It’s a letter with which every 18-year-old young man is familiar. It’s almost like a right of passage. It comes as a measure of your age, not necessarily your maturity. Uncle Sam sends this letter to every young man reminding him of his responsibility to sign up for the selective service. While the United States hasn’t had a military draft since the early 1970s, the selective service registration requirement allows the government to populate a list of eligible young men should a future military draft be necessary.

While there are individuals who are devout pacifists, the selective service requirement for young men is largely a non-issue in our culture. But now there is talk from top military leaders that young women ought to be required to sign up for selective service as well.

This is outrageous, but we didn’t get into this situation overnight.

Feminism has long championed the cause that a woman can do any job that a man can do. They’ve argued that there isn’t any difference between men and women. And this anti-biblical logic ultimately led to the announcement on December 3, 2015, by Defense Secretary Ash Carter that women are now eligible for all front line combat roles.

What kind of society sends their mothers and daughters to the front lines to fight their wars? A broken society!

Now, you might argue that these women are all volunteers and they’ve sought ought these front line roles. While this may be true for the time being, it doesn’t make it right. But what’s equally important is this. If women want full equality with respect to roles, then full equality is exactly what they’ll get. This is why top military leaders are talking about requiring women to sign up for selective service. And if there really isn’t a difference between men and women as the feminists insist, then women should be required to sign up for the selective service.

But, oh, by the way . . . if the draft is re-instituted and your daughter or your wife’s number is called, she won’t get her choice of “non-combative” assignments. She will be sent to the front lines along like the men. And why? Because we’ve denied the obvious differences in creation and claimed that there isn’t any difference between men and women.

Friends, this is ludicrous. Anybody with a simple basic anatomy knowledge knows that there are inherent differences between men and women. This isn’t to say that one gender is superior to the other gender. Neither gender is superior to the other. They simply are different.

In the Christian community this discussion centers around two poles, egalitarianism and complementarianism.

Egalitarians argue that men and women are equally created in the image of God. They argue that men and women have equal worth before God and before our fellow human beings. And they argue that it is inherently wrong to insist that men and women aren’t capable of fulfilling the same roles.

Complementarians also argue that men and women are equally created in the image of God. They also argue that men and women have equal worth before God and before our fellow human beings. But complementarians recognize that God has created men and women differently and with diversity, not because one is “better than” the other, but so that they can “complement” each other.

I, for one, don’t want to live in a society in which we send our mothers, sisters, and daughters to the front lines to kill or be killed. I would much prefer to live in a society in which the men cared for and protected women and treated them with gentleness and respect. Not because women aren’t “tough” or that they somehow can’t take care of themselves, but because a man’s God-given role is to provide safety and shelter.

I want to see men care for women and treat them with respect because I believe this honors God.

No, women aren’t yet required to sign up for the selective service, but if things keep going in the direction in which they’re heading, it won’t be long until you need to call your daughter and say, “Sarah, here’s your letter to sign up for the selective service.”

For His Glory,
Pastor Brian