We appreciate all of the new visitors who have stopped by to read Gender Blog and we are eager to hear from you. Your comments, questions, and critiques are important to us at CBMW, and eventually will be part of this website. The construction process is still ongoing behind the scenes, however, so it will be a few more weeks until the traditional (if anything about blogging can already be called traditional) comment section is online.

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"The Gospel -- Christ's love for and salvation of His church -- is falsely portrayed when the traditional family is not respected" explained Russell Moore, because "the relationship between a man and his wife is a picture of Christ's relationship with His bride, the church."  Dr. Moore, Dean of the School of Theology at SBTS, spoke at a recent conference on with the theme, "The Family: Reclaiming a Biblical View of the Family, Womanhood and Manhood."  

Moore noted, for example, that the lifelong commitment of a husband and wife demonstrates the doctrine of eternal security. But when a child sees his parents ripped apart by divorce, he is presented with a false view of Christ's relationship to His bride. Similarly, men cannot know what it means to love their wives as Christ loved the church unless they see the value of the church, Moore said during the Sept. 13-14 conference at Southwestern's Fort Worth, Texas, campus.

Dr. Moore also spoke on a similar theme at the 2007 CBMW Different by Design conference.  The MP3 recording of that talk is available with other conference audio on this site.

After a 40 year process of gradual steps toward egalitarianism, delegates to the annual Christian Reformed Church synod recently approved the ordination of women. In addition, the 1,000 congregations of the CRC will be allowed to send women as delegates to subsequent synods starting next June.

As a result of these gradual changes, Pastor Jaclyn Busch has been called to the McBain Christian Reformed Church and describes herself as a “poster child” for the church as a symbol of the whole denomination moving forward. “If McBain can do it,” she suggested to a reporter of the Cadillac News, “maybe other churches can do it.” The news account went on to describe Jaclyn’s reception by the church:

There’s a festive tent on the lawn. There’s cake and coffee. And then to the tune of “I Am Woman,” church members belt out a song for their “Pastor in a Dress.”

“Yes, we are Dutch and we love our church so much,
We will make a change even when it’s strange.
God has shown us He can do anything.
We are strong (strong)
We are flexible
With a Woman!!!”

Genderblog of CBMW has been reporting on these trends, and WORLD magazine recently published a summary of where denominations stand on ordaining women, performing same-sex marriages, and other key issues of the summer denominational meetings. Nevertheless, how long this trend will continue in the church depends on the faithful choices of individual believers prompted by the Spirit of God. Turning from this slide toward egalitarianism will require complementarians to speak up and take a biblical stand at critical denominational and local church meetings.

As R. Albert Mohler Jr. wrote in the JBMW, "For too long, those who hold to the biblical pattern of gender distinctions have allowed themselves to be silenced, marginalized, and embarrassed when confronted by new gender theorists. Now is the time to recapture the momentum, force the questions, and show this generation God's design in the biblical concept of manhood and womanhood. God's glory is shown to the world in the complementarity of men and women. This crucial challenge is a summons to Christian boldness in the present hour."

Dr. Denny Burk has joined the CBMW team as the editor for the Journal of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood starting with the Spring 2008 issue. He also serves as an Assistant Professor of New Testament at the Criswell College in Dallas, Texas. He brings a scholar’s mind and a pastor’s heart to the task of educating believers about the biblical roles of men and women. Both aspects were evident on his blog recently as he answered a series of questions on key gender issues. We have included an excerpt here:

What practical difference does this “Comp. vs. Ega.” thing make to a church member?

It makes all the difference in the world. When Jesus calls people to be His disciples, He’s not calling them as androgynous creatures. He calls them as male and female. A man’s role as a Christian husband is different than a woman’s role as a believing wife (Ephesians 5:21-33). A Christian husband will lead his family as Christ leads and “heads” His church, or else the husband is a disobedient disciple. A Christian wife will follow her husband’s leadership as the church follows Christ’s, or else she is a disobedient disciple. These two biblical principles alone have massive practical implications for the ordering of family life, for the raising of children, and for the continued health of marriages. Within the church, Complementarianism has enormous practical implications. It means that a church that wants to obey the Bible will only call qualified men to be pastors. It means that churches will be aiming to open up appropriate avenues of ministry for all of its members, including women. The practical outworking of Complementarianism is too large to list here. There’s just no getting around the fact that the gender question has massive implications for the life of the disciple in nearly every aspect of his life.

If you have ever pondered questions like this, then see the entire blog post by JBMW editor Denny Burk.

[One of the joys of serving as executive director at CBMW is being able to connect with Christians who come from radically different backgrounds but who are united by an intense love of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Through this blog, we want to introduce you over time to many of these Bible-saturated people who hold a complementarian understanding of God’s design for men and women.

Below you will find an extended post by Courtney Tarter, a dear friend of CBMW. She is a single woman who is wise beyond her years and who deeply loves the Savior. (You can find more of her outstanding observations on her blog In View of God’s Mercy) - David Kotter]

When we think of a feminist we can all probably think of a person we know, or know of, who typifies the feminist ideology. There are all types of fixtures of feminism ranging from Presidential candidates to evangelical scholars to college students—and I am one of them. Prior to conversion I was the stereotypical Generation Y feminist—anti-marriage, anti-child rearing, and corporate ladder hopeful. After conversion I sang a slightly different tune, although held onto many of my previous ideals regarding marriage and settling down. I simply masked it with a missions/ministry focus, content to be the single girl on a mission to save a third-world country for Christ. What I did not want, or think I needed, was the idea that my changed life meant changed priorities. It was not that I needed to find a husband or chuck any career aspirations, the problem was that I thought feminism was an outside of the church issue, at least the conservative church that I belonged too. I had no notion that my heart, at its core, was fighting against the authority of God in the Scriptures, and still does have a lot of change left to be done to it.

I may have moved out of the militant feminist camp, but I most certainly have been a part of one too many male bashing conversations in a dorm room and coffee shop with my girl friends. What we must understand about feminism is that it did not originate in the wake of the women’s liberation movement of the 1970’s. And the mother of feminism is far older than Ms. Magazine and her friends. Feminism started in a garden in the Middle East thousands of years ago. Feminism is at the very heart of our fallen nature, and manifests itself in many different forms.

Recovering from feminism must first start with an embracing of the Gospel of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Only then will we see the roots severed because we will be clothed in the humility of Christ, who willingly submitted himself to the Father on our behalf. For older women it will mean embracing and modeling femininity, motherhood, and marriage in a Titus 2 way. For younger women it will mean knowing the godly women in our congregations better than we know the celebrities on late night television.

Feminist ideology is not simply relegated to the brash Gloria Steinem types, or even the female executive with the corner office. Rather, feminism rises up in ordinary women in our congregations, homes, and in the least obvious place, the mirror. Feminism is in the core of our hearts apart from the saving work of the shed blood of Christ, and not simply because we are militant against male authority, but primarily because we are opposed to the greatest authority of all—our Creator. The feminist is not some abstract “out there” woman. She is staring right at us every morning when we put on our make-up.

If we are going to make any headway in the gender discussion, we must first admit that our problem lies much deeper than a woman filling the pulpit on Sunday morning, or stay-at-home dads. Our problem lies in the fact that there is no one righteous and we are all opposed to God—we are all feminists at heart. And we can’t wake up one day and decide to be a Proverbs 31 woman any more than a man can decide to lead like Christ. Instead of seeing our gender differences as mere cultural constructions we must first admit that there was something far greater going on in the Garden than we now realize, and when Creation fell, it was distorted. In creating man and woman differently, God was pointing to the beauty of the Trinitarian relationship, and the relationship between Christ and His Church. The fact that we fight against it reveals our depravity even more.

Many times we are so busy looking for the woman with the hyphenated name that we miss the woman who scoffs at a man for opening the door for her. Both of these actions are products of our feminist heart. My “recovery” from feminism is not about learning how to bake pies or a decision to be more feminine (though these are important and helpful things), it is about repentance. Repentance of my desire to be in control and to raise my fist against God’s created order. Only through repentance and faith in Christ am I, or any one for that matter, able to renounce rebellion and submit to the Lordship of Christ. It also means truly believing that God’s Word regarding gender, and everything else for that matter, is true. Recovery for many of us will mean a reversal of the way we approach women in our congregations. It is no wonder why so many young women don’t desire motherhood when what they often hear from older women is to “get your degree first and live your life,” acting as if marriage and children was the final stamp on the end of your life as you know it.

And when I still feel the judgment rising up in me when I see a young woman joyfully choosing marriage and a family over a college degree, I realize that I have a long way to go before this feminist is fully recovered. As I grow in my walk, there is a great hope in the Holy Spirit’s promise to complete the work that Christ began (Phil. 1:6). From the time the first feminist (Eve) came on the scene, until now, we have been in a cosmic battle against the flesh and Satan because he hates the image of Christ and His Church. We await the final consummation of the good work that was started by King Jesus on Calvary. With the curse came the promise. Feminism was, and will finally be, defeated when the Seed crushes the Serpent (Gen. 3:15). And that’s good news for recovering feminists like you and me.