Male leadership is our great need.  The lack of men in the home or church cannot be replaced by  women though they may be quite sincere.  The loss of mature masculinity in our midst is beyond comprehension.

Leadership is far more than the ability to perform tasks.  The essence of masculinity and femininity are such polar opposites that when a man performs the same task as a woman the effect on those under their leadership is vastly different.  It is that interaction between the genders that we have been taught to ignore in our culture.  This fusion of genders is really an untenable miasma.

Perhaps this is one of the most subtle deceptions of the philosophy of gender neutrality.  We have begun to feel and even think subconsciously that men and women are not really all that different.  So it doesn’t really matter as long the task “gets done”.  Is the task the only thing we need to think about?  I fear this manner of thinking is akin to Saul’s thoughts about offering the sacrifice in Samuel’s absence.  An offering is an offering.  Fire is fire.  What does it matter who offers it?  But it does matter.  It matters a great deal.  Violation of God’s order is the essence of rebellion.

Women should not be ordained to elder or pastoral positions under any circumstance.  I feel it vitally important that the deficit of men be felt.  This discomfort would eventually cause the church to do something about it; but to create a new order of things would be dreadfully wrong.  Men are actually the centers of the family and men are to be the heads in the church.  Always under Christ, theirs is a delegated authority and can reach no farther than He the Great Shepard would have them to.  Yet they must stand as His representatives in His institutions – the family, the church and the world.

So even in China the women leaders should not be ordained.  I fear creating a church where “everything works just fine” without men.  Men are seemingly not needed because “it works”.  But does it?  Why would men participate in the life church if they are not needed – even desperately so?  What of the effect on the psyche of young Chinese boys and girls, of the Chinese women in leadership, of the Chinese men churched and unchurched, of on looking worldlings, of other SDAs considering unorthodox ordination in their own countries?

This may sound strange, but just because there are fewer men in the church than women, should women start marrying each other because there are fewer men?  Should young people go outside the church to marry because there are “no suitable” young people in the church?  No.  We must learn to let the pain do its work.  The discomfort is meant to tell us that something is dreadfully wrong.  The Bible has the solution and it is the only solution.  There are no other viable options than to follow His will.

Dare we lay our hands upon God’s order for our own convenience? We should fear to even think such a thing.