As Presbyterians, we are called to stand firm on God’s Word, proclaim the sufficiency of Christ, and shepherd our people with love in truth and grace. Feminism, in all its forms, pulls us away from that calling.

In 1923, J. Gresham Machen published his monumental work Christianity and Liberalism as a bold response to the movement of his day to wed Christianity with Liberal theology. Many of Machen’s contemporaries claimed one could follow Christ while denying cardinal doctrines of Christianity such as the Virgin Birth, the substitutionary atonement of Christ’s death, and the Savior’s bodily resurrection, calling it “Liberal Christianity.” Machen argued that Liberalism was not a branch of the Faith but a different religion altogether, one that replaced God’s revelation in Scripture with human reason as the ultimate authority (2 Tim. 3:16-17).

Thankfully, in the PCA, we reject Liberalism as Machen did, standing firm on the truth of God revealed in Scripture and as articulated in our confessional standards. Yet Satan’s temptation is subtle, and the pull of the flesh is always to compromise the Faith to accommodate the world (Rom. 12:2). Often, the motive is good—that of engaging a fallen world to further the gospel’s proclamation. But this was why the church flirted with Liberalism in Machen’s day, and today, another ideology threatens: feminism.

We see the influence of feminism in the PCA through the rise of “functional female officers”—women leading pastoral prayers or shepherding teams, contrary to Scripture (1 Tim. 2:12) and the spirit of the Book of Church Order. Likewise, the Alliance for Mission and Renewal (AMR) claims the PCA is “impoverished” when women are “sidelined,” pushing for their “full gospel calling” in ways that echo feminist demands.^[1] These are surface issues of a deeper problem: like Liberalism, feminism elevates human experience over God’s design, a challenge we must address with biblical fidelity.

The question of whether feminism aligns with Christianity is not merely academic—it strikes at the heart of how we understand God’s design for men and women, human nature, and the gospel. What Machen said regarding Liberalism can equally be said about feminism. Feminism, in all its expressions, follows a similar trajectory by elevating human ideology over Scripture’s authority. This challenge must be met with Christian conviction and pastoral care.

Machen’s core argument is clear: Christianity stands on the objective truth of God’s Word, revealing a holy God who redeems sinners through Christ’s atoning work (2 Tim. 3:16-17). Liberalism, he warned, abandoned this by prioritizing human experience and cultural trends, reshaping doctrines like sin, salvation, and Christ’s divinity to suit modern tastes. Feminism, across its spectrum—whether radical, secular, or dressed in Christian garb—does something parallel. At its root, feminism seeks to address perceived inequalities through a lens of human autonomy, directly challenging Scripture’s teachings on the roles, callings, and function of men and women in church and family life. Even so-called Christian feminism, which claims to work within the Bible’s framework, subtly undermines God’s design by reinterpreting clear texts to fit egalitarian ideals.

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