Slippery Slopes and Sociological Analysis
Elaborating Scot McKnight's newsletter
This morning Scot McKnight had a wonderful piece in
. Titled “None Dare Call It Reason”, it was a response to a pastor who had argued that support for egalitarianism as opposed to complementarianism was the beginning of the slippery slope that led young people to denial of core Biblical fidelity which leads to the denigration of The Gospel itself.1Scot uses an image in his post regarding “the slippery slope” that is so good that I’m stealing it here.
What I like about the picture is that the young woman appears to be quite stable where she is. She is looking at the slope below her but seems in no danger of falling. It certainly doesn’t appear to be the inevitable outcome that these polemicists seem to suggest.
Scot observes that the polemicists select certain verses as key to holding place against the slippery slope. They focus on specific verses that argue for limited women’s roles in church but ignore others that are more open. They ignore other verses that might be considered culturally conditioned but could be argued were meant literally (such as not cutting one’s hair).
He moves from the arena of biblical interpretation to understanding some basic sociology (the two are not mutually exclusive!). This paragraph was particularly good:
The problem here is that he thinks egalitarianism is cultural compromise when William Witt’s massive book has proven this newfangled form of complementarianism is a 20th Century phenomenon. And one cannot be too far mistaken in saying it is a 1950s issue – a black and white TV issue – a Lassie’s mom issue – an Ozzie and Harriet issue. The facts are that women went into the workforce in the 40s, and when the soldiers returned in the 50s the women went back home and the men went back to work – and 50s and 60s TV told the value of that very story.
Many others, including Kristin Kobes DuMez and Beth Barr, have written on the ways in which the Ozzie and Harriet version of the white middle class American family became the central lens for understanding evangelical gender relationships.2 As family researcher Stephanie Coontz put in years ago in her book title, this TV image of the family is The Way We Never Were.
Thinking through Scot’s critique of the biblicist slippery slope argument had me reflecting on something I used to teach in sociological theory courses. The dominant theoretical framework3 in sociology from the 1940s through the mid-1960s is called Structural Functionalism.
While Talcott Parsons often gets the blame, there were others who pushed a more literal version of structural functionalism. Consider the Davis and Moore theory of Stratification from the mid-40s. They argue that inequality is a structure in society that must exist if the best and brightest are to be motivated to seek the most important positions in our society.4 Every structure is supposed to serve an important function of societal flourishing. Change the structure and the system is threatened.
One hears echoes of this argument in modern concerns about family changes — divorce, cohabitation, serial monogamy, same-sex marriage. These views get expressed as “the family has always been the center of our social order — change it and see what happens to society.”
In the 1950s and 1960s, Robert Merton5 attempted to address the shortcomings of structural functionalism (with mixed results). Studying in Parsons’ wake, he argued that while societal functions need to be fulfilled, there may be a variety of ways in which that could happen. He called these “functional equivalents”.
Consider the Davis and Moore argument. If Merton is correct (spoiler — he is), then we could still motivate people into important roles in the society without relying on economic inequality. Perhaps we’d develop structures that focused on the development of giftedness — something like Weber’s notion of “calling”. We would value faithfulness to the gifting and be less concerned about the economic inequality.
In this light, perhaps Merton would argue that egalitarianism is a functional equivalent to complementarianism. Both achieve the goal of seeing the local household function and can therefore be supported.
It’s worth noting that prior family relationships were based on political alignment, financial necessity, or out of wedlock pregnancy. The stay at home mom, as Scot observes, is a functional equivalent to the demands of an agricultural economy with high birthrates to offset infant mortality.
I’m certainly out of my depth here and should defer to those with expertise in Ancient Eastern or Medieval family structures, but those patrimonial systems still had the family “functioning”. We may be aghast at European leaders in the 18th century openly having mistresses6, but the family still “functioned”.
If the Ozzie and Harriet family is the ONLY family structure that is 1) Christian and 2) supportive of social order, then why didn’t the social order collapse in those earlier periods? For that matter, would there have been people in earlier centuries arguing that having a traditional male-dominated female-submissive marriage model would create slippery slopes by undermining the social order that had previously operated?
I confess that I’m not a good functionalist. I find that the theoretical argument too easily defends the status quo as essential and completely ignores the role that power plays in maintaining existing social structures.7 Still, there is something in Merton's configuration that is really helpful in pushing back on slippery slope arguments.
One more point. Again, this is outside my expertise and I defer to moral theologians, but an essential element of the slippery slope argument is that there was some earlier era where people hewed closer to morality than they do now and it will get worse in the future. I find this theologically questionable. The nature of our morality set against the perfection toward which we strive is always falling short. That is true in the Old Testament, in the New Testament, throughout the history of the Church, today, and fifty years from now.
Arguing using the slippery slope metaphor not only assumes a peak moment of morality from which we might stray. It also celebrates the superiority of those making the argument, since everyone else is theoretically losing their way.
People making such an argument never quite explain the linkages they fear nor do they clearly define “The Gospel”. Since Scot has written books on The Gospel, I’ll defer to his expertise.
This also provides a lens for understanding the role of purity culture in “protecting” the future marriage and family relationship.
I would complain to my students that Intro to Sociology textbooks always claimed that there were three frameworks in sociology: structural functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism. These really don’t define the field and its just a lazy configuration. There is much variability within those perspectives (and too much of sociology operates atheoretically).
Notice how this works in reverse. Those with high incomes and wealth believe they not only deserve that wealth but that they are leaders in society. This can make them think that they can personally curate certain social media platforms.
He is the first sociologist to be awarded a MacArther grant (at 73!) and has received a National Medal for Science award (at 84!).
Looking at you, Ben Franklin!
Yes, I’m a conflict theorist at the macro level and a symbolic interactionist at the micro level.
As with other half truths, the “slippery slope” metaphor has been used to stop any progress in society. The question I always ask is: what is the worst case scenario if one falls down the slope? In the case of the picture you show it might be a broken bone, but the joy and exhilaration of that fall is worth the risk.