While the forceful advocacy of women ministers by some within the PCA is troubling, equally troubling is the attitude of others who--while claiming to hold Biblical views on manhood and womanhood--reject making such views a fundamental indication of Biblical orthodoxy.
"Good people disagree on this issue," they argue, "it's not a matter of the Gospel. Why, even Roger Nicole--a stalwart of Biblical authority--disagrees with the father-rule position. We've got to go easy here. There's room for latitude because, after all, this issue does not involve essentials of the faith."
This view is wrong at many levels. Most fundamentally, few modern heresies strike more directly at essentials of the Gospel than egalitarian feminism. What is more central to the Gospel than the preeminent authority of the Father, the obedience of the Son, the headship of Christ over His Church and the role and authority of His Bride? One must be blinkered by pride or fear not to see this.
But, even should we grant that no essential tenet of the Gospel is hazarded by egalitarianism, this view underestimates egalitarianism's destructive power.
Secondary concerns are seldom issues of direct obedience or disobedience to the Law of God. Bad eschatology may lead to a sinful lifestyle--especially if you're a Thessalonian. But usually it doesn't, and that's why eschatology is generally regarded a secondary issue.
But in the debate over father-rule defective theology and sinful practice are as linked as shinbone and anklebone. The primary issue in the controversy is economic headship and subordination, not ontological essence. And economic subordination becomes visible in practice. Whether men and women have equal worth before God is simply not at issue. What is at issue is whether, despite equal worth, men and women are called to separate forms of obedience.
Obedience lies at the very heart of the debate over father-rule. Reduce egalitarianism to a secondary issue and we separate obedience from faith. And faith without obedience is dead. It's absolutely no denial of salvation by grace through faith to call for obedience from those who profess faith--or to deny the faith of those who obstinately refuse obedience.
Jesus asked the Pharisees:
“What do you think? A man had two sons. And he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ And he answered, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he changed his mind and went. And he went to the other son and said the same. And he answered, ‘I go, sir,’ but did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you.”
In the same way, thieves, prostitutes and drug addicts will enter the Kingdom of Heaven ahead of those who obstinately and unrepentantly substitute the language of faith for actual obedience to the Bible's requirement of father-rule today.
