In my previous post I reported on three articles the Network of Presbyterian Women in Leadership (NPWL) posted on their web site discussing the transition of churches to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) and their polity that ordination of women is a local option.  The New Wineskins Association of Churches (NWAC) has responded in their web log to the first two articles posted on the NPWL web site.  The entry, titled “Advancing Biblical Truth: Women in Leadership and the Proposed New Wineskins/EPC Transitional Presbytery“, begins with the statement that the NWAC:

The New Wineskins Constitution
makes no explicit distinction between men and women serving in roles of
leadership in the church, embracing the biblical declaration in
Galatians 3:28 that in Christ “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave
nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Women
have always been, continue to be, and will always be an integral part
of the New Thing that God is doing through the New Wineskins
Association of Churches (NWAC).

(If you followed the New Wineskins Winter Convocation you know that there was a question from the floor asking why the Strategy Team was all male.  The response was that no women had asked to be on it.)

Further on in the NWAC response where they discuss the Rev. Anita Miller Bell’s article about the glass ceiling for women in the PC(USA) there is an interesting observation that I had not previously thought about:

To Rev. Anita Bell’s credit, she admits that the experience of women pastors within the PCUSA has not been all it should be. However, both NPWL articles fail to examine underlying causes to the “glass ceiling” in the PCUSA other than a pastor’s gender. There are at least two other realities that should have been discussed. The first is the promotion of feminist and womanist theologies by the denomination. This has not helped orthodox and evangelical women pastors in finding a call. Pastor nominating committees are understandably concerned about the possibility of nominating a pastoral candidate and then later discovering the candidate does not uphold an orthodox or evangelical theology.

The NWAC  article goes on to discuss eight reasons that evangelical women pastors should consider moving to the EPC.  These include the fact that the NWAC will have its own transitional presbytery in the EPC where they will get to decide if women can be ordained and the fact that if you are an evangelical Presbyterian women looking for an alternative to the PC(USA) than the EPC is the only game in town.