The Allie Beth Stuckey Controversy

Christian Twitter is having a Civil War over ABS. I guess it’s that time of year again.

1 - Christians have a duty of love towards one another. This means that if we lose sight of the clear, first order priority of love for the body of Christ, and turn instead to bickering and infighting, we have lost the plot. (Jn. 13:34)

2 - ABS has been a huge blessing in many ways. She has been a faithful and Biblical and courageous voice- in an age, I might add, where most high-profile male voices in the Christian and conservative community did not have the guts to talk about Jesus and Caesar at the same time. I definitely do see some level of parallel to the Biblical heroine, Deborah.

Furthermore, ABS has very consistently argued for a Biblical view of marriage. If you’re like me, you prefer the terminology and worldview of patriarchy over its weaker cousin, complementarianism (which I think would be Allie’s chosen label, although she has actually defended the term “patriarchy” before).

But, labels notwithstanding, in our age of feminism, ABS has, so far, not wavered from the clear Biblical standards of wives submitting to their husbands, and of church authority belonging only to qualified men.

To simply heckle and criticize her without any level of appreciation or gratitude for the many good things that she has said and done is simply immature.

3 - We all need to get comfortable with the Romans 14 principle. There are things that we might personally be convicted are sinful, or perhaps simply less than ideal, and we must hold those convictions. But we must do so without condemning others according to those convictions, unless they are clearly commanded by Scripture.

This is why I cannot get behind things like Werry’s Law- unilateral decrees that are not found in Scripture.

Not because the result isn’t often what was predicted by Werry’s Law- oftentimes it is!- but because we cannot make legalisms to protect against the possibility of error.

This applies in every direction- including, by the way, the impulse to gut the authority of the husband in order to prevent abuse.

4 - A very closely related truth to this principle is one that is a quite ironic omission from this conversation by those on the hyper-patriarchal side.

ABS should submit to her husband (Eph. 5).

She should not submit to the opinion of thousands of men shouting at her on Twitter.

Ironically, given that her husband seems to be very much in favor of what she is doing, for her to listen to all of the heckling on Twitter would be for her to fail to submit to her husband. This would be a more clear violation of Scripture than it is for her to speak at a ladies’ conference.

5 - Having said all of this, this does not mean that Christians cannot discuss or be concerned about her trajectory – not only what it might do to her and her family, but what it might encourage other women to do as well. But we should discuss these things while making a clear distinction between what is Scripturally clear and what is applicationally arguable.

Allie is one of the best players on the conservative Christian team right now. Some of the things that she does are definitely close to the out-of-bounds line. A good referee might pay closer attention to a player who is regularly runs along the edge of the field, but he is not going to start blowing the whistle unless an actual crossing of the line has occurred. She may be in-bounds by a technicality alone, but she is still in-bounds.

And yes, we have seen this sort of progression before. We have reason to be concerned. We should all be praying that Allie does not lose her Biblical Moore-ings (see what I did there???). But unless and until she does, we should not act like she already has.

This, by the way, is why I also am very slow to join dogpiles on Joel Webbon. By the measure with which we measure, it will be measured onto us. Where there is a big enough stack of fruit – where there is clear error or untruth – then we should call it out, whatever side it is on. But we need to be very careful not to be throwing around condemnation simply because somebody rubs us the wrong way.

6 - Titus 2 makes clear that God has given women, and especially married women, a primary assignment: the home. Husband, kids, homemaking. God has also given older women a specific focus in their discipleship of younger women – equipping them for the feminine arts.

Now, they are also supposed to “teach what is good,“ and while you can extrapolate that to mean that they are only allowed to talk about husbands, children, and homemaking, that is an extrapolation that is not found in the text.

Furthermore, the idea is rather laughable, and basically impossible to apply practically. If a young woman is talking to an older woman about her struggles with her husband, is the older woman allowed to comfort her by reminding her of the sovereignty of God? Or is this teaching theology, and therefore a feminist transgression? Are women not allowed to sit around the table and discuss what God is teaching them in their devotions? Once we set aside the clear Biblical guidelines, the result is the classic signature of man-made legalism – arbitrary ambiguity.

But let this not detract from the fact that the clear Biblical pattern is for men to contend in the city gates and for women to be pouring themselves into the home and the next generation. While there are exceptions and there is room for personality and diversity within the body of Christ, we must be on guard against the feminist and egalitarian worldview of our day causing us to lose sight of the glorious Biblical normative.

It is also worth noting that many are condemning ABS as clearly not fulfilling her Titus 2 duties. But the biblical response to this one is simple. To her own Master, she stands or falls, and stand she will, for the Lord is able to make her stand. Who appointed Twitter as judge?

I say this while acknowledging that I wonder how in the world it is possible for her to faithfully keep her priorities straight… But that’s between her, her husband, and the Lord. If at any point her home, her marriage, or her children- her primary ministry- are suffering for lack of mama’s presence, I hope she has the courage to shut everything down. But Twitter is not the one who gets to say when that point has arrived.

7 - I would love to see Christian conservative female influencers leaning into Titus 2 and modeling femininity as much as possible.

This is not a condemnation; I’m not saying that these ladies are a bunch of androgynous feminists (though some of them definitely have stronger feminist impulses than others, coughMegynKellycough); I am saying, however, that a lady in a head covering and a dress can say the exact same thing as a lady in a pantsuit, but she sends a very different message.

I have never seen a female “pastor” preaching in a beautiful floor length dress, and there is a reason for that.

7 - As a general rule, it is best to be builders and not hecklers. I have had to repent of the impulse to jump on the heckling bandwagon before, and I’m sure that I will do it again. In fact, this very post stems out of me continuing to meditate on what I said earlier this week about the clip of Allie teaching.

When she crosses clear Biblical command, we should rebuke her straightforwardly and without hesitation. Until then, we should pray for her. We can have our in-house conversations about how best to model godly masculinity and femininity.

But it is pretty silly to say “no more brother wars“ and “no enemies to the right“ and then to proceed to treat ABS like a pariah.

At the end of the day, I would much rather have ABS on my team than Nick Fuentes. Because, as far as I can tell, only one of them is a Christian, and I’m much more concerned with Christ than with conservatism (or whatever it is that Fuentes is selling).

Patriarchy is not the solution. It is very much a part of the solution, but we cannot get those two things mixed up. We don’t fix this place by getting all the women to shut up. We fix this place by walking in faithful, humble obedience to Jesus Christ – or, more accurately, He fixes this place as His children obey His Word faithfully.

Not erring to the right nor to the left. (Pr. 4:27)

So men, where we see sisters in Christ that are brawling in the political sphere, we certainly should be ready to call it out when they cross actual Biblical lines. And there is nothing wrong with encouraging a push towards more and more Titus 2 femininity.

But we should also be thankful for and pray for our sisters who are speaking the truth courageously, especially when they are doing so without crossing any clear Biblical boundaries.

Instead of heckling, we should be building. We should be picking up the mantle of this combat so that the ladies don’t need to.