Deacons/Deaconesses

(This is eighth in a series of ten posts critiquing the Report of the Presbyterian Church in America's Study Committee on Women Serving in the Ministry of the Church: first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth.)

The primary need is the encouragement and respect of the church’s male leadership who can either nourish or break the heart of a woman who is trying to serve God. ...There is additional benefit to churches finding ways to deploy gifted women teachers in their midst. ...When churches recognize a gifted woman’s teaching ministry and incorporate it into the church’s ministry, the expansion of that ministry is an expansion of that church.

- Report of PCA Study Committee on Women in the Church 1

[June 3, 2017: this post has been edited to turn its focus away from one individual.]

Does the Report acknowledge any Scriptural limitations on women teaching and exercising authority over men?

Yes it does, and for most that will be the end of it. As one southern pastor of my acquaintance effused in a fawning tweet, "how very grateful we all are for the wonderful work this wise and faithful Committee has presented to the church!"2

Stopping right there is what the Assembly will do: "Look, they said there are some things only men should do. Isn't that enough? What does it take to satisfy you? Must every last woman be married, barefoot, and pregnant?"

For a long time now, the pastors who posture themselves as conservatives during PCA general assemblies have specialized in avoiding the battle by giving private assurances of their manliness and Biblical convictions while publicly issuing...

(This is sixth in a series of ten posts critiquing the Report of the Presbyterian Church in America's Study Committee on Women Serving in the Ministry of the Church: first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth.)

Now Herod and Pilate became friends with one another that very day... (Luke 23:12)

The first thing Presbyterian officers will note about this Report is that it is a consensus report. All Committee members signed off on it, agreeing with the Report as written:

We debated all the matters put to us by the General Assembly and were, by the grace of God, able to arrive at an overwhelming consensus. 1

A consensus isn't a mere majority. Merriam Webster lists "unanimity" as a synonym, yet the Committee feels the need to assure the Assembly their consensus is "overwhelming."

Why speak of an "overwhelming consensus?"

In an earlier post I warned against this Committee's exaggerated...

(This is the fourth in a series of ten posts critiquing the Report of the Presbyterian Church in America's Study Committee on Women Serving in the Ministry of the Church: first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth.)

At the end of the nineteenth century, Princeton's Benjamin Warfield argued for deaconesses, writing that the office of deaconess would help bring women's leadership in the church into direct accountability to the church's male officers.

The study committee's Report cites Warfield several times in their attempt to get the PCA finally to normalize the Kellerites' practice of woman officers. What they don't explain...

The sons of Israel lived among the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; and they took their daughters for themselves as wives, and gave their own daughters to their sons, and served their gods. The sons of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and forgot the LORD their God and served the Baals and the Asheroth.

Then the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, so that He sold them into the hands of Cushan-rishathaim king of Mesopotamia; and the sons of Israel served Cushan-rishathaim eight years. When the sons of Israel cried to the LORD, the LORD raised up a deliverer for the sons of Israel to deliver them, Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother. (Judges 3:5-9)

Under the post "Wayne Grudem's ethical casuistry," Mr. Alex Guggenheim commented: "You are going to get either Trump or Clinton. It's time to grow up and take responsibility for delivering one or the other to us."

Here's my response:

Dear Mr. Guggenheim,

You're avoiding the long game. I understand why you're doing so, but don't accuse those who think about history and judgement or blessing in more than four-year increments of being immature and irresponsible. I would say it's precisely the opposite—that those incapable of thinking and choosing anything other than short-term goods are the ones who are immature and irresponsible. Contrary to what all Donald Trump's supporters are telling the church right now, this election cycle...

Under the post, "Rachel Miller's straw men...," a debate unfolded over the proper ordination of church officers. I believe in regular-old ordination as Presbyterians do it, with the necessity of a call, the vote of presbytery following their examination of the candidate and approval of his call, the laying on of hands, and prayer. This is how we ordain church officers in Clearnote Fellowship (sessions hold the examination of elders) and it was how I was ordained, also. That said, a couple comments.

First, when one of the two congregations I served in Pardeeville, Wisconsin voted to leave the mainline Presbyterian Church (USA), the joint board of elders of both churches had spent the previous year or so determining whether or not to leave the PC(USA), and if so, what denomination to transfer into? After looking at a number of denominations, our list shortened to the Christian Reformed Church, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, and the Presbyterian Church in America. We announced to the two congregations that we believed we should leave the PC(USA) and we scheduled a vote on the matter for a couple months later. We also told our PC(USA) presbytery of our intentions.

For years I had been serving in presbytery leadership, but it did not matter: when we informed them of the coming vote, John Knox Presbytery sent in a special ops team to try to destroy the churches...

Many times I've said my major disappointment with Tim Keller is that God has gifted him uniquely to stand for Biblical orthodoxy in our day. His command of the language and depth perception are obvious to everyone, and we praise God that here he has used his gifts well to warn sinners against their sin, and thus fulfill his ministry and glorify God.

Just now, a friend who spent more than a decade at Redeemer sent me this new review by Pastor Keller of two homosexualist works...

At a classical music concert, all the applause is self-congratulatory. - David Jeremy Bayly

If you have been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that three men have been standouts in the volume of Baylyblog posts warning against them: Tom (N. T.) Wright, Darryl Hart, and Tim Keller. Each of these men has shown himself adept at drawing away disciples after him who will join in his rebellion against crucial parts of Biblical faith. Tom Wright denies God’s Creation Order, Darryl Hart denies the Church’s calling to proclaim the Lordship of Jesus Christ over all creation, and Tim Keller denies the Biblical doctrines of sexuality, Creation, and Hell.

The most striking thing about these men is their abuse of language...

An hour and a half west of Bloomington is the city of Terre Haute which is home to the small and reputable school, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. Tomorrow night, this little conservative engineering school in the middle of a city notorious for its lowlife druggies (crystal meth) will host a forum on so-called "marriage equality," which is to say homosexual marriage. The questions to be addressed are:

(1) What is marriage from a legal standpoint? What distinguishes it from other legal relationships?
(2) Does marriage benefit the state?
(3) Why does the government recognize marriage?
(4) How does the Fourteenth Amendment apply to the legality of same-sex marriage? How are civil rights involved?
(5) How does marriage law interact with state and national law? How is marriage a judicial issue?
(6) Also, what are the legal ramifications of the HJR-3? [House Joint Resolution 3 prohibiting homosexual marriage]

Across America, the chattering class has found its latest heartthrob, and it's nothing as pretty as Taylor Swift. Desperately trying to clean it up, they refer to this lie and the dirty acts it exists to legitimize and institutionalize as "marriage equality." Their icy hearts go pitter-patter with deviancy's every advance, and they give themselves to exquisite shivers when these advances occur out there in the hinterlands. Already banned from New York by Governor Cuomo's henchmen, Christians are silent as the marriage equality movement inexorably expands out there in the Midwest. Cuomo rejoices that the hated "Bible thumpers" are one step closer to Siberia.

But what have we done to merit such hatred?

An editorial in today's Wall Street Journal highlights the savings Rhode Island has seen the past few years in its Medicaid expenditures as a result of negotiating from the Feds some small liberties to decide for themselves how to fund healthcare for their poor. At the time Rhode Island received this privilege from the Feds, one of every five of its citizens were on Medicaid, a quarter of the state's budget was going to Medicaid payments, and the state's Medicaid expenditures were growing 7.6% per year. More recently, though, from 2009-2012 Rhode Island has reduced its growth in Medicaid expenditures to 1.3% per year as the other 49 states' expenditures increased 4.6% per year.

States rights is not only an ordering principle of our nation's Constitution, but also the necessary method of protecting our solvency. Return decisions concerning spending of Medicaid funds to Rhode Island magistrates and, that very minute, accountability returns and expenditures begin to decline.

How did they do it? 

Two major reforms in particular saved money. The first reduced costly emergency room visits by Medicaid recipients for routine medical needs, and the second reduced admissions to pricey nursing homes by offering home-care subsidies and promoting assisted living arrangements, which seniors generally prefer.

Whether ecclesiastical or civil, that government is best which is most decentralized and exercises authority over the smallest group of people. In Presbyterian government, the session (for church members) and presbytery (for pastors) are the courts of original jurisdiction; and that should be the end of it in everything but the most extreme cases.

If a humdinger of a controversy arises in... {C}