Should women be ordained?

Despite the fact that gender equality is the topic of the day, religious beliefs can intersect and conflict with social justice issues. They can complicate the values that may seem to be straightforward to many.

The issue of women’s ordination in the Christian faith is debated between different denominations. While some denominations ordain women (establishing them as pastors and in other important roles within the church), and have done so for many years, other denominations only allow male leaders.

Though the list doesn’t address all denominations, this article discusses the different denominations that either allow or restrict women from ordination, and lists a National Congregations Study that surveyed about 11 precent of both Christian and non-Christian communities in 2012 with a head clergy person who was a woman. This statistic seems far from a balanced figure for both male and female leaders, but how necessary do Christians specifically think that this balance is? I talked to both sides of the spectrum: an ordained female pastor in my church at home, and a friend who is a Catholic college student who disagrees with female ordination.

My friend, who I will call Kate to protect her privacy, started out with a clarification of the term ordination, which can mean something different to those in different denominations of Christianity. While some Protestant denominations use the term ordination “more generally as the acceptance of a person for pastoral work,” other denominations including the Roman Catholic Church see it as “the means by which a person is included in one of the orders of bishops, priests or deacons.” However, for Catholic denominations, ordination is different from the process where both men and women can be consecrated to religious orders, such as nuns and monks.

Kate’s opinions against women’s ordination mirror those of Pope Francis. Though he refuses to open the ranks of clergy to women, he also “wants to see a ‘greater role’ for women in Catholicism, including participation in the ‘important decisions…where the authority of the Church is exercised’.” In terms of women gaining the same roles as men through ordination in the Catholic Church, Kate notes “the reason that the Catholic Church can’t ordain women doesn’t have anything to do with the capacity of a woman, or what it is believed that she can or cannot do in comparison to a man.”

Since “Jesus did not include women among his original 12 apostles…the Church is compelled to follow that example, restricting the priesthood today to men.” Kate mirrored this belief that “the priesthood…is linked to the actions of Christ while He was on earth.”

Kate also notes that these biblical disagreements between denominations on these subjects stem back to include other differences of beliefs, such as how the Eucharist, or communion, is viewed. The differences between beliefs about the Eucharist include whether or not it is Christ’s Real Presence, and can influence the disagreements about women’s ordination, as they are part of the reason that there is a difference in belief systems in the first place.

I then interviewed Rev. Sheri, who is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, a Protestant denomination. As an ordained minister, Sheri supports the ordination of other women, stating “If I was not convinced that God had called me to ordained ministry, then I would not have been ordained.”

Interestingly, Sheri also cites examples from scripture to bolster her ideas on why women should be ordained. One verse that comes up often in her defense of women’s ordination is Galatians 3:28, “In Christ there is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female. All are on in Christ Jesus.”

In addition, Sheri also sent me an article citing examples from the Bible where women were in positions of power within the church. According to this article, there was a woman apostle, Junia, mentioned in Romans 16:7, who has remained somewhat unrecognized due to the masculinizing of her name in the 13th century. The article also includes biblical references to women serving as prophets, evangelists, and teachers, presenting the New Testament as a wellspring of references to the importance of women in leadership roles.

So, what does all of this mean?

Both women recognize that there are different roles women can play in a religious context. The article that Sheri sent me references women serving in many different roles, not just as apostles. Kate argues that even though women shouldn’t be ordained, their voices should still be heard and their talents should still be utilized, something she personally finds somewhat lacking currently. Additionally, Kate also sent me a link to a letter by Pope John Paul II, specifically addressing “the dignity and vocation of women.” While Kate might not agree with Sheri that women should be in the same leadership roles as men, her opinions stem from tradition, and not from a place of thinking that women are any less important than men. In Kate’s words, “Equal doesn’t always mean the exact same.”

What I found the most interesting was that, despite their differing views, Sheri and Kate both seemed to recognize the inequality between women and men in the Christian faith and in leadership roles. What was different was simply their way of addressing it. To quote Sheri: “The Church has always been adapting to meet the needs of each new generation. The difficult part is knowing what things can be changed and what truths are eternal and unchanging.

“To make those decisions we need to look at scripture and rely on the Holy Spirit to guide us in interpreting those scriptures. That’s the difficult work of the church and because we lack perfect knowledge, I suspect there will always be differences in opinions and differing practices.”