Covenant College Speaks Out on Gender Issues

A decade of discussion between the board of directors and the faculty at Covenant College has led to a joint statement on a variety of key societal issues, including the role of women in the church and in the home.

Covenant is the liberal arts college of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). With an enrollment of just over 1,000 men and women, it is located at Lookout Mountain, Ga., a suburb of Chattanooga, Tenn. The two-page statement, first drawn up several years ago by the College's faculty, has now been formally issued by the faculty and the board as a common expression of the college's understanding on Scripture, origins, gender, sexuality, compassion, and cultural diversity.

In issuing the statement, the college's board and faculty agreed that the affirmation will be used as a basis for interviews for future faculty members at the school. The board and faculty also agreed that the new statement is not seen as carrying the weight of the college's main standards, the Bible and the Westminster Confession of Faith. The statement reads in part:

Covenant College Affirmation Statement

Covenant College seeks to be a distinctively Christian academic community in which trustees, faculty, students, administration, and staff encourage one another in spiritual and intellectual development. This effort requires us to exercise a prophetic critical judgment in order to discern views and positions contrary to the truth of Christ, and to affirm those views consistent with that truth. Such judgment is to be applied equally to the views of the college community and to those of the broader culture.

Covenant College is called to a task beyond that of simply preparing students for fulfilling vocational interests and personal spiritual development. This larger task is that of bearing witness to the redemptive work of Christ in all of life's pursuits. Such activity is equally the responsibility of the collective Church of Jesus Christ. However, the distinctive contribution of the college to this task is to examine and work out in a Christian liberal arts context what it means to think about reality in terms of the mind of Christ, in order that He might be pre-eminent in all things.

The theological confession of Covenant College is the Westminster Standards. In addition to that confession, the trustees and faculty of Covenant College, in response to contemporary concerns, affirm the following:

Scripture and Origins

Scripture, the revealed written word of God, is without error in all that it affirms. As the truth of God, it is the final authority in matters of faith and practice. Consequently, Scripture is an indispensable tool of scholarship for integrating the Christian faith with all academic disciplines. Scripture provides both specific and principial guidance in this task in ways suited to the different disciplines.

In keeping with Genesis 1 and 2, we affirm that "in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth," and that the creation of human beings was a special creative act of God. We do not believe naturalistic or theistic evolution to be the mechanism by which God ordered His creation.

Gender and Sexuality

God created two genders, male and female, in His own image. While different in some roles, men and women are equal in dignity as bearers of that image. Male headship in marriage and the leadership of men in the church are intended by God for the good of man and woman, family, church, and society. Headship, and all authority, is to be modeled on Christ's sacrificial service for the Church. We are to refer to God as we are taught in Scripture. Jesus was himself a male, and he teaches us to refer to God as "our Father."

The biblical standard for expressing sexual behavior is heterosexual marriage. Scripture explicitly rules out pre- marital and extra-marital sex, and homosexual activity. While Christians must exhibit compassion to those whose sexual behavior the Bible describes as sinful, they are not to support any public policy or view that legitimizes such sinful behavior as an appropriate lifestyle.

Cultural Diversity

Diversity and unity are both manifested in God's person and His creation. Cultural and ethnic distinctions that properly reflect such diversity and unity are deserving of respect. The truth of Christ, which transcends such distinctions, is the standard for judging all cultural and ethnic expressions and values. Believers of all races and cultures enjoy unity in Christ which enhances their personal and ethnic identity.