Words, Spades and Logic

I jumped into a conversation on twitter today, I wasn't invited so probably not very welcome either, but that's the beauty of twitter. Anyway the conversation went round in some very familiar circles. It began with the assertion that not allowing women in leadership was sexist.

So here are a collection of my thoughts about some of the lack of logic and correct use of words in the arguments for complementarianism.

Sexism is discrimination based on sex according to Wikipedia. How is not allowing women into all church offices NOT sexism? It clearly is. 

Equal but different makes no sense. Equal means the same - ask any maths teacher. You can logically argue that women and men are equal in x,y and z but not a,b and c and that it is therefore equitable (which means fair) to treat them differently, but not equal.

To be fair none of us believe men and women are the same. I don't think any of us believe any two people are the same. What we are actually disagreeing about is in what way's, if any, beyond the anatomical women and men are different. 

"Wives should follow their husbands unless they are leading them into sin"

This is either illogical or has a very narrow view of sin. Lets imagine Wife A and Husband B have a decision to make. They pray. A thinks they should do C, B thinks they should do D. They cannot agree. God is asking them to do C. In what context exactly would it not be sinful for A to do D? Surely any time you follow someone other than God that is a sin. Which reduces the contexts where a wife should follow their husband to very few circumstances that would be so inconsequential as to not be worth building a doctrine on.

Husband's providing covering, oversite, are the priests of the houshold etc. For all of these ideas please explain to me how they are compatible with the protestant understanding of the priesthood of all believers? How is Jesus brining the same salvation to men and women if women need men for some sort of spiritual protection?

The women in leadership debate is a phrase I am not a fan of 1.) because it often disconnects it from a discussion about marriage and they cannot be separate issues and 2.) because actually this is about whether women can be full disciples of Christ. 

The way to win these arguments is not what I have set out here, but to appeal to the witness of scripture and the spirit. But this has all been knocking about in my head so I thought I'd get it out there.

Let's start calling a spade a spade, sexism is sex based discrimination, sex based discrimination is sexist. Complimentarianism is idolatrous and illogical. Churches that do not permit equality of opportunity to men and women are sexist.  

I will remain civil and try to avoid personal attacks but we have to stop all this pretending to be polite about it. We must speak the truth in love and it is neither truthful nor loving not to challenge sexism and call it out for what it is.