I certainly know that not all elders are qualified or godly. Vote out bad, unqualified elders. After reading this book and its sexist claims against godly elders, re-read the qualifications for elders and see if any of those are reflected in the disdain elders are treated with in Alongside Care. What is the denomination thinking? Are we wiser than God? More loving than he is? Do we love women better than God does? This book seems to think so.

A Review of the PCA’s Alongside Care, (Lawrenceville, Georgia: PCA Committee on Discipleship Ministries, 2024, $14.99).
Early in my marriage about 45 years ago, my husband and I were in a large liberalizing church where one of his responsibilities was to teach the Bible moderators—the Bible teachers for the many women’s circles which that church had. As often happens, bad teaching seems to seep in through materials marketed for women. As the PCUS wandered further from Scripture, their women’s studies were leading the way in liberalism. Having grown up in the Catholic church, I’d seen that shift but didn’t quite understand it in light of Presbyterianism. My husband gave me a great task of going through the denomination’s women’s studies with a fine-toothed comb and more importantly, with Scripture opened to each and every passage. This long-ago skill came in handy with Alongside Care. To riff on Abigail Shrier’s new title, there is much bad therapy here.
The recent PCA book, Alongside Care, is yet another subtle attempt to show why God probably wasn’t having his best day ever when he gave us the blueprint for how his church is to be governed and nurtured. Alongside Care pays lip service, almost as if AI-generated, to the idea that, yes, God placed ordained men to be elders and to lead his church—it’s just that they aren’t constituted to do it very well. Page after page follows with underminings of God’s order, advocating a handy replacement division of elite women who will handle the really vital things for the Session, since elders are so busy traveling and working and commuting and having families and basically becoming a hindrance to the church.
Further, along with its degrading of elders, Alongside Care suffers from its dueling tendencies to both try to infantilize some women and simultaneously turn the influencers, the leaders, into the female Illuminati they think the church needs.
The qualifications for elders are quite clear and seldom, if ever, referenced in this book. They are to be: above reproach, husband of one wife, sober minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, gentle, a good manager of his own family, and a lover of good. An elder is not to be a drunkard, or violent, or quarrelsome, or a lover of money, or quick-tempered.
Listen, first, to how qualified ordained elders are described in Alongside Care and how I hear those with my emphases, comments, and questions added at points.

“The burden of oversight can be heavy, and many ordained leaders feel inadequate to address some issues involving women. . . . For some, the nuanced emotional issues seem overwhelming. For others, the ability to communicate carefully amidst unequal power dynamics is particularly difficult.” (p. 45)

Yes, oversight of the flock of God is demanding work for sure. Question: Is that not exactly the work that elders are called to do?

“Elders are God’s ordained shepherds to care for his people. Part of their task is to recognize how God provides “necessary allies” among the women of the congregation to help them in their shepherding responsibilities.” (p. 48)

Question: When was this task assigned to elders? Don’t most of the elders have wives to help them? Shouldn’t all women be allies in their churches?

“Wise elders recognize the relational acumen of women and seek help to present biblical instruction in a way that nurtures relational connection and trust.” (p. 49)

Titus 1:9 says the elder must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that he may give instruction in sound doctrine and rebuke those who contradict it.  Question: Why do elders now need female Illuminati to show them how they are allowed to teach or nurture? Why do they suddenly need help instructing? That is their actual calling.

“The elder can work with a female caregiver to tailor a biblical message that accurately addresses the need.” (p. 50)

Hmmm, question: Why is that God’s word needs to be “tailored” for women? Do we have a different gospel for different genders? And if an elder needs a female caregiver, shouldn’t she be his wife? (See recent scandals where pastors and female caregivers have been arrested for, ahem, park passion).  

In many congregations the ordained leadership is comprised of “men who struggle to fulfill the responsibilities of businessman, father, and elder.” “Frequent travel and even more frequent meetings hinder an elder from cultivating deep relationships with members of the congregation.” (p. 50)

Isn’t it presupposed that one qualified to be an elder has a family and a job? Actually, elders do have deep relationships. In a recent ten-day period in our church, here are things—without even consulting this manual—that I saw elders do: worked in nursery, helped in the kitchen, taught the youth group, drove that same youth group to the airport at 5:30 AM, celebrated at graduation parties, taught in childrens’ ministry, hosted dinners in their homes, visited the hospital, taught Sunday School, met visitors, attended prayer meetings, took meals to families in need, washed dishes after a funeral, and had lunch for their shepherding groups after church—and there’s more that I don’t even see. Hardly, the insensitive, non-relational elders caricatured in this book.

“Limited opportunities for significant conversation affect the quality of pastoral care and oversight.” (p. 50)

Do women have unlimited opportunities for significant conversations, and can I be in that group? How do fewer words, if true, restrict pastoral care?

“When ordained leaders make a decision, they often prefer to focus more on proclaiming than persuading.” (p. 51)

Question: Do people not understand decisions or do they not like them? There’s a difference.

“Rather than get the word out and solve problems when they arise, elders should consult with [ed., Wait for it] tried and trusted leaders who can help shape communication.” (p. 51)

Question: Why aren’t elders considered tried and trusted leaders? Where in Scripture or creed are elders told to run everything by women consultants?
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Now listen to how ordinary, unordained women just like me are described. Spoiler alert: we are totally amazing, some might say superior!!

Women are “especially equipped” to help other women live out their callings as women. “We know what it is like to be a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister. We understand the unique challenges, longings, and heart issues women bear.” “The caregiver listens to the woman’s heart.” (p. 16)

First, you don’t have to understand someone’s inner thoughts to love them. Understanding is never a prerequisite for loving any person. If it were, babies would be abandoned at birth; toddlers would spend their lives watching Bluey; there would be no marriages nor friendships. Even the Apostle Paul admits that he doesn’t understand why he acts as he does (Rom. 7). Jeremiah 17:9 says “the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick; who can understand it?” I guess the Illuminati Care givers can, if the book is to be believed. Where are normal friendships?

Alongside Care is designed “to serve the Session, helping them in their calling to shepherd God’s people.” “No man understands experientially how it feels to be a wife, to have a menstrual cycle, to have a baby, or to go through menopause.” (p. 17)

What a ridiculous sentence! Women actually discuss menstrual cycles and menopause very little. Could anything be less fascinating? Well, watching paint dry, maybe. Now, the hidden feminism of these ideas is showing itself. Since no man knows “experientially” about menstrual cycles, childbirth, or menopause, clearly, we incredible ladies probably cannot even be shepherded by men. Should we lesbianize the church to be better understood?

Alongside Care is a “resource to the ordained elders in the church.” (p. 19)

Why didn’t God himself even hint about this fabulous resource?

“Alongside Care is not biblical counseling.” (p. 18) “A caregiver provides biblical counseling.” (p. 21)

Choose one, either one, which is it?!

 “If the woman feels she is in crisis, she is.” (p. 23)

Honestly, has there been a more laughable sentence? Does this mean: If a girl feels she is a boy, she is? If a toddler feels she is a unicorn, she is? If a wife feels she needs a side-hustle boyfriend, she does? For the record, most women would not fall for the line “If the woman feels she is in crisis, she is.” Discernment is a quite useful gift. Alongside Care would surely have benefitted from some.
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We do not say that Israel is wholly right in its tactics or generally, nor that [Fitzgerald] is obligated to support her, only that his opposition to her ought to be more honest and careful in its sources, and that he not be so quick to suggest those who might support her are derelict in their faith on that account.

The Aquila Report has released its most read articles of 2023. Number 19 on the list is “Are Evangelicals Selling Their Souls for Israel?” by Jim Fitzgerald, a missionary and Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) minister who believes that evangelical support for Israel is mistaken. Fitzgerald is rightly aghast at the killing of civilians that has attended the war, and denounces the October 7th massacres. But these virtues are outweighed by some glaring faults in his article.
He uncritically accepts Hamas’ figures about the number of civilian deaths. Scripture is clear that murder and lying often accompany each other (Ps. 52:2; Prov. 6:16-19; Matt. 26:59; Jn. 8:44), so that people who do the former are suspectable of the latter. It is easy to lie and hard to kill, and if someone has a sufficiently seared conscience to do the latter, he is apt to have no qualms about the former. Scripture is clear as well that we are to have nothing to do with the wicked—and Hamas is in the foremost ranks of that category—and that listening to or associating with them has a corrosive effect and leads to righteousness and truth being overthrown (Prov. 1:10-16; 4:14-17; Prov. 29:12; 1 Cor. 15:33; comp. Ps. 1:1; Prov. 25:5). We should close our ears to all Hamas’ claims, therefore, for their wickedness has forfeited their right to be heard.
But Fitzgerald thinks Hamas’ claims verified by the statements of a single named person, a cardiologist named Dr. Sabra:
How can anyone be so heartless as to say the number dead is not accurate? I think the number is understated.
The attentive reader will note that is opinion, not testimony, and consists only of emotional rhetoric without any evidence in support; further, that it involves an ad hominem attack against anyone who dares think that murderous terrorists might exaggerate civilian casualties for propaganda purposes. Fitzgerald believes the point is buttressed by a nameless “many humanitarian workers” “making the same claim,” and by Israel’s own testimony of the amount of ordinance it has dropped on Gaza, some 30,000 tons as of his article in late November.
That last argument from sheer volume is weak: no amount of ordinance will kill anyone if they leave the target area. Israel issued a blanket warning to evacuate North Gaza before opening its main campaign, and it warns civilians near targets to evacuate before a strike by call, text message, or “roof knocking.” Actually, on technical grounds this arguably proves the opposite of what Fitzgerald thinks. Rather than demonstrating Israel’s “wholesale slaughter of civilians,” as he asserts, it demonstrates its firepower is being used in a way that has resulted in vastly fewer casualties than would be expected given the amount of ordinance dropped.
Without getting too much into the minutiae of what munitions Israel has used or the finer points of the many factors that affect the extent of damage done by explosive blasts and fragmentation, we can nonetheless get a rough idea of how much devastation can be wrought by that amount of bombing. To use the example of a single common munition, the pressures from a Mk. 82 500 pound bomb are enough to collapse reinforced concrete structures about 52 feet from the point of impact, and to collapse other buildings at twice that distance.[1] Those represent blast areas of about a fifth of an acre and three fourths of an acre, respectively, and the area within which fragments may kill or wound is far larger: there is an estimated 10% risk of incapacitating wounding as far as 820 feet from the point of impact, an area of some 48.5 acres.[2] Israel had dropped the equivalent of 120,000 such bombs as of Fitzgerald’s writing, enough to ravage pretty much the entirety of Gaza’s approximately 90,240 acres of territory, which has a density of about 25 people per acre.
When Fitzgerald then says that “a genocide is taking place right before our evangelical eyes,” we might reply that the claim is incredible. If that is what they are attempting, the Israelis are the most inept murderers in the history of the world. Israel has the most advanced weapons, planes, targeting and surveillance systems, munitions, etc., and has dropped about enough ordinance to flatten Gaza and kill its entire populace—and yet she has not done that. There is no way of knowing how many people Israel has killed, exactly, since nigh well everyone insists on taking Hamas’ figures at face value, and since most reporting makes no effort to distinguish civilians and Hamas fighters. But the large point remains that Israel has used enough firepower to actually kill much of the entire Gazan populace, had she desired to do so in a fit of genocidal rage. Instead she has focused those efforts on Hamas positions and accompanied them with repeated efforts to warn noncombatants to avoid being caught in them.
The point is not to argue that this Israeli effort is the best approach to fighting Hamas or responding to the larger political situation. The point is that it is false to say that Israel is engaged in genocide when it is deliberately acting to not kill civilians by general and particular warnings, and when it is trying to limit its attacks to its armed opponents. There is a moral difference between intentionally murdering civilians and accidentally killing civilians while fighting an honorless enemy that does not wear uniforms and readily hides among them. And that difference is the difference between a crime and a tragedy, between an inexcusable and intentional act on the one hand and an unintended consequence of a morally-permissible action on the other.
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It is the first half of verse 25 of course that so many folks – including too many Christians – would find all rather shocking and unacceptable: “And I confronted them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair”. The truth is, if Nehemiah was with us today and did something like this, I suspect that most Christians would say he is unloving and unChristlike, and even seek to have him arrested!

As is often the case in this irregular series, the text under question is not so much difficult to understand as it is perplexing and puzzling to many modern readers. Because so many Christians today are far more influenced by the surrounding pagan culture than they are the truth of God’s word, a passage like this will easily bother them and upset them. Yet it is they that need to change – not the biblical text.
Let me present the wider context of the verse (Neh. 13:23-31):
In those days also I saw the Jews who had married women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab. And half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod, and they could not speak the language of Judah, but only the language of each people. And I confronted them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair. And I made them take an oath in the name of God, saying, “You shall not give your daughters to their sons, or take their daughters for your sons or for yourselves. Did not Solomon king of Israel sin on account of such women? Among the many nations there was no king like him, and he was beloved by his God, and God made him king over all Israel. Nevertheless, foreign women made even him to sin. Shall we then listen to you and do all this great evil and act treacherously against our God by marrying foreign women?”
And one of the sons of Jehoiada, the son of Eliashib the high priest, was the son-in-law of Sanballat the Horonite. Therefore I chased him from me. Remember them, O my God, because they have desecrated the priesthood and the covenant of the priesthood and the Levites. Thus I cleansed them from everything foreign, and I established the duties of the priests and Levites, each in his work; and I provided for the wood offering at appointed times, and for the firstfruits. Remember me, O my God, for good.
It is the first half of verse 25 of course that so many folks – including too many Christians – would find all rather shocking and unacceptable: “And I confronted them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair”. The truth is, if Nehemiah was with us today and did something like this, I suspect that most Christians would say he is unloving and unChristlike, and even seek to have him arrested!
They are so filled with the spirit of the age, and so steeped in fake tolerance and unbiblical notions of love, that they would be utterly appalled at this sort of behaviour. Of course these same Christians would likely also be just as appalled at the behaviour of Jesus when he deliberately formed a whip, went to the temple and started flipping tables over while berating those who were there.
In both cases lots of contemporary believers would argue that such behaviour is just not acceptable – nor Christike! But the reason for this is rather straightforward: Western Christians today have so lost sight of who God is, how holy he is, how horrible sin is, and how far we have walked away from God, that they cannot see that the things Nehemiah and Jesus did were perfectly acceptable – and fully necessary.
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