94 FEMINIST VIEWS THAT UNDERMINE SCRIPTURE
baptize only those who make a personal profession of faith because that
is the tradition we were brought up in” (or some other such non–Bible
based answer). Leaders on both sides give arguments from the Bible and
base their convictions on what they think the Bible says.
However, the case is different for parachurch organizations regard-
ing baptism. Many parachurch organizations do not baptize people at
all, but leave it to the local churches. Therefore they do not have to come
to any decision on baptism. For groups that don’t baptize anyone, it is
easy to say, “As an organization we won’t decide what we think the Bible
teaches about baptism.” They have no need to do so.
By contrast, regarding women’s roles in governing and teaching
men, every parachurch organization that carries out Bible teaching min-
istries has to make some kind of decision on this: are we going to have
women doing Bible teaching to groups of both men and women, or not?
Either they will or they will not. The same is true of reaching a decision
of what kind of leadership roles are open to women in the parachurch
organization: all roles, or only some?^16 Some decision has to be made.
We cannot “not decide.”
(5) Do we really think God has left his Word unclear on something
about which every church must decide? This consideration follows on
the previous one. Since the role of women in the church is an issue that
every church and every Christian organization has to decide in some
way, do we really think that God has left his Word unclear on it?^17
Of course I agree that we have to decide on some things that the
Bible does not speak to. For example, I don’t think it specifies what
“order of worship” we should have when we come together each week
(whether we start with a hymn or a prayer or a Scripture reading, for
example). God has given us freedom on it because his Word does not
specify any particular “order of worship.”
But the matter of the role of women in the church is not something
(^16) I have discussed the question of women’s roles in various categories of leadership of
parachurch organizations in Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth (Sisters, Ore.:
Multnomah, 2004), 384-392.
(^17) We could make a similar argument regarding marriage if anyone argued that “we can’t decide
what the passages on male headship mean”: the question of whether God has established a hus-
band’s leadership role in the family is an issue that every married couple will have to decide in
some way. Do we really think that God has left his Word unclear on it? The authors I quote
in this chapter do not make this argument about marriage, however, as far as I know.