50 Crucial Questions - Question 47

Question 47. If you believe that role distinctions for men and women in the home and the church are rooted in God’s created order, why are you not as insistent about applying the rules everywhere in secular life, as you are in the home and the church?,
As we move out from the church and the home, we move further from what is fairly clear and explicit to what is more ambiguous and inferential, and we move from roles that are explicitly taught in Scripture to roles about which Scripture does not give explicit commands. Therefore, in such matters, our emphasis moves more and more away from specific role recommendations, like the ones made in Scripture, and instead focuses on the realization of male and female personhood through the more subjective dimensions of relationship like demeanor, bearing, attitudes, courtesies, initiatives, and numerous spoken and unspoken expectations.
We believe the Bible makes clear that men should take primary responsibility for leadership in the home and that, in the church,
the primary teaching and governing leadership should be given by spiritual men. We take this to be a biblical expression of the goodness and the wisdom of God concerning the nature of leadership in these roles, and the nature of manhood and womanhood. That is, rather than leaving us to judge for ourselves whether mature manhood and womanhood would be preserved, and enhanced, through the primary leadership of men or women in these spheres, God was explicit about what would be good for us. However, when it comes to all the thousands of occupations and professions, with their endlessly varied structures of management, God has chosen not to be specific about which roles men and women should fill.
Therefore, we are not as sure in this wider sphere which roles can be carried out by men, or women, in ways that honor the unique worth of male and female personhood. We do not want to make restrictions where Scripture itself does not make restrictions. For this reason we focus (with some exceptions) on how these roles are carried out rather than which ones are appropriate.