Position · 1987

Complementarianism

The view that men and women are equal in dignity and worth but have distinct, complementary roles, with the office of pastor or elder, and headship in marriage, given to men.

Complementarians ground this in the creation accounts and in texts such as 1 Timothy 2 and Ephesians 5, which they read as lasting rather than local. The term and its modern form came from the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and its Danvers Statement (1987). Wayne Grudem and John Piper edited its main defence, Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (1991).

The view is widespread among conservative Evangelical and Baptist churches, though both families are divided on it. It differs from the Catholic and Orthodox Male Priesthood, which rests on sacramental rather than headship reasoning. Egalitarian critics argue that the restrictive texts address particular situations rather than a permanent order.