Avoiding the Arbitrary

“Traditionalists are fighting a rear-guard action, trying to keep women out of a post that they clearly more qualified for than men are. Feelings can run high in the debate, but the debate is essentially over whether men only or women and men both should occupy the post of an essentially feminized office. If anyone has the temerity to suggest that we return to the older view of a genuinely masculine office, then both sides in the contemporary debate will stare at him aghast. And it will remain this way so long as girly-men complementarians persist in trying to keep girly women from getting their share of the effeminate action. Because of how we have been backed into a corner, the egalitarians have a real point if they were to say that exclusion of women from ministerial office is arbitrary. When we think of how the modern ministerial call is defined, it is arbitrary, but if we recognize that the Word of God not only excludes women from becoming women ministers, but also excludes men from becoming women ministers as well, we will be on the road to recovery” (Why Ministers Must Be Men, p. 43).