Following the denomination’s order as carefully as possible is not “hyper-traditionalism” or fundamentalism. It is, instead, keeping PCA officer ordination vows concerning approval “of the form of government and discipline of the Presbyterian Church in America, in conformity with the general principles of Biblical polity” and the promise of “subjection to your brethren in the Lord.”

We are very reliably informed that a recent visitor to a PCA church circled all the names of the church’s officers in the printed worship bulletin1 and wrote, “Where are all the women?” on the page, which he or she duly folded and dropped in the offering plate, thus registering a passive-aggressive, egalitarian complaint.

Here’s a serious question: If the church in question had added (under “officers” or “leaders”) to its official publications the names of women having unofficial,2 unordained roles and titles—such as shepherdess, session advisor, deaconess, member of the unisex “diaconate” or the lately-popular “mercy team,” or (quite unlawfully) deacon—would that have placated the egalitarian visitor and made them more likely to return?3

It is more or less admitted by some elders in the PCA that soft-pedaling the denomination’s doctrine of male-only officers is helpful to them in their “contexts”—which often happen to be large cities or purple suburbs with lots of university-educated, working women or young people with egalitarian expectations. Some elders have convictions about the office of deacon that lead them even to deny male deacons ordination4 because females cannot be ordained to the same office. But in some cases, the ecclesial fudgification and innovation (or omission) seem to be pragmatic attempts not to offend certain demographics. The motives may, of course, be noble—evangelism, outreach, giving no offense other than the offense of the cross, but the effect is to undermine key aspects of the PCA’s polity, including the doctrines of office and ordination.

“But the finer points of office and titles do not undermine the Gospel,” some will surely aver. That may be true, but the foundational first page of the BCO (concerning Christ, “The King and Head of the Church) seems to disagree:

He, being ascended up far above all heavens, that He might fill all things, received gifts for His Church, and gave all offices necessary for the edification of His Church and the perfecting of His saints (Ephesians 4:10-13).

Jesus, the Mediator, the sole Priest, Prophet, King, Saviour, and Head of the Church, contains in Himself, by way of eminency, all the offices in His Church.

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