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| by Erik Wait |
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In a previous paper I discussed the necessity of a Biblical patriarchal order in the home and that the failure of such results in disorder, chaos, confusion and androgyny in society. [1] Then in another paper I argued that the family and the Church need to be integrated in corporate worship rather than age-segregated into Sunday schools. In doing so individual biological families ought to gather as the larger ecclesiastical family without denying the distinctive covenantal jurisdictions of the Church and family elders. [2] I then made the case that rather than creating programs the elders of the Church ought to teach the heads of households to properly lead their homes in order to perform their duty as the primary shepherds of their families. Therefore, rather than age-segregated programs the ecclesiastical elders need to fortify the role of the patriarch and teach the entire family together in corporate worship. [3]
The purpose of this paper will be to address a potential danger for men to become so zealous in their role as head of the household that they develop a form of Hyper-Patriarchalism. Hyper-Patriarchalism results when the head of the household goes beyond being a Biblical patriarch to becoming a tyrant who denies the ecclesiastical elders the duty to be involved in co-shepherding his family. Taken to its logical end, such an abuse of the role of the authority of family headship results in an unbiblical House-Church as fathers see it as the only way that they can “protect” their family, not only from a perceived tyranny of the state, but to also keep lawfully ordained Church elders out of their home. In short, this is nothing less than a cult of the family.
Often times out of zeal to uphold one particular Biblical principle in theology or morality, Christians will neglect other equally important teachings of Scripture. Contrary to this error, the goal of the Christian ought to be to seek to develop and live a balanced Christian life that does justice to the whole counsel of God. We should neither want legalism or licentiousness and we ought to desire both a head and heart knowledge of God through His Word.
One of the goals of Family-Church Integration is to build Biblical households with mature men as the patriarch of the family. The goal then is for ecclesiastical elders to support, rather than complete with, the elders of families to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. However, it is common to find men who, in trying to be faithful to their calling as husbands and fathers, go beyond what Scripture requires and allows for them as the head of the household. They recognize that it is their duty to teach, discipline, feed, and nurture their wife and children. They rightly recognize that the Church shouldn’t be segregated into various age groups, but they may be frustrated in trying to find a Church that supports rather than competes with their role as head of the household. They may then flee with their family from church to church until they finally give up, or they become renegades who refuse to place themselves under the accountability of a local church. They may even deny that the teaching elders can have any interaction in discipling their family without going through them as a mediator. This is often due to a wrong understanding of Paul’s exhortation to wives to not disrupt corporate worship by speaking in Church:
“The women are to keep silent in the churches; for they are not permitted to speak, but are to subject themselves, just as the Law also says. If they desire to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is improper for a woman to speak in church.” (1 Corinthians 14:34-35)
The hyper-patriarchal husband often thinks that this passage teaches that the wife is to learn the Bible from her husband and that she cannot ask the pastor directly any questions, even when it is not disruptive to the service. While she is to be present with her husband in the corporate worship he will maintain that he can lawfully withdraw her from the gathering of the saints any time he thinks it is warranted. Consequently, in a seeming desire to protect their family, the hyper-patriarchal husband denies the God-given role and responsibility of ecclesiastical elders to teach all the saints in the Church. But it is clear from Scripture that the apostles, as pastors, frequently directly addressed all members of the Church without first getting approval from the head of the household. For example, Paul told wives that they are to be submissive to their husbands (Ephesians 5:22). He did not need to instruct husbands to tell their wives to be submissive because he had the authority as their pastor to teach them directly. But when Church elders want to speak to the children or the wife directly in the same fashion the hyper-patriarchal husband protests that they are overstepping their jurisdiction.
The elders of the Church may also want to conduct family visitation in which they meet with individual families, as physicians of the soul, to ask various questions of the family members such as, “Do you benefit from the weekly sermons?” or “Do you spend time each day in family devotions?” and “How are the children doing in school?” and so forth. Over zealous hyper-patriarchal men can perceive such questions as a challenge to their role as the head of the household as they believe that is their duty alone to ask such questions. They also may think that they themselves do not need to be given a “check up” by the elders of the Church. Consequently, in response to a request to conduct a home visitation by the elders they will usually respond, “Where in the Bible does it say elders are to do family visitations?”
At this point the elders need to patiently instruct the man that Christians are to obey all that Scripture says explicitly as well as what is required by good and necessary consequence. In this case, Scripture states:
“Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you.” (Hebrews 13:17)
While elders ought not to attempt to micromanage families, they do need to be aware of the spiritual welfare of the households in the Church in order to be able to watch over the souls of the flock. In my experience it is not uncommon for some families, especially if it is a large congregation in which people can hide, to show up in Church wearing their Sunday best while their home is in total disorder. They manage to put up a front on Sunday only to return to chaos in the home on Monday. In such cases fathers are not leading their home in devotions, wives are not keeping house, children are living in rebellion and the house is in general disarray. All too often these families continue in this manner until finally the situation erodes to the point that the husband and wife need to seek the aid of the elders to prevent a divorce or cry out for help with their out-of-control teenagers. However, in churches where the elders at least conduct an annual visitation to each home in the Church, I have noticed that there is a significant improvement in households which are struggling because the elders discover potential problems in their early stages. Consequently they can address them in a Biblical fashion and exhort the family in how they can grow in sanctification.
But the hyper-patriarchal man disregards such a justification for elder visitations because he sees any sort of supervision by the elders as a challenge to his authority and jurisdiction. But what he needs to understand is that there is some overlap between the various covenantal spheres so that the state, family, and Church are interdependent of each other and can have overlapping duties although they carry them out in a different fashion. For example, the father is to be the protector of the home as well as the state appointed police who have the duty to arrest criminals who seek to harm households. In fact, the elders of the family, Church and state are to keep one another in check so that no one office has the power to become a tyranny in society. Only a balance of powers can maintain checks and balances. When a country is dominated by the civil magistrate it becomes like Nazi Germany. But when a society becomes dominated by the heads of families the country is run by a mafia. What the hyper-patriarchal man does not realize is that it is his egotism and arrogance that demands a simplistic “proof text” from the elders to justify a visitation of the pastor. While he may portray himself as being a diligent and protective patriarch, in reality this is just a cover for his fear that an elder actually find that he isn’t the perfect husband and father he pretends to be.
The hyper-patriarchal man may also develop a critical spirit in which he searches for every possible point of disagreement he can have with the teaching elders as a justification to “protect” his family from them. While all Christians are to test all things and hold to what is true (1 Thessalonians 5:21; 1 John 4:10), the hyper-patriarch will go beyond challenging issues of basic orthodoxy to nick-picking every point of doctrine and practice. So, while no two professionally trained theologians will agree on every minute point of doctrine and yet continue to work together as colleagues, the hyper-patriarch uses minor disagreements over doctrine as a justification to withdraw himself and his entire family from the teaching of the elders of the Church. Consequently they may abandon the local Church to set up their own “House Church” and ordain himself as an ecclesiastical elder, in which he is essentially the “Pope” of his House Church, even going so far as to administer sacraments. In doing so he seeks to justify in his own minds that he is doing so in order to fulfill his role as protector of the home.
One of the ways he may seek to justify his actions is to quote texts in the Book of Acts in which we see the early Church meeting in homes (Acts 2:46; 5:42). He may even point out that the non-state registered churches in China meets in homes. But this is a case of bad proof-texting. While the facility in which the early Church met was someone’s house this does not mean that this was done apart from the authorization of lawfully ordained apostles and elders. The problem of the House Church Movement is not the buildings in which they meet but the fact that they, like the Anabaptists, are self-ordained leaders with no lawful basis for administering the sacraments. In addition, the reason why the churches in China meet secretly in homes is because of persecution and the tyranny of the state which is in control of the registered churches. The American House Church Movement cannot make a similar claim even if many denominations are incorporated by the state.
Hyper-Patriarchalism essentially is a refusal to submit to God’s lawfully ordained governing authority in the only institution that will exist for eternity. The state will not last forever as all kingdoms will be brought under Christ’s reign (Revelation 11:15). The husband-wife relationship will not last beyond this lifetime (Matthew 22:30). Only the Church will go on for eternity (Revelation 21:22) as it is the predestined family of God:
“The only family that is central in time and eternity is the family of God, entrance into which is attainable only through adoption: ’According as he bath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will’ (Eph. 1:4-5). The only valid proof of a person’s membership in this family is his or her membership in God’s institutional church. A person who does not belong to a church but who insists that he is a Christian is like a man without a uniform or credentials who tries to enter a military base that has been closed to the public. Maybe he used to be in the military. Maybe he still has his old uniform. But if he puts it on and goes onto the base, he can lawfully be arrested or shot as a spy. His testimony that he means well is judicially irrelevant. And if he was dishonorably discharged from service, or if he had gone AWOL woe unto him if he dons his old uniform and pretends that he has lawful access.” [5}
The Church takes preeminence over the biological family as Jesus said that His gospel would divide families (Matthew 10:21-22; 33-34). In addition, the Church has a rightful claim on a portion of the family’s wealth:
“The church has a lawful claim on ten percent of its member families’ net income. The church therefore possesses legitimate sanctions over the Christian family. In short, the church is a separate jurisdiction. It is a jurisdiction superior to the family, for the decisions of the head of the Christian household can be appealed to the local church’s elders.” [4]
While the biological family may the be the nucleus of a society as it was the first covenantal institution created by God, the fact that an inferior always pays tithes to a superior as Abraham did to Melchizedek (Genesis 14:20; Hebrews 7:1-8), demonstrates that the Church takes preeminence over the biological family. The family pays tithes to the Church, not vise versa. But then of course the hyper-patriarch refuses to be a member of the institutional Church let alone pay the tithes! Hence he is also a robber of God (Malachi 3:8). The fact that the Church family supersedes the biological family is the reason why my fellow Christians are nearer kin than my biological brothers who deny the faith.
Hyper-Patriarchalism is a rebellion against God’s economy as the head of the household becomes the final court of appeal. Hyper-Patriarchalism asserts a divine right of the head of the household with no earthly appeal beyond his conscience. But the judicial marks of church membership are baptism and participation in the Lord’s Supper. The elders of the Church possess God’s authority as they control the keys of the kingdom the right to preach and enforce the Law of God by means of the authority to excommunicate those who refuse to obey:
“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 16:19).
Therefore, no one who calls himself “Christian” may confidently ignore the judgment of the institutional Church for the Lord testifies that such judgment is nothing less than the proclamation of His own sentence, and that whatever they have done on earth is ratified in heaven. The Bible does not teach that the patriarch has the power of the keys. Only the institutional Church has been given such authority.
One of the ways in which hyper-patriarchs attempt to get around the assertion that they have forsaken the assembly of the saints (Hebrews 10:25) is to argue that the Church is “organic” and that it arises from within the family. They will then assert that it is not a “top down” form of government. But nothing could be further than the truth. The government of the Church is not a democracy but rather a Christocracy in which Jesus Christ alone is King and head of the Church. He in turn appointed his apostles who then taught and appointed elders to follow them in their place:
“And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.” (Ephesians 4:11-13)
While the apostolic office has ceased and a tight line of succession may not be able to be determined for every elder in existence, one thing that is clear is that Scripture never gives us any indication that elders have ever been men who just sort of “rose up” out of the crowd to become leaders in the Church without being ordained by previously established officers in the Church.
There are undoubtedly other forms of this error, but what the hyper-patriarchic needs to recognize is that although his initial intent may be to protect his family and be true to his calling as the leader of the home, the result of his extremism is that he actually presents himself as a role model for rebellion in the home. The hyper-patriarchic teaches his children, by his example, to rebel against lawful authorities and seek whatever means to justify one’s actions. He also teaches his children and wife to be divisive in the Church and to be hypocritically judgmental in criticizing the elders of the Church while not being willing to submit to them for the same sort of examination (Matthew 7:1-5).
In time the hyper-patriarch should not be surprised to find his adult children abandoning the Church and using a similar justification for doing so as their father. Or they may just abandon the Church altogether thinking that if doctrine causes division, why bother to be a Christian at all? Or the hyper-patriarch may find one day that the wife can no longer go along with his poor leadership and decide to take herself and the children to a local Church against his wishes arguing, “The Bible tells me that I ought to obey God rather than man!” (Acts 5:29)
More often than not Hyper-Patriarchalism and the House Church Movement comes from a perfectionist mentality of the head of the household who, because he cannot find a pastor he agrees with on every jot and tittle of doctrine, withdraws from the institutional Church because in his mind the only perfect church is the one in which he has complete control. He may even meet and fellowship with other hyper-patriarchs who talk about forming a like-minded Church together. But once the hyper-patriarch has more than a few families he will no longer be surrounded by “Yes” men who are willing to grant him complete control. Hyper-Patriarchalism will always create either a minute congregation or it will become a cult in which everyone within the assembly is willing to blindly follow the self-anointed patriarch.
In many cases Hyper-Patriarchalism is an overreaction to the abuses of ecclesiastical elders and wide spread age-segregation in the Church. When a person has been in a Church or a cult (such as the Boston Church of Christ) in which the leaders exceeded their authority and jurisdiction. people often become gun shy and withdraw from the Church. They will then develop an ecclesiology to justify the forming of a House Church. In such cases, if a hyper-patriarch steps through the doors of a local Church, the elders need to be patient and sensitive to the person’s bad experiences with the institutional Church. They ought not to press too much into the affairs of the hyper-patriarch but instead win his confidence by being a gentle shepherd and become his friend. Then he will see that the elders are seeking his good and not trying to become a domineering tyrant over his family. |
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| End Notes |
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[1] See “Disorder, Confusion and the Androgynization of Civilization” at http://www.erikwait.com/index.cgi?action=display_one&story_id=371
[2] See “The Challenges of Family-Church Integration” at http://www.erikwait.com/index.cgi?action=display_one&story_id=372
[3] See “Family-Church Integration in a Church-Program Age” at http://www.erikwait.com/index.cgi?action=display_one&story_id=373
[4] For further reading on this subject, see: Gary North, “Baptized Patriarchalism The Cult of the Family” (Institute for Christian Economics Tyler, Texas)
[5] Gary North, “Baptized Patriarchalism The Cult of the Family” (Institute for Christian Economics Tyler, Texas) |
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