Feminism and Women in the Church
De Lucia argues that the exclusion of women from church offices (minister, elder, deacon) has been the consistent biblical teaching for 1,900 years, and that recent departures from this practice in evangelical and Reformed denominations result from cultural pressure rather than proper scriptural exegesis. The article critiques three different approaches to this issue, contending that those claiming the church has misinterpreted relevant biblical texts are conditioning their hermeneutics on modern cultural assumptions rather than submitting to the authority of Scripture.
Francesco De Lucia Introduction From the apostolic era until the end of the nineteenth century, almost no voice of dissent was heard in Christendom from what the church had generally regarded as a perspicuous, biblical teaching: women are excluded, according to the clear testimony of infallible Scripture, from the special offices of minister, elder and deacon in the church. What accounts for such a departure in the mainline evangelical, Presbyterian and Reformed churches today are the winds...