Augsburg Fortress Canada

Chapter Nine

Agents of Transformation

Chapter Summary

The presence of growing numbers of women in positions where they can influence all aspects of Christian tradition is the subject of Chapter Nine. Here you will explore the current status of women's ordination and begin to think about the changes that ordained and lay women have directly and indirectly made in such areas as worship and theological education. Initially this process was driven by women, but increasingly such issues have become community issues and the concern of both men and women. The last section of the chapter focuses on some developments in feminist theology since the publication of such early works as The Church and the Second Sex.

Ordination discussions since 1970 have been most visible in communities with strong liturgical traditions and in conservative evangelical denominations. As discussed in Her Story, the Southern Baptist Convention continues to affirm its opposition to ordained women. The Christian Reformed Church, however, has left the decision in the hands of regional bodies, one of which ordained Leslie Van Milligen in 1996. The most intense discussions have taken place in the liturgical traditions. Women began to be ordained in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America and the Protestant Episcopal Church in the 1970s, and these denominations have moved on to accept women in the highest position of bishop. Prompted in part by these developments, the Roman Catholic hierarchy issued a "Declaration" on women and the priesthood in 1977 (9.1). Note the specific arguments against the ordination of women. These arguments were reiterated in the 1994 letter "Ordinatio Sacerdotalis," which also ruled that the subject of women's ordination was no longer open to debate. Catholic women do fill a large number of church offices, including that of lay pastor, and pressure continues to ordain them as deacons.

Since Her Story was first published, the experiences of ordained women have been studied, using denominational reports, the work of sociologists, and interviews with women. Significant numbers of ordained women are not found in full-time parish jobs but instead in interim and chaplaincy positions and in secular employment. Despite official denominational pronouncements welcoming women into the clergy, women have not entered this profession as frequently as that of law and medicine. Studies suggest that women still face local opposition, lower pay than men, and difficulty in making more than lateral moves. Investigation of their status continues, and scholars are making an effort to compare data with the experiences of men and across denominations, races, and classes

Exploration into women in the ordained ministry has also given scholars the chance to test some early hypotheses about the effect women might have on the nature of pastoral ministry. The question of leadership style is now believed to be a complex combination of gender and race as well as local and denominational context. Other areas of recent study, using large samples of women, have involved how women function as pastoral caregivers and how they preach. Some tentative conclusions on homiletic style, for example, suggest that women qualify their assertions in the pulpit and more frequently draw upon personal experiences. Collections of sermons by women, such as the Women's Preaching Annual by Abingdon Press, provide access to a rich body of material.

While ordination has not become an option for Catholic women, membership in a religious order continues to be. The late twentieth century, however, was a critical time for such women. Data gathered on the female orders repeatedly presents them in terms of organizational decline. The orders lost their niche in American and Catholic life as they became more secularized and as opportunities for women elsewhere proliferated. Several factors have made it difficult for women religious to find an identity.

A desire for a theological education by nuns and women seeking ordination dramatically increased the numbers of women enrolling in theological seminaries. They now represent 30 percent of the student population, and their presence has encouraged institutions to hire more female faculty and administrators and to add feminist studies to the curriculum. What has not yet occurred is the integration of feminist content and method, as suggested Your Daughters Shall Prophesy, into the required foundational courses of the degree programs.

The final section of this chapter considers feminist theology, a broad body of scholarship that offers a critique of Christian beliefs, history, and texts in light of the experiences of women. An early and ongoing part of feminist theology has been the documentation of sexism and misogyny in the Bible and Christian history. We have already discovered some of the fruits of these investigations in previous chapters of Her Story. The feminist critique, however, has also extended to traditional theological concepts and points out that Christian thought is saturated by dualism, hierarchy, and a male-like God. As a result, some women have concluded that the Christian tradition as a whole is irredeemable, and they look to such new religious forms as goddess spiritualities.

For those frustrated by the institutional church, the Women-Church movement has offered an alternative, providing women and men with ecumenical feminist ritual and community building.

Other feminist theologians disagree with these positions, arguing that Christianity has a core message of equality and liberation that has served women well in the past and, through a process of re-interpretation, can continue to do so. The lost history of women can be retrieved. A tradition counter to patriarchy can be found in the Bible. As the reading from the Inclusive Language Lectionary demonstrates (9.2) sexist words for God and God's people can be changed. And doctrines like sin and salvation, interpreted traditionally from the point of view of men, can take on new and different meaning for women. Note how Letty Russell does this in the selection from her book Human Liberation in a Feminist Perspective (9.4).

In the last fifteen years feminist theology changed in response to concerns voiced by specific groups of women. Jewish women have detected anti-semitism in early feminist theology as the ancient Hebrews were blamed for the demise of the goddess and the early Christians were hailed as feminists who struggled against the sexism of rabbinic culture. Other women believe that early feminist theology reflected the experiences of white middle- and upper-class women only. African American women, therefore, have created a tradition of Womanist theology, and Mujerista theology has developed from communities of Latina women.

Additional Readings

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