I write not as a theologian, minister, or church officer, but as a woman and an ordinary PCA churchgoer who has a real stake in the continuing faithfulness of the church. Decisions made at the General Assembly and in presbyteries are not abstract, but have an impact on ordinary congregations. Like many others, I am a sheep affected by the decisions my shepherds make. Leaders in the church have a responsibility to their members to reject cultural forces and errant logic shaping the debate about women in church office. Currently, the question is whether the church may stage the appearance of women in leadership, without the actual substance of authority, in order to respond to cultural expectations or internal pressures. I argue that it may not and that doing so carries real costs for the church’s doctrine, worship, and witness.
The debate over “functional female officers” is often framed as a question of pastoral sensitivity or pragmatic flexibility. But it is neither. The push for women in visible leadership roles in the PCA is largely an appeal to empathy. Women’s participation is seen as a way to honor them, as a loving acknowledgement of their gifts and talents. Treating office as something that women must visibly approximate in order to be appreciated imports a worldly view of hierarchy into the church. Leadership grants fulfillment, and visibility confirms value. But this is a thoroughly modern assumption that the New Testament never makes.
There are two main problems with the question before us. Firstly, much of the present debate proceeds as though the central concern were the distribution of gifts, but this is the wrong question. Nobody denies that women are gifted and valuable members of Christ’s body. Secondly, the insistence on latitude and flexibility with our practice is too suspiciously responsive to cultural expectations about men and women.
In her essay “The Great Feminization,” Helen Andrews posits that nearly every major institution in America has been reshaped by “feminization”: the imposition of feminine-coded social norms like empathy over rationality, safety over risk, cohesion over principled disagreement. (1) Over time, these norms reshape institutions, not through formal revolutions, but through gradual accommodation. Institutional leaders on the whole respond to cultural expectations about what it means to be kind, loving, or inclusive.
We can see how over time cultural expectations reshape institutions, not through formal revolutions, but through gradual accommodation. The most readily available example we have of this happening in the church is the state of the mainline denominations, which began to ordain women over 60 years ago. And the Presbyterian Church in America is not immune to the same kinds of emotional leverage that captured our mother church. Read more»
Zoe Miller | “Feminization and the Problem of Functional Female Officers” | February 17, 2026
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