The CREC Memorial and Women in Combat

When you have already catechized your people to think rightly about the role of man and woman in private and public life, when challenges arise, you look at each other and amen what is true.

The CREC is a communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches committed to the great Reformed confessions of the Church and the evangelical stream of history. We are a denomination committed to proclaiming the Gospel and preserving historic Christian orthodoxy in an age of instability. We have 130+ churches worldwide, and while many denominations continue in the trajectory of compromise, arguing over what the proper role should be for male and female, the CREC stands unapologetically for the creational structures of Genesis and its application to the home and the church.

This firm disposition is needed in a time of profound disorientation. One of the ways we have made our convictions clear is through our Memorials. Memorials state the position of the CREC on issues on which a confessional statement has not been made. They make official statements that each candidate church must affirm when they come before the presbytery for membership.¹ They state things of current concern or issues that our confessions have not addressed directly. For instance, there are no confessional statements directly speaking to the homosexual/transgender issue or concerning the role of women in combat. One role of the memorial is to state things that our forefathers took for granted but didn’t have the opportunity to address because of the largely Christianized nature of their context in the 15th through 19^th centuries.

Here is the CREC memorial, where the role of women in combat is explicitly stated.

Memorial E

Christians are called by our Lord to be peacemakers. We therefore

renounce all acts of aggression and terrorism, while recognizing

the right to self- defense for individuals and nations. Combat is

lawful when it defends life, liberty, and property against crimi-

nal action. Biblical principles of warfare must be followed, never

returning evil for evil, nor may women or children be mustered

for combat. While God may use the actions of wicked men to

administer judgment on persons or nations, His hidden decrees

have not been revealed to us. Regardless, it is appropriate to

respond to such events with humility and repentance.

The Military Shift & Controlling the Time

Before World War II, women served as clerks, telephone operators, and nurses, freeing up men for combat duties. But after 1948, women were formally allowed to serve in the military, though their roles were not in combat.

From 1970 to 1990, women began to enter more specialized military areas on flying combat missions or Navy ships. In 2013, the Pentagon repealed the ban on women serving in ground combat positions. This opened the way for the assimilation of women into the prominent male-led role in combat spaces. Since the Defense Department lifted the last gender-based service restrictions in 2016, over 250,000 women have served in the active-duty military.

While the country suffers through a revolutionary movement towards the disintegration of biblical roles, it has become even more imperative to hold the line. I cannot think of a timelier message for the church. We have given much of our biblical currency over to paganism, and they have set the agenda by dominating the conversation and setting the stage for a new sexual lexicon. We know Paul’s words that we need to redeem the time because the days are evil, yet we keep acting like we can play nice with ambivalent characters and compromise to get the acclaim of the woke mobs. Those who have tried to take that route have lost themselves, their souls, and their institutions. And now, we are losing our young ladies to pursuits that keep them far from the home and grant them gender studies degrees.

What Time Is It?

The professionalization of womanhood is a distinct feature of the times. The Church needs to re-assert herself as the preeminent timekeeper. She sets the world's agenda according to God’s standards. Part of the difficulty for many evangelical gatekeepers is that they have been trained to give an ounce here and there to save face with their congregants and donors. They are constantly playing this balancing act. It is impossible to maintain, yet they try, to the detriment of their tribes and institutions. The Big Eva associations continue to wreak havoc by adding nuance to their male/female formulations. Or, they argue that the Church’s role is distinctly spiritual and, therefore, articulations on what the role of women should be outside of the home is outside their bounds. The Church should mind its business in spiritual affairs and leave these matters to the professionals, they say.

But while the Church shouldn’t attempt to act as professional pundits on every issue, and while she should be prudential on specific statements, themes pertaining to the created order are, by definition, within the realm of the Church and fundamental to her purity.

As a pastor, I have found tremendous peace and joy in speaking truth without concern for the consequences. The reason the CREC has succeeded in its endeavors in the last few years is that she has spoken clearly and objectively on the fundamental duty of worship during an era where most evangelicals caved to sociological demands. She has also spoken unequivocally on the responsibilities and roles of men and women.

These statements have kept us firm in our pursuit of renewal and revival in our day. When you have already catechized your people to think rightly about the role of male and female in private and public life, when challenges arise, you look at each other and affirm the ideals you have upheld since the inception. This is rather simple but appears from the outside to require enormous energy.

Men Protect, Women Nurture

Our memorial re-iterates the biblical norms by asserting that women are not given the distinct role of protection in society. When Peter refers to women as “weaker vessels,” he argues that they are to be cared for because their sexual distinctiveness and body were made for protection and nurture instead of violence and blood.

In fact, one of the fundamental elements of a theology of the fall is that man had the duty of protection in the garden, but he gave that over to woman (Gen. 3). Adam failed to understand that his role was to love his wife and that meant that he had both a physical calling and an intellectual calling. As a priest, he protected the order of the holy place. Priests in the Bible preside over sacrifices. In this case, Adam should have given his body to expel the serpent and his mind to rebuke the evil one intellectually. He should have presided over an excommunication, but instead, he became the excommunicated one.

It is abominable that we intentionally place our women in positions where they are given the task of restoring order amid violent places. Some might say that these are exceptions, but these exceptions have become the overarching rule in our day. The lesson is that the more we attempt to change biblical roles, the more prone we will be to changing the created order. May it never be!

1. Individual bodies can make exceptions, but presbyteries must approve them.