In our time, beyond the ultimate issues of theism and atheism, two fundamental and very practical theories regarding patriarchy oppose each other, with essential implications for human survival: either a biblical view of human existence (which presupposes the flourishing of the natural or nuclear family and the male/female distinction) or a CRT atheist “anti-racist” view that ultimately eliminates all distinctions for the sake of the installation of a godless Marxist utopian equity.

Part of Critical Race Theory is the assumption that racism is inevitably related to white male heterosexuality and the oppressive patriarchy that occurs under the selfish rule of powerful father-figures. Thus, the contemporary version of a “man” in U.S. society is “hyper-masculine, straight, and white…the wealthy white male property owner.” So “…we must begin to dismantle the racist and patriarchal systems.”[1] Theorist Rob Okun calls for an “anti-patriarchy Peace Corps with dedicated organizers fanning out across the country to help communities figure out ways to rid their local schools, courts, workplaces, hospitals, and houses of worship of entrenched white supremacy and patriarchy.”[2]
Black thinker, John Washington, a self-described “liberal” examines this goal provocatively.[3] His analysis deserves our attention. His autobiographical essay begins with a stunning observation: “CRT identifies the problem as white supremacist fathers that produce black victims—but this black man [the author] identifies the absentee black fathers as the problem.”[4]
Washington wonders if the criminal behavior of young black males today owes something to a sense of lost masculinity that others get to see in their faithful fathers at home. In inner-city communities, he argues, viciousness often defines what fatherless young men imagine is manhood. He sees much truth in the 1965 controversial report entitled “The Negro Family: A Case of National Action” by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a sociologist working at the Labor Department. Moynihan concluded that many of the social problems affecting American blacks are due to the disintegration of the black family. Washington supports this thesis by going into great detail to show how one-parent families, whether black or white, create all kinds of problems for children, and especially boys.
There is a sad irony in Washington’s conclusion regarding the reasons for the state of affairs in the black family. As long as patriarchy is considered evil (as Critical Race Theory maintains), then the real solution—wise fatherhood—can never be applied because it is openly attacked as the ultimate cause of the problem. The genuine solution is seen as the essential cause. Thus the race problem will never be solved as long as CRT is considered to be the solution for racism. My observation is supported by certain black thinkers who, like Washington, analyze the fundamental black problem as the absence of fathers in the home. Christian believer and black activist, Jason Whitlock, believes that the only real solution to black issues is the introduction of a biblical understanding of the role of a father. He asks: “Our family structure is way outside of God’s design. Do we think the charity of guilt-ridden white people (CRT) can fix problems resulting from the destruction of the family unit?”[5]
A case needs to be made for biblical patriarchy, granted both its effectiveness and its contemporary demonization. Patriarchy means the rule (arche) of the father (pater), which, since the rise of radical feminism, has now becoming identified as a great social evil. Any time there is rule, sinful human beings will exploit it and/or rebel against it. Unfortunately, even Christian husbands are capable of gross oppression of their wives and children. Having perhaps seen such abuse, feminist thinkers demonize the arche of the father. Feminist theorist Andrea Dworkin believes that
Being female in this world means having been robbed of the potential for human choice by men who love to hate us. One does not make choices in freedom. Instead, one conforms in body type and behavior and values to become an object of male sexual desire, which requires an abandonment of a wide-ranging capacity for choice…[6]
For radical theologian, Mary Daly, patriarchy comes from way back. The works of Aristotle, for example, portrayed women as morally, intellectually, and physically inferior to men, to be considered as property. Their role in society was to reproduce and to serve men in the household, where male domination of women is natural and virtuous.[7] “I intuitively understood,” says Daly, “that for a (person) trapped in patriarchy, which is the religion of the entire planet, ‘to be’ in the fullest sense is ‘to sin.’” Thus a patriarchal culture is profoundly sinful.[8] Such a negative view of patriarchy is understandable, considering some expressions of it. This negative analysis of patriarchy also holds true in history in regards to racism, in which the white patriarch consigns black people to slavery, suffering, and injustice. It would seem that both those suffering in a racist society and those suffering under an unhealthy patriarchy have reached the only valid solution: Eliminate family and creational sexual norms.
But biblical patriarchy does not teach what Aristotle believed nor does it teach human beings to oppress and hate one another in systems of racism. The Christian era developed the principles already laid down in the creation. Women and men are “naturally” different and together they constitute the core element of human societies: biological families created by God. Since the world is a dangerous place, men act as protectors of women and children and work selflessly to bring in wages that make family life possible. In the Genesis account of the beginnings of human society, men worked in tough conditions and women gave birth to children who were raised by father and mother together. To the first woman God said: “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children” (Gen 3:16). To the first man he said: “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground” (Gen 3:19). The fundamental reality of patriarchy emerges not from an evil desire for power but from the very caring structures of creation and the natural roles of men and women living in a sinful world.
There is nothing evil about patriarchy. God gave it to us and revealed it to us because it expresses his image. The ultimate Pater who rules is God himself, who reveals himself in Scripture as a Father of the fatherless and protector of widows (Ps 68:5) and as a provider for the needy (Ps 68:9–10). Thus, the believer exclaims: “You are my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation” (Ps 89:26), the one who shows compassion to his children (Ps 103:13). In the New Testament Jesus reveals God as both his Father (John 3:35) and our Father,” to whom we pray (Matt 6:9). According to Jesus, God is the caring Father of those in need (Matt 18:14), a loving Father (John 14:23). Paul quotes from a collection of verses in the Old Testament Scriptures where God says: I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty (2 Cor 6:18).
Since human beings are made in God’s image, we are exhorted to live out and express the biblical reality of patriarchy, both as males and females, understanding what the will of the Lord is (Eph 5:17), as expressed in verses 22–33, which show an interplay of the marital relationship of “one flesh union” via “love” and “reverence” (Eph 5:33).
Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the savior of the body. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourishes and cherishes it, even as the Lord the church: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife respect her husband.
Clearly the biblical version of patriarchy seeks to maintain the different male and female roles and the mutual respect between the husband and the wife. The husband submits to the constraints that Christ lays out for him and the female submits to her husband in the same way that the Church comes under the fatherly tenderness of the Church/God relationship. The arrangement is an exquisite and unparalleled description of the symphony of marital love that God intended and where children thrive. The “great mystery” of Genesis 2:24 is the amazing fact that God inspired the Old Testament text regarding marriage to act as a mere preview of the mystery of the gospel.
In our time, beyond the ultimate issues of theism and atheism, two fundamental and very practical theories regarding patriarchy oppose each other, with essential implications for human survival: either a biblical view of human existence (which presupposes the flourishing of the natural or nuclear family and the male/female distinction) or a CRT atheist “anti-racist” view that ultimately eliminates all distinctions for the sake of the installation of a godless Marxist utopian equity. The extent to which this social justice ideology has taken over our educational institutions and even some of our Christian schools and churches indicates that contemporary racism is not merely a question of moral choices but a conflict of essential ideological truth. Behind this, there is something truly sad taking place. The real solution to racism, namely a faithful husband and father staying at home, playing the role of a real patriarch, caring for his children (especially his sons for their emergence into manhood), can never be allowed according to the ideology of anti-racism, since patriarchy is defined as the ultimate expression of social evil.
Jesus defines divine patriarchy as the essence of love when he says to his opponents, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God…I came not of my own accord, but he sent me” (Jn 8:42). This is the essence of the gospel Jesus brings to the human situation. “God (our Father) is love” (1 Jn 4:8). Ultimately, our human home will not be empty. It will be transformed and ruled by our eternal patriarch —God the Father, who, in his love for his children, provided salvation through his Son. Our tender Father will wipe away every tear (Rev 21:4). Men and women of every race who have confessed their sins and acknowledged Jesus as their Savior will find indescribable joy as they bow in reverence to their God and Father and take their place in the final expression of family.
Dr. Peter Jones is scholar in residence at Westminster Seminary California and associate pastor at New Life Presbyterian Church in Escondido, Calif. He is director of truthXchange, a communications center aimed at equipping the Christian community to recognize and effectively respond to the rise of paganism. This article is used with permission.

[1] https://voicemalemagazine.org/white-male-supremacy-and-the-patriarchy-racism-pandemic/
[2] Art.cit.
[3] https://quillette.com/2022/03/21/awol-black-fathers/
[4] Art.cit.
[5] https://www.theblaze.com/op-ed/whitlock-the-nfls-black-leadership-and-ownership-crisis-is-a-symptom-of-the-black-family-crisisSee also the work of Bob Woodson, founder and president of The Woodson Center and the author of “Red, White, and Black: Rescuing American History from Revisionists and Race Hustlers.” https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/feb/14/hope-and-empowerment-for-troubled-communities-a-vi/
[6] Art.cit.
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriarchy
[8] https://www.thoughtco.com/patriarchal-society-feminism-definition-3528978
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Written by R. Scott Clark |
Wednesday, January 26, 2022
Has not the PCA already taken a clear and unequivocal position on the natures and person of Christ and on images of God? That this a live issue both theologically and practically tells us something about the role of the Standards in the life of the church. It seems to me that the future of the PCA hangs on this question as much as any other.

When the Westminster Assembly (1643–52), which was composed of Episcopalians, Congregationalists, and Presbyterians, deliberated on the moral law of God, they agreed on with the church of all ages and times on the abiding validity of God’s moral law. In their Confession (19.5) they wrote: “The moral law doth forever bind all, as well justified persons as others, to the obedience thereof; and that, not only in regard of the matter contained in it, but also in respect of the authority of God the Creator, who gave it. Neither doth Christ, in the gospel, any way dissolve, but much strengthen this obligation.” The Larger Catechism (1647), which the assembly debated between April and October, 1647, explained the consensus of the ancient (pre-eighth century) church and of all the Reformed churches on the “good and necessary consequence” (WCF 1.6) of the second commandment:
You shall not make any graven images or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shalt not bow down to them, nor serve them: for I Yahweh your God am a jealous God, visiting the sin of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of those that hate me; and showing mercy to thousandth generation of those who love me, and keep my commandments (Exod 20:4–6).
They confessed:
The sins forbidden in the second commandment are, all devising, counseling, commanding, using, and any wise approving, any religious worship not instituted by God himself; the making any representation of God, of all or of any of the three persons, either inwardly in our mind, or outwardly in any kind of image or likeness of any creature whatsoever; all worshiping of it, or God in it or by it; the making of any representation of feigned deities, and all worship of them, or service belonging to them; all superstitious devices, corrupting the worship of God, adding to it, or taking from it, whether invented and taken up of ourselves, or received by tradition from others, though under the title of antiquity, custom, devotion, good intent, or any other pretense whatsoever; simony; sacrilege; all neglect, contempt, hindering, and opposing the worship and ordinances which God hath appointed.
In the modern period, the divines have taken a good deal of abuse for their opposition to mental images of Christ, but about the Assembly’s opposition to representations of God the Son incarnate there can be no doubt.
Good Faith Subscription
In the history of American Presbyterianism since the early eighteenth century the trend has been toward subscribing the Standards (i.e., the Westminster Confession and catechisms) not because (quia) they are biblical but insofar as (quatenus) a candidate or minister believes them to be biblical. The Book of Church Order (BCO) of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) permits exceptions to the Standards
only if in the court’s judgment the candidate’s declared difference is not out of accord with any fundamental of our system of doctrine because the difference is neither hostile to the system nor strikes at the vitals of religion (BCO 21-4 (f).
It is this writer’s understanding that it is the practice of some PCA presbyteries, under their “good faith” (BCO 21-4(g)) approach to confessional subscription, to allow candidates for ministry to take exception to the Standards on the second commandment and specifically images of Christ. The material issues have been discussed here and elsewhere at length. On this see the resources below. It would, however, surprise our Reformed fathers (and our fathers in the ancient church) to no end to discover that Christians had decided in that images of God the Son incarnate are morally adiaphora. Nevertheless, under the PCAs BCO, it is apparently possible.
It is one thing to dissent from the Standards of the church. It is quite another to flaunt that exception to the Standards publicly and thereby to risk offending the consciences of those who hold the ancient Christian view and who agree without exception to the understanding of God’s Word as confessed by all the Reformed churches in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Whether ministers (in the language of the PCA, Teaching Elders) may teach things that are contrary to the confession of the church is a matter of debate in the PCA. How this could be a debate is not exactly clear. When the church has confessed her understanding of God’s Word on a particular point, that is the church’s understanding. The church does not confess an interpretation of Scripture or conviction about every issue. Some things truly are morally indifferent (adiaphora). When the church has prayed, studied an issue, deliberated, debated, and finally confessed a view there should be little question oner what the church intends to impose upon her members.
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Written by J.V. Fesko |
Monday, March 11, 2024
In our sin-fallen, law-cursed state, all people are in slavery to sin and in bondage to Satan, the prince of the power of the air (Eph. 2:2). Of course, all who sin are subject to death, since “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23), or as Paul elsewhere writes, “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law” (1 Cor. 15:56). Blessedly, God does not leave us in our cursed state but has sent His Son to redeem us: “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Gal. 4:4). Christ became a curse for us so that we would not have to bear the law’s awful load (3:13).

The liberty which Christ hath purchased for believers under the gospel consists in their freedom from the guilt of sin, the condemning wrath of God, the curse of the moral law; and, in their being delivered from this present evil world, bondage to Satan, and dominion of sin; from the evil of afflictions, the sting of death, the victory of the grave, and everlasting damnation; as also, in their free access to God, and their yielding obedience unto him, not out of slavish fear, but a childlike love and willing mind. All which were common also to believers under the law. But, under the new testament, the liberty of Christians is further enlarged, in their freedom from the yoke of the ceremonial law, to which the Jewish church was subjected; and in greater boldness of access to the throne of grace, and in fuller communications of the free Spirit of God, than believers under the law did ordinarily partake of. —Westminster Confession of Faith 20.1
The French novelist Victor Hugo (1802–85) writes of the fall and redemption of Jean Valjean, the chief protagonist of his popular book Les Misérables. Valjean found himself released from prison after serving nineteen long and arduous years for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his famished family. After his release, he eventually found shelter in a local church. Desperate for money, Jean stole the bishop’s silverware and plates but was promptly captured by the police. When the police came to the bishop to verify that the stolen property was his, the bishop told Valjean: “Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to what is evil but to what is good. I have bought your soul to save it from black thoughts and the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God.” This little vignette provides glimmers of what Christ has accomplished for us in our redemption through the price that He paid in His life, suffering, and death on the cross. Westminster Confession of Faith 20.1 explains this as “the liberty which Christ hath purchased for believers.”
Out from under Satan, Sin, and Death
To appreciate our freedom in Christ, we first need to contemplate the nature of our previous bondage to Satan, sin, and death. Our captivity is writ large across the canvas of redemptive history in Israel’s slavery in Egypt. The book of Exodus tells us that “the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery” (2:23) as they were in a state of affliction and suffering (3:7). As Israel was in slavery, so we are enslaved to sin. What Pharaoh was to Israel, Satan is to sinners. In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul describes our sin-enslaved condition in blunt terms:
You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath. (Eph. 2:1–3)
In his famous diagnosis of fallen humanity, Paul describes us as those who do not seek God, who have become worthless, who do not do good, whose throats are open graves, and who use their tongues for deception (Rom. 3:11–13). As we survey the people whom we see in our day-to-day lives, we certainly observe wicked people doing sinful things, but so many people give the appearance of being decent and moral. Beneath the veil of respectability lies the pallor of death wrapped in the chains of sin and guilt. Because all humans are guilty of both Adam’s first sin and their own personal sins, all humans justly fall under God’s wrath and condemnation (Rom. 1:18–32; 5:12–14).
There are several consequences of our sin-fallen condition. All humans bear the burden of the guilt of sin. Every time we commit sin against God and His law, we incur legal guilt. There is a subjective side to guilt, for we sense that we do wrong as our consciences accuse or excuse our conduct (2:15). Yet guilt is not simply a feeling but an objective legal debt that all sinners incur for violating God’s law. A powerful image of guilt comes to us from John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, where the main character, Christian, carries a massive burden on his back that weighs him down. Given that we are guilty of sin, this means that God’s wrath hangs over our heads. As Paul writes, “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness” (Rom. 1:18, KJV).
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