11

TEACHING IN THE

PARACHURCH?

Some evangelical feminists evade New Testament

commands by saying, “We are not a church”

Yet another liberal tendency is the claim that if an organization is not

a church, it does not have to follow the New Testament commands
regarding such activities as women teaching the Bible to men. The rea-
son I say this is indicative of a liberal tendency to avoid the authority of
Scripture is that, while we may agree that parachurch organizations are
not required to do everything that the New Testament commands for
churches, nevertheless, when a parachurch organization does those
same things that the New Testament talks about for churches, it is
required to follow the same rules that the New Testament lays down for
churches. It is not as if we can set up a separate organization next door
to a church and then say that the rules no longer apply to us.
This is another argument that is not usually made by thoroughgo-
ing egalitarian writers, because to make this argument someone has to
assume that the New Testament restrictions on women in ministry do
apply to a church situation. That is an assumption egalitarians are not
willing to make.
But this argument is frequently made by people who claim to be
complementarian and say they support male headship in the home and
the church. Yet they say that because they are part of a parachurch orga-
nization (such as a seminary, a mission board, or a campus ministry),
the New Testament instructions on women not teaching or having