I've been reading these sources long enough that this stuff doesn't shock me, but it certainly did when I first encountered it. It was Calvin's sermons on 1 Cor. 11 that really made my eyes pop out of my head. https://twitter.com/Wedgetweets/status/1288876239420141568

At first you just dismiss them as men of their times, but the more you read, the more you see that this view was not just an accident of history but was a coherent and comprehensive part of their anthropology as such. It shows up all over their comments on creation and marriage.

Further, this view is still present as late as Charles Hodge. And you see people like RC Sproul and James Montgomery Boice trying to recover it or bring it back. Which means that it only became strange in the late 19th or early 20th cent.

Conservatives in the 1960s and 70s saw this too. But at some point, the term "complementarian" was used to try to sidestep the issue of hierarchy. For obvious reasons of course! But the issue of *leadership* remained, and it is still the breaking point.

I don't talk about this stuff to be reactionary or try to resurrection some long-lost political order. We can only apply the old principles to our current landscape and try to create something reasonable, but still new.

But to do that, we have to be honest about the principles.

What changed in how we read the headship stuff?

I think the answer is obvious. We now presume the late- liberal (as in classical liberalism-- liberty/equality) philosophical foundations, especially on civic issues. We take that as a basic human right. That controls our exegesis

Complementarianism recognized this, and so it tried to give new language and categories to the concepts. But too often those ended up wonky-- like finding the interpretative key within the Trinity!

ESS was not an attempt to sneak in patriarchy. It was an attempt to re-explain the old views in a way that was more agreeable to *equality.*

But it backfired.

And what too many people ended up doing was saying that complementarianism was this somewhat odd artifact of private theological "values" and "tradition." It is to be respected within certain restricted boundaries, and those boundaries got smaller and smaller.

The reason I want to force our attention on the older categories is precisely to highlight the irrationality of the current arrangement. You can't straddle the fence between patriarchal ecclesiology (and sometimes marriage) and egalitarian everything else. It just won't hold.

Again, I'm talking about theory.

I don't believe in divine right positive law stuff. I'm not a theonomist. Prudence reigns. So recognizing the creation order does not auto. tell us anything about how to live in modern social economy.

It just gives us the founding principles.

In my mind, the productive household as center of vocation is the best way to implement these principles today. And the great thing about that model is that it can look different in different places and for different people.

The key is to identify yourself with your house.

Your work is not just "your" work. It is your household's work. Work cannot, then, take over your household. It must help and assist your household. But not just in a selfish or unidirectional way.

The work helps the whole house be productive for a greater but benevolent good.