He described people who “think they are complementarian and what they mean by that is ‘Woman, get me my chips,’ which is not Ephesians 5. “Complementarianism bears a cross,” Moore said “Male headship is, ‘What is in the best interest of my bride and of my children?’”

A movement in evangelical Christianity that promotes male headship and wifely submission in marriage faces competition today not from radical feminists but rather believers who are “complementarian” in name only, according to a panel at a recent pastor’s conference.

“What I fear is that we have many people in evangelicalism who can check off ‘complementarian’ on a box but who really aren’t living out complementarian lives,” Russell Moore, dean of the School of Theology and senior vice president for academic administration at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said during the April 10-12 Together for the Gospel Conference in Louisville, Ky.

“Sometimes I fear that we have marriages that are functionally egalitarian, because they are within the structure of the larger society,” Moore explained in an audio now posted on the event website. “If all we are doing is saying ‘male headship’ and ‘wives submit to your husbands’ but we’re not really defining what that looks like, in a Christ-centered way of discipleship, in this kind of culture, when those things are being challenged, then it’s simply going to go away.”

Greg Gilbert, senior pastor of Third Avenue Baptist Church in Louisville said he sees a lot of “functional egalitarianism” when he counsels young people.

“You have men who think that being a complementarian and leading their wives really has no feet on it until they come to a decision that they are disagreeing about,” Gilbert said. “But up until that moment, it’s just an egalitarian sort of living together, without male leadership and headship kind of creating the atmosphere of the home.”

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