I think I coined the phrase “cage-stage-patriarchy” recently to describe some of the less than stellar commentary being offered on social media about the authority that God has given husbands over their wives. The phrase suggests that those who, having recently discovered the biblical teachings on patriarchy, are so indelicate in handling the truth that they would be well-served (and better serve others) if they were locked in a cage away from people until they gain deeper understanding of the truth they have discovered.
Ours is, as John Stott put it, an “anti-authority” age that has been permeated in every sphere by demonically inspired feminism. While rightly rejecting this ideology some have rediscovered biblical patriarchy—the teaching that God has purposefully made men and women to be different and has assigned to men the primary responsibility and authority to exercise leadership in the home, church, and world.
What Scripture teaches on this in no way denigrates women. Nor does the Bible prohibit or judge women to be inadequate for many roles and tasks that require leadership qualities. Rather than expound on that let me simply refer to a few examples of what I have in mind, such as Proverbs 31:10-31, 1 Samuel 1:21-28, and Titus 2:3-4.
My concern is the excesses that too often accompany the rediscovery of biblical patriarchy. Specifically, I am concerned about those who, in the name of patriarchy, are advocating positions and actions that do not adequately honor all Scripture. They have fallen into what I call, cage-stage-patriarchy (CSP).
This is a close relative of cage-stage-Calvinism (CSC). When one first discovers the doctrines of grace, he often begins to interpret everything, including every Scriptural text through his newly discovered, not yet matured understanding of the sovereignty of God.
Thus, anything that smacks of human freedom is judged to be anathema. For example (and I have witnessed or myself engaged in all of these), some CSCs get nervous singing or refuse to sing altogether songs like Just As I Am. Or when teaching verses like John 3:16 and 1 John 2:2, they feel compelled to spend more time telling you what the text does not mean than what it does mean.
Cage-stagers become obnoxious with their new-found insights and are quick to challenge and correct anyone who seems to disagree with them. Social media has magnified this because everyone has a platform from which to air his opinions (Proverbs 18:2). You can recognize a cage-stager, or just an immature Christian, by how quickly and authoritatively they jump into conversations that do not concern them at all (Proverbs 26:17). They are gadflies who can be easily seen as such by a simple search of their social media timelines.
Further, when controversy erupts, they feel justified to violate the very convictions for which they contend because of their sense of self-importance in defending the truth. Such cage stagers would be immensely helped by studying Bunyan’s Valiant-for-Truth. You miss the important lesson taught by this character unless you recognize that the enemies that bloodied that stalwart of the faith (but which he does indeed fight!) reside within his own heart.
This is why you see CSCs defend the doctrines of grace with so little evidence of the grace of those doctrines. It also explains why Cage-stage-patriarchists do not hesitate, in the name of defending the patriarchy, to speak derisively of men who deserve respect by virtue of their testimony and station in life. You can also see it in the way they speak down to and about women, violating the very Scriptures that form the foundation of male leadership and headship.
Cage-stagers regularly give hot takes on the issues they are advocating, often to the applause of immature listeners. When challenged, they either double-down in their not-yet-matured understanding trying to defend the biblically indefensible or offer multiple and needed qualifications to explain exactly what they meant and did not mean. One tell-tale sign of a cage stager is the claim that he is regularly being misunderstood when his very words are cited to critique the opinion he boldly espoused.
If you are regularly having to defend yourself and explain statements that you plainly make because people take your words in the plain sense in which you spoke them, you would be well-served to stop talking for a while until you figure out how to communicate clearly enough that you are not so often being misunderstood.
So, I appreciate CSPs rightly reacting against the widespread feminism of our day. It is not that they are completely wrong in their convictions. Rather, they have stopped short of going deeper into what the Word of God teaches about male-female distinctions and male leadership and headship. Therein lies the problem.
They speak beyond their maturity and, as such, wind up staking out positions that are often untenable, such as, the red dress test that recently made the rounds on X.com. To state the case starkly the argument goes like this: “If I tell my wife to wear a red dress every day for the rest of her life then she must do so. Period. Full stop.” That sounds bold. It sounds manly, patriarchal even. In our feminized age it will win applause from some who are awakening from the estrogen-drenched culture and churches in which they dwell. But this attitude misrepresents what God requires of both husbands and wives under the lordship of Christ. Do husbands have a responsibility to make sure their wives dress appropriately? Absolutely. Do wives have a responsibility to dress in accordance with their husband’s will? Absolutely. But there is a deeper dimension to the marital relationship that must never be overlooked by followers of Christ.
Before a Christian couple are husband and wife, they are brother and sister in the Lord. The duties and responsibilities that we have in God’s family under Christ’s lordship do not get cancelled by holy matrimony. Further, a husband’s headship over his wife is not arbitrary or unlimited. His authority, like all other human authority, is delegated and limited. Jesus is the sole possessor of “all authority in heaven and on earth” (Matthew 28:18). Magistrates, elders, and husbands possess authority only because Christ delegates it to them. They are required to use their authority under His lordship.
What does that entail? Every thoughtful Christian knows that no human authority has the right to command you to break God’s law. But does that mean that a husband is free to require of his wife anything that is not a clear violation of God’s law? Hardly. He is free to require of his wife that which pleases the Lord who has delegated to him the authority which he wields. A husband’s authority is not arbitrary. It is not inherent. It is delegated.
Just as fathers are commanded to exercise their authority in ways that do not provoke their children to wrath (Ephesians 6:4) so husbands are given clear instructions to be like Christ in how they treat their wives. “Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered” (1 Peter 3:7). I submit that arbitrarily requiring your wife to wear a certain color dress for the rest of her life is a violation of this command. To make the case a little clearer for those who are still fuzzy on this, let’s up the ante on the non-sinful requirement. Does a husband have the right arbitrarily to require his wife to stand in the corner of a room for three hours each day? Or to roll twenty times on the front lawn every day at 2PM?
To be clear, a godly wife’s default response even to such strange requirements should be the inclination to submit. But because she is a joint heir of grace with her husband, that inclination will be tempered by her own desire to please Jesus Christ. If she thinks her husband might not be thinking clearly then as his sister in Christ as well as his helper in marriage, she should try to get him to see her concerns. That may involve seeking counsel from other human authorities, most notably, the elders of their church.
This is a more integrated, mature approach to what the Bible teaches about the proper exercise of authority in marriage. Half-baked views of biblical patriarchy undermine this teaching. When they gain traction, they serve to inoculate against God’s good and wise teaching on the roles of and relationships between men and women. As a result, those still ensnared in feminism become more resistant to biblical teaching on the subject.
I know what it is to be in a cage-stage of some new conviction. And I have been the recipient of gracious patience and necessary rebuke by older, wiser men who recognized that my need was not refutation but correction. My hope is that men who are in a position to extend such patience and offer such rebukes to cage-stage-patriarchists will not shrink back from the opportunity to do so. The church of Jesus Christ needs to get right on this issue. And we need strong men who understand the full counsel of God on this question to lead the way.
