A few years back, I drew attention to C. S. Lewis’s “complementarian” argument on the question of ordaining women to the priesthood in the Anglican church. I would encourage everyone to read Lewis’s original essay, which is linked here — especially in light of the recent upsurge and interest in historical angles on the complementarian-egalitarian debate. I also rely on Lewis’s excellent reasoning in this essay for Eikon, “The Fallacy of Interchangeability.”
But recently I have been re-reading Lewis’s Mere Christianity with a class I am teaching, and I have been struck afresh by how, well, complementarian it is. Some readers are familiar with the complementarian nature of Lewis’s chapter on Christian marriage, which I excerpt at length below. But there is another surprising support for “complementarianism” that I had missed before that I want to highlight now. Before I do, I want to make two short points.
My first point has to do with the book’s…
