This is my sixth post on Dr. Chloe Lynch’s book, Ecclesial Leadership as Friendship. I am not writing an extensive or detailed review. It’s more like I am writing some reflections after experiencing a glorious fullness of mind and heart after reading her book. She has given us an outstanding theological and psychological reflection on friendship-leadership. I changed the title in this post.
She not only has given the theological community a groundbreaking vision for friendship-leadership but she simultaneously opens a wide door for a robust theology of friendship between men and women!
I think Lynch’s deep-dive into friendship’s mutuality blazes a new trail for friendship-leadership. I am so thrilled to add her to my list of friendship-theologians. When she said in her introduction that she was going to offer a theology of ecclesial friendship she wasn’t kidding!
Very early on in my egalitarian journey, I was highly optimistic that those who were evangelical egalitarians and those who were “emerging” at the time would be ready for ecclesial friendships between men and women. I thought some of the leading egalitarian theologians/pastors who claimed “mutual submission” to be at the heart of Christian marriage and church leadership would welcome friendship’s mutuality.
But that didn’t turn out to be the case.
At the deep end of the pool there was “mutual submission” for church leadership and for marriage. But friendship’s mutuality between men and women? I wasn’t an egalitarian that long when I got this huge message within a mutual submission model: ecclesial friendships between men and women were welcomed at the deep end of the pool insofar as cross-gender friends were in gatherings or groups of three or more.
However, any kind of dyadic formation of cross-gender friends that was for the shallow end of the pool. That kind of ecclesial friendship between a man and a woman had no "power with" or mutual influence at the deep end. It was “under” the mutual submission of larger egalitarian gatherings where there were chaperones, small groups, or church leadership.
One could have some dear, precious ecclesial cross-sex friends just as long as you knew them in a small group or church gathering experience. The more I got to know the evangelical egalitarian model through Scot McKnight, David Fitch, Bill Hybels and Christians for Biblical Equality the more I discovered the dyad was clearly at the shallow end of the pool while mutual submission in marriage or church leadership had the deep end of mutual influence.
Women--even women who were inspired to become courageous daring leaders for the deep end were encouraged to not swim in the deep end when it came to dyadic friendships.
It’s been a fascinating thing for me to study this “mutual submission” model among evangelical egalitarians the past thirteen or so years. There is no question that the mutual submission model is deeply embedded in egalitarian ecclesiology and marriages. This is the deep end of the pool-- “power over”--in regards to ecclesial dyadic friendships. That one deep embedded groove you see in Missio Alliance and egalitarian books either for church or marriage. No American evangelical publisher--Baker, Zondervan, Tyndale, etc. has ever published a theology of ecclesial friendship between men and women.
But you want to know the other thing that I noticed? The incredible amount of friendship books written by evangelicals, progressives, moderates, and conservatives during that same time period that point us to friendship’s mutuality with no language or fundamental need for “mutual submission” within the friendship.
It's not in Friends in Christ, nor John Townsend's How to Be a Best Friend Forever, nor is it found in books that are authored by complementarians like How Should We Develop Biblical Friendship?, or Jonathan Holmes, The Company We Keep: In Search of Biblical Friendship. You won't find it Human Wholeness, or But I Have Called You Friends, or in a progressive book like, Sheltered in the Heart. Or another conservative evangelical, To Be a Friend. You won't find the word "submit" or "mutual submission" in Wesley Hill's book on Spiritual Friendship. Submission also is not found in Joseph Stewart-Sicking's, Spiritual Friendship After Religion.
Friends, take my word for it. I could easily list another forty books about friendship in my library--books that span the vast spectrum of Christianity and friendship and they all have three things in common. The first is that they don't have "mutual submission" in their wisdom or counsel. They don't list submission as a foundational virtue or discipline in friendship!. Second, they all have language about mutuality--friendship's mutuality and the mutual influence between friends. The third thing that is common about all of them is this orientation toward dyadic friendships.
Many of the books are about mature mutual influence! In fact, many of them portray the spirit of Joan Chittister's vision of dyadic friendship and mutual influence: "For friendship is far more than a personal gift. The right friendship, rightly given, has the power to change the world" (The Friendship of Women).
I think this is where Chloe Lynch's rich theological reflection on friendship's mutuality opens a wide door for ecclesial friendships between men and women. Particularly when she reads power through the lens of friendship. What if friendship's mutuality had a "power-with" to be present at the deep end of the pool coexisting with marriage and church leadership? What if friendship's dyadic mutuality--mutual influence--had something powerful--as in "power with"--to contribute to ecclesial leadership? Not just influence at the shallow end but right in the heart of mutual influence at the deep end?
Does it strike you that all these friendship books that focus on friendship dyads don't include mutual submission in the very heart of friendships? The stark contrast within evangelical ecclesiology for leadership is that "mutual submission" is invoked as the model. What if friendship's mutuality points us to a deeper, broader ecclesial friendship between men and women? As in friendship-leadership? Isn't the heart of Jesus' message in John 15:12-15 that he no longer calls us servants but friends? Ah, yes, what does dyadic friendship--not enmeshed in a dominant-submissive relationship with the church--mutuality mean for us in the twenty-first century?
It's fascinating to me that Lynch embraces mutual submission but she also rejects "blueprint ecclesiologies." But you know what? Once I saw how egalitarians snubbed the mutual influence of dyadic friendships between men and women their "mutual submission" model was revealed to be a dominant-submissive model of a blueprint ecclesiology. Friendship's mutuality in dyads or in mutual influence was assigned to the shallow end.
More to come.
