Ethics News
Role of Women in Church (Supplement)
US Anglicans face threat of schism over women priests (970808)
Catholic dissident does battle for women priests (London Times, 970825)
Church may split on female bishops (Daily Telegraph, 040108)
A traditional revolutionary: Schism threat in coming battle over women bishops (Guardian, 040110)
Church Woman Leader Speaks on Inclusiveness (Christian Post, 041220)
Church of England Backs Women Bishops (Christian Post, 060710)
Baptists Divided Over Female Professors Teaching Men (Christian Post, 070121)
Female Professor Sues Seminary for Dismissal (Christian Post, 070311)
Baptist Megachurch Prepares for Female Senior Pastor (Christian Post, 070530)
Lutherans Open Dialogue Between Church and Seminary on Feminist Theologies (Christian Post, 090211)
Church of England Moves Forward with Plans for Women Bishops (Christian Post, 090211)
Mideast Evangelical Churches OK Women Ordination (Christian Post, 100113)
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THE Anglican Church in America is facing the threat of a schism after members of a conservative religious lobby group voted this week to set up a separate “province”, angered by a decision by the Church’s governing body that would force all dioceses to ordain and employ female clergy.
However, to establish a legitimate “province”, the technical term used to describe a territorial unit of the Church, they would need the approval of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Lambeth Palace indicated yesterday that that was virtually impossible, opening up the likelihood of a split in the Episcopal Church of the United States of America, as the Anglican Church is known in America.
At a meeting this week at Rosemont, Philadelphia, 125 delegates of the Episcopal Synod of America, an eight-year-old lobby group, voted to “resist all attempts to force us to compromise” on the issue of female clergy. Among them were the bishops of Dallas and Fort Worth, in Texas; Quincy, Illinois; San Joaquin, California; and Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
Although the group has only 23,000 followers in a Church that has more than two million members, observers say that it should not be treated lightly. James Rosenthal, communications officer for the Anglican Communion, said yesterday: “They are a serious, thoughtful group whose views matter to us.”
The conservatives adopted a hardline resolution that is likely to lead shortly to their departure from the Anglican Communion. They called for a “special provision to consecrate new bishops who uphold our theological convictions”; the “creation of a registry of all clergy ordained by female bishops, because in the delegates’ eyes those ordinations are invalid”; the creation of a fund to help those who suffer financially for breaking from the Episcopal Church; and an appeal to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, and to the Right Rev Frank Griswold, the presiding Bishop-elect of the Episcopal Church, to “assist us in our efforts to maintain our continued witness”. Most strikingly, the group also called for a separate, non-geographical province. Yesterday Mr Rosenthal described their demands as unprecedented, saying that it was virtually impossible that the Archbishop of Canterbury would agree to a new province.
He said: “There cannot be two recognised Episcopal Churches existing side by side in the same territory. In any case, there can be no new province without the imprimatur of the See of Canterbury.” Mr Rosenthal said that there was nothing to stop the group from styling itself as either “Anglican” or “Episcopalian” if and when they split. “There is no copyright on those words,” he said, “although to use use them would of course be wrong”.
Last week, at the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, attended by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Bishop James Stanton of Dallas read out a statement expressing his solidarity with those “anguished” over ordination practices “clearly at odds with the whole of the Biblical pattern”. Donald Peter Moriarty, a former Army artillery officer and president of the Episcopal Synod, criticised the Church for taking “a track toward adopting a subscriptural standard of morality”.
* The demand for a separate province parallels that made by the “third province movement” set up by traditionalist opponents of women priests in England (Ruth Gledhill writes). However, a similar split in England is considered unlikely because of the creation of three “flying bishops” to care for opponents of women priests.
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IN HIS hot, fan-blasted office, Father Tissa Balasuriya looks anything but a heretic. He has been excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church, raising this elderly, little-known social activist to what seem improbable heights of controversy and importance.
He is believed to be the first priest to be excommunicated for doctrinal reasons since the 1950s. It happened with such authoritarian suddenness that he has become the focus of debate about human rights within the Church and what he regards as the Vatican’s unfair tactics against anybody challenging Roman Catholic orthodoxy.
A Sri Lankan, he was excommunicated six months ago after refusing to sign a profession of faith that would have amounted to a repudiation of some of his more radical beliefs. His main objection to signing was that the document contained the idea that salvation could come only through the Catholic Church.
He said the clauses included an assertion that, as Christ had chosen only men as his Apostles, the Church had no right to appoint women as priests. “If you take that to its logical conclusion,” he chuckled, “all priests would have to be circumcised Jews.” He is plainly determined to pursue his fight with the Church he has served for most of his life with humour and mockery as well as intellectual argument.
His irreverence has made him a target of attack within the Sri Lankan Catholic hierarchy there are 1.2 million Catholics on the island, against 960 million worldwide and the subject of increasing conflict in church circles worldwide.
Father Balasuriya, 73, is founder of the Colombo-based Centre for Society and Religion. He said his appeal against excommunication had been rejected on the ground that the Pope had seen all the paperwork and approved it. He had not been allowed an audience to present his case, and there was now no contact with the Vatican. He had been willing to sign the profession of faith if the doctrinal errors of which he was supposedly guilty were put to an international board of theologians acceptable to both sides, but that idea was rejected.
His troubles started three years after the 1990 publication of his book, Mary and Human Liberation, which Sri Lanka’s bishops urged Catholics to shun because, they declared, it contained four doctrinal errors. The book, which might otherwise have disappeared without trace, has now been published in French, and a British edition will be released next month.
Father Balasuriya is unrepentant on the subject of women priests. “At the most important point of Christ’s life, the Apostles ran away. Apart from John, women were present at the sacrifice of Jesus. Mary was at the foot of the Cross. She was the first priest of the New Testament. It is wrong to say that Mary, on the basis of gender, is not fit to be a priest.”
He believes women have been excluded from the priesthood because men want to retain monopoly power, saying: “There is no reason ... why there cannot be a black, brown, white or yellow female Pope. Spiritual leadership is not a biological function.”
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LONDON — The Church of England might have to split in two if women become bishops — one with female clergy and one without, an official report has concluded.
An enclave for opponents of female priests could be created to avert a mass exodus when women are consecrated, possibly within five years.
The faction, effectively a church within a church, could have its own archbishop, bishops, parish clergy and training colleges. But it would exclude female clerics.
Proposals for a traditionalist “third province” have been floated before, but this is the first time they have received official recognition.
They are included in a draft report on female bishops by a working party headed by the bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir Ali. The report is to be considered by the House of Bishops this month and could be debated by the General Synod later this year.
The proposals for a third province are certain to provoke a new bout of infighting in the church, which already is reeling from the division over homosexuality.
Although they are among a number of options suggested in the draft report, the proposals are likely to shock many in the church as too extreme.
Liberal supporters of female bishops could denounce them as officially sanctioned schisms, especially as they threaten a new set of divisions in an institution already riven by dissension.
A recent survey suggested that, 10 years after the church first ordained female priests, up to a quarter of the clergy remains implacably opposed to women becoming bishops.
Moreover, a number of senior bishops still are resistant, and the Archbishop of York David Hope has said he would resign if women were consecrated while he is in office.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, privately has made it clear that he is sympathetic to the idea of a third province.
The draft report, which has taken three years to complete, outlines a series of strategies that the church could adopt if, as seems certain, it goes ahead with female bishops.
At one end of the spectrum, it could decide to make no provision for dissenters, although church leaders recognize this would create widespread protest. At the other, it could opt for a third province, which would be opposed fiercely by most of the bishops.
A compromise could be tried by building on the present system of traditionalist “flying bishops,” which was created to minister to dissenters when women were ordained as priests.
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In the sitting room of a flat in Bloomsbury, Geoffrey Kirk introduces himself jovially as the man who is going to split the Church of England.
From his tone it appears his tongue is firmly in his cheek, but as the national secretary of Forward in Faith, an umbrella group that draws together all sides of the traditionalist church, the 58-year-old vicar is probably the man most likely to be giving the Archbishop of Canterbury sleepless nights.
The season of goodwill in the Anglican communion is over. The battle lines are already being drawn in the Church of England’s latest war, one which some believe could make last year’s vicious gay-bishops battles pale into insignificance and potentially see the church irretrievably split.
The conflict involves controversial proposals to create an all-male enclave within the church in an attempt to avert a mass exodus when women are consecrated as bishops.
Until now the idea of a third or new province has been consistently rejected by church leaders as being too extreme. But it has suddenly been included in a draft report by a working party on women bishops. It would exist in parallel to the provinces of Canterbury and York, and although lacking a geographical structure would have its own training colleges and hierarchy, including an archbishop.
Opponents describe the proposal as morally repugnant and a form of sexual apartheid, but the first official recognition of the idea has put its supporters on a war footing, and Father Kirk has been marshalling the traditionalist troops.
Run from offices in a flat next to the Church of Christ the King in Bloomsbury, the organisation claims to have 7,000 members, including 1,000 clergy. Fr Kirk is particularly proud of the “amazing” number of women members - “ballpark 4,000” - which he clearly sees as belying allegations by their opponents that they are misogynist bigots.
He is adamant that in reality they are the wronged party. “I am sick to death of being called a schismatic,” he said. “I haven’t done anything. I have not sought to change the canon of the Church of England. I have not sought to change the law of the land. We are the victims in this matter.”
Buoyed by hints from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, that he might be willing to support the setting up of a male enclave, Fr Kirk has been ratcheting up the rhetoric. He said that for those on the traditionalist wing there is no other option but a new province if the church continues on its present path.
“There is a holy triad which goes remarriage after divorce, ordination of women to the episcopate, and ordination of practising homosexuals and blessing of same sex unions,” he said. “Those issues go together and are dividing the Anglican communion.”
He said that if the liberals got their way he and those like him would have no choice but to move to a “new” province or leave the church altogether.
But for Rachel Carr, who is on the steering committee of the Group for Rescinding the Act of Synod, a third province would simply be a continuation of the deep prejudice that already exists against women within the church.
“Can you imagine the uproar if the Church of England decided it would be OK to have a third province for people who did not want to work with black people or the disabled or people from overseas? It is morally repugnant,” she said.
Last year a report by the group accused bishops of bending over backwards to accommodate those who refused to accept women priests. Among the reasons given were a fear of conflict, misogyny, the bishops’ wish to present a united front to the world, a devotion to the old boy network or, in some cases, to a closeted gay network, laziness, indifference, an excessive concern about what Rome thinks, and a habitual stance of not taking women seriously.
The apparent sympathy towards the possibility of a third province has only added to that belief.
Paul Handley, editor of the Church Times, said the row had the potential to be the first in a series of splits within the church. “The Church of England has been quite remarkable in holding itself together. But where before people put up with those they disagreed with for the sake of this higher unity, that mood has changed.
“There is the issue of women bishops, but there is also the gay issue waiting in the wings and countless other issues over which there could be splits.”
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A new chief executive has assumed leadership of the United Methodist Commission on the Status and Role of Women. Garlinda Burton, a woman and an African-American, speaks of her strong views on gender and racial equality, both of which are still currently lacking in the United Methodist denomination.
The commission first began to monitor high church bodies early last decade, in 1992. From a position of ridicule, the commission has developed into a respectable organ promoting “gender and racial inclusiveness,” she said.
One example she provided of a lack of inclusiveness is the tendency for the “English-speaking delegates to speak up about the needs of non-English-speaking delegates.” This has prompted the delegates to complain about the gender or racial bias still present in the church.
Buton attributes her inspiration to the women figures in her life—her grandmother, mother, aunts and female cousins who served the church. “They did everything from helping pastors serve communion to offering food to a bereaved family after a funeral to rocking and fanning babies on hot summer nights when community organizers gathered us in to mobilize church folks as civil rights marchers.”
She states that it’s women who are the primary labor force, yet they have fewer rights and protections and make less than men.
The commission will work with their annual conference leaders, and help to address gender bias in the ordination process, ensure that conference leadership includes women and men, enforce a sexual ethics policy, and train pastors and laypersons to recognize and address sexual abuse issues. Their role as monitor to make sure women have equal access and voice will surely be appreciated by the many women who serve in the denomination in various ways.
“We have ‘talked’ inclusiveness for so long that many in the church think we have reached the goal of true equity just because we use the right words in a resolution to General Conference,” she said.
Hold up a mirror she urges and see “This is who we routinely include in decision-making. This is who we routinely exclude.”
She believes her mandate is to engage more laywomen and clergywomen at the grassroots level and create better communication to understand better what the commission should offer them. This is with the goal of challenging the church’s male oriented power structure.
During the past twenty years, she has noticed that it is oftentimes white men, who are many times treasurers who dominate discussions about how the church spends its money. “White women and people of color need to question this recurring pattern because the person who controls the purse controls the missional direction of our church,” she said.
Also, she added that, “If we are not at the table, our concerns and our input are virtually ignored.”
The commission is set to begin its new reign on January 1st, and with much prayers, Garlinda Burton may fulfill her dreams of women’s inclusiveness, and equality on all bases.
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LONDON – The Church of England General Synod officially approved the concept of women bishops as “theologically justified” by 288 votes to 119 in York this weekend. The vote by the Church of Engla
The vote by the Church of England ruling body, which resulted from a two-and-a-half-hour debate led by the Archbishop of York, sees the introduction of women bishops move one step closer.
Dr John Sentamu called for the Synod to “welcome and affirm” the views of the majority of the House of Bishops that women bishops should be accepted to the episcopate. In answer to this call, more than two-thirds of the Synod supported him.
The Synod also approved the statement that it would be a “proper development in proclaiming afresh, in this generation, the grace and truth of Christ.” Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams will address the Synod on Monday to support setting up a legislative drafting group to tackle the issue.
Already in 2005 it was decided in principle that the obstacles to the ordination of women as bishops should be removed, and during this weekend’s Synod just 119 members, including the Bishop of London, the Rev Richard Chartres, voted against the move.
Currently 14 of the 38 worldwide Anglican Churches have already decided to give their consent to women bishops.
Dr. Sentamu said, “I must pay tribute to Anglican women who have been tested for nearly 90 years. They have kept the faith and remained loyal to the Church of England.”
However, the second-most senior member of the Church of England admitted that the decision would not be welcomed by the Roman Catholic Church. “It would become more difficult for Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox to regard a church with women bishops as part of the universal Catholic Church,” he said.
Women were first ordained as Church of England priests in 1994, and there are now more than 2,000 women Anglican priests. Many say that since that move was made, it naturally follows that women must also be allowed to become bishops.
Christina Rees, Chair of the Women and the Church group, according to BBC News 24 said, “This is a very strong message that the General Synod is giving, that ‘yes, we are now ready, we affirm the ordained ministry of women as deacons, as priests, and now we look forward to having women as bishops too.’”
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DALLAS — A group of Southern Baptists are divided over a seminary’s decision to dismiss a female faculty member because officials there believe women should not be allowed to teach men in theology programs.
Sheri Klouda received her doctorate from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and was hired for a tenure-track position in 2002 teaching Hebrew in the theology school. But in 2004, she was told she would not get tenure and should look for another job, a series of events confirmed by Van McClain, chairman of the Southwestern trustees.
Southwestern is taking the “traditional, confessional and biblical position” that women should not teach men in theology or biblical languages, McClain said. That position is based on a Biblical verse in which the Apostle Paul says, “I permit no woman to teach or have authority over a man.”
Klouda’s hiring, McClain said, was a “momentary lax of the parameters” of the seminary.
Klouda said she was told her contract would not be renewed because she is a woman. She is now a professor at Taylor University in Indiana.
“I don’t think it was right to hire me to do this job, to put me in the position where I, in good faith, assumed that I was working toward tenure, and then suddenly remove me without any cause other than gender,” she said.
No women teach theology or biblical languages at Southwestern, McClain said. Women do teach music and other classes at the seminary, he said.
An Oklahoma pastor who has emerged as a vocal critic of the seminary complained that the school treated Klouda unfairly.
“Sheri Klouda is not a pastor, she has not been ordained or licensed, she does not perform ministerial duties. She is a professor, for heaven’s sake,” Wade Burleson said. “The same institution that conferred her degree and hired her has now removed her for gender. To me, that is a very serious, ethical, moral breach.”
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A former Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary professor filed suit against the institution for dismissing her because she is a woman.
Sheri Klouda, who taught Hebrew since 2002 at the seminary, was forced out last year allegedly because she was a woman teaching men. She filed a federal lawsuit Thursday accusing the seminary and its president, Paige Patterson, of fraud, breach of contract and defamation.
Klouda, now teaching at Taylor University in Upland, Ind., was refused tenure at Southwestern and was told her contract would not be renewed because of her gender. Her contract was terminated in December 2006.
The dismissal has spawned unexpected public outcry and widespread media coverage, even to the surprise of Klouda.
Southwestern trustee chairman Van McClain had explained that the seminary is taking the “traditional” position that women should not teach men in theology or biblical languages and thus only men should instruct future pastors. The seminary follows the Southern Baptist statement of faith which limits the pastorate to men. Consequently, Patterson said that instruction of future pastors is limited to men.
Moreover, McClain argued that Klouda “did not have tenure” and was told she would not be awarded tenure, according to a blog post.
Klouda was hired in 2002 for tenure track position along with seven other professors, one other being a woman, according to the lawsuit. Klouda, however, was the only woman to teach at the School of Theology.
The suit contended that Patterson, who became president in 2003, assured Klouda that her position was secure. But in 2004, she was informed that she would not get tenure because she was “a mistake that the trustees needed to fix,” the lawsuit states, according to The Associated Press. McClain had denied that gender discrimination played a role in Klouda’s dismissal.
Benjamin Cole, pastor of Parkview Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, filed a letter of complaint to the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and Association of Theological Schools, calling for an investigation of “a serious breach” of accreditation guidelines.
Seminary spokesman John Zellers told AP that school officials do not comment on pending litigation. The suit if Klouda v. Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
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A Baptist megachurch in Decatur, Ga., is preparing to take the rare step of calling a female pastor to lead its congregation.
First Baptist Church Decatur and its 2,696 members have been without a pastor for about a year. The search committee sought out to find a pastor young enough and mature enough to appeal to both young and old congregants, a dynamic speaker, and passionate and warm leader with a vision for the future of the church. On Sunday, the committee presented the Rev. Julie Pennington-Russell to the church.
The Decatur congregation reportedly reacted positively to the announcement of Pennington-Russell, who is scheduled to preach on June 17 when congregants plan to officially issue a call for her to become senior pastor of the church.
If Pennington-Russell is elected, FBC Decatur would be the largest woman-led Southern Baptist church, reported Pam Durso, a Baptist historian who serves as an officer with Baptist Women in Ministry, according to Associated Baptist Press. First Baptist is affiliated with Cooperative Baptist Fellowship – a moderate splinter group of the Southern Baptist Convention – but still maintains ties with the SBC.
“Calling Julie was definitely not about ‘making a statement,’” one church leader told ABP. “Our committee and the deacon council really felt the leadership of the Holy Spirit as we navigated this decision-making process. And to have our entire congregation – minus five or six folks who are not happy about this – stand at the close of the service yesterday (Sunday) and applaud our committee was overwhelming to us.”
The SBC’s current confession of faith – The Baptist Faith and Message – limits the role of women from the pastorate. It states: “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”
Pennington-Russell has led Nineteenth Avenue Baptist Church in San Francisco in 1984-1992 and Calvary Baptist Church in Waco, Texas, since 1998 as pastor. She was faced by some protests during her leadership at the two churches, but accounts at Calvary have testified of growth while she was pastor, according to ABP.
“She is a good role model for any minister, male or female,” stated one comment from an outside six-person panel knowledgeable in Baptist life today, according to First Baptist Church.
“This is a significant moment in the life of FBC Decatur. Julie is a perfect fit,” said another comment by the panel.
The search committee studied some 64 candidates and devoted nearly 800 hours to find a successor to former head pastor Gary Parker. At the end of the process, the committee’s selection was unanimous and it was “pleased” and “excited” to present Pennington-Russell to the congregation.
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The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has opened conversations between the church and academia on feminist theologies, hoping to develop insight on how the Church can live out its commitment to combat sexism in the church and society and to advocate justice for women.
Although Lutheran feminist theologians have been writing and working in Lutheran and non-Lutheran institutions for a long time, the church and academia have rarely come together to discuss their work, says Dr. Mary Streufert, director of the Justice for Women program, part of the denomination’s Church in Society arm.
Until now, the discussion on feminist theologies has been mainly confined to some ELCA universities and seminaries, said Streufert.
“Open dialogue between church and academy on feminist theologies is pretty radical,” she noted, according to ELCA News Service.
But last month, the ELCA did something it has never done.
From Jan. 23-25, the denomination hosted its first-ever forum on exploring Lutheran theology from the perspectives of Asian, black, Latina and white women.
“Women from different cultural and ethnic contexts breathe new insight into Lutheran theology today,” said Streufert.
Held in Chicago, Ill., “Transformative Lutheran Theologies Conference: Feminist, Womanist and Mujerista Perspectives,” brought together about 160 women and men pastors, college and seminary students, professors and lay people, among others.
ELCA Presiding Bishop the Rev. Mark S. Hanson called on attendees to think strategically how the church can “confront the scandalous realities” of sexism, racism and other systems of oppression, and live out its commitment to becoming an anti-racist, anti-sexist church, reported the denomination’s news service.
Invited speakers presented a series of papers on four theological topics: ethics, theological anthropology, Christology and theology of the Trinity.
“We’ve acknowledged that, from a feminist, womanist or mujerista perspective, there are serious questions to wrestle with in the theological tradition, whether Lutheran or, more broadly, Christian,” Streufert said.
Those questions include: “What might women theologians contribute constructively about that for the sake of the church?” and “What is life-giving from these perspectives that can help transform the world for the sake of the gospel?”
The conference received a positive response from participants.
“This is the kind of event that I have been dying to do in Canada,” said Catherine Pate, program editor of Evangelical Lutheran Women in Winnipeg, Manitoba, according to ELCA News Service. “To be a church on the side of justice, then the church must name and unmask the truth about its own culpability in oppression.”
Hanson said the conference occurs “at a crossroad” in the church.
“We can retreat in fear and isolation to the church we once were, or we can move boldly to the church God wants us to become,” he said, according to the denomination’s news service.
According to the Justice for Women program, justice for women occurs when the ways in which women and girls are objectified are rejected and the image of God of women and girls is affirmed through both theology and policy, in church and in society.
In a meeting last November, the Church Council of the ELCA recommended that the 2009 Churchwide Assembly call for development of a social statement on the topic of “justice for women in church and society” for presentation to the 2015 Churchwide Assembly.
The 11th ELCA Churchwide Assembly will take place Aug. 17-23, 2009, in Minneapolis.
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Plans for women bishops in the Church of England will move to the revision stage after a vote of approval in the General Synod Wednesday.
After more than two hours of debate, the Synod voted to send draft legislation on the consecration of women bishops and a Code of Practice to a revision committee.
A group led by the Bishop of Manchester, the Rt. Rev. Nigel McCulloch, drew up the proposals following an emotional debate last July when members voted down a number of legal safeguards for traditionalists unable to accept the ministry of women.
Bishop McCulloch said it would be “tragic” if the Church of England fell at the first hurdle in seeing women ordained to the episcopate.
Not passing the motion, he noted, would “certainly mean that the prospect of women bishops would recede by several years.”
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, told the Synod he supported women bishops and that his decision to abstain in last July’s Synod debate reflected his concern that plans for women bishops should be good news for supporters as well as opponents.
He said he was hoping and praying to one day be able to vote in favor of a motion on the consecration of women bishops “with a sense of full-hearted gladness that this is good news for everyone to some degree in our Church.”
“Because if it isn’t then I think there is something missing in our witness to one another as well as to the world,” the Archbishop said.
Opponents of female bishops told the Synod of their concerns over the proposed Code of Practice. While the Code of Practice would allow parishes unable to accept women bishops to petition for a complementary male bishop, the diocesan bishop would be entitled to refuse the petition. The petitioning parish or church would then have to seek a judicial review in the high court to overturn the decision.
The Rev. Rod Thomas, Chairman of Reform, said that a Code of Practice was “a very uncertain instrument” that left traditionalists “with a feeling that our ministry in the Church is simply being tolerated rather than we are being given space where our ministry is encouraged to flourish.”
Also, the Bishop of Norwich, the Rt. Rev. Graham James, warned that the consecration of women bishops would be damaging to the episcopate and only lead to further divisions.
“I believe that women should and will be ordained to the episcopate but what I see before me in the proposed legislation is an episcopate so damaged and fractured as to be scarcely worthy of the name,” James stated. “I cannot see what amendments would render this legislation satisfactory.”
Synod members now have until March 16 to submit proposed amendments for consideration by the revision committee. The full revision process will take years, however, and the Church of England said the first woman bishop would not be consecrated until at least 2014.
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Leaders of evangelical churches in the Middle East unanimously voted Tuesday in favor of a statement supporting the ordination of women as pastors.
The statement, drafted on the spot in response to a report by the group’s theology committee, was passed by the 29 voting delegates, including two females, during the Sixth General Assembly of the Fellowship of the Middle East Evangelical Churches, reported Allison Schmitt of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land.
FMEEC’s theology committee stated that it found no biblical or theological reasons to oppose female ordination. The Fellowship includes evangelical Anglican, Lutheran and Reformed churches in the Middle East.
Bishop Munib A. Younan, FMEEC president and bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, crafted the statement in Arabic.
An English translation reads: “The Sixth General Assembly supports the ordination of the women in our churches in the position of ordained pastor and her partnership with men as an equal partner in decision making. Therefore we call on member churches to take leading steps in this concern.”
Younan commented on the historic vote by pointing out that the Fellowship’s action translates to its 16 member churches being encouraged to ordain women as pastors, according to ELCJHL.
Though the ordination of women as pastors is a bold move for a religious group in the Middle East, a region where women are generally seen as subservient to men, the practice is more acceptable in the United States.
Several major denominations in the United States allow the ordination of women, including The Episcopal Church, which has a woman as its presiding bishop, and The United Methodist Church, among others. But several conservative denominations in the country point to the Bible as support for their argument that women should not hold positions of authority over men. These denominations include the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest protestant group in America, the Presbyterian Church in America, and others.
This week’s FMEEC General Assembly took place Jan. 11-13 in Lebanon. The conference brought together about 70 church leaders.
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By John Piper
Should women become pastors?
The Bible draws a connection between the home and the church. Just as there is a role distinction at home—where the husband is called to lead the family—there is also one at church.
At home men are proving their fitness to be elders (pastors), and at church they are the ones who are given that role. Paul says explicitly, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man” (1 Timothy 2:12). And those two functions-teaching and exercising authority-are the functions of the elder.
It’s not a problem for a woman to minister in hundreds of ways in the church, but the office of leadership and teaching of men is preserved for spiritual and godly men.
Why didn’t Jesus choose women as some of his apostles?
The Twelve are all men. That was intentional, because they are all given incredible authority to found the church. They are like pastors, only they have more authority than pastors.
But Jesus did call women, and he called them into significant ministry. Read the beginning of Luke 8 or see the role of women at the Resurrection. Jesus broke significant taboos in the way that he elevated the role of women. It was counter-cultural to have Mary sitting at his feet learning like a rabbinic student at the feet of his teacher. And it was counter-cultural for him to have women so closely attending him, providing for his needs, and for him to be so merciful to the women of the street.
Jesus was pro-woman to the max. But he did not choose women to be apostles. That wasn’t because he was enslaved to his times. It was because, in coherence with the rest of the Bible (Genesis 1-2, Ephesians 5, 1 Corinthians 11, and 1 Timothy 2), he believed that it would be healthy for the church and the family if men assumed the role of Christ-like, humble, caring, servant-leaders, and if the women came in alongside with their respective gifts to help carry his leadership through according to those gifts.
So I sympathize with any confusion on this matter, and I pray that the Lord would give you light to see that it’s really not very complicated: God has ordained that in the home and in the church men assume a special role of responsible leadership and teaching.
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Wrong reading of controversial biblical texts on women can harm the perception of females, according to one church body.
“If the language of the Bible is not understood in today’s terms, some passages can be used to allow excluding women from church leadership,” said Patricia Sheerattan-Bisnauth.
Head of the World Communion of Reformed Churches’ program for Gender Justice and Partnership, Sheerattan-Bisnauth pointed to biblical passages, such as 1 Corinthians 14: 33-34 where it says to keep women silent in church, that “can harm women when they are used to justify enforced submission of women to male authority.”
In the wake of International Women’s Day on Tuesday, WCRC is supporting an appeal from a Christian communication organization for increased attention on the effects of words and images used in the media against women.
“We agree with [the World Association for Christian Communication] that words mold perceptions that can harm women and deny them their rights,” said Sheerattan-Bisnauth.
From its Toronto office, the WACC, in partnership with UNESCO’s annual Women Make the News campaign, released a statement last Friday, saying: “The concept of women’s communication rights includes the right to fair and balanced representation in and through the media.
“Critical media literacy from a gender perspective, the ability to analyze media content with a gender lens, is a tool through which audiences can contribute towards this end.”
She expressed support for WACC’s campaign to foster media and information literate societies as a way of improving gender perspectives. Sharing in this need to analyze with a gender lens, Sheerattan-Bisnauth applied the perspective to understanding and following biblical teaching.
“It is necessary for church women and men to learn to read the Bible in the context of their economic, social, political, and cultural reality,” she expressed.
The Guyanese theologian is also urging churches to encourage openness to women’s interpretation of Scripture and ensure that their voices are heard in theological seminaries and in local parishes.
The Gender Justice and Partnership program at WCRC addresses the need for men and women to work in partnership, with the understanding that both were created by God, redeemed by Christ, and gifted by the Spirit without distinction or partiality.
Enabling churches to work for the transformation of gender relationships and partnerships is the main purpose of the program.
Their objectives are to challenge patriarchy, enable churches to name and address gender injustices, strengthen women’s participation in the ecumenical movement, promote positive masculinities, and facilitate transformation and renewal of church and society.
Hoping to provide a more inclusive understanding of the Bible, the Gender Justice and Partnership program is sponsoring a project in the Caribbean region to develop new models for Bible study that are to be published later this year in a manual titled “Righting Her-Story: Caribbean Women Encounter the Bible Story.”
Toni-Ann Brodber, a representative from UN Women, attended a recent Caribbean workshop in Grenada to test new models for Bible study and revealed the critical contribution of faith-based communities in eradicating violence against women.
Brodber expressed interest in supporting a campaign for action against violence that is connected to the Bible study project.
Marie-Claude Julsaint of the YWCA also said the project would be very useful for exploring a theological approach to issues of sexual and reproductive health and rights, and HIV and violence against women.
The Bible studies are just one step toward resisting injustices against women and spreading awareness of fallible gender-biased movements, according to the church body.
This year marks the centennial anniversary of International Women’s Day, celebrating how far women have come in their struggle for equality, peace and development and creating more opportunities to unite, network, and mobilize women all over the world.
Secretary-Genreal Ban Ki-moon, in his annual message addressed this year, declared, “Only through women’s full and equal participation in all areas of public and private life can we hope to achieve the sustainable, peaceful and just society promised in the United Nations Charter.”
WCRC represents 80 million Reformed Christians in 108 countries around the world. It links Presbyterian, Reformed, Congregational, Waldensian, United and Uniting churches.
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An evangelical woman from Tennessee is set to complete her one-year commitment to follow all of the Bible’s instructions for women as literally as possible, including camping out in the backyard during her monthly period, and then come out with a book to promote gender equality.
In less than a month, Rachel Held Evans, a Christian author and blogger from Dayton, Tenn., will be ready to put final touches on her experimental memoir, tentatively titled A Year of Biblical Womanhood, to be published by Thomas Nelson next year.
The book will carry her experience of obeying the “Biblical Woman’s Ten Commandments” for one year since Oct. 1, 2010.
These commandments, identified by Evans from Old Testament to New, include Thou shalt submit to thy husband’s will in all things, Thou shalt devote thyself to the duties of the home, Thou shalt mother, Thou shalt dress modestly, Thou shalt cover thy head when in prayer, Thou shalt not cut thy hair, Thou shalt not teach in church, Thou shalt not gossip, and Thou shalt not have authority over a man.
“Some practices I will observe just once,” she says on her blog. “Others I will observe all year. Throughout the experiment, the Biblical Woman’s Ten Commandments will serve as a guide for daily living.”
Her husband, Dan, Evans says, naturally likes it. But her purpose is to promote egalitarianism in the Church, or the view that all people are equal before God and in Christ, have equal responsibility to use their gifts and obey their calling to the glory of God, and are called to roles and ministries irrespective of class, gender, or race.
Evans says for the past few years she’s been hearing a lot about gender roles as evangelical theologians debate the place of women in the home, church, and society, referring to the Kentucky-based Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and Christians for Biblical Equality, which promotes complementarianism, or the view that men and women have different but complementary roles.
While “biblical womanhood” is widely hailed as the ideal, there is no agreement on what it exactly means, complains Evans, the author of Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions. “Women like me receive mixed messages about how to honor God with our decisions.”
“Eighty years after the Scopes Monkey Trial (a landmark lawsuit in 1925) made a spectacle of Christian fundamentalism and brought national attention to her hometown, Rachel Held Evans faced a trial of her own when she began to have doubts about her faith,” says the publisher, Zondervan, about her first book.
“Growing up in a culture obsessed with apologetics, Evans asks questions she never thought she would ask. She learns that in order for her faith to survive in a postmodern context, it must adapt to change and evolve.”
Evans got the “crazy idea” for her second book in the shower one morning.
“What if I tried it all? What if took the notion of biblical womanhood literally, no picking and choosing? And what if I wrote a book about it?”
Evans says there are times when the Bible touches her, but there are also times when the Bible troubles her, and at times the Bible confounds her. “As an interpreter, I acknowledge that my understanding of the Bible’s meaning is fallible.”
She says she doesn’t intend to belittle or mock the Bible, “but to creatively investigate our application of it.” “I strongly support women at all levels of leadership in the church, and am suspicious of anyone who would claim that the Bible presents just one ‘right way’ to be woman.”
Evans’ book will not only narrate her own experiences, it will also carry examples of modern-day women incorporating ancient practices into their own lives – “a polygamist, a conservative Mennonite, an Orthodox Jew, a Quiverfull mom, a ‘stay-at-home daughter,’ and more.”
“I’ve done lots of research, combing through feminist, complementarian, and egalitarian commentaries, and actively seeking out Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant perspectives on each issue,” she says. “And of course I’ve read the Bible, cover to cover, isolating and examining every verse I can find about mothers, daughters, sisters wives, widows, queens, and prophetesses.”
Evans says she is willing to learn with an “open mind” as she researches key gender issues.
“It’s unlikely that I will change my overall egalitarian position, but I suspect that I will learn some things I wasn’t expecting to learn.” But she does intend to explore “what you might call the ‘dark underbelly’ of biblical womanhood.”
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By John Piper
I’m a guy. Is it wrong for me to listen to Beth Moore?
No. Unless you begin to become dependent on her as your shepherd—your pastor.
[KH: What is the boundary of following their advice?]
This is the way I feel about women speaking occasionally in Sunday school. We don’t need to be picky on this. The Bible is clear that women shouldn’t teach and have authority over men. In context, I think this means that women shouldn’t be the authoritative teachers of the church—they shouldn’t be elders. That is the way Rick Warren is understanding it, and most of us understand it that way.
This doesn’t mean you can’t learn from a woman, or that she is incompetent and can’t think. It means that there is a certain dynamic between maleness and femaleness that when a woman begins to assume an authoritative teaching role in your life the manhood of a man and the womanhood of a woman is compromised.
What I just said is unbelievably controversial. There are thousands, even millions of people that think this idea is absolutely obscene. That is the language people used back in the 70’s when I was fighting battles over biblical manhood and womanhood. It isn’t obscene. It is recognized profoundly in a lot of young people today, as well as older people.
To the question of whether men should listen to a woman like Elisabeth Elliot-who was the Beth Moore of my generation. Elisabeth Elliot provoked students to be lay down your life missionaries. I love it! Sock it to them Elisabeth! She was so in your face about laying your life down and being radically obedient and totally committed. She was not a pastor, and she didn’t even preach on Sunday mornings. She is my kind of lady. I can learn heaps from her.
I want to learn from my wife and I am happy to learn from Beth Moore. But I don’t want to get into a relationship of listening or attending a church where a woman is becoming my pastor, my shepherd or my authority. I think that would be an unhealthy thing for a man to do. I could give reasons for that biblically, experientially and psychologically, but I have given the gist of it.
So the answer is, no it is not wrong for you to listen to Beth Moore, but it could become wrong. I think Beth Moore would be happy with that answer. I’ve talked to her about this, and I think she would be OK with what I’ve said. Our paths cross at the Passion Conference every now and then, and we talk.
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