According to this morning’s news, the Paige Patterson/SWBTS saga continues. Its prominence in the news cycle has focused my thinking on Jesus’ call to self-sacrificial love both as properly understood and also as commonly misunderstood.

After all, Ephesians’ call to submit to one another (see the previous blog entry “The Role of Common Sense in Biblical Interpretation”) does not stand alone in the Bible. The Hebrew Bible frequently celebrates people who express hesed, the voluntary and often unmerited determination to act always to the benefit of a specific other.  Jesus challenged his disciples to take up their own crosses; he counseled them that the greatest in the Kingdom of God is least, that humble service surpasses authoritarian power; he admonished them to suffer injustice nobly, when smitten to turn the other cheek.

One of Christianity’s most influential critics, Friedrich Nietzsche, regarded such service and noble endurance as tantamount to servility and willing victimhood, and thus as evidence of fundamental weakness. His concept of the Übermensch – the strong, powerful, self-oriented and self-determined victor, destined for mastery – contrasts diametrically with his picture of the disciple of Christ, indeed, of Christ himself. Nietzsche’s formulation only exemplifies the philosophy of power that has dominated human history and thought: ‘might makes right’; the wealthy and powerful are the good; ‘the fittest survive.’  Machiavelli preceded him and Ayn Rand succeeded him.

The model for Christian “submission,” Jesus, demonstrates how both Nietzsche and Paige Patterson have misunderstood the Gospel summons to self-sacrificial love.  First, Jesus was anything but weak. The Gospels record his unflinching opposition to the religious leaders of his day. They recount his moments of anger and his aggressive act of cleansing the temple. Most importantly, the NT insists that Jesus “gave” or “laid down” his life freely; it was not taken from him. As the rhapsodic Christological hymn Paul cites in Philippians describes the matter, Jesus willingly abandoned the prerogatives of deity, assumed humanity, and submitted to death in order to redeem creation and rise again to universally-acknowledged supremacy. In other words, the model for Christian “submission” acted freely, as an expression of strength, and for the purpose of redemption – that is, in order to benefit others, not himself.

Nietzsche, Rand, and the rest fail to comprehend the power of purposive selflessness to change lives. Their brand of selfishness can only perpetuate the servility and suffering of others.  Indeed, it relies on them. In their world, only seflishness can produce “success.” One dare not, ought not, prioritize another.

Patterson and those like him, on the other hand, seek to impose submission on others as a structural reality. As God structured the world, they argue, women are simply supposed to be submissive as a matter of status. Submission is their role. Liberation theology arose in reaction to similar “structural” arguments addressed to the poor in Latin America. The powerful and wealthy admonished the poor to accept oppression because, obviously, God had assigned their poverty as their “cross” to bear. The priveleged always regard hierarchical structures as ontological realities or divine order.

Not only does this “structural” claim mistake whole swaths of Scripture concerning male-female relations (see again “Common Sense”), but it also ignores the insights offered by  Jesus’ “submission.” Such submission is motivated and ennabled by strength, it must be a free decision; one chooses self-sacrifice in order to achieve redemption. Suffering for suffering’s sake was Nietzsche’s caricature of Christianity; Christian suffering, like Christ’s, liberates and heals.

A few years ago, I had the privilege of hearing Maya Angelou address a group of Baptist clergy and laity.  She affirmed her desire “to be useful,” “to be of use,” while contrasting it with her refusal to allow herself to be “abused” or “misused.” Her statement summarizes the stituation nicely.  Patterson would do well to seek “the mind of Christ” for himself rather than dictate servility to others.