no gospel at all” (Gal 1:7, NIV). Likewise, if the church doesn’t fight all out for wholeness, both in its persons and its relationships, then the gospel it proclaims is diminished, distorted, or, again, simply no gospel at all.

The integral fight against and for is nonnegotiable for the church. When the church renegotiates its view of sin to minimalize reductionism or ignore it, the church’s theological anthropology renders its persons and relationships in reduced ontology and function—contrary to creation, in conflict with the new creation, and incomplete with the defining presence and determining involvement of the Trinity. The relational consequence is that (1) gender continues to impose its constraints on church identity and function, and (2) the church equations for life together are limited to the secondary at best. This leaves the church fragmented in the relational condition “to be apart,” thus unable to be whole. Whatever its theology, the reality of church identity and function is that it reflects, reinforces, and even sustains the human condition. And the human condition cannot resolve its skewed and harmful orders of relationships based on comparative processes and power relations, which the church currently is guilty of engaging in, even while promoting, for example, peace and justice.

It was noted in Chapter 2 that the integral human need of all persons is “to fulfill and to be fulfilled in the created make-up of the human person” in the primacy of relationships together in likeness of the Creator. This composes our human need-rights (vested rights), the fulfillment of which is only in the primacy of face-to-face relationship with God and each other in just-nection. It is worth repeating here for the new creation family to understand and embrace that just-nection is:

the right order of relationship together created by the Subject God for subject persons having the right relational connection in his likeness—the relational connection required for justice of the human order; therefore, God’s justice is distinguished and God’s peace is experienced just in this relational dynamic of just-nection.[28]

Accordingly, Subject God made the Sabbath holy in order to perspicuously distinguish the uncommon from the common prevailing—and notably preoccupying us in the secondary—in everyday human life.^{^[29]}

Just-nection further highlights that justice in God’s perspective determines the depth and breadth of the church’s integral fight for and against, that is, the fight by paragenders for paragenderism and against anything less than the paragender equation, whose fulfillment is for the whole of human creation. The relational outcome for the new creation paragender family is the whole identity and function of human persons in likeness of the original paragenders at creation, but now in the new creation, who live every day without the veil of bôsh. In this new identity only—having demonized bôsh and being redeemed from it—can the church function whole-ly to restore us to the image and likeness of the Trinity. Only this identity and function distinguish the relational outcome of Jesus’ gospel of wholeness (just as Paul illuminated, Eph 2:14-22, and prayed for 3:14-21). The church’s purpose today is determined by nothing less and no substitutes for this wholeness, and anything less and any substitutes for its integral fight disables its purpose of just-nection, and enables the inherent injustice of the bôsh of gender.

In the previous section, redemptive reconciliation was addressed in the context of churches working for racial reconciliation. It is vital for us to dig deeper into what is required for redemptive reconciliation. If reconciliation is to be distinguished in the new creation, then reconciliation must go beyond a common understanding deeper than currently witnessed. That is, reconciliation has to be whole-ly—the whole and uncommon relational outcome from Jesus’ gospel (not our versions of it). Reconciliation between human persons is only redemptive if those persons are redeemed (from the sin of reductionism) and reconciled back to God in relationship together on only God’s relational terms. This is the only legitimate functional basis for reconciliation among all human persons who have been in distant, even broken, relationships due to gender, racial, and all other human distinctions. Therefore:

Theologically, redemption and reconciliation are inseparable; and the integral function of redemptive reconciliation is the relational outcome of being saved to the whole-ly Trinity’s family with the veil removed to eliminate any relational separation or distance (as Paul clarified, Eph 2:14-22).[30]

Accordingly, redemptive reconciliation is not a reality that takes place between two or more incompatible parts functioning with the veil covering the shame of bôsh. Redemptive econciliation is only a reality for those who have been redeemed from their reductionism—however they have been reduced and fragmented—and are whole persons who function vulnerably from inner out without the veil, in intimate and equalized relationships. While degrees of harmony may be achieved between persons with distinctions, that should not be confused with redemptive reconciliation. Truly coming together is the process of redemptive reconciliation that transforms persons and relationships to wholeness in likeness of the Trinity, which only means these are whole persons together in relationships that are distinguished as intimate and equalized relationships. These indeed are uncommon relationships that distinguish the church as the reconciling transformer. Reconciliation of anything less or any substitutes for this qualitative depth of coming together will not distinguish the church as the reconciling transformer, but, at best, will identify the church as a distinct peacemaker for the common good—all distinctly without wholeness.

To further clarify the depth and transforming relational dynamic of redemptive reconciliation is that to be thus reconciled—both with God and all together as the new creation—is the unmistakable relational involvement that Jesus identified as the distinguishing quality of his disciples: loving each other just as Jesus has loved us, just as the Father loved him (Jn 13:34-35; 15:9-10,12). Jesus embodied this love as the qualitative depth of his vulnerable relational involvement with persons, which he enacted often even intrusively and to others’ discomfort. Yet his disciples experienced Jesus’ person presented to them at this depth in order to have their inherent need fulfilled in redemptive reconciliation with the Trinity. Love and redemptive reconciliation together compose God’s relational involvement of the Trinitarian relational process of family love—that is, the trinitarian persons reaching out and bringing human persons into their own relational context—for the relational outcome of wholeness that is distinguished only by the uncommon peace enacted by Jesus as the face of God in fulfillment of God’s definitive blessing (Jn 14:27; 2 Cor 4:6; Num 6:24-26). No part of the trinitarian relational context and process can be ignored, revised, or dismissed, and still be expected to result in the transformation of redemptive reconciliation.

This is why Paul made imperative the integral requirement for the churches to “clothe yourselves with love in redemptive reconciliation” and “let the wholeness of Christ be the only determinant in your hearts, the wholeness to which indeed you were called in one body” (Col 3:14-15).

It was Paul who clarified and integrated all these theological-relational realities for the church’s understanding and growth to be uncommon-ized, and thereby become the dwelling for the whole-ly Trinity. As Paul said (noted earlier), nothing else in human contexts or by human shaping has any significance to God, but only the relational outcome of the new creation. Thus, we look forward to the church emerging from its old gender equation and its fragmentary practices to the transformation that many Christians long for but have struggled to experience as their relational reality:

What unfolds from Christ as the church’s uncommon peace is the relational significance of persons redeemed from their distinctions, and relationships together freed from the relational barriers keeping them in relational distance, detachment or separation. However comparative relations may be structured, Paul declares in unmistakable relational terms: “Christ has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of fragmenting differences” (Eph 2:14, NIV). The relational significance of this uncommon peace is not for the future but for this essential reality to unfold in our experience now in the church. This is the pivotal breakthrough in human relations that will transform the church to the new creation of persons redeemed and relationships reconciled in the new order uncommon for all persons, peoples, nations and their relations since ‘from the beginning’. “Christ’s relational purpose was to create in his wholeness one new humanity out of their fragmentation, thus making them whole in uncommon peace” (v.15). When this identity composed by the new relational order becomes the experiential reality for the persons and relationships of the church, they can claim salvation from sin as reductionism and salvation to wholeness together; and by only this experiential reality, they can proclaim and whole-ly witness to the experiential truth of this good news for human relations. Without this essential reality, persons and relationships in the church regress in what amounts to fake news based on alternative facts.
Furthermore, and most important, this pivotal breakthrough in relationships also includes and directly involves relationship with the whole and uncommon God. “In their wholeness together to reconcile all of them having distinctions to God through his relational work on the cross, by which he redeemed their fragmenting differences” (v.16). It is indispensable for us to understand what Paul unfolds for the church here is that reconciliation is inseparable from redemption.[31]

We should not expect reconciliation to happen between complementarians and egalitarians, or between any other groups of distinctions (e.g. racial groups), until persons undergo redemption from those distinctions and their identity and function are not determined by the secondary. Without this redemption, persons remain incompatible with the Trinity and with each other, and unable to come together at the relational depth necessary for uncommon reconciliation. If all that persons want is to smooth things over for the illusion of harmonious existence—the common notion of reconciliation—then that’s all they will get. But Christians must not continue to settle for this because (1) it renders them only common, (2) whereby they remain by default in the incompatible and incongruent condition “to be apart,” and (3) thus they would have no real hope to offer the world struggling in the human relational condition.

Ironically, yet not surprising from the Word, for transformation to be whole, redemptive reconciliation may necessitate causing further fragmenting division among persons—that is, the conflict required against reductionism in order for the uncommon peace of Jesus to unfold (Mt 10:34-36; Jn 14:27; cf. Ps 149:6). Not understanding “the things that make for peace” makes Jesus weep (Lk 19:41-42). The Word’s apparent paradox is the uncommon peace that Paul made imperative as the only determinant for the integration of the body as the whole-ly church (Col 3:15)—in the new creation of paragenders in likeness of the Trinity (Col 3:10-11; Eph 4:24), whose persons and relationships together constitute the church as the reconciling transformer (2 Cor 3:18; 5:16-21).

Redemptive reconciliation is further embodied and enacted by the new creation paragender family in how we perceive and are involved together relationally, whether at our church gatherings, or just in our daily lives, recognizing that we belong together as family:

Therefore, our faith as relational trust in ongoing reciprocal relationship with the Spirit is critical for freeing us to determine what is primary to embrace in church life and practice and what we need to relinquish control over “for the unity of the Spirit in the bond of wholeness” (Eph 4:3; Gal 5:16,25). The bond of wholeness by its nature requires change in us: individual, relational, structural and contextual changes. With these redemptive changes for persons, relationships and churches—encompassing the three inescapable issues in their depth—the integral function of redemptive reconciliation can emerge in family love for vulnerable involvement with others (different or not) in relationships together from inner out. Such reconstruction by design becomes, lives and makes whole uncommonly in the new relational order, which is not a mere option, merely recommended or simply negotiable for churches and its persons and relationships. Anything less and any substitutes for persons, relationships and churches are no longer whole and uncommon.[32]

In a particular note to egalitarians, or for that matter, for complementarians as well, the issue of equality has to be put into the perspective of what makes persons, relationships, and the church family whole. While both Christian women and men are freed from the lies of the gender equation and its bôsh, if we function out of any sense of entitlement because of ‘Christian freedom’, then that makes us susceptible to be self-serving in our self-determination (cf. Gal 5:1,13; 1 Cor 8:9). This may happen for some women (it certainly happens with men), yet I think the greater challenge for Christian women is to fully embrace our place as equal heirs in the Trinity’s family, that is, to embrace the relational reality that we are ‘equalized up’ so to speak (cf. Jas 1:9). And for middle-way seekers who advocate “the great reversal” theology attributed to Luke’s Gospel, Jesus didn’t come to reverse roles or turn hierarchical structures upside down, but to redeem persons from roles and structures—whoever those structures favor—to make whole by equalizing persons, the basis of which is that for God, the only legitimate basis for the church’s persons and relationships is relational grace.

Egalitarians need to understand that only redeemed-reconciled relationships of whole persons together qualifies their common notions of equality, to constitute the uncommon equality as a function of the wholeness of the gospel, further illuminated here:

Based on the uncommon peace of Christ that Paul makes the only determinant for the church (imperatively in Col 3:15), nothing less than equalized relationships and no substitutes for intimate relationships compose the new-order church family of Christ, whose wholeness distinguishes the church’s persons and relationships in their primacy of whole ontology and function in likeness of the whole-ly Trinity. If we take Paul seriously, we cannot take him partially or use him out of his total context but need to embrace his whole theology and practice for ours to be whole also. Therefore, beyond any contextualized or commonized bias, what emerges from the church’s uncommon peace is the experiential truth of uncommon equality, which is the good news transforming the fragmentation and inequality of all persons, peoples, nations and their human relations. The relational reality of this uncommon equality unfolds from the relational progression of this whole-ly church family as it is ongoingly involved in equalizing all persons, peoples, nations and their relationships—equalizing in whole relational terms composed by the redemptive reconciliation of uncommon peace.[33]

Again, Jesus is our hermeneutical and functional key to know the whole of God and to know the depth of how our identity and function can and need to be in order to be sanctified, just as Jesus was. It was for our sakes that Jesus enacted the new relational order for this relational purpose and outcome:

To compose the uncommon equality of his church family at the heart of its persons and relationships in whole ontology and function, and therefore unequivocally transformed them (1) to be redeemed from human distinctions and their deficit condition and (2) to be reconciled to the new relational order in uncommon transformed relationships together both equalized and intimate in their innermost, and thereby congruent in uncommon likeness with the wholeness of the Trinity.[34]

The relational outcome of redemptive reconciliation is neither optional nor a mere ideal, but constitutes the essential transformation to the uncommon whole of who, what, and how the church and its persons and relationships are to be. And this experiential truth and relational reality unfold in the church only as the reconciling transformer.

Since the early disciples were not yet relationally involved deeply enough to know Jesus’ person (Jn 14:9), they didn’t understand the trajectory and path of Jesus as “the Way and the Truth and the Life” (14:5-8). Beyond merely referential terms, the whole of Jesus’ embodied persons enacted ‘the relational Way and the experiential Truth and the qualitative Life’ for his church to be in whole-ly likeness. This raises two critical issues, for which we must urgently give account: (1) the integrity of the church today, and (2) the validity of the gospel claimed and proclaimed by the church. We must answer: Is the church a religious institution, or the embodied person of Jesus (Eph 1:22-23); does it operate by organizational principles and structure, or by the primacy of reciprocal relationship together as family with the Trinity (as in Eph 4:3-7,11-13; 1 Cor 12:4-6,12-13); does the church claim salvation from sin, excluding or including reductionism; how does it then claim and proclaim the significance of salvation for our human condition; and does it define the gospel of peace with common peace or uncommon peace? Only how Christians gather together today can account for the church’s integrity and the validity of its gospel.

When Jesus prayed to the Father that all his followers be joined together “one as we are one” (Jn 17:20-23), he constituted ‘the qualitative life’ of his followers (their identity and function) in the new creation as his church family. But for their new creation, ‘the relational way’ of Jesus’ relational work also had to include the following ‘experiential truth’ to fulfill the Trinity’s theological trajectory and relational path:

(1) To enact his whole gospel and fulfill its relational outcome, Jesus reconstructed the temple of whole-ly God’s presence by making his sacrifice behind the temple curtain, whereby the curtain was torn down in order to open direct face-to-face access to God (summarized in Heb 10:19-22).

(2) The depth of Jesus’ agapē relational involvement, together with the Spirit, also removed the veil of gender and other human distinctions from persons to free them (redeem the old) in order that their whole person would be raised up in the new creation in the Trinity’s likeness (2 Cor 3:16-18; 15:16-17; Gal 3:28).

(3) Thereby, their persons without distinctions would vulnerably come together without relational barriers or relational distance, thus to be joined together as the new creation church family “just as we are one” (Eph 2:14-22).

In this complete Christology—composed only in relational language and not referential language—Jesus whole-ly embodied and enacted the Word from God in order to compose the paragender equation essential for the church to be distinguished in nothing less and no substitutes. This whole-ly dynamic all converges in his formative family prayer (Jn 17), which is also called, less relationally, the high priestly prayer. The Word embodied and enacted the essential ontology and function that constituted the church in these two irreducible and nonnegotiable ways:

1. The church’s ontology is embodied as the body of Christ (Eph 1:22-23), whose “fullness” (plērōma) embodied the Trinity to constitute all the members of the church as one body of the Trinity—with different members without distinctions (1 Cor 12:4-6,12-13,27; Eph 2:19-22).

2. The church’s function is enacted in the likeness of the Trinity enacted by the Word from God, palpable with the Spirit, along with the Father; therefore, the church functions with the paragender equation without the veil of gender and other secondary distinctions, in transformed relationships together both equalized and intimate, just like the Trinity (Jn 17:21-23; 1 Cor 12:14-26; 2 Cor 3:16-18; Eph 4:24; Col 3:10-11; Gal 3:26-29).

All the relational work that the Word embodied and enacted in the incarnation were subsequently illuminated by Paul for the church to embody and enact in this irreducible and nonnegotiable equation. And it was an ongoing fight for Paul to deal with the fragmentation in churches and confront their reductionism, which Paul engaged with his vulnerable heart and many tears. In his love involvement and relational submission of his person to Jesus, Paul by necessity made it imperative for the church to embody nothing less than its new creation and to enact no substitutes for its persons and relationships—that is, nothing but their redemptive reconciliation (2 Cor 5:16-18). Paul was unequivocal that the church embodies the Word from God and his whole gospel of transformation, whereby the church enacts its function in likeness of the Trinity as the reconciling transformer, first within itself, and then within the world (5:19-21). Nothing else could establish the church’s integrity and the validity of its gospel, yet this issue continues to confront churches today that settle for anything less or any substitutes.

As Paul defined for the early churches distinctly in their interdependent dynamic relationships together, he always kept in focus that the church as reconciling transformer functions only in the equalized and intimate relationships held together in the bond of love, which is expanded on shortly, below. We too need to always keep primary in our focus the primacy of reciprocal relationship together, so that that the church as reconciling transformer is the irreducible identity and nonnegotiable function essential for the church today to be whole and uncommon just as the whole-ly Trinity is. Only by our reciprocal relational involvement with the Spirit, we will keep this relational primacy in focus, because apart from the Spirit, it’s simply too easy to succumb to our biases and default notions about who, what, and how the church is, all of which have been reduced from their qualitative-relational significance of God’s relational language—thus no longer whole and uncommon but fragmentary and common-ized.

Jesus’ prayer to the Father for us to be one, just as he and the Father are one (inseparably also with the Spirit), cuts through all our alternatives to who and what gathers and calls themselves the church, and clears away our theological fog about how we must go forth into the world, just as the Father sent Jesus (Jn 17:18-19). Just as Jesus sanctified himself in the dynamic relational process of reciprocating contextualization—thereby maintaining his uncommon minority identity—only through our own ongoing reciprocating contextualization will our identity and function corporately together be such that the world will perceive whose we are, and who sent us into the world (Jn 17:21,23). This integrity cannot be assumed; the validity of its message must have relational, experiential, and qualitative basis. With the church’s integrity and its gospel’s validity established, the world will see and know that God indeed dwells in this gathering to establish an uncommon people (as Jesus prayed), about whom the world will finally recognize as its Creator, and not the various human-shaped versions.

Therefore, the challenge for the church today is to turn around from its common roots, and ‘make every effort’ to put into our theology and practice the truth of Jesus’ whole gospel and its relational outcome—that which must prevail over its virtual common-ized counterpart that inhabits the church’s gatherings. The latter is not the outcome that Jesus came to establish, nor the ‘one as we are one’ family that he prayed for. The virtual common-ized church has (1) fragmented Jesus’ whole person into the distinctions of his teachings and examples to compose an incomplete Christology, thereby (2) reducing his whole gospel into primarily what he save us from (sin only without reductionism) at the loss of what he saves to (the whole of his new creation church family), for a truncated soteriology, resulting in (3) an ecclesiology of church identity and function shaped by human terms whose gender equations keep persons (both females and males) and their relationships constrained in anything less than and any substitutes for Jesus’ whole-ly peace—the reconciling transformation—essential for the church to be his paragender church (Jn 14:27; Eph 2:14; Col 3:15). Therefore, the church must heed Jesus’ wake-up alert, listen deeply to Jesus’ family prayer, and turn around from its human shaping.

In the paragender equation created in the beginning and newly created in the gospel, the primary issue is not about church leadership and who can be vested with that authority. Nor is the primary issue even about gender. Adam and Eve first had no bôsh because their sex distinction wasn’t highlighted to define their identity and their function. Their whole persons from inner out were primary and integrally functioned in the primacy of relationship together in wholeness (“not to be apart”), which distinguished their identity and function as paragenders in the image and likeness of the Trinity.

Why the paragender challenge today is neither about church leadership nor about gender is important to take to heart. These issues must be seen and addressed in the primary context of creation and the gospel (the whole gospel), with their primary relational process of the Trinity’s wholeness being the only determinant for gender and related issues. No doubt, therefore, that the paragender equation presents a major threat for the church, along with its persons and relationships. Yet, our bôsh will be unresolved and will continue if we cling to anything less and any substitutes in our theology and practice. As Jesus clarifies, corrects, and convicts with the Spirit, the measure we give and use will be the only measure we get.

Jesus indeed embodied and enacted who, what, and how we are to be in likeness, both individually as his paragender disciples, and corporately as his new creation paragender family. To add to all his enactments noted above, he also answered certain specific gender concerns that we have today. Awhile back—I don’t recall exactly when—some vocal Christian men complained about Jesus’ being feminized and about the church as too feminized also. By this they meant that sermons and even male pastors are too touchy-feely, and men in the pews can’t relate, don’t find church irrelevant, and thus drop out from their involvement in church. Some church leaders’ and thinkers’ solution is to re-masculinize Jesus, of course based on the genderized stereotypes from human culture, for example, highlighting “masculine” qualities of Jesus, such as the warrior Jesus as opposed to the gentle lamb-holding Jesus. What is lacking is a whole and uncommon picture of Jesus, along with the demonization of genderizing human needs and emotions. Men have been deeply socialized and their brain patterns hardwired to distance themselves from their inherent human need, the shame of gender, and fear. The other side of this same coin involves women seeking feminine qualities of Jesus (e.g. sensitive, nurturing) to counteract male-shaped oppressive views of God. Women also have been socialized and our brains hardwired in gender distinctions, yet socialized definitions of feminine character traits make it somewhat easier to be vulnerable with our needs and emotions. The church must clear away its christological fog and see Jesus’ whole person as the basis for whole human persons, both male and female. Then, with christological fog cleared, Jesus’ gospel must be further cleared of other theological fog for how the new creation church can and must embrace our paragender identity.

Jesus loved, he wept, he grieved, he got angry, he corrected, he rebutted Satan, he challenged, and he danced (more on Jesus’ dancing below). He nurtured, cajoled, comforted, refused to be shaped by others, likened himself to a protective mother hen, and boldly cleansed the temple. None of these qualities are feminine or masculine (except being a hen)—and to say so is to make false distinctions from a genderized bias (and neural patterns/associations in the brain). Jesus’ divine nature transcended gender, and his human nature, though male, was neither defined nor constrained by its limits. Jesus was whole and uncommon, thus distinctly set apart from the common while ongoingly relationally involved in it. Human emotions are what all created persons share in common as essential to our human ontology. So, for anyone who wants Jesus to be more feminine or masculine, and wants to shape the church accordingly, the reality is that they are trying to construct a reduced Jesus in their own image—which Paul would describe in the modern vernacular as a virtual reality of fake news.

For the experiential reality as the new creation paragender church, Jesus is, again, the reconciling ‘paragender’ key transformer, from whom we need to learn how to walk the talk, and, yes, dance the dance!

In traditional trinitarian theology, the Trinity’s ontology and function are integrally conceived in a perichoretic dance to envision the interdependence of the trinitarian persons as the ontological One, which is integrated by their interrelations for the relational Whole of the Trinity. The church’s identity and function in likeness of the Trinity are also distinguished by this essential interdependent and interrelational dance. Rather than a conceptual terms, however, Jesus qualitatively embodied and relationally enacted the likeness as essential for the self-disclosure of the Trinity in the human context. Consider what we witness in Luke’s Gospel.

In one of Luke’s vital narratives for us to understand (Lk 10:17-23), Jesus danced, and leapt about joyfully. Inadequately translated as “rejoiced in the Spirit” (NRSV) or “full of joy through the Holy Spirit” (NIV), the Greek word for the underlined words (agalliaō) means to exuberantly leap, dance, or skip about joyfully. Here was Jesus unconstrained, fully involved in the relational context and process of the Trinity—inseparably with the Spirit and the Father—bursting with delight. Another notable time when someone danced and leaped with such joy was in the OT, when David rejoiced at God’s ark returning to Jerusalem: “David danced with all his might…leaping and dancing before the Lord” (2 Sam 6:14-16). Jesus danced over primacy given to persons without distinctions (“little children”) rather than those defined by secondary distinctions (“the wise and learned”), which signified what is primary to the Trinity. Jesus’ whole person—nothing less and no substitutes—danced, thereby to model for us whole human ontology composing the paragender dance, essential for the whole function of his new creation church family: nothing less and no substitutes, without constraints from self-consciousness or fear of rejection due to bôsh.

Paul defined this interdependent-interrelational dance essential for the church in two distinguished ways, which cannot be reduced from their relational primacy:

1. The physiological interdependence of the body, with all its parts essential for the one body to function whole and not fragmented (1 Cor 12:12-26)—the parts of which are only determined by the Spirit (not human determination) in order for the body to be whole like the Trinity (1 Cor 12:4-11).

2. And the integration into family by the interrelationships between whole persons without distinctions, and thus equalized from inner out, who are vulnerably involved in intimate relationships together in order to be God’s family in wholeness—the transformed relationships integrally equalized and intimate essential for the new creation church family of the Trinity (Eph 2:14-22).

Paul clearly acknowledges human differences among church members—which we’ve named throughout this study: gender, race, ethnicity, age, class, abilities, and the like. The human body doesn’t go looking for certain parts to recruit them, nor favor or show partiality to certain parts (except handedness), nor marginalize other parts. All these differences are integrated (as in ambidextrous) into the living whole. Moreover, we all have been socialized in gender distinctions to varying depths, having varying degrees of deep matters needing healing (e.g. shame, fear, pain, anger)—thus some parts are weaker, and need to be attended to accordingly for their wholeness. Persons are at varying places of relational trust in the Lord; some have difficulty trusting anyone. Others are more mature in the wholeness of God’s relational grace. These are the deeper aspects of persons in which the new creation family needs to be vulnerable together, to make our hearts aware of each other, and to be involved together in, just as Jesus was with the first disciples. As Jesus relational replacement, the Spirit is here for reciprocal relational involvement to lead us and help us grow together in wholeness from inner out. In these family relationships at this depth together, our hearts are knit together by the intimate relational involvement of the Trinity’s family love, as Jesus prayed (Jn 17), and Paul prayed and clarified for us (Eph 3:14-4:24).

Persons who’ve been made whole without distinctions are paragender; they are equalized together in interdependence, and are involved intimately in the interdependent-interrelationships essential to be new in likeness of the Trinity. Only the identity and function of these persons in reconciled transformation distinguish the interdependent-interrelational paragender dance essential to be the new creation church family—irreducible to anything less and nonnegotiable with any substitutes.

Like a group dance, there are many ‘moving parts’, and everyday life always pulls at us to focus on secondary matters. These secondary matters include basic necessities, jobs, school, chores at home, and play. To God, his paragender family doesn’t genderize who does what, except by obvious necessity, such as mothers bearing children, or a physically stronger male person doing the heavier lifting that a smaller female cannot do. In fact, the paragender family helps each other go beyond limits and constraints of gender on our persons, in order to grow and mature in the just-nection of paragender wholeness.

The critical key is that the new creation paragender church’s activities (including ministries and service) are always secondary to the primacy of reciprocal relationship together. This integral dance of just-nection is a critical shift for the new creation to address itself to, and takes constant reminders and loving correction to grow as ‘one’ in making the primary primary. When we get preoccupied with the secondary, we all need to be corrected, and relationally work with the Spirit in the primacy of persons and relationships.

What we need to learn and mature in is following Jesus with this relational imperative: To always integrate the secondary into the primary—not the converse, and also not to equate them—in order for our everyday, ongoing involvement to be in the primacy of reciprocal relationship together on God’s whole relational terms. “Where are you?” and “What are you doing here?” continuously face us with this challenge, so that in our discipleship [and as the new creation family] we will not be faced with “Don’t you know my whole person yet, after all this time as my disciples?”
….Since [preoccupation with the secondary] is a common practice among Christians, it is indispensable for all Christians to integrate the secondary into the primary by ongoingly engaging the process of integrating priorities (PIP).[35]

Among all of Jesus’ disciples, Mary demonstrated PIP in contrast to other disciples, including Martha (discussed earlier in the study). This is why Jesus made Mary’s paragender practice paradigmatic for Jesus’ disciples who gather together as his uncommon paragender family to embody and enact the good news.

The church today needs to recover the paragender dance of “the love you had at first” (Rev 2:4), which will require the church (local and global) to “wake up…for I have not found your identity and function whole in the sight of the Trinity” (Rev 3:2). Therefore, “let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches” (Rev 2:7; 3:6)—because it’s time to dance in order for the church’s integrity to be the transforming transformer, and the validity of its gospel to distinguish the just-nection of all its persons and relationships!

[Note: This last section is included to further get us to think outside the common theological box.] One of the primary arguments that complementarians (based on the early church Fathers) make to rebut the egalitarian claim for equal female leadership in church and home is the fact that Jesus chose only males to follow him and be his disciples. Complementarians are correct in their observation that Jesus specifically called the twelve men by name, clearly delineated in the Gospels (Mt 10:2-4; Mk 3:16-19; Lk 6:14-16; Acts 1:13), and that nowhere in Scripture does Jesus so visibly call women to “follow me.” For complementarians this is an incontestable matter of the authority of Scripture. Egalitarians counter that there were women among Jesus’ disciples, which is also true and cannot be downplayed, as complementarians do. Both, however, use the words of God without understanding the significance of the words from God communicated in only relational language, which renders the former by the lens of the reader/listener without its whole meaning defined by the primacy of the latter’s Speaker.

Wayne Grudem states: “The most unique, foundational, authoritative leaders in the church were all men. At its very foundation, the church of Jesus Christ is not an egalitarian institution. It has 100 percent male leadership.”^{^[36]} So, why did Jesus choose the twelve persons to be his disciples, to follow him, to be intimate witnesses to his life, and to establish his church? Grudem would add that God established from creation a pattern of male leadership.^{^[37]} This is clearly a conclusion that exposes the complementarian confirmation bias by which their genderized hermeneutic—influenced at least in part by the primacy given to a historical-traditional concept of what constitutes church leadership—predetermines the interpretive outcome, since Scripture doesn’t specifically say what Grudem claims.

Further, one would need to then ask if God favors males over females. But the answer cannot be “yes” because God shows no partiality among humans (e.g. Dt 10:17; 2 Chr 19:7; Act 10:34; 15:9; Rom 2:11; Eph 6:9; Jas 2:1). Why, then, did Jesus choose only men, even though women would also become disciples and leaders in the church—which Jesus certainly knew beforehand? Why were only men ostensibly selected to be with Jesus in closest proximity to him, and to witness all his interactions with other persons, to hear his teachings to others, as well as getting direct teaching from him? It could not have been in order to follow a pattern of male leadership established by the order of creation—as complementarians insist—since God doesn’t show partiality.

Egalitarians offer two reasons why Jesus chose twelve males, specifically noting that they were Jewish males. The first reason is in order to accommodate the Jewish culture, for example, in which women, Gentiles, or slaves would not have been taken seriously. The second reason is because of the parallel with the twelve patriarchs and twelve tribes of Israel^{^[38]}—which in part really supports the complementarian view of a pattern of male leadership.

Here is an alternative, one perceived with a lens that doesn’t have anything to do with these common interpretations. Rather, this alternative involves the deeper context of the apostles’ reduced theological anthropology and weak view of the sin of reductionism, and how that context conflicted with Jesus’ whole identity and function. Perhaps it could be said that instead of being complementarians or egalitarians the first disciples were contrarians. But why would Jesus choose such a contrary group? This points to the whole meaning of the Word from God that only Jesus’ person defined, which encompasses the uncommon relational purpose of his whole gospel.

Recall that the male disciples had difficulty understanding Jesus, that they often wondered about him but dared not say anything directly to him. There were numerous instances when these disciples asked questions among themselves, but were not free to approach Jesus honestly and vulnerably. They appeared to have been embarrassed about not understanding Jesus’ words and actions, so they hid (cf. the shame involved, bôsh, Gen 2:25 with Gen 3:7). Recall that Peter initially refused Jesus’ whole person who wanted to wash Peter’s feet; Peter obviously missed the primacy of relational connection Jesus was making. Even after Jesus stated the relational necessity of Jesus washing Peter’s feet, Peter again showed his reduced theological anthropology and lack of understanding by telling Jesus to wash his other parts. And at the final table fellowship that Jesus had with the men, Jesus painfully responded to Philip’s query, “Have I been with you all this time…and you still do not know me?” (pl. “you” for all those disciples, Jn 14:9) And Jesus asked them, “Do you still not perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes, and fail to see? Do you have ears, and fail to hear? And do you not remember? (Mk 8:17-18) There is a pattern among these male disciples of missing the qualitative-relational significance of Jesus’ person, teaching, and actions. The pattern is that their persons were undisputedly fragmented and in need of change, inner-out redemptive change to free them from their bôsh and restore them to uncommon wholeness. In other words, they were in urgent need of not any gospel but only Jesus’ whole gospel.

Therefore, my conclusion of why Jesus chose men (not women) as the Twelve is this: Jesus chose these representative males to be his closest disciples because most men were (and still are) more deeply entrenched in reductionism—the fragmentation of persons based on outer-in criteria (what one does and has, or doesn’t do and doesn’t have)—than females, though not to say females aren’t embedded in reductionism. Fragmentation, the cause of reduced identity and function, creates relational distance and barriers because persons try to cover up their bôsh, and present a self of anything less and any substitutes in relationships. Accordingly, due to their gender equation, the male disciples were not vulnerable with the qualitative function of their hearts for deep relational connection with Jesus (and thus with the Father and Spirit). By choosing these men of such distinctions, Jesus illuminated the extent of all that is necessary for inner-out, turn-around change to become whole persons once again—the reconciling transformation to the qualitative image and relational likeness of the Trinity. That is to say, Jesus’ choices (as the original reconciling transformer) centered on the significance of his whole gospel and not on the men’s gender (or any other human distinction), in order that his disciples would be the paragenders to establish the integrity of his church and the validity of the gospel it claims and proclaims. Implied then in the purpose of Jesus’ choices is this vital process: He further illuminated the depth necessary in the making of disciples, and he used these men to demonstrate the ongoing process of transformation involved to be his true followers. In all this, Jesus teaches all persons (female and male) what it means to “Follow me.”

This same reason can be applied to why Jesus chose Paul for furthering God’s theological trajectory to grow his family in all nations. That is, Paul was extremely successful—and extremely fragmented from his whole person—according to secondary outer criteria of what he did and had (including his pedigree, Phil 3:4-7). According to that measure of success, to that extent Paul functioned as an enemy of Christ, physically persecuting Christians and religiously opposing Jesus (Acts 7:58; 8:1-3; 9:1-4); it might even be said that Paul was Jesus’ worst human enemy. Is this then another example of only selecting male leaders, or of Jewish contextualization? On the contrary, Paul’s inner-out transformation demonstrated the depth and breadth of the sin of reductionism needing God’s relational response of grace as the only basis for relationship together. Contrary also to common belief from church tradition, Jesus’ choosing of these men had nothing to do with their personal attributes (e.g. strength, gifting for leadership, education and referential knowledge of Scripture [as in Paul’s case], or accomplishments), but everything to do with enacting the depth of the Trinity’s relational response to their inherent human relational need as relational orphans, to be redeemed from the sin of reductionism and raised up new by reconciling transformation to wholeness from inner out—the reality of the whole gospel’s relational outcome in just-nection.

Related, Jesus’ paradigm for the new relational order—succinctly stated as ‘the first will be last and the last will be first’ isn’t a mere structural reversal of the human relational order. Rather, this just-nection is the deconstruction of the old human order for transformation to the new relational order, that Paul called “the new creation” (1 Cor 5:16-17; Gal 6:15), and referred to by the writer of Hebrews as “the new order” (Heb 9:10, NIV)—namely the Trinity’s family reconciled by equalized persons in intimate relationships together.

Furthermore, there is nothing innate in males that make them more susceptible to hardened, entrenched reductionism (e.g. Peter), just as there is nothing innate in females that make them more responsive to being open and vulnerable from inner out (as witnessed in whole-ly Mary). These characteristics are all the influences of individual personalities shaped by the interaction of religious and cultural norms, through experiences and received messages wired in our brains, along with choices we make (even by default) that reinforce and sustain our genderized stereotypical identities and function. Why did Jesus ostensibly call only males to be the Twelve? To unmistakably demonstrate his vulnerable involvement with them in intrusive relationship together so that they could experience the depth of the Father’s love, and thereby show these relational orphans how to change and become like the child-persons belonging in his family. This is why Jesus had to tell Peter emphatically, over all of Peter’s other self-concerns, “You follow me” (Jn 21:19-22)—to be relationally involved vulnerably with his whole person before he could be a shepherd of Jesus’ flock.

If this Jesus—not a common-ized Jesus of human shaping—but whole-ly Jesus…if this Jesus doesn’t move persons to wake up and break open their hearts, then the integrity of the church will be fragmentary and its gospel will lack the validity to be of qualitative relational significance for its persons and relationships, and the world—thereby relegating the church to a different trajectory and path than the Way and the Truth and the Life.

For persons who relationally respond in whole-ly likeness, let’s celebrate—celebrating with Mary, the lead paragender, whose equation distinguishes the church in the experiential truth and relational reality of whole-ly Jesus’ gospel!

Just as Jesus danced for joy in the Spirit in praise to the Father, Jesus also sang. And since Jesus embodied the Trinity, it can be said that the Trinity sings, thereby composing the new creation family’s song. Psalms originally were sung, so here is an ancient song updated for the Trinity’s new creation paragender family (make up your own melody), followed by a song for the global church to celebrate, with dancing of course!

Note: “uncommon” is the meaning of “holy” that distinguishes God in the Bible

[1] For a critical examination of the influence from reductionism in the church’s history, see T. Dave Matsuo, The Global Church Engaging the Nature of Sin & the Human Condition: Reflecting, Reinforcing, Sustaining, or Transforming (Global Church Study, 2016). Online at http://www.4X12.org.

[2] For a discussion on temple segregation in Jesus’ time, see Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary, New Testament (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 165-166.

[3] T. Dave Matsuo, The Global Church Engaging the Nature of Sin & the Human Condition, 22-23.

[4] T. Dave Matsuo, The Global Church Engaging the Nature of Sin & the Human Condition, 22.

[5] T. Dave Matsuo, The Global Church Engaging the Nature of Sin & the Human Condition, 54.

[6] Such as George Barna, America at the Crossroads: Explosive Trends Shaping America’s Future and What You Can Do about It (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2016).

[7] T. Dave Matsuo, The Global Church Engaging the Nature of Sin & the Human Condition, 33.

[8] T. Dave Matsuo, The Global Church Engaging the Nature of Sin & the Human Condition, 30-31.

[9] T. Dave Matsuo, The Global Church Engaging the Nature of Sin & the Human Condition, 31-32

[10] T. Dave Matsuo, The Global Church Engaging the Nature of Sin & the Human Condition, 28-29.

[11] For insiders’ comments on the popularizing and monetizing dynamics leading to the demise of the Mars Hill organization, see “The Painful Lessons of Mars Hill: What can we learn from the collapse of Mark Driscoll's church?” by Ben Tertin, https://www.christianitytoday.com/pastors/2014/december-online-only/painful-lessons-of-mars-hill.html, accessed August 6, 2018.

[12] Https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/11/houston-mark-driscoll-megachurch-meltdown/382487/, accessed August 6, 2018.

[13] T. Dave Matsuo, The Global Church Engaging the Nature of Sin & the Human Condition, 27-28.

[14] T. Dave Matsuo, The Global Church Engaging the Nature of Sin & the Human Condition, 32.

[15] For further study on these early Christian Fathers, see Cyril C. Richardson, ed., Early Christian Fathers (NY: Simon & Shuster, 1996).

[16] Elizabeth A. Clark, Women in the Early Church (Collegeville, MN: 1983), 20-21.

[17] Elizabeth A. Clark, Women in the Early Church, 39.

[18] Elizabeth A. Clark, Women in the Early Church, 21.

[19] Elizabeth A. Clark, Women in the Early Church, 17.

[20] Elizabeth A. Clark, Women in the Early Church, 15.

[21] Elizabeth A. Clark, Women in the Early Church, 17.

[22] For arguments for the ERA, see http://www.equalrightsamendment.org/. For the conservative arguments against the ERA, see The Eagle Forum, the Phyllis Shlafly Report online at https://eagleforum.org/psr/1986/sept86/psrsep86.html.

[23] Michael J. Kimmel, The Gendered Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 2.

[24] Campbell Robertson, “A Quiet Exodus: Why Black Worshipers Are Leaving White Evangelical Churches.” Online at https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/09/us/blacks-evangelical-churches.html, posted March 9, 2018.

[25] T. Dave Matsuo, Jesus into Paul: Embodying the Theology and Hermeneutic of the Whole Gospel (Integration Study, 2012). Online at http://www.4X12.org., 129.

[26] T. Dave Matsuo, Sanctified Christology: A Theological & Functional Study of the Whole of Jesus (Christology Study, 2008). Online at http://www.4X12.org. , 205.

[27] T. Dave Matsuo, The Gospel of Transformation: Distinguishing the Discipleship and Ecclesiology Integral to Salvation (Transformation Study, 2015). Online at http://www.4X12.org., 305-306.

[28] T. Dave Matsuo, Jesus’ Gospel of Essential Justice: The Human Order from Creation through Complete Salvation (Justice Study, 2018). Online at http://4X12.org., 139.

[29] T. Dave Matsuo, Jesus’ Gospel of Essential Justice), 59.

[30] T. Dave Matsuo, The Disciples of Whole Theology and Practice: Following the Diversity of Reformation or the Wholeness of Transformation (Whole-ly Disciples Study, 2017). Online at http://4X12.org., 82.

[31] T. Dave Matsuo, The Disciples of Whole Theology and Practice, 129-130.

[32] T. Dave Matsuo, The Disciples of Whole Theology and Practice, 141.

[33] T. Dave Matsuo, The Disciples of Whole Theology and Practice, 142.

[34] T. Dave Matsuo, The Disciples of Whole Theology and Practice, 143.

[35] T. Dave Matsuo, The Disciples of Whole Theology and Practice, 53.

[36] Wayne Grudem, Evangelical Feminism & Biblical Truth: An Analysis of More than 100 Disputed Questions (Sister, OR: Multnomah Publishers, 2004), 172.

[37] Wayne Grudem, Evangelical Feminism & Biblical Truth, 166-167.

[38] See, for example, Aída Besançon Spencer, “Jesus’ Treatment of Women in the Gospels” in Discovering Biblical Equality: Complementarity Without Hierarchy, 135-136. See also Stanley J. Grenz and Denise Muir Kjesbo, Women in the Church: A Biblical Theology of Women in Ministry (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1995), 211-212.