This years General Assembly of the PCA rejected two overtures that called upon the assembly to establish a study committee to study and report on the role of women in the church as it relates to the Book of Church Order. Those putting forth the overtures believed this is necessary to give pastoral leadership to churches in dealing with the issue of the roles of women in ministry.
In the PCA there are three church courts established by our constitution. The Session governs over the local church body meeting monthly, the Presbytery serves a particular area of churches meeting four times a year and the General Assembly meets once a year. These church courts are made up of Ruling and Teaching Elders from particular churches. The General Assembly meets to worship together, to hear reports made by committees within the PCA such as Reformed University Ministries (RUF), Mission to the World (MTW), Review of Presbytery Records, which reviews and reports on all the records of Presbyteries in the PCA, and the Bills and Overtures Committee. Some of these committees only report but some report in order that the gathered assembly can vote on various issues facing the PCA. Each year there are a number of overtures that come before the assembly on various issues. This year there were four overtures dealing particularly with the role of women in ministry within the PCA.
The assembly voted 427 in favor and 446 against the overtures to form a study committee to study the role of women in ministry for the purpose of crafting a pastoral letter to be sent to the churches on this issue. This demonstrates how the PCA is divided not only on an issue of the role of women in ministry but how the church is governed.
There are those in the church who believe that the church is very confused as to the role of women in the church. This confusion they believe leads to the suppression of women in the church. Therefore, they believe that it would be helpful to our churches if a group was appointed to study the issue and present the churches with a study report that would help guide them in their leadership of women in the church. However, what most often happens is that a study report becomes the “official stance” of the denomination and that study report is often used authoritatively in dealing with difficult matters in the church. Therefore, there becomes a top down leadership in the church or the “tyranny of the majority”. The PCA is most helpfully lead from the grass roots. At the grass roots level churches can govern themselves from the Scriptures and the constitution. This enables elders, deacons and church members to study and make decisions on important matters such as the roles of women in the particular church. Also, if there are matters such as churches or presbyteries wanting to ordain women as deacons then they must do this by way of overtures to the General Assembly in regard to our constitution. In this way the courts are not circulated in making important decisions. The vote demonstrates that there are still those in our denomination who are interested in this issue and seeing women use their gifts for the service of God’s church according to the authority of God’s Word and under the constitution of the PCA, but who want to see the difficult decisions made at the grass roots of the church and Presbytery and not handed down to them by the General Assembly in committee.
The second issue this brings to the forefront is the role of women in the church. There are two main views in the evangelical church on the role of women in the church. The complimentarian and the egalitarian views. The complimentarian view holds to the order of creation and the explicit teaching of Scripture that men and women are to carry out their roles in the church in compliment of one another. There are specific roles given to men such as the office of elder and deacon that women are not called by God to pursue. However, there are particular roles that are given to women in the church where they work in a complementarian way with men. In this view a man is not less than a woman nor is a woman less than a man, but both are one as created after the image of God and redeemed in Christ. However, they are created and redeemed for differing roles. This is reflective of the Triune God who made us and sustains us. He is one God but three persons acting in different roles as regards those persons. However no person of the Godhead is less than any other person of the Godhead, but they are all fully God. The Son does not rival the Father nor the Spirit the Son but all are glorified as one in their acting together for their own glory in perfect love. This view of the church should direct the culture.
However, the egalitarian view of the culture is affecting the church. The egalitarian view looks at man and woman as equal and says that all should be able to carry out the same roles as one another based upon the gifts given to the man or woman. In this view nothing should prohibit a woman from leading in a particular office in the church if she has gifts for that office. Though in the PCA there may not be those who are egalitarians they want to be more open to seeing women serve as deaconesses because they want to provide more freedom to women in ministry and not be seen as a denomination that suppresses women in our culture. While I applaud their desire to see women exercising their gifts in ministry we must all be willing submit our wills to the authority of God’s Word no matter what our culture may dictate. There are many roles open for women to serve in the church. The Scriptures do not suppress a woman and her gifts but they give her freedom to follow Christ by faith in love in accordance to the freedom of his will.
If I had been at General Assembly and not driving 3,000 miles with my family to from Georgia to Wisconsin then Michigan and home again I would have voted against the study committee overture. The Word of God is clear and the issue has been clearly studied so that elders and pastors can teach their congregations and help them steward the gifts given them under the authority of his Word. Unity in the PCA will continue to be forged on our submission to God’s Word as authoritative and a willingness to live in the present culture not according to it’s whims but in accordance with God’s Word. I pray men and women in our church will freely follow Christ by faith in the roles he calls them to using the gifts he gives them grace for. I also pray that these men and women will work as unto to God and not man as bond slaves of Christ for his glory in the earth and not for their own or their churches glory.
You can read more about this decision of the GA by linking to By Faith Magazine Online.
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