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Women in Church Leadership
Linda McKinnish Bridges[*]
Carolyn Osiek, Catholic New Testament scholar, poses the question that prompted the creation of this article (and, likewise, my own personal quest ):
When women today in Christian communities become aware of their situation within a patriarchal religious institution, and, moreover, when they recognize that the Bible is a major implement for maintaining the oppression of the patriarchal structure, what are the ways in which they respond and adjust to that situation?1
For those of us, Baptist daughters in particular, who have loved the Church and its sacred writings, and yet who have been disenfranchised because of the laws of the Church and the mandated interpretations of Scripture, this question is very, very troubling.2
To realize that religious institutions have both the power to bless and curse, to heal and to wound, to build up and tear down is a level of spiritual maturity some of us can only pray to grasp.3 Some of us never arrive at that level of insight; some of us defect. Some, however, stay within the walls of the church and try to understand and change the system from within, sometimes called "defecting in place." And of course, for some women, the question is never even asked in the first place, and life is lived without awareness of religious constraints on women=s freedom.
When faced with the reality of the oppressive religious system, whatever that system might be, some Baptist daughters have said, "Just forget it, I will leave." And many have. Many Southern Baptist women, both lay and clergy, have moved on to denominational structures more open to women, such as Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopal, or United Church of Christ. Others have transformed their ministerial call from the church steeple to the bustling marketplace, where women are more accepted in the world of finance, marketing, law, or real estate. Others, without clergy aspirations, yet serving as important leaders within the community in medical or legal professions, business owners, government officials, have found closed doors within the walls of the church and have left traditional religion. Who can blame them? The marketplace provides her opportunities for expanded growth in leadership; but when she comes to church on Sunday, she cannot even lead in public prayer, much less serve as chair of the finance committee.
On the other hand, some women have chosen to remain within the system of religious patriarchy and work to establish change from the inside. This is never easy. The Women's Missionary Union can attest to the conflicted demands of that position. To work within the system demands a clear sense of self and a vivid memory of one's calling. To remain spiritually healthy within the patriarchal walls forces reexamination of the issues, such as biblical hermeneutics, the meaning of church, leadership theory, sociological analysis of change, as well as lots and lots of prayer. For women who wrestle with these issues, either from outside the walls of the Church or quietly (or not-so-quietly) on the inside, this article is for you. For men who know something is wrong but cannot place words on the points of gender injustice, this article is for you. For one who needs to create words to match feelings of rage, anger, excitement, conviction, and hopefulness, this article is for me.
The Church and Women
Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza began a recent lecture by commenting on the slogan, "The Church in Solidarity with Women," the theme of the World Council of Churches for this decade. In her wonderful German accent, she said, "What I would like to know is: Who is the Church?"4 We, the audience, comprised of both women and men, clergy and lay, laughed. Then in private reflection, I wanted to cry. I really heard what she and this familiar slogan were revealing. When first hearing about the WCC emphasis several years ago, I was simply content to know that at least some religious body was recognizing over half of the world's population. I had not yet realized the dangerously revealing dichotomy of women and church inherent in the seemingly innocent slogan. Are women not considered a part of the Church so that the Church would have to make a point in their public slogan to identify her in relationship to the Church, as if she were a separate entity apart from the Church? Was this seemingly innocent theme revealing the stark and sad reality that the Church truly did not consider women as part of the body of Christ?
Glenn Hinson probes in the same general direction when he titled his1975 Review and Expositor article, "The Church: Liberator or Oppressor of Women?"5 Hinson writes: "Women have exercised leadership in the Christian mission despite the Church's failure to recognize their actual roles." While the institutional Church would not admit women in its ranks ( see the institutional gender requirements found in the Pastoral Epistles), the early Christian mission was organized by women (i.e., Phoebe, Lydia, Junia, and others listed as Paul's co-laborers in Romans 16). The most visible distinction between the Christian mission and the organized Church is that the former includes women and the latter excludes them.
The dichotomy is clear, then and now. On one level, women are very involved in the life of the Church. We organize the social functions, provide educational services, and support the work of missions. On another level, we are not at all involved in the life of the Church. We give money; but we cannot even receive the offering in public worship. We visit the sick; but we cannot serve as deacon. We raise money for mission; but we cannot chair the Finance Committee. We preach; but we cannot pastor.
Why? Are there two aspects of Church, one public and one private? Does the religious code support private religious expressions of women but prohibit public leadership roles? Why? Does that not place the work of God's created giftCthe fellowship of believers--in a tremendously awkward position? To think that God's gift, the Church, is more concerned about its public imageCthe ecclesiastical structureCthan the propagation of the GospelCits Christian missionCis not surprising in many ways, but nonetheless very distressful. It is time for reflection on this painful dichotomy and hopefully, a time of repentance. To tease the conversation into our consciousness and to enlist public discussion, I offer this proposal: The Church intentionally excised women's leadership from religious life in order to be culturally relevant; now the Church must welcome her daughters home in order to be spiritually effective. The first part of this article underscores the Church's transgression; the second half suggests ways of redemption for women and the religious tradition.
The "Lydia Phase"
Women's leadership in the Church is not a modern, political phenomenon attributed only to the twentieth-century feminist movement. No, women were there in the first hours of the birth of the early Church. These early hours of both the Jesus movement and then later the Pauline mission were energized by the presence of women leaders. As the hours moved into months and years, however, women's leadership was excised, and, for women, that exclusion remains a curse both in the political and ecclesiastical sectors.
The "Lydia phase"Cthat moment in the genesis of a religious movement where women's leadership is valuedCwas short-lived in the history of the Church, in whatever text one is reading, either the New Testament or modern church development.6 The inevitable occurs as the movement organizes; the value of women leaders becomes undermined and sacrificed in order to create a legitimate institutional persona. In the New Testament story of church development, the early Church, who remembered the actions of Jesus and watched the work of church leaders, Lydia and Phoebe, intentionally distanced itself from the role of women by the time of Clement and the writing of the Pastoral Epistles. The inevitable result was that the Church, who has the power to bless and curse, attempted to erase all traces of the feminine in order to gain social acceptance and legitimacy as a masculine church, which in turn, attracted the power structures of society. This moment of capitulation, in effect, cursed women and barred their full inclusion into the life of the Church and society.
Ellizabeth Cady Stanton, leader of the women's right to vote movement in the early nineteenth century, knew the power of organized religion against the freedom of women. She, along with Susan B. Anthony, campaigned for gender equity in the world of politics, organizing the first Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848. Even with their savvy political strategies, polished campaign rhetoric, and tireless lobbying efforts, these suffragists acknowledged that women would never truly be free until the Church established her freedom. The early suffragette Stanton wrote: " . . . as I have passed from the political to the religious phase of this question, I now see more clearly than ever, that the arch enemy to women's freedom skulks behind the altar."7[ ]
Stanton and Anthony were saying that even if women do vote ( which finally happened in 1920 when the XIX Amendment was ratified) and participate in civic affairs, a shadow still lingers over woman's full freedom in society until the Church blesses her by welcoming her daughters home. To understand that the Church began because of the leadership of women and that the institutional Church excised their participation for political gain and cultural acceptance could be the beginning of this homecoming movement. The Church repents, and then the daughters come home.
Three stories illustrate the transgression of the Church as the religious movement intentionally left the "Lydia phase" behind, excising women from leadership positions, in order to become acceptable by cultural standards. The genesis of the "Lydia phase" belongs to the story of the church (es) as reflected in the New Testament, seen in the transformation from the Jesus tradition to the Church as reflected in the Pastoral Epistles. The history of the Celtic Christian Church also documents a "Lydia phase," where women leaders who led Irish Christianity were excised by the tenth century by a hierarchical Roman Church that demanded only celibate males. Baptists of the South, likewise, have our own "Lydia phase," located in the preacher-woman Martha Stearns Marshall in the Sandy Creek tradition of 1755 that evolved to a male-only organizational structure in 1845Cthe Southern Baptist Convention. These three stories are by no means the only illustrations. Many, many others exist.8[ ]
The "Lydia Phase" in the New Testament: From Lydia to Clement
Jesus elevated women. This fact cannot be denied. When one reads the gospel stories of Jesus and women in light of the first-century patriarchal context, Jesus' acts toward women are seen as culturally subversive responses of personal redemption and social change. Jesus opposed the gender constructions of the first-century world. First-century culture denounced women; women announced Jesus' resurrection ( Luke 24:10). First century-culture mandated that women could not converse with men in public; Jesus meets a Samaritan woman at a well for deep theological discourse (John 4). Menstruating women were considered unclean; Jesus was touched by a bleeding woman and healed (Mark 5:25-34). Stories abound in the Gospels of Jesus' willingness to deviate from cultural conventions and values women.9[ ]
The early Christian missionary movement was led by women and men.10 Fiorenza states that "we recognize that the Pauline and the post-Pauline literature know of women not merely as rich patronesses of the Christian missionary movement but as prominent leaders and missionaries whoCin their own rightCtoiled for the gospel."11 The Hellenistic Christians gather in the house of a woman named Mary in Jerusalem (Acts 12:12-17). Lydia is the first convert in Europe and serves the church in Philippi (16:14). Many prominent women listen to the missionaries and are converted in Thessalonica (17:4). The Acts of Paul and Thecla, written in the second century, reveal that Thecla had definite authority to preach, teach, and baptize as an early missionary in the beginning of the Christian movement.
The house church and the theological understanding reflected in Galatians 3:28 foster women's leadership in the early missionary movement. The church meets in private spaceCthe home. The first-century woman is at home here, less comfortable in public arenas. She can lead the church because the movement bears the imprint of family. The physical architecture of the first-century church is domestic, familiar, and closely related to life and family. Furthermore, the theological energy for the movement is summarized by Paul: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free; there is neither male nor female." The impetus for women's leadership comes from the very heart of the movementCwhich is to create a comfortable setting where people can hear the gospel of freedom and be saved. And women could do that extremely well.
The goals would soon change. Soon fear of heresy imposed another structure on the walls of the early Church. The comfortable, familiar surroundings of hymns and prayers of the Christian house church were surrounded by thick, organizational walls of orthodoxy. Read some of the new understandings of church as reflected in the early second century in 1 Timothy 3:1-13: "Now a bishop must be above reproach, the husband of one wife , . . . he must manage his own household well, keeping his children submissive and respectful in every way , . . . he must not be a recent convert, . . . ." Even Paul and Jesus, much less Lydia, could not have been leaders in this church, if marital status, gender, and years spent as Christian were to be requirements for the job. The landscape changed. It was inevitable. The demands of the opposition forced a clearer, tighter vision of the faith as the words, "guard," "hold fast," "command," "doctrine," dot the literary landscape of 1-2 Timothy and Titus. Authority originally invested in the community by the Holy Spirit was exchanged for power vested by a few local officers, "whoCin timeCabsorb not only the teaching authority of the prophet and apostle but also the decision-making power of the community."12 The early Church becomes stratified according to the standards of the culture. Gender divisions, never intended to belong to the movement, became codifed in the leader descriptions of the early second-century Church. Traces of the feminine were erased.