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"I came to Ephesians 5:28, 'Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies,' " Wayne later wrote in a newsletter. "If I were to love my own wife as I love my own body, then shouldn't I move [to Arizona] for the sake of Margaret?" Wayne applied to teach at Phoenix and the two moved last year.

How does this differ from the egalitarian concept of mutual submission?

"Our decision process did not look at all like mutual submission," Grudem told me. "I did decide to move to Arizona out of love for my wife, and I believe the Bible teaches a lot of mutual things, like mutual love and mutual deference to each other's needs, preferences, and desires. But at no time did I submit to Margaret's authority or yield my leadership role in the marriage."

Complementarian Kate Balasa adds: "Mutual submission suggests that authority or headship alternates between husband and wife. Deference, on the other hand, is a part of the sacrificial love and wisdom of headship."

Even the wife's exercise of her gifts has to be subject to headship, says Karen Poulos, whom I met at CBMW's marriage conference in Longwood, Florida. Karen, who has enjoyed homeschooling her children for years, believes she has a gift of teaching the Bible. She gave up teaching when her husband, Gregory, wanted to change the curriculum. She suggested that he teach the new material because "it is more important for our children to see the biblical pattern of the husband as head, and the wife as the helper, than for me to teach."

"My freedom comes from letting my husband be in charge," she says.

Could Paul's call for husbands to lay down their lives for their wives imply mutual submission?

To a degree, yes, Don Balasa says. While egalitarians support their commitment to mutual submission with Ephesians 5:21 (among other passages), Don and his wife believe submission is based on the directive to husbands in verses 25-28. "Christ's giving himself up for the church had elements of self-giving and self-denial," he says. "But wives are to relate to their husbands like the church must relate to Christ. Throughout the Scripture, Christ is Lord." He notes one difference, though: husbands and wives are equal in value.

A tongue-in-cheek summary of this understanding comes from egalitarian scholar Gordon D. Fee. At a CBE conference in Dallas last year, the Regent College professor said, "The only way for a man and a woman to be equal is for the woman to submit."

InterVarsity will publish CBE's response to Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood in 2003. The working title expresses the egalitarian vision in six words—Discovering Biblical Equality: Complementarity Without Hierarchy. Spouses' gifts differ, filling in for the other, and there is no unilateral submission.

When asked who the leader is in their marriage, men and women I spoke with at the CBE conference said, "Both of us," or "It depends on whose gift applies to a given situation."

In an egalitarian marriage, tasks are divided between spouses in accordance with their gifts, not genders, says Kathy Dudley, who attended the conference with her husband, Sayres.

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March 11 2002, Vol. 46, No. 3