Femininity & modesty

Grandmother is a missionary to the Congo and is home for a visit to help with the care of her grandchildren (whom Mary Lee and I share with her). Unbeknownst to her, I had cast a longing eye at these reconnaissance-by-artillery weaponized water balloon launchers on sale at Sam's Club a couple weeks ago. (I've been reading We Were Soldiers Once...and Young: Ia Drang - The Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam, so you know my frame of mind.)

Well, all that to say that my children's missionary Grandmother had the same idea and actually bought the thing. But having spent much of her life in the Congo where death, mayhem, and poison-tipped pygmy blowgun darts are as much a part of life as...

(This is the first 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.)

Preparatory to their 2017 General Assembly to be held in June, the Presbyterian Church in America has released the Report of their study committee on "women serving in the ministry of the church." This is the first in a series examining this committee's work.

When I served on a similar PCA General Assembly study committee on women in the military a few years ago, no woman was appointed to our committee. Study committees of the PCA General Assembly examine the interpretation of Scripture on theological matters where there is a need for the church to come to an authoritative judgment. Thus these study committees have been composed of pastors and elders—officers called to adjudicate conflict and make authoritative judgments. For this reason, many found it disheartening that Pastor Tim Keller's wife, Kathy, was placed on this study committee and that she agreed to serve.

It has long been normal practice for women to be present and participate in elders meetings at Tim Keller's Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. Mrs. Keller's appointment to this General Assembly study Committee is in line with the egalitarian practices Redeemer has long been practicing in her own fellowship, and advocating within her denomination.

But whereas the women attending Redeemer's elder meetings have been...

In celebration of International Women's Day yesterday, March 8, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's wife Sophie posted a pic on FB of her holding hands with her husband and the accompanying text, "celebrate the boys and men in our lives who encourage us to be who we truly are." She went on to ask followers to post pics of their own "male ally."

Feminists responded:

This is utterly ridiculous. Shameful really. I think I'll be taking photos with my daughters, female friends and colleagues instead.

So everyone reading this blog knows God Himself says women are the "weaker vessel," right? If not, read 1Peter 3:7 remembering all Scripture is "God-breathed." Don't tire of reminding yourself and your loved ones it's not merely the concepts behind Scripture's words that are inspired, but Scripture's words themselves. The doctrine of inspiration nailed down by our Lord through His teaching ministry is called the "plenary verbal inspiration" of Scripture. Every last word is inspired, including "weaker."

Now, we can argue all day about what God meant when he inspired the Apostle Peter to declare this truth, but in commemoration of yesterday's International Women's Day, let's explore the weakness and strength men see when we observe the weaker sex...

...if I were to sum up my principal objections to most forms of feminism, it would be in the contention that feminism privileges dogmatic ideology over close and receptive attention to reality.  - A. Roberts, link

In Scripture, authority is symbolically masculine, as it originates with a God who stands over against us ...and who refers to himself with masculine pronouns.  - A. Roberts, link

I have some fairly far-reaching criticisms of complementarianism as most understand it. I believe that it unjustly marginalizes women within the life of the Church and society in many and various ways and tends to devalue them. I believe that women need to exercise far more prominent roles in the life and teaching of the Church, not just as a matter of permission, but as a matter of necessity.  - A. Roberts, link

We need more female spiritual directors, lay teachers, theologians, commentators, scholars, churchwardens, vestrywomen, treasurers, vergers, sacristans, elder women (different from elders), deaconesses, lay chaplains, leaders of Bible studies, missionaries, etc.  - A. Roberts, link

Justin Taylor works for Wheaton publisher Crossway. Now, just prior to their release of a book Heirs Together by UK Ph.D. Alastair Roberts, Justin got Gospel Coalition to run a piece on their blog introducing what Justin assures readers is a "big book." The GC blog post introduced by Taylor is written by Roberts and titled "How Should We Think About Watching Women Fight Women?" 

The post gives us an idea what Roberts's book will be like. He writes about "the particular subjective and objective otherness of the other sex," saying it is an "otherness that should excite wonder, love, responsibility, and care," A few sentences later he writes: "the strength and athleticism of women such as Rousey and Nunes is worthy of admiration in many respects." Then this...

About a month ago Clearnote Fellowship quietly launched a new ministry called Warhorn Media. It’s our attempt to pull together a bunch of stuff we’ve been doing over the past several years all under one roof—specifically, our forays into publishing, music, and now podcasting (if you like classic lit like Pride & Prejudice, etc., The Bookening might be for you #DOUGWILSON).

Much of the written content at WarhornMedia.com is a spinoff of our little magazine, The Warhorn, which we know many Baylyblog readers have enjoyed and looked forward to. While we readily admit there’s been more looking forward than there’s been enjoying, if you haven't been getting it, you've been missing out. Get a free subscription here.

Although The Warhorn Mag is still alive and well, our efforts for the time being have been focused on pulling together our online presence…which we have done. Very well. In fact, we've become rather well-known among male TV lovers between the ages of 25 and 34.

You see...

Desiring God just posted an article about Holly Holm. She is the woman who beat up Ronda Rousey on Saturday night during an Ultimate Fighting Championship match and sent Rousey to the hospital. One might think that, given what the Scriptures teach and Desiring God's commitment to the Biblical view of women, that this article would be decrying the fact that Americans get their jollies by two women beating each other into a bloody pulp in the ring. But no. Instead this article praises Holly Holm for her humility and selflessness. 

The article cites Proverbs 16:18, "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." Ronda Rousey was the arrogant, loud-mouthed, braggart, while Holm is the humble woman who overcame all odds. The author ends his article by comparing Holm to Jesus...

Behold, your people are women in your midst! The gates of your land are opened wide to your enemies; Fire consumes your gate bars.  - Nahum 3:13

I knew a pastor whose main method of the sort of self-abnegation that characterizes hipster-pastors who prefer "brokenness" to "sin" was telling the congregation how he was a jerk of a husband. He'd say this all the time during his sermons, but he'd never really 'fess up to anything major. It was stuff like he wasn't sensitive enough. He was selfish. He didn't give her enough backrubs and sometimes he didn't get up at night to bring the baby to her to be nursed. This was how he publicly processed his own brokenness, especially during his sermons. He'd try to get us to see and join him in admitting we were all broken, just as he was; and therefore, we all needed Jesus, just like he did. For stuff like being insensitive to our wives and not going and getting the baby so she can stay in bed to nurse him.

When I stand before the judgment seat of God, serious as it surely is, I suspect I will have much more to answer for and to plead my Lord's righteousness as a covering for than not giving my wife backrubs. Too, I don't think the female sex—women and wives—are the only people we sin against. This man, though, only ever talked about sinning against his wife. My take was that she was a master at her critical work of building up her own self-esteem. She did a good job of keeping her husband impressed with her excellence and did so by continuously pointing out his insensitivity, selfishness, all-round brutishness and churlishness. Of course, this man wasn't particularly insensitive, really. And he was anything but a brute or churlish. He simply knew what his wife wanted him to cop to during morning worship and he did it over and over again.

This pastor is an example of the way brash women manipulate men into passivity and weakness...

Just heard Elisabeth Elliot Gren died and now is with the Lord. In my life, I'd had few famous heroes, and even fewer famous heroines. Betty was one of them. From my childhood when she would visit and she and Dad would argue during the meal; through our move to Bloomington when we invited Lars and Betty, along with Betty's brother, Dave Howard, to come and speak to our church; to the first national Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood Conference in Dallas back around 1999 when I invited Betty to speak to the women, to later in her life when letters (from Lar) were infrequent but treasured, Betty remained a heroine to me, as to many others.

In commemoration of her faithful service to the Lord, here is an interview of Betty I posted here back in 2009. May God comfort Betty's loved ones...

Note the witness of this Christian woman who, following her FB post saying a woman ought not to be POTUS, is interviewed by CNN and doesn't back down (much), but goes on to appeal to Scripture and God's design of sexuality. Sorry, but there's no way for me to turn off Ms. Hillary Rodham Clinton immediately following.

Sort of funny that she apparently said VP would be fine. It reminds me of people who want women to be pastors, but then say "not the senior pastor, though!"