After four years of official discussions and debates, the Christian and Missionary Alliance (CMA) has reached a decision to ordain women and grant them the title of “pastor.” During the Alliance’s general council held in Spokane, Washington, last week, over 60 percent of the denomination’s delegates voted in favor of women’s ordination. According to the president of the Alliance, John Stumbo, the CMA, comprised of approximately 2,000 churches in the United States, requires unity without uniformity. He encourages churches with varying perspectives on the ordination of women to collaborate in proclaiming the gospel, recognizing that they can work together despite their differences.
Christianity Today reports:
The Christian and Missionary Alliance (CMA) has decided to ordain women and allow them to carry the title of “pastor.” More than 60 percent of the denomination’s delegates approved the two changes at the Alliance’s general council in Spokane, Washington, last week, after four years of official discussion and debate.
John Stumbo, president of the Alliance, supported the changes but also urged the gathered delegates to respect different interpretations of the New Testament verses on church leadership.
“Do not think that just because someone disagrees with your biblical position that they don’t love the Word of God, honor the authority of the Word of God, and hold true to its core teachings,” he said. “Everyone I’ve spoken to across the country has come with a thoughtful position. … We have the right, privilege, and necessity of having a mutual respectability for each other.”
Stumbo said the Alliance, which includes about 2,000 churches in the United States, needs unity, but not uniformity. Churches that accept the ordaination of women and those that don’t can work together to proclaim the gospel.
“A deeper life and missions movement—that has always been the Alliance at its best, experiencing the fullness of Jesus within us, the heart change of Christ within us, that sends us on mission to the world,” he said.
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This is what happens when the church bows to the pressure of modern cultural change rather than holding fast to the eternal Truth of God’s scripture. The Alliance has started down the slippery slope. Women elders will be next. LGBTQ “pastors” will follow. It’s only a matter of time once the authority of scripture has been abandoned…
These scriptures were rightly interpreted hundreds of years ago and they have not changed. What has changed is our culture, and rather than be counter cultural, as Christ was, the Alliance seeks to appease modern culture with this change.