The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life features this graphic that illustrates the gender gap in religion. As you can see, women measure significantly higher in each of these categories.
I would suspect that any of you who attend a mainline Christian church have noticed that the Sunday morning worship crowd at your church consistently has more women than men. I would even speculate that the same is true in Evangelical churches.
With all of this, I am still astounded at how often church groups refuse to allow women to be in positions of leadership in the church. And, yes, I know the Biblical verses used to support such a prohibition, but I have serious questions about that entire process of interpretation.
What about your church? Could a woman serve as your minister? Could a woman be in a position of church leadership? If your church called a woman to serve in such capacities, would you stay?
Friday, February 27, 2009
Gender and Religion
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
My husband and I recently moved our membership to a Methodist church that allows both men and women to use their God-given talents. What a sense of freedom and purpose I have now!
As a lifelong Southern Baptist, I accepted that I would seldom be able to hold a leadership position in a church if a man was available to do so. Now I lead workshops and training sessions for men and women. I've been invited to be a leader various church-wide initiatives, and I've listened to some extremely gifted women preach. While the pastor is a male, he turns over the pulpit frequently to assistant pastors, two of which are female.
Can you imagine how valued I feel? How wonderful it is to be able to use my particular strengths in God's service? So . . . this whole issue is not just about women pastors, it's about allowing everyone to have a place of service and contribute to the Christian community.
Anne Jolly
Post a Comment