Cheryl

Hello Dennis,

Thanks for stopping by and providing your comments.

You said:

“Moore does not mean (nor does anyone one else I know who uses the terms “spiritual warfare”) that this is an in-house war against you or those of a feminist position. … He is not saying he views you as the enemy. He is saying that he believes a spiritual enemy has you (and the church at large) in his sights.â€

I certainly appreciate your opinion but I heartily disagree with you. Moore is not saying that Satan has us in his sights, but rather that Satan has us. This is why he says that this is a battle for the gospel. He does not believe that one can have the true gospel unless one accepts the complementarian position. In this way, it is a fight against egalitarians because egalitarians according to Moore are not preaching the true gospel.

Every egalitarian that I know of would not say that complementarians are preaching a false gospel. None of them would say that complementarians must repent of their belief in complementarianism or they are cannot be saved. Egalitarians do not make this an issue of the gospel and therefore although they can passionately disagree with complementarians, they can still consider them brothers and sisters in Christ.

However CBMW and Moore do not hold to this charitable position. They say that there must be change, there must be repentance and egalitarians must accept the complementarian position or they are not preaching the gospel and salvation depends on the complementarian position. Moore says that women are not necessarily lost who are egalitarian. What does that mean? It means that a woman who teaches the bible to men still has time to repent and if she repents she will not be lost.

I asked CBMW if a woman teaches the bible to men all her life and does not repent of this “sinâ€, will she go to hell? Their answer was consistent with the position that Moore presented. It is an issue of salvation. I was told that if a woman did not repent of teaching the bible to men by the time that she dies, then she must not have been saved to begin with, and yes, unsaved people go to hell.

When Moore and CBMW say that we are not believing or preaching the gospel, then they are charging us with heresy. Distorting the gospel of Christ is a serious offense and the charge of such a sin is a serious matter. Did Paul say that a distortion of the gospel is not a fight against the false teachers but only a fight against Satan? Absolutely not. Paul handed Hemenaeus and Alexander over to Satan. (1 Timothy 1:20) One cannot be a brother or sister in Christ and be guilty of distorting the gospel.

This is a serious charge and a very serious matter. But the gospel has nothing to do with complementarianism. The gospel is about who Jesus is, his death and resurrection and the price that he paid for our sin. Those who make a secondary issue to be a source of division in the body of Christ by attaching their side of this controversial issue to the gospel are those “who spreads strife among brothers†(Prov. 6:19). This is not a matter of complentarians fighting Satan. It is a matter of complementarians dividing and separating Christian brothers and sisters over a side issue. We have been told in scripture not to judge unfairly, and to be told as egalitarians that we are outside the gospel and in danger of being lost because we do not accept complementarianism is an unfair judgment. Anytime we add something to the gospel and make the acceptance of a secondary issue a requirement for salvation, we are treading in dangerous waters. I believe that these brothers in Christ are sincere in what they are doing, but they are sincerely wrong. I also believe that Jesus disciplines those he loves because using the gospel as a tool to force others to accept your opinion on a side issue is not an acceptable Christian practice.

Let’s continue talking and dialoguing as brothers and sisters in Christ, but I appeal to complementarians as my dear brothers in Christ, to turn away from making this an issue of salvation and the gospel.