We may recognize saints in churches that have lady pastors. We may recognize real pastors in churches that have lady pastors. But we may not recognize the ordination of those lady pastors. We may recognize the ordination of the colleagues of those lady pastors. But it introduces disunity into the church to sit under the ministry of the Word & sacrament, administered by a lady pastor. To do so is to participate in a lie. Lies always produce disunity in the church.

In this newsletter I will provide some of the arguments against women’s ordination. My central thesis is that the symbolism of lady pastors leads to chaos in the church and in the home.

One might call me a complementarian or a patriarchalist. In some ways both terms are problematic. Advocates of both positions have good points as well as overlap. With that out of the way, let’s get to it.

First of all, women’s ordination is anti-Biblical. It is so, upon a clear and broad reading of Scripture. Every woman who picks up a Bible to preach, should be given the task of preaching I Timothy 2:8-15 as her first sermon. She will quickly find herself in a very difficult position. We could add the testimony of I Timothy 3:1-13 and I Corinthians 11-14 (esp. 14:33-34). Many other passages indicate the specific call of men to lead and rule in the church and in the home.

No wonder then, that women’s ordination is not the established practice of the catholic Church.

Egalitarianism and feminism are equally ghastly. They are both culpable in laying the groundwork for the widespread, modern day ordination of women both in the mainstream church as well as in many of the offshoots of the modern day church.

It is egalitarianism to say that men and women are functionally equal. It is feminism to say that men and women are interchangeable, that a woman can do everything that a man does. These are both deeply disordered worldviews that have led to some aweful eisegesis (reading into, rather than out of) of Scripture. It has utterly flattened the varying glories of men and women who are equally created by a loving Creator in His image. God has created them to have some fundamental differences in physical and emotional and spiritual makeup. To be clear, these differences are glory. Egalitarianism and feminism have ended in disorder, and have flattened those varying glories, in their ghastly simplicity.

Men cannot have babies. God has not built women for the stresses of dealing with the thorns and thistles. To say that we should send our women out into the frontlines of whatever war is happening on the other side of the world, should still strike a man as ludicrous and dishonoring to his mother and sisters and wife and daughters. I for one, believe that God is preparing my daughter(s) for a far greater glory than the gore of battle.

You should be able to see then on some level how deep the chaos of egalitarianism and feminism run in our time. To suggest that one’s daughter should not be a police officer might even be regarded as chauvinism. A million accusations come out of the woodwork. To which I reply “yes, I want my daughter to be the best that she can be for the glory of God.” I reply again “no, I’m not going to be a fool and encourage my daughter to go into police-work.”

Symbolism

I want to consider here the symbolism and the work of pastoring a church.

What does it say when a man is leading in the church, whether that is preaching from the pulpit or leading the liturgy (prayers, songs, call and response, baptism & Lord’s Table)?

As he stands in the pulpit, to some degree, he reflects Christ Himself. Now, it is true, he can do so poorly or well. But fundamentally, when he opens the Word or serves communion, the goal is that the congregation would see Jesus.

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