Friday, April 28, 2006

T4G on Women

The Together for the Gospel Conference Article XVI

    We affirm that the Scripture reveals a pattern of complementary order between men and women, and that this order is itself a testimony to the Gospel, even as it is the gift of our Creator and Redeemer. We also affirm that all Christians are called to service within the body of Christ, and that God has given to both men and women important and strategic roles within the home, the chuhrch, and the society. We further affirm that the teaching office of the church is assigned only to those men who are called of God in fulfillment of the biblical teachings and that men are to lead in their homes as husbands and fathers who fear and love God.

    We deny that the distinction of roles between men and women revealed in the Bible is evidence of mere cultural conditioning or a manifestation of male oppression or prejudice against women. We also deny that this biblical distinction of roles excludes women from meaningful minstry in Christ's kingdom. We further deny that any church can confuse these issues without damaging its witness to the Gospel.
The teaching office of the church is assigned only to those men who are called of God in fulfillment of the biblical teachings. If this is the conference whose registration form I read earlier, then it had a 'no women need a apply' condition.

I understand from this that if a woman preaches the gospel it damages the church's witness to the gospel.

Update: I have heard that some women did attend but it is possible that attendance was filling up and there was a last minute restriction put on women registering. Please contact me if this is not accurate. Unfortunately when I went back to check the registration page had been modified.

4 comments:

Matthew Celestine said...

I suppose that would depend on whether they consider evangelistic preaching by women outside of church to be unacceptable.

Suzanne McCarthy said...

Are women encouraged to participate in the street preaching?

I doubt these men would condone a woman preaching to the 'unsaved.' in North America at least. They might think it was alright to do so in some heathen country.

This is an inmportant part of Canada's history. Women came here and preached, some from England, and set up congregations. Then, when there were enough people to support a ministry, men were sent and the women had to move on further into the bush, to find new converts, since they could not serve in an established congregation, even thought they had established the congregation themselves. That is part of the history of British Columbia.

According to the complementarian teaching women are allowed to teach in a secular univerity, but not in a seminary. That disturbs me since my great aunt was the first woman in Canada to teach Greek in a university. She left the Brethren, but not for that reason.

Danny Zacharias said...

This is very discouraging to me.

I wonder who drafted this. on the website there are just pastors. God gave teachers and theologians to the church for a reason.

Danny

Suzanne McCarthy said...

Yes, you would think so.