In 2001, the PCA’s General Assembly adopted a majority report of an ad interim study committee on Women in the Military entitled, “Man’s Duty to Protect Woman.” As I wrote for the Aquila Report (Aug. 14, 2016), the PCA committee sought to convey the whole counsel of God summarizing the issue of man’s duty toward woman. The five elders concluded on the basis of nearly one hundred Scripture citations that God’s Word provides a compelling rationale “for declaring our church’s principled opposition to women serving in military combat positions.”

Two unconnected, high-visibility events this week shared the same theme: Daniel Penny’s acquittal on ridiculous homicide charges and Pete Hegseth’s flipping his position on women in combat billets. Both events dealt with the principle, “Man’s Duty to Protect Woman.”

In the courageous Penny’s case, this principle was upheld, whether it entered the mind of jurors or not. In Hegseth’s case, unfortunately, the principle was undermined.

This is not misogyny. It is not masculinity gone off the rails. This is Bible (and Christendom), first. (It is military advantage, second; but that is another story.)

In 2001, the PCA’s General Assembly adopted a majority report of an ad interim study committee on Women in the Military entitled, “Man’s Duty to Protect Woman.” As I wrote for the Aquila Report (Aug. 14, 2016), the PCA committee sought to convey the whole counsel of God summarizing the issue of man’s duty toward woman. The five elders concluded on the basis of nearly one hundred Scripture citations that God’s Word provides a compelling rationale “for declaring our church’s principled opposition to women serving in military combat positions.” The first area to be considered “taught the binding nature of man’s duty to guard and protect his home and wife.” Referring to A.A. Hodge on the relations between the sexes (not genders), the elders rightly observed:

Failure to recognize that the laws of Scripture governing the relation of the sexes are “of universal binding obligation” has produced the confusion we suffer in the Church today, out of which has come this present debate [in 2001] over the propriety of women serving as military combatants. Furthermore, if we understood that “God, Who is the Author of nature, may in special instances waive the application of the law at His pleasure,” we would no longer use extraordinary cases in Scripture, such as Deborah, Jael, and Abigail, to deny the man’s duty to protect the woman. (In all cases, though, God provides the victory.)

The committee was “convinced that the creation order of sexuality places on man the duty to lay down his life for his wife; and further, that those who, in a sustained way, deny this duty in word or action thereby oppose the Word of God.” The elders were of one mind on the above. Their convictions differed, however, on whether the Scripture “speaks with clarity concerning the meaning and purpose of sexuality as it bears on the normal practice of women serving in military combat roles.” For that reason the consensus report stated:

. . . while we also are unanimous in stating that the above doctrine of sexuality gives guidance to the Church concerning the inadvisability of women serving in offensive combat, some among us believe that such guidance should be limited to pastoral counsel that does not bind the conscience while others among us believe that this counsel rises to the level of duty.

The second area of evidence dealt with the implications of woman as the weaker sex. The elders were convinced that “part of her weakness is the vulnerability attendant to her greatest privilege—that God has made her the ‘Mother of all the living.’ Men are to guard and protect her as she carries in her womb, gives birth to, and nurses her children.” They continued, noting that, “Our Lord issues a dire warning” concerning the demands and vulnerability of motherhood: “But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days!”

The committee noted how striking in Scripture is the theme of childbearing in connection with womanhood, “. . . from the consequences of the Fall [‘pain in childbirth’], to the blessings of the godly [‘like a fruitful vine within your house’], to the necessary qualifications of women seeking to be enrolled as widows in the Church [‘a reputation for good works; and if she has brought up children’].”

Third, the elders renounced all “which tends towards a diminishment of sexual differentiation since God made it and called it ‘good.’ Rather than a stingy attitude which minimizes sexuality’s implications, we ought to rejoice in this, His blessing.”

Expanding upon the differentiation theme, the committee highlighted the Bible’s teaching that “womanly armies are loathsome and pathetic.” Four strongly worded passages are clear, involving different armies all of which fought Israel (Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian). For brevity, two follow:

In that day the Egyptians will become like women, and they will tremble and be in dread because of the waving of the hand of the LORD of hosts, which He is going to wave over them (Isaiah 19:16).

Behold, your people [Assyrians] are women in your midst! The gates of your land are opened wide to your enemies; fire consumes your gate bars (Nahum 3:13).

Additional passages include Jeremiah 50:37 and 51:30 (Babylon).

An old issue, the fourth-century preacher Chrysostom wrote of Titus 2:

Woman was not made for this . . . to be prostituted as common. O ye subverters of all decency, who use men, as if they were women, and lead out women to war, as if they were men! This is the work of the devil, to subvert and confound all things, to overleap the boundaries that have been appointed from the beginning, and remove those which God has set to nature. . . . But you reduce the head to the feet, and raise the feet to the head. You suffer women to bear arms, and are not ashamed.

The PCA elders declared,

The contemporary push to normalize women serving in offensive combat positions is part of a larger ideological movement aggressively seeking to redefine the meaning and purpose of sexuality. Patriarchy is the enemy and any steps taken to vanquish that enemy, even to the point of turning men into women and women into men, is seen to be justified. . . . We oppose that movement, not because we are politically conservative, but because the movement is contrary to the express will of God revealed in His Word. This movement is diametrically opposed to the creation order God ordained, but those seeking this [deformity] will continue to pursue it with the greatest fervor, without blushing in the face of its consequences.

Vietnam veteran and Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Walter McDougall wrote:

. . . one of the central goals of the feminist movement [now grafted into “social justice”/wokeism] is to establish a fully sexually integrated military, trained, fit, and ready to engage in combat. . . . The United States today is the only serious military power in history to contemplate thorough sexual integration of its armed forces. And thanks to an adamant feminist lobby, a conspiracy of silence in the officer corps, and the anodyne state of debate over the issue, the brave new world of female infantry, bomber pilots, submariners, and drill sergeants may lie just around the corner.

The teaching and ruling elders clarified,

No doubt women can fulfill many duties traditionally carried out by men, and do it with great competence. But that is not the point. Women are capable of preaching, but may they preach—that is a different question. The Apostle Paul answered ‘no’ and gave the Holy Spirit’s reason, ‘For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve.’ But our postmodern [and now, anti-Christian] age hates, and seeks to obliterate distinctions, particularly those related to authority. Other ages have suffered a similar curse by God: ‘O My people! Their oppressors are children, and women rule over them. O My people! Those who guide you lead you astray and confuse the direction of your paths.’

A quarter-century after this outstanding report’s issuance, its relevance continues with the Church, and an anti-Christendom culture. It deserves the attention of every man who fears God.

Forrest L. Marion is a ruling elder in the First Presbyterian Church (PCA), Crossville, Tennessee.