Musings on Women in the Pulpit

Yesterday a family friend invited us to a service at the church to which she belongs - the only Assembly of God church in town. We accepted. It was nothing definite, just "Sometime we'll try to go". I think we'll try to make an evening service some Sunday.

Our children are young and impressionable, so I had to make sure this church would be suitably in line with our family's beliefs. So as soon as I could I checked out the Assemblies of God website. What was most important? The views of the church on Scripture? A biggie, but I already had a pretty good idea of that, so I skipped it. The church's views on sexual morality? No. The first thing I looked at was the one great, make-or-break issue (well, almost): Do the Assemblies of God ordain women to the pastoral ministry?

Is womens' ordination really that important? Well, yes.
But it wasn't always this way. My mother, a devoted Catholic, was almost violently against the idea of women priests. Since Catholic doctrine teaches that the priest is alter Christi another Christ, a female priest was, to her, to make God into a goddess.

I really didn't care. I felt no calling to the ministry. I once told my mother, "I can't see why a woman would want to be a priest. Nor why a man would, either." With little human companionship and almost no time to himself, only parishioners who were never happy no matter what he did, a priest had to be an insatible masochist.

The young seminarians I met did not improve my view of the priesthood. Most were young gay men trying to escape their sexuality and be pleasing to God.

I loved the Catholic Church, and I read everything I could find. As I grew and learned, I came to see that as a Catholic woman I would always be a second-class citizen. I could teach canon law (if the Pope of the time would allow) but I could never write canon law. No matter how I studied or how much ability I possessed I would never be anything but a layperson, the lowest form of life in the Church. I could serve in an advisory capacity as a parish council member but the priest would always be the boss. Even a deacon has imput at the parish level. Even if God were to bless me with the blueprint to reform the Church, I could only pray that He would give this idea to a man.

Later I left the Catholic Church. My reasons were many but women's ordination wasn't one of them. For a time I attended an Episcopal church. This was the first time I actually saw a woman in the pulpit.

I recently read a blog in which the blogger wrote that he saw many women preachers, but seldom a good one. My experience was the opposite. The few times I saw a woman at the altar I expected something extraordinary, and I was never disappointed.

The Episcopal church is still my first love, and I miss it terribly. But I live in a small Texas town, and the nearest one is fifteen miles away, too far to afford the drive. The Methodist church is one of the few un-Southern-Baptist churches around, so we attend that. The minister is a man. The minister is a man. I've never seen a woman minister here. I'm not sure the most conservative members wouldn't stone her. But I can dream.

Most of all I want a church where my daughter won't feel silenced and unworthy, like some other women I've known. If she never feels a call to the ministry, that's fine. But if she should, I want her to be able to follow wherever God takes her. I want her to be a first-class citizen in the Kingdom of God.