The anti-female churches among us

Yelp reviews on this church

On the surface, Pacific Crossroads Church is a friendly, Bible-believing church that meets on Sunday mornings in the big auditorium at Santa Monica High School.  What's not to like?

But if you check its website, you find that it's part of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). 

When you scroll down to look at the Pacific Crossroads leaders, you may notice that there are no women pastors or elders there--maybe even no deacons.  

If you check out the PCA on Wikpedia, you find a complicated history on attitudes toward women.  For many years PCA interpreted the Bible to forbid women in leadership (never mind the many women mentioned as leaders, including Junia "prominent among the apostles" - Romans 17:6).  

But in 2016, the PCA voted to reconsider, and more recently they voted to allow women to be ordained; they also allowed any member churches who disagreed to continue refusing to ordain as a matter of conscience.  Then the PCA voted to rescind the "conscience clauses," so some churches that objected to women pastors left the denomination.

Pacific Crossroads looks like a church that continues to refuse having women in leadership though it retains ties to the PCA, which has so recently changed.  

Maybe Pacific Crossroads just hasn't gotten around to electing a woman as elder or hiring a woman pastor.  Or maybe it's holding out against these changes.

Whatever the case, you need to know these things when you decide to join this friendly group of Bible-believing Christians.

There so many of these community churches founded as outreach from anti-female denominations (like the Southern Baptists) that never include "Presbyterian" or "Baptist" in the local name of the church.  

They cover up their denominational ties and history until newcomers are well involved.  That's secrecy, lack of transparency.  On the other hand, they do preach the Gospel and help many people.  

The cost of having a policy of male rule is great.  Women lose self-esteem and are held back from the call of the Holy Spirit.  But also the whole church can be hurt.

For example, one man at Pacific Crossroads (Rankin Wilbourne) became the pastor in 2006 and gained too much power; he abused many people (spiritually and emotionally) and was finally forced to resign by the PCA in Feb. 2020.  

Wilbourne was forbidden from ever being a PCA pastor again, but he went to the Midwest and then Florida, becoming a pastor at other churches.  On appeal, his deposing by the PCA may have been rescinded on some procedural error. The details of his abuse of the 30-40 people who testified are sealed by the PCA--can't be released.

Would a church with more male/female equality have tolerated coercive abuse by a male pastor for so long?  Maybe--but I don't think so.  

For comparison, look at the Catholic church and how it has done in keeping nuns and other compassionate women out of the leadership.