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As somebody whose principal concern is fatherlessness and family fragmentation, I think the chief question not addressed by equal-regard thinking is how we develop the male role in the family. How do we affirm, recognize, support, teach, and transmit a male role in the family?

I have come to believe that if you have only a unisex role, if you just talk about "parents" rather than "mothers," women aren't that affected by it. The tie between mother and child is the most difficult tie to break in all of nature. The tie between fathers and their children is extremely important also, but it is more fragile and more dependent on what image and vision of fatherhood and husbandhood we create, sustain, and transmit.

I think the equal-regard advocates of the mainline Protestants are struggling within their own framework. They haven't yet succeeded in coming up with an answer to what some people call "the male problematic."

You refer to some people who mistake headship for "bossdom." Is this a particular problem for evangelical Protestants, and if so, what can we do about it?

Well, I think it is a problem for fallen human nature. I think maybe it is particular phenomenon of people whose religious life doesn't run very deep.

In the passages talking about headship, it's important to recognize that the admonition to obey and respect your husband is directed toward women. But there is no corollary admonition that men are supposed to work hard to keep their wives in line. In fact, it is exactly the contrary. The whole context of the paragraph is about how we are not supposed to stand on our rights, and that in these loving relationships we are supposed to do what Christ did for all of us: We are supposed to give of ourselves and serve other people.

When you mistake the advice about family relationships for "I'm a man if I boss my wife around," you've missed the whole point, and you're unlikely to be able to create the kind of loving family life that is supposed to mirror the inner life of God. That's the ideal. The evidence is that for men who are going to church and are active in their Christianity, evangelicals are doing a pretty good job of teaching them what it means to be a good family man. Every religious group, at this point, needs to do a better job of supporting the marriage vow and seeing that more of our children are born and raised by their own two married parents.

You use the word strategy and several other practical-sounding terms when you talk about male headship. Is there something about the essence of maleness and femaleness that relates to headship, or is it primarily a matter of strategy?

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August 2004, Vol. 48, No. 8