The Danger of the Partnership Paradigm
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The Danger of the Partnership Paradigm |
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The Danger of the Partnership Paradigm. The biblical model of different yet complementary roles for men and women in the home and in the church may well be a scandal to liberal and evangelical feminists bent on promoting the egalitarian, partnership paradigm. Nonetheless, Christians committed to the authority and wisdom of the Scriptures cannot ignore or reject a most fundamental biblical principle. Blurring or eliminating the role distinctions God assigned to men and women in the home and in the church is not only contrary to His creational design but also accelerates the breakdown of the family, church structure, and society. Donald G. Bloesch, a well-known evangelical theologian inclined toward the ordination of women, acknowledges that "it cannot be denied that the Women's Liberation movement, for all its solid gains, has done much to blur the distinctions between the sexes and that many women who have entered the ministry appear committed to the eradication of these distinctions."80 This trend, as Bloesch observes, "is in no small way responsible for accelerating divorce and the breakdown of the family."81 Feminist ideologies are generally opposed to the sanctity of the family and to the worthiness of the call to motherhood. The reason is that such ideologies, as Michael Novak keenly observes, "thrive best where individuals stand innocent of the concrete demands of loyalty, responsibility, and common sense into which family life densely thrusts them."82 To realize freedom from the constraints of motherhood, some Evangelical feminists, like their liberal counterparts, denigrate the role of woman as homemaker and advocate abortion on demand. Donald Bloesch warns that "the fact that some clergywomen today in the mainline Protestant denominations are championing the cause of lesbianism (and a few are even practicing a lesbian life-style) should give the church pause in its rush to promote women’s liberation."83 Such things ought likewise to give us pause in the rush to promote women’s ordination, one facet of the women’s liberation movement.
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