Paula

Even if the rhetoric and name-calling were to stop today, we still have an issue to resolve. Permanent hierarchy (understood as between 2 adult believers) based upon the flesh cannot coexist with full equality and gift-based service. How would such an Assembly work? How could it function? Even if local assemblies separated on that basis, how could the groups work together, such as training for leaders, when some of the leaders would never recognize others as such?

The “solution” used to be “separate but equal”, and we all know how that worked out.

Unlike the Calvinism/Arminian debate, which has no practical difference concerning the gospel or evangelism or service, the gender war silences half of all believers and imputes sin to women who chafe against being treated like perpetual children or slaves.

The only path I can see is for each group to go their separate ways, and only ask that they agree on the essentials of the gospel. The Body was never meant to be a business or government anyway, such that it needs complex organization. Small groups in the first century did more evangelization than has ever happened since, without walls or programs or bosses.