Restoration and headship

Strange title, you might say. Not so.

Having been brought up in a Strict and Particular Baptist setting, I came to know the Lord in a Pentecostal church. It was there that I started out in the ministry. Some years later, I encountered the house church/new church movement, or restoration movement, as it was known, a movement that came about in the 1970s in response to the liberalism and deadness found in so many of the historic churches.

At the same time, the renewal movement was beginning to kick off, but for some, this was not enough. Restoration was about far more than the renewal of denominations; it was about a full restoration to New Testament church life—the restoration of all things. It was radical.

Restoration was all about recovering the abundant life and power of the New Testament church.

• There was a recovery of and a return to sound doctrine.
• There was a focus on the church as the body of Christ and the priesthood of all believers.
• There was an emphasis on relationships—deep, meaningful relationships.
• There was an openness to the presence and power of the Spirit.
• The full availability of all the gifts.
• The recovery of meetings energised and led by the Spirit, with free-flowing participation in worship
• Healing and deliverance.
• The restoration of the five-fold ministry of apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher
• And the return to and recovery of New Testament church government as opposed to a one-man ministry or a congregational government in which all get to vote (no matter their spirituality or commitment), but a plurality of elders relating to the apostolic and prophetic, led by the Spirit.

As with the Reformation, some stalled at various points or have even gone backwards, so also with Restoration.

It is in this context that I’ve titled this piece Restoration and Headship.

Headship became a big theme in Restoration circles, a major plank on which governmental leadership was built. In many ways, it helped create a structure in which to function and, in the modern sense, in which to tick the boxes. Healthy Christians, marriages, families, and churches were about authority and submission. Get those factors right, and all will be well. More so, revival would come.

In my studies for my dissertation, I came afresh to the whole doctrine of headship and submission and was shocked. I came to realise that this is not how Paul intended us to understand what he had written, but something that we have read into Paul. The reality is that such an approach does not produce the freedom, life, and maturity that Paul was after.

In many ways, such a doctrine is just another law, and law doesn’t produce the kind of life, marriages, families or churches that God is looking for.