We've sown the wind and are reaping...

What is so sad in the PCA is that we still cannot agree that women in combat is an unbiblical, unnatural thing. Rattlesnake 6

When the debate over women in combat was hot and heavy in the early-to-mid 1990's, the Serbian campaign of genocide against the Croats and especially the Bosnian Muslims was in the news. A favorite tactic of the Serbians was mass rapes of Muslim/Croatian women. Pat Buchanan asked on CNN's "Crossfire" whether we really wanted to put American women into combat and subject them to "Serbian rape camps". That was one of the most effective secular arguments I have seen against women in combat. As Mr. Reuter said, keeping women away from the battlefield is "a barrier against barbarism".

Scott- That's where it's tricky though, right? If cultural cues are what is to determine our understanding of male and female dress, then what happens when a culture erases distinctions? Cultural language barriers here in the States have been and are continually being torn down, such that masculinized language is being eradicated. Yet Scripture uses sexed language. We say that Scripture needs to be made plain in the common language and that involves understanding the culture that we're translating into. Cultures and languages change over time. So when we interact with a culture that is or is becoming increasingly egalitarian in language, do we then take our cues from the culture or do we oppose the culture and uphold the biblical distinctions even in our language, knowing that the Holy Spirit chose to make use of them? Okay, I know that there's a difference here, but I think there's also something strange going on. Maybe I'm stupid, but I think Bill's question is a lot harder to answer than we'd like to think. We could dismiss it and shrug it off, but what if he's identifying something that is slipping under the radar? I don't care if he was making a reductio argument or not. What if there's something that Calvin and Henry caught (or rather assumed) that we, in our wicked day, have missed? What if those crazy Baptists aren't really so crazy? I know that I've intentionally avoided thinking about Bill's question in full until now, and that makes me uneasy about the answer. So, Scott, how far do we go to protect God's distinction between the sexes? What about the churches that maintain a man should be bearded? Jewish men used to not shave their beards. How is that not a preservation of the God-given distinction between the sexes? How far do we go? Such churches are an embarassment to us because we view them as legalistic or stone-aged. I mean, after all, this is the 21st century, the times and culture have changed, and you can't go on living like it's Victorian England or something. Otherwise you've completely isolated yourself from the culture and rendered yourself irrelevant, right? Right? But isn't that dreadfully similar to the argument made by the gender-neutral Bible proponents? Have not the moves for neutered language in our culture and the normalization of neutral dress (jeans, t-shirts, etc) ran parallel to each other and been a convention of only the last 50 years? And why is it that pants for women have been normalized, but dresses for men have not? Is there no connection to the women's lib movement here? Now don't get me wrong, I understand that translating the very words inspired by the Holy Spirit is a different thing than understanding a verse of Scripture's application to a modern culture. I understand that dresses are a product of western culture. But I think the original question poses a challenge: How do we obey this particular Scripture in a culture where distinctions don't exist if our cues are to be taken from the culture? What of Henry's exhortation: "The distinction of sexes by the apparel is to be kept up, for the preservation of our own and our neighbour's chastity. Nature itself teaches that a difference be made between them in their hair (1Corinthians 11:14), and by the same rule in their clothes, which therefore ought not to be confounded, either in ordinary wear or occasionally." Have we failed in this? My point is not to make a case either way. My point is that we must be hesitant to dismiss that question outright, especially when we examine it in the context of historical Christianity and in the light of Henry and Calvin's witness.

Something that puzzles me on this issue is that the fact that most often people that seek to make a pants/dress mandate refer to verses like this and ones in Leviticus. However, two things cross my mind regarding this issue. 1.) In those days, both men and women wore robes. How were they then differentiated? Did women wear a different cut? Did women have a veil? What? The LORD gave a command that they should not wear the opposite sex's clothes, but how could they tell what was what? 2.) Why are we not asking for our clothes to be made of only one type of cloth (per Lev 19:19). I'm not attempting to be trite here. I ask an honest question. If we are going to demand a certain type of dress based on Leviticus and Deuteronomy, why not the regulation on the types of clothes used?