{"id":18590,"date":"2023-08-11T10:25:43","date_gmt":"2023-08-11T14:25:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?p=18590"},"modified":"2023-08-15T17:47:47","modified_gmt":"2023-08-15T21:47:47","slug":"should-more-women-be-in-church-leadership-positions-churches-face-a-growing-trend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2023\/08\/should-more-women-be-in-church-leadership-positions-churches-face-a-growing-trend","title":{"rendered":"Should More Women be in Church Leadership Positions? Churches Face a Growing Trend"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_18638\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-18638\" style=\"width: 768px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2023\/08\/woman-preacher-02_credit-lightstock-scaled.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-18638\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2023\/08\/woman-preacher-02_credit-lightstock-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"768\" height=\"576\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-18638\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lightstock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Since the highly publicized <\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2023\/06\/southern-baptist-convention-amends-constitution-to-confirm-office-of-pastor-for-men-only\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">ouster<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0of Rick Warren\u2019s Saddleback Church from the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) over its ordination of female pastors, the role of women in the church has been facing growing scrutiny.\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/2023\/07\/30\/us\/women-church-leadership-united-states-cec\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">CNN<\/span><\/em><\/a><em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0<\/span><\/em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">noted that more women are entering seminary and filling pastoral roles in churches that do ordain women. 40% of ordained pastors in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ECLA), which began ordaining women in 1970, are women. Alexis Abernethy, chief academic officer at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, says it is a needed change. \u201cWomen \u2014 and men \u2014 in the church have seen abuse and suffering. They\u2019ve seen the role of the patriarchy in the church. They want to address constructively some of these challenges that have been facing both the church and our society. They\u2019re saying, \u2018Enough of this. We need to be different.\u2019 So, I think a lot of these women are marshaling energy in that direction.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Abernathy says the landscape for female pastors has also changed. \u201cThe question used to be whether women should even be pastors, but that\u2019s not as critical a question any more in some denominations. Now the question is, how can we make the environment in which women are pastors more fruitful, productive and supportive?\u201d She stated that due to their marginalized position in church history, women have a unique opportunity as they seek more positions of authority. \u201cPower and privilege are not always a bad thing. Sometimes it can mean the opportunity to speak and share your perspective. Folks who\u2019ve been marginalized or oppressed have a clearer radar regarding things like power and when it\u2019s abusive or when people are being excluded. At their best, they would then not set up systems that perpetuate that exclusion \u2014 although that requires courage and energy, and people need to be attentive to that fact.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The battle over female leadership in churches could be framed as a progressive vs. conservative battle as well. The <\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/short-reads\/2016\/03\/02\/women-relatively-rare-in-top-positions-of-religious-leadership\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Pew Research Center<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0listed a number of denominations that allow women in leadership positions. Among the Protestant denominations were the ECLA, the United Methodist Church, the Episcopal Church, and the Presbyterian church- denominations that have gone on to allow or support traditionally liberal causes, such as gay marriage and abortion. Churches that do not have women in leadership tend to trend more conservatively, such as the Roman Catholic Church, the Southern Baptist Convention, and Orthodox Churches, all churches that have fairly strong prohibitions against gay marriage and abortion.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"> The split between whether or not women should serve in leadership positions comes from the interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:12, where Paul writes, \u201cI do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.\u201d (ESV).\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/churchleaders.com\/pastors\/456017-women-god-called-god-gifted.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Paul David Tripp<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">, a popular writer on Christian mental health and family issues, wrote that the role of women is more expansive than simply whether or not they can preach in church. Although he agreed with the idea that the role of a pastor is for a man, he stated that it is important for churches to value their women\u2019s gifts. \u201cA body of Christ is healthiest when women are esteemed and their gifts highly valued, not just in the home but also in the church,\u201d he wrote. \u201cThe church needs highly trained women theologians. The church needs to give voices to gifted gospel-communicating women. We need to encourage gospel-wise women to write. To do anything less fails to treat women with the honor that was stamped on them at creation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since the highly publicized ouster\u00a0of Rick Warren\u2019s Saddleback Church from the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) over its ordination of female pastors, the role of women in the church has been facing growing scrutiny.\u00a0CNN\u00a0noted that more women are entering seminary and filling pastoral roles in churches that do ordain women. 40% of ordained pastors in the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":664,"featured_media":18638,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Should More Women be in Church Leadership Positions? Churches Face a Growing Trend<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Many churches discuss the topic of women in leadership roles.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2023\/08\/should-more-women-be-in-church-leadership-positions-churches-face-a-growing-trend\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Should More Women be in Church Leadership Positions? 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