Female Ordination, the Gay Clergy, and the Crisis of the Modern Church

The biblical arguments for male headship in the Church are vast, ranging from the man’s role under the creation order ( I Tim. 2), the qualification for elders (I Tim. 3), his function in the liturgical order and decency of worship (I Cor. 14), and his significative symbol under the new man, Jesus Christ (Eph. 4-5). These are taken as presuppositions in the history of redemption and exceptions are theological judgment imposed on God’s people.

Additionally, the East and the West have carefully crafted the liturgical service with a man in mind. Christ is the perfect priest and he was enfleshed in a male body. Therefore, the liturgy starts with male vocal cords and ends with male vocal cords. The man gathers and calls and leads and protects. God decided on such things in the Old and New Testaments happily moving against cultural norms, pagan norms, emotional norms and sexual norms. God structures his creation in a Trinitarian fashion and therefore each actor functions according to his purpose and each actress functions according to his purpose. The script is given and we act out our parts. In the Christian script, the male clergy does not stand above the people of God lording over them, but they stand in their midst, just as Christ stands in the midst of his people.

In our day, it is relatively easy to imagine how distinctions in the role of man and woman can be easily confused and ignored in an entertainment-driven congregation where liturgy and life are constantly being reinvented. It is also an easy consequence of such environments to see women leading in churches where men gladly abdicate their function in order to give over to cultural concerns about sexuality. It may come as a reaction to male-pastoral abuse cases which occur often or the endless creativity of church leaders to try something new. There are some who attempt a biblical rationale for such alternatives, but quickly they are swallowed by a larger agenda that lead up to the second floor of leftist inc.

Lest we–high liturgical folk–should get a wee bit happy with the confusion of those “silly people over there”, we should be deeply humbled by the fact that mainline churches with organs and bulletins have produced some of the most abominable cases of false leaders in our day. For a woman to preach in a congregation is already untenable on any basic biblical level, but mainline churches have gone far beyond that in trampling on biblical order by ordaining lesbians and homosexuals.

Bishop Eva Brunne of the Lutheran Church of Sweden proposed in 2015 to remove the Christian symbols of the Seamen’s Church in Freeport to avoid offense toward Muslims traveling to and fro. She has even proposed removing crosses and replacing them with Muslim symbols. She suggested offering prayer spaces for Muslims. Bishop Spong–whom I met once–was ahead of his time in pushing these agendas when it wasn’t cool. In fact, pushing the boundaries of basic order is the sine qua non of leftist ideology.
Now, this form of ecumenical sewage is part of a larger trajectory in “Protestant” mainline churches and now, even sweet grandma’s church as well. You may have had Fanny Crosby in the 50s, but now you have well-trained women in the art of woke church alerting everyone that men are bad, but all women are good. You don’t get to point Lesbian unless you have gone through ordaining women or allowing women to take roles that eventually become more and more like an ordained role without the laying on of hands.

Now, are male pastors supporting and advocating this soliloquy of hell? Yes, yes, they are. But they will be judged accordingly. In fact, they will be judged more harshly because while they are rightly ordained, they have used their platform to degrade and mock their office. They are like baptized children who grow up to blaspheme against God. It is better to have never been ordained and professed and advocated for such proposals than to be ordained and engaged in such vile actions.

Christ seeks actionable men whose convictions keep them from such hideous acts, which is why I would rather fight alongside Billy Sunday than Greg Johnson in St. Louis. Greg now uses his “shame” of gayness to advocate for a celibate spirituality. Imagine how many young boys–who may be confused for a variety of reasons about their male identity–will look at Johnson’s statement in his latest NPR interview and say, “Yes, I have found what I am looking for!” And in case you think I am exaggerating the impact of his role in the conservative Presbyterian denomination, read this from the NPW piece:

“More than 60% of regional church bodies voted in favor of barring people who identify as gay from becoming clergy, even if they do not engage in sexual behavior. The measure narrowly missed the supermajority required to change the church bylaws.”

Why isn’t that number 100% in the PCA? It was in the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, and up until very recently. But those numbers are changing and unless a massive upheaval in the Presbyterian Church in America occurs, these amendments will keep coming up again and again and again at every GA and consequently finding more and more approval. The wild alphabets of sexuality have entered the church and men who think women can put on a collar and stand on behalf of Christ are only a few miles behind that party.

This is not so much about defending complementarity or patriarchal principles, this is about defending the Christian principle of basic creational order. We can’t play with the animals of Genesis 3 as if they were the animals of Genesis 1-2. They are entirely new beasts, and they will bite and attack because they are not tame.

Defending basic order in the church and the home is the rallying cry of the day. The church needs to return to the six days of creation in order to understand our present day.

celibate, gay, gregjohnson