As long as conservative evangelicals and liberal theologians quarrel over the requirements for the office of pastor, there will be a need to emphasize that gender, from a Biblical standpoint and even from a strictly logical one, has nothing to do with whether one is suitable to preach. Rather than looking to the circumstance of a candidate's gender, congregations need to focus on the intellectual and spiritual attributes of a potential pastor. Is he or she rational, consistent, and just? If so, then that is all that is necessary to make the candidate a legitimate one.
Logical and Biblical accuracy are the ultimate criteria for whether a woman should be encouraged to pursue the role of a pastor, not her genitalia [1]. The same is true of male pastors: a man is not fit to pastor a church simply because of his gender (as conservatives might claim), but a male pastor is also under no obligation to step aside to allow a woman to take his place (as some liberals might claim). The fact that accuracy, soundness, and consistency are the only inherent requirements for legitimate church leadership contradicts the ideas of most conservative and liberal Christians alike; as with other areas, truth is more nuanced than most can recognize without external prompting.
Complementarian norms contradict these requirements by treating the office of pastor as if it inherently hinges on the one in the position being a man, whereas the tenets of liberal "pseudo-egalitarianism"--that is, an ideology that does little to nothing to confront the acts of discrimination, acts of violence, and stereotypes that affect men and thus is not genuinely egalitatian--treat female pastors as if they have some moral advantage over male pastors. These approaches both entail the belief that pastoring is tied to the anatomy of one's body, albeit in inverse ways, when leadership and teaching are about intelligence and moral character, not one's gender.
Conservatives and liberals alike are adrift in fallacies and hypocrisy, and it should come as no surprise to any rationalist that both make mostly asinine comments about ecclesiology. Both sets of ideological adherents forfeit the right to intellectual and theological respect as soon as they identify with their frameworks. Unless a pastor is aligned with reason and Scripture, their title is nothing but an empty phrase. Whether they are a man or a woman, however, their gender is wholly irrelevant to the quality and consistency of their teaching.
Logic, people. It is very fucking useful.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-legitimacy-of-female-pastors.html
Complementarian norms contradict these requirements by treating the office of pastor as if it inherently hinges on the one in the position being a man, whereas the tenets of liberal "pseudo-egalitarianism"--that is, an ideology that does little to nothing to confront the acts of discrimination, acts of violence, and stereotypes that affect men and thus is not genuinely egalitatian--treat female pastors as if they have some moral advantage over male pastors. These approaches both entail the belief that pastoring is tied to the anatomy of one's body, albeit in inverse ways, when leadership and teaching are about intelligence and moral character, not one's gender.
Conservatives and liberals alike are adrift in fallacies and hypocrisy, and it should come as no surprise to any rationalist that both make mostly asinine comments about ecclesiology. Both sets of ideological adherents forfeit the right to intellectual and theological respect as soon as they identify with their frameworks. Unless a pastor is aligned with reason and Scripture, their title is nothing but an empty phrase. Whether they are a man or a woman, however, their gender is wholly irrelevant to the quality and consistency of their teaching.
Logic, people. It is very fucking useful.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-legitimacy-of-female-pastors.html
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