Another denomination splits

A movement has occurred among ELCA churches to split away from the denomination over the issue of homosexuality. This was inevitable and is a sad reminder of the influence of the world on the church, an influence that allowed to run unchecked invariably leads to heresy and schism.

Conservative members of America's largest Lutheran denomination announced that they are splitting from the Chicago-based Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, making it the second mainline Protestant church to undergo a major schism over the issue of homosexuality and related matters of biblical authority.

The U.S. Episcopal Church has experienced a similar split, with whole dioceses attempting to leave, new Anglican churches formed and a series of property fights in the years since the 2003 consecration of Bishop V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.

On Wednesday, an 11-member steering committee of Lutheran CORE (Coalition for Renewal), meeting in New Brighton, Minn., said it cannot remain inside the 4.7-million-member ELCA after the denomination agreed at its August churchwide assembly in Minneapolis to ordain partnered gay clergy.

That decision, CORE said in a statement, created "a biblical and theological crisis throughout the ELCA and conflict in local congregations."

"We are not leaving the ELCA. The ELCA has left us," said Ryan Schwarz, a steering committee member from the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in McLean, Va. "A lot of people who are planning to leave are telling us, 'We need you to form a new body that is like a traditional church body.' "

Christ calls us to be unified but a unity based in anything other than the truth is a lie. It is unfortunate that this became necessary but Scripture is clear on this issue.

I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people-- not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler--not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. "Purge the evil person from among you." (1Co 5:9-13)

Unrepentent sin cannot be brushed aside in the name of fellowship and unity. At some point though, these brothers and sisters need to recognize that the issue of homosexual acceptance runs in the same vein as female clergy. It may be a slight overstatement, but wherever we see normalization of homosexuality in the church, it is invariably preceded by the ordination of women. That may be very un-P.C. to say but it is a pretty easy line to draw.

Interesting report on women ”Senior Pastors”

Barna has released a new survey on women who hold the title of “Senior Pastor”. A couple of interesting notes:

- The number of women holding the title of “Senior Pastor” has increased substantially from 1999 to 2009, from 5% to 10% of all “Senior Pastors” in Protestant churches.

- The majority, no shocker here, of these women are in “mainline” churches, i.e. ELCA, PC-USA and United Methodist type churches.

- They are also older than male counterparts, median age of 55 for women versus 52 for men (Barna also notes that the age is rising in the last 10 years, from 50 to 55 for women and for men it has gone from 48 to 52)

- Women holding a “Senior Pastor” office also tend to be paid less on average but be more likely (77%-63%) to have a seminary degree.

Barna also notes that in this same time frame (1999-2009) average attendance at Protestant churches has gone from 108 to 101 on Sundays, about a 6.5% drop.

What does this mean for the church? Well, it is no secret if you read here very often that I have little use for professional clergy and even less use for women holding a church office such as elder. What I do think we are seeing here is an acceleration, especially in the rapidly dying “mainline” churches, of the feminization of the church coupled with an abandonment of core Biblical doctrines that deal with the nature of the church and the roles of men and women.

What do you think? Is the rapid increase in the number of female “Senior Pastors” a cause for celebration or concern? Or does it matter at all?

Gender and the Fall

There some passages of Scripture that are just hard to get around. They are fundamental to our understanding of Christianity and are foundational to all of our doctrines. Without them or in diminishing them many other underlying doctrines fall apart. One such passage is the account of the fall. Found in Genesis 3, it explains why man is not in perfect fellowship with God, why the world is full of pain and suffering and ultimately why Christ had to become human in flesh and die on the cross. Without the Fall, man is not lost in sin and Jesus had no need to make propitiation for sin. I was thinking about this issue when Dr. Mark Talbot was dealing with the curse of God on man at the Fall and how that applies to us in a post-cross world. This is the passage in question, one of the most familiar events in the Bible but one that doesn't get nearly enough attention (perhaps because it is so well known):

Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this that you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate." The LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." To the woman he said, "I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you." And to Adam he said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return." The man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. (Gen 3:13-20)

So here is the curse in a nutshell: God tells the serpent that an offspring of the woman will be his enemy and ultimately will crush his head (i.e. Christ). The woman is going to bear children in pain and be ruled over by her husband. The man is going to have to struggle and sweat to coax food out of the ground, which implies that prior to the Fall the ground yielded up food without effort. For the serpent, his fate is sealed. It would take four thousand some odd years but ultimately the Son of God would crush His head at the cross. For the man and woman, they were being cast out of the perfect fellowship with God and into a world where nature itself was at odds with them. The world they inhabit and we inhabit is tainted with sin, groaning under it until the time when it will be made anew.

So what does that have to do with gender roles?

Not trying to be a misogynist but the curse is clear. God cursed the serpent for his deceit of the woman. God cursed the woman for eating the fruit in direct and willful disobedience of what God has said. God cursed the man for listening to his wife instead of obeying God. One sin, three curses but most of the church recognizes the one sin but only recognizes 2 1/2 of the curses. The result of the curse is demonstrated in a couple of passages in the New Testament having to do with gender roles and directly applying to the first three chapters of Genesis.

Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. (1 Tim 2: 11-14, emphasis added)

For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels. Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God. (1Co 11:7-12, emphasis added)

The covering of a woman's head and the prohibition against leading/teaching are a direct result of the events of the first three chapters of the Bible. Let’s be clear. Headcovering is entirely about the Fall and the creation order and has zero to do with culture and the church in Corinth. Paul's restrictions on women leading and teaching in the church and home tie back to the Fall and the order of creation. Man was created in the image of God from the dust. Woman was created out of man. The woman is cursed to be ruled over by her husband and suffer pain in childbirth. You don't have to like it but you can't ignore it.

This speaks to the broader issues of gender roles in the church and the home. Women not teaching or having authority over men is not a cultural issue from the first century. It goes back to the very beginning. God told the woman that her desire would be for her husband and that he would rule over her. That is precisely what is being repeated in the gender role passages.

Well, one might argue a couple of things here. One is that the curse was upon Eve and not upon all women. The other is that the curse was lifted at the cross and therefore that curse is not applicable in a post-cross world.

I only have one follow-up question to that: have you ever been in a maternity ward?

All women, Christian or not, suffer great pain in childbirth and it is not some random evolutionary adaptation. It is a curse. Even if you dull it with drugs, it still looks pretty painful from where I was watching it take place eight times. People will deny that husbands rule over their wives until they are blue in the face, stomping their foot because it is not fair but those same people would not be so silly as to claim that childbirth is not painful. The pain in child birth and the rule of the husband are inextricably linked. Pretending that the gender roles don't exist makes as much sense as pretending child birth doesn't hurt.

So here is the deal. I will say it is OK for women to pray with their heads uncovered and to lead in the church and home just as soon as the ground gives up food without work and birthing a baby stops hurting. Fair enough?

Why not?

The latest in the circus that is the Episcopalian Church...

LA Episcopal leaders nominate two gays as bishops

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Episcopal Church leaders in Los Angeles on Sunday nominated an openly gay priest and an openly lesbian priest as bishops in a move sure to ratchet up tensions in the global Anglican Communion.

The move follows an announcement on Saturday by the Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota of three candidates identified to become the Bishop of Minnesota, including a partnered lesbian priest in Chicago.

But here is a question. Why shouldn't open homosexuals be named as "bishops"? Sure there are Biblical prohibitions against it, but there are also prohibitions against women being in authority over men and teaching. If you support women in teaching positions and having authority over men, why not homosexuals as church leaders? If your answer is that being a woman is not a sin but practicing homosexuality is, I would ask why the Scriptural restrictions on homosexual behavior are to be taken literally but prohibitions on women teaching are not. After all Paul says in Romans 1: 27 that homosexual behavior is shameful but he also says it is shameful for women to speak in church (1 Cor 14:35).

Haven't we heard this story before?

On a regular basis, we get someone showing up in the secular media who has a problem with the way churches manage themselves. The latest entry into this category comes from a blog post in the pages of USA Today.

Titled Do women have a prayer? the author, Mary Zeiss Stange, bemoans what she sees as the injustice of women not being able to serve as elders. Ms. Stange is apparently an expert on matters of theology, given her description as a "professor of Women's Studies and Religion at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, N.Y". Apparently for Ms. Stange, being an elder/pastor has little to do with Biblical qualifications and more to do with what is "fair". Women serve more, attend more, pray more so forget what God has decreed, they should get to be the leaders!

I have said on numerous occasions that the burden of ministry that falls on women because of a faithless, cowardly generation of men who are unwilling to serve is a shame, a travesty and a mockery of God. Having said that does not mean pitching the Word of God aside for some misguided modern notion of egalitarianism. We should disciple young men to be leaders in the home and leaders in the church, to delve into Word and prayer, to be men for crying out loud, not replace the order that God established. If you wonder what "equality" means to Ms. Stange, you need only read this portion of her screed...

The better news is that among the so-called mainline Protestant denominations, women have made considerable progress in attaining positions of religious authority. The United Methodist Church, the nation's second-largest Protestant Church with 8 million members, has ordained women since the 1950s.

But — in a pattern familiar among churches that do ordain women — few of these women hold senior positions in large congregations. In January, the church announced an initiative, the Lead Women Pastor Project, to study barriers to female advancement in the church.

The idea that this "progress" is "better news" is debatable. Of course, missing from her faint praise of "mainline" denominations is a recognition that these same denominations are destroying themselves through theological suicide. The common factor? Bowing to cultural pressure to ordain women to leadership positions in an express rejection of Scriptural command.

Ms. Stange closes with this...

It is a truth so familiar as to have become cliché: Women are the driving force behind organized religion. They fill the pews, they bring their children into the fold. The Pew data help make sense of these facts. But the same data highlight the cruel irony that in far too many religious contexts in this country, women remain second-class citizens.

What makes women second class citizens? Not being able to serve as elders in churches? Really, does that qualify women as "second class" citizens? I rather think that from a complementarian view, women serve a vital role in the church. They are indeed instructors of children, they are in constant prayer, they serve in a myriad of ways in the church. A woman who feels she is unable to be fulfilled in the roles she is called to and that only by overturning Scripture can she truly serve God does not have an issue of submission to her husband, she has an issue with God.

Rather than being the progressive, forward thinking and mature viewpoint, Ms. Stange comes across like a petulant child. So what we have here is a woman, looking at the world and deciding that the culture is right and that God is wrong. Women can be doctors, engineers and CEOs, so why not elders/pastors? I guess because Christianity is a faith based on Christ and He is revealed in His Word, and that is our bedrock and foundation. That Word has a lot to say about gender roles and not much of what it says match with what Ms. Stange believes.

Haven't we seen before the results of a human being granted all that he or she could ever desire, with one exception and what happens when in spite of what God has commanded, mankind goes after forbidden fruit? For feminists who care nothing for the church except for their outrage at a perceived slight and for Christian women who have bought into their dogma, the desire for a twisted sense of equality overrides every other concern. It is a worldview where equality must equal uniformity. If there is anything one person can do that another cannot, that is inherently unjust and must be destroyed.

Space and a headache prevent me from fully expounding on all of the issues that surround complementarianism, women elders, submission, the creation order, the idea of being a "helpmeet", etc. Really though, we have heard all of this before. Think back to the Word (irrelevant as it apparently is in this discussion) and a seminal event in Genesis 3...

Genesis 3:6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

We could change that to…

So when the woman saw that the pulpit was good for self-esteem, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the pulpit was to be desired to make one equal to men in every respect (because after all, there are more women in the church than men), she took her rightful place behind it and preached, and her husband who sat in the pews looked adoringly up at her and ate up every word.

The lie is the same in both events, the serpent whispering “Did God actually say…” Let's hope that God's people will actually learn their lesson this time and stick to what God has decreed.

(I first saw this on Dr. Mohler's blog and he also addressed it on the radio)

Brief video clip on gender roles in the church, brought on by the discussion of Governor Palin as a possible VP candidate who would not be eligible to be a pastor. They went to Southern Seminary, which makes sense.

ABC News: Gender Roles

The video features an interview with a woman who styles herself "pastor", Linda Barnes. Oddly she describes herself as theologically conservative but doesn't see any reason why she cannot be a pastor. Her argument, according to the interviewer, is that SBC leaders are cherry picking verses to marginalize women. First, it is not cherry picking to point out in context what the Bible says. Second, it doesn't marginalize women unless you buy into the world's definition of success and contribution. Dr. Mohler correctly points out that this lady who styles herself as "Pastor" doesn't have a problem with Dr. Mohler or other Southern Baptists, she has a problem with the New Testament.

The issue boils down to pride. Women look at the Scripture, see what God says but decide that it is unfair. You can't tell me what to do! It is a common failing in the church, but women who insist on being called "pastor" and churches who call them to fill that role are in direct and sinful disobedience to the Scripture.

Ability versus Obedience

Magazine Featuring Female Pastors Pulled From Shelves, 'Treated Like Pornography'

ATLANTA — The five women on the cover are dressed in black and smiling — not an uncommon strategy for selling magazines.

But these cover girls are women of the cloth, featured in Gospel Today magazine's latest issue, which the Southern Baptist Convention has pulled from the shelves at its bookstores, though the magazine is available for sale upon request.

The group says women pastors go against its beliefs, according to its interpretation of the New Testament. The magazine was taken off stands in more than 100 Lifeway Christian Bookstores across the country, including six in metro Atlanta.

Published for nearly 20 years, Gospel Today is the largest and most widely distributed urban Christian publication in the country, with a circulation of 240,000. The magazine's publisher, Teresa Hairston, said she was just reporting on a trend, not trying to promote women pastors.

"They basically treated it like pornography and put it behind the counter," she said. "Unless a person goes into the store and asks for it, they won't see it displayed."

Nationally, the Southern Baptists have adopted statements discouraging women from being pastors, but their 42,000 U.S. churches are independent and a few have selected women to lead their congregations. The faith was organized in 1845 in Augusta, Ga.

Chris Turner, a spokesman for Lifeway Resources, said the cover was not the reason the magazine was pulled from Lifeway's shelves.

"The buyers said the statements that were in it took positions that were contrary to what we would say," Turner said. "It wasn't so much that there were women on the cover."

Featured on the cover are Pastor Sheryl Brady of The River in Durham, N.C.; Pastor Tamara Bennett of This Is Pentecost Ministries in Sacramento, Calif.; Bishop Millicent Hunter of The Baptist Worship Center in Philadelphia, Pa.; Pastor Claudette Copeland of New Creation Christian Fellowship in San Antonio, Texas; and Pastor Kimberly Ray of Church on the Rock in Matteson, Ill.

Bennett said the issue of women in the ministry is not one that should be shelved.

"It's a story that needs to be told," she said in a telephone interview Friday. "Sometimes we forget that ministry is God's business. It's not a man's business. God gives gifts to whomever he sees fit."

Bennett said she is encouraging people to ask for the magazine.

"All Dr. Hairston did was tell a story, she didn't preach a doctrine," Bennett said of the article. "It's just sharing news."

Ms. Bennett, God does indeed gives gifts where He sees fit, and the Scripture is one of those gifts. His Scripture is clear who is and who is not to be called as pastors...

The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil. (1 Timothy 3:1-7)

That is pretty clear, isn't it? For further clarification...

I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. (1 Timothy 2:12)

And...

For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. (1 Corinthians 14:33-35)

Kind of hard to be a pastor and preach when you are not to have authority over men and you are supposed to remain silent! It is not an issue of ability, it is an issue of obedience. We don't get to ignore Scripture as we see fit because someone has a "gift". I am sure Ms. Bennett and these other ladies have Bibles, they ought to check out these passages instead of being concerned with that their "gifts" are.

Well, I guess it makes some sense. Women are clearly prohibited by Scriptural mandate from serving as pastors but the Bible is also clear that we worship a triune God. The magazine in question, Gospel Today, featured heretic T.D. Jakes on a cover, declaring him "America's most prominent preacher" as well as "Pastor" Paula White, who "preached" the heretical prosperity gospel. Clearly not a very discerning magazine. If Scripture prohibits women from being pastors, and the cover declares the five women on the cover as "pastors" then it shouldn't be sold in a Southern Baptist bookstore.

Does that mean that women have no role in the church? Certainly not! Just not as pastors (or I would argue as teachers of classes including men) So what are they to do? Luckily Scripture has an answer for that too!

Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. (Titus 2:3-5)

Love your husbands and your children, teach the next generation of girls to be godly women, keeping their home. Those are noble tasks and to assume that women have to be pastors instead of mere "housewives" demonstrates that one is more concerned with the world's opinion than God's commandments. Being equal does not mean being the same. Being a mother and a wife is a high calling, a noble calling. What the Apostle Paul has to say should be more important to Christian women than what Gloria Steinem has to say.

(As a side note from the sixth paragraph: The faith was organized in 1845 in Augusta, Ga. . The Southern Baptist faith was not organized in Georgia in 1945, it was organized in Jerusalem in the first century. The denomination was organized in Georgia in 1845)