(Tim; For greater clarity, I've split this post into two, so a couple of the comments are missing some of their context)
In another post, I made the statement that Redeemer's session meetings are male-only. Quickly, I received an e-mail correction with this information that, for several years, Redeemer's session has had a woman in attendance at their meetings whose presence and privileges there appear, for all practical purposes, identical to those of Redeemer's assistant pastors. (I'm unaware of any rubric put in place to make some sort of formal distinction between them.)
In the exchange with the e-mail correspondent, I also found out that, during Lord's Day worship, half or more of Redeemer's pastoral prayers (scrupulously called "Prayers of the People") are given by women; half or more of Redeemer's Scripture lessons (maybe scrupulously called "Readings of the People" to distinguish them from pastors) are read by women; and half or more of those serving the Lord's Supper at Redeemer (maybe scrupulously called "waiters" to distinguish them from elders) are women...
Redeemer does not submit to Scripture's explicit prohibition of woman teaching and exercising authority over man in any way that any prior generation of Christians would recognize. Those who seek to obfuscate this reality by talking of some periods of church history where there were "deaconesses" mislead those who read and listen to them.
Any of those places in church history where there were "deaconesses," those women worked under the authority and direction of male deacons, with completely different responsibilities and subordinate to those male deacons. They were granted and exercised nothing even resembling authority over men.
The mollycoddling, minced doctrine and practice of Redeemer is everywhere evident in her congregational structure, life, and documents, and most times it presents the perfect halfway point between egalitarian feminism and Biblical obedience.
Do I think Tim Keller's goal is to promote egalitarian feminism? Maybe; but then again, maybe not.
Do I think Tim Keller is promoting egalitarian feminism? Yes, most certainly.
Why would he be promoting egalitarian feminism if that is not his goal?
There are many possible reasons, but I'll leave it to our readers to mull it over.
Meanwhile, let's pray that God will restore to the PCA's flagship church known around the world a submission and love for the boundaries of Scripture lovingly placed around the meaning and purpose of sex.
