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I. THE PROTESTANT CHURCHES
by James H. Smylie (see biography)
from The Ordination of Women: Pro and Con, pp.
82-99,
edited by Michael P.Hamilton and Nancy S.Montgomery, Morehouse
Barlow Co, 1975.
Republished on our website with the necessary
permissions.
At
the women's rights convention held in the little Wesleyan chapel, at Seneca
Falls, New York, in 1848, those in attendance condemned men for the usurpation
of ecclesiastical power. One of the complaints in the famous “Declaration
of Sentiments” reads:
He
allows her in Church, . . . but in a subordinate position, claiming Apostolic
authority for her exclusion from the ministry, and, with some exceptions, from
any public participation in the affairs of the Church.(1)
In
1853, just five years after the appearance of this paraphrase of the American
Declaration of Independence, Antoinette Louisa Brown was ordained as the
minister of the First Congregational Church in Wayne County, New York.
She
was the first ordained woman minister of a major denomination in the United
States. She sought and obtained ordination despite hostility from family and
from faculty which had reluctantly trained her in theology at Oberlin College.
She also suffered the slights and slurs of her fellowministers. Because of
growing hostility toward the religious conservatism of her congregation, she
requested dismissal from her pulpit in 1854 and, finally, became a
Unitarian.(2)
The
hurt felt by the sisterhood for being excluded from the ordained ministry of
the church is an old hurt. The history of women within our major denominations,
from the early part of the nineteenth century to the present, has been a
struggle to gain recognition of the right of women to ordination. It has been a
struggle to gain acceptance and support within denominations of a woman's right
to follow God's call and use God's gifts in the Christian ministry. In the
following brief survey I would like to trace this history and experience in
three representative denominations—the United Church of Christ, the United
Methodist Church and the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of
America—and to suggest some implications for denominations which still do
not ordain women.(3)
I
Antoinette Brown was ordained in 1853, well over one hundred years ago. The
conflict over whether or not to ordain women to the ministry is a long one.
Some ecclesiastical bodies have been ordaining women to ministry for a long
time and these churches have accumulated a fund of experience with regard to
this matter. In the past, the ordination of women has taken place most often
among denominations which designate themselves as “pentacostal” or
“holiness,” and place an emphasis on being filled with the Holy
Spirit or on a sanctified life. Unitarians and Universalists have been liberal
in the ordination of women.(4) These denominations are congregational in
polity. In a congregational system it is the congregation which has the right
to determine the qualification for ministry and who has the right to be
ordained. The ordination of women in denominations with episcopal or
presbyterian systems has come about only after a long debate to persuade the
highest governing body of the denomination, with jurisdiction over the
standards and/or the process of ordination, to include women among those who
may be ordained. Since the right to ordain is shared often with local
conferences and presbyteries, these local bodies have been catalysts in forcing
denominations to face the issue and extend ordination to women. It should be
noted that, in the episcopal and presbyterian systems, there are different
orders of clergy and laity which allow some participation within the structures
of the denomination while not granting the full rights of clergy. Women have
been admitted to these lower offices prior to the change of rules about
ordination to ministry. This history is illustrated in developments over the
years among Congregationalists, Methodists, and Presbyterians.
The
United Church of Christ, in its present composition, is the result of decades
of ecumenical endeavor. This brought together the Congregational and Christian
Churches in 1931, and the Congregational Christian Churches with the
Evangelical and Reformed Church in 1957. In the older Congregational tradition
with roots in Puritan New England, the male dominated denomination did not
approve of the ordination of women. Women had to stay in their God-designated
sphere, or risk permanent damage to their character.(5) Despite the arguments
of the clergy on biblical, theological and social grounds, a number of
congregations proceeded to ordain women, especially after such schools as
Oberlin began to admit women for theological education. Apparently these
ordained women suffered from benign neglect until the pressures of the women's
suffrage movement in the early decades of the twentieth century forced the
denomination to take notice of the issue. In 1919 the National Council of the
Congregational Churches appointed a Commission on Ordained Women, Church
Assistants and Lay Workers to study the matter. In its report of 1921, the
Commission expressed some surprise at finding that a number of denominations
ordained women and that the Council had on its hands 67 ordained women
ministers. Of these, only 18 were pastors of churches while the rest were
serving in joint pastorates, as church assistants, or as religious educators.
The women who were sole pastors were found in very small churches and, although
in marginal situations, were seen to be serving successfully. According to the
Council, church assistants and educators were seen to be in more useful
service—at least for women. The Commission rejoiced that the denomination
had the freedom to ordain women in a recognition of prophetic gifts. Because
the 67 women out of the total of 5,695 Congregational clergy were so
“inconspicuous,” they did not offer “any serious problem”
to the denomination.(6)
In
another study done by the Congregational Christian Churches in 1947,
investigators found that there were 233 licensed and ordained women. Of these,
84 respondents to a questionaire were serving in local churches as pastors
while others were engaged in a variety of church work. The work of these women
compared favorably with the work of men; in rural work the women excelled. In
1947, there were 233 women out of a total number of 6,044 with ministerial
standing with the Council. The investigators concluded that there was a
shortage of ministers, that women should be encouraged to prepare themselves
well, to seek the office and to stay with it.(7) In 1975, the Task Force on
Women in Church and Society took a survey of ordained women ministers and found
a remarkable continuity in their experience. The ordination of women had
continued through the years to bring the number to approximately 350, but the
lot of these women had not changed much. Of the 350, only 38 who responded to
inquiries served as sole pastors of churches. These were found to be underpaid
in small rural situations. The rest served as co-pastors, associate pastors,
assistant pastors, ministers of education and in some denominational staff
positions. While in 1921 the Commission of the Congregationalists found that
women did not constitute a serious problem, in 1975, the Task Force reported
that women were discriminated against in a striking way within the United
Church of Christ. Something had to be done about the situation.(8)
Women
did not receive what are called full clergy rights to representation and
participation in the General Conference of the United Methodist Church until
1956. The United Methodist Church was formed out of two unions, one in 1939
which involved the Methodist Episcopal Church, North, the Methodist Episcopal
Church, South, and the Methodist Protestant Church, and another in 1969 which
brought together the Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren
Church. In the larger tradition there does not seem to be overwhelming
antagonism against women speaking as church-persons. In 1831, the United States
Brethren voted to allow Lydia Sexton to be a pulpit speaker, although it was
not until 1894 that the Brethren ordained the first woman minister.(9) Anna
Howard Shaw, a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, North, was granted a
local preacher's license by a Methodist congregation. When she asked for
ordination by the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church she was
turned down and she had to go to the Methodist Protestants for ordination in
1880.(10) While the Methodists allowed some liberty at the local level to women
who believed themselves called to preach, the denomination did not take kindly
to women who sought involvement in General Conferences, which were closed to
all but clergy until laymen were included in the latter part of the nineteenth
century. In 1888, the General Conference caused a heated debate when it refused
to seat the influential Frances Willard. The temperance leader had been
elected, along with a number of other women, to represent local conferences. In
1920, at the time women's suffrage was so much on the American mind, the
Methodists recognized women's right to serve as licensed local preachers, and
in 1924, women's right to serve as local elders in congregations. Pressure
continued to mount from powerful Methodist women's groups through the 1930's
and 1940's. Finally, in 1956, women were recognized as having full clergy
rights in the General Conference and other conferences of the Methodist Church,
a recognition which was continued in the union of 1968.(11) In 1968 the
denomination authorized the creation of a Study Commission on the Participation
of Women in Program and Policy Making Channels of The United Methodist Church.
According to the statistics of 1970, the Commission found that, in annual
conferences in the United States with a total of 23,276 persons who were full
and active members, only 173 or 0.7 percent were women. In all ministerial
categories, including that of probationaries, the Commission found that out of
a total of 34,722 persons only 322, or one percent, were women.(12) Although
women constitute something less than one percent of the total clergy of all
categories in the Methodist Church, the approximately 500 ordained women
constitute the largest group of women clergy in any American denomination as of
1975. This involvement of women in ministry will increase as the nearly 700
women students in Methodist seminaries are graduated in the next several years.
In 1975, the Methodists held the first National Consultation of Ordained Women
in the United Methodist Church to deal with the problems of women in this
vocation.(13)
In
1832, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of
America delivered an opinion that women should be encouraged to meet for prayer
and pious conversation. But they were to be instructed to obey the
“inspired prohibition” of the Apostles to remain silent in public
ecclesiastical assemblies. In 1872, the General Assembly repeated this
admonition after it was reported that a woman had, shockingly, failed to obey
this injunction. The Assembly not only forbade the teaching and preaching of
women in public, or, as an overture quaintly put it, in “public and
promiscuous meetings of the church,” but interpreted the former statement
of 1832 as forbidding the licensing and ordination of women.(14) In the 1870's
another part of the presbyterian family, the United Presbyterian Church of
North America, was being pushed by its women to recognize their right to
participate in governance as deacons and elders, and in still another, the
Cumberland Presbyterian Church located largely in the upper South, the General
Assembly agreed to allow the election of women as deacons and elders to be
determined by local need. In 1889, a Cumberland Presbyterian judicatory
ordained Mrs. L. M. Woosley to the ministry, although the General Assembly
declared such an ordination null and void. The Cumberland Presbyterian Church
did not acknowledge the right of women to be deacons and elders or to be
ordained ministers until 1921.(15)
The
present United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America is made up
of unions, including a large number of members from the Cumberland Presbyterian
Church who united with the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America
in 1906, and the United Presbyterian Church of North America which united with
the denomination in 1956. Feeling the pressure from the woman's suffrage
movement, Presbyterians opened the office of deacon to women in 1922 and the
office of ruling elder in 1930.(16) While persons elected by congregations to
this office are ordained, they remain laypersons without official
responsibilities to preach. Elders do assist with the sacraments. In 1956,
Presbyterians recognized a woman's right to ordination, after many years of
often bitter debate and much unrest among the women. The number of ordained
Presbyterian women has increased over the past few years. For example, in 1973
there were 131 ordained woman out of a total number of 13,451, in 1974 there
were 154 out out of a total number of 13,624 ministers, and in 1975, there were
189 women who had been ordained to the ministry. In 1973, there were 20
pastors, 8 associate pastors, 28 assistant ministers, while in 1975 there were
29 pastors, 16 associate pastors and 24 assistant pastors, showing an increase
in the number of women who are sole pastors of churches. Also, ordained women,
as they are in the other denominations, are in education and student work, with
an increasing number in denominational executive positions and in institutional
chaplaincies. In 1964, the other major Presbyterian body, the Presbyterian
Church in the United States located in the South, approved the ordination of
women to the office of deacon, elder, and to the ordained ministry of the
denomination.(18) As in the case of the Methodists, the Presbyterians will have
an upturn among women seeking ordination when those currently engaged in
theological education finish their training.
These
brief denominational histories, while indicating some differences, highlight
similarities in the struggle of women for full recognition within
ecclesiastical structures. This struggle seems to have followed the earliest
organized thrust of the women's rights movement in the 1840's and the final
drive for suffrage in the second decade of the twentieth century. While male
clergy resisted the ordination of women, local congregations, conferences and
presbyteries often recognized women's rights and pressed for the recognition of
them. in the higher councils and courts of these denominations. In the pursuit
of this recognition, women were often opposed by other women, and assisted by
sympathetic men among the clergy and laity. In recent years, the number of
ordained women has increased and consciousness has been raised in the current
feminist movement. Denominations have been giving more and more attention
through special task forces authorized to consider the problems of women in
ministry.
II
In
recent years these denominations have been in the process of gathering and
assessing the experiences of ordained women and their congregations. As is
indicated by the study of the Commission of the Council of the Congregational
Churches, interest in women in ministry is not entirely new. In the past,
however, there is evidence that the problems of ordained women have been
considered in connection with the “status” of all women in the
denominations and not in terms of a group of persons who have particular
vocational and professional needs. This seems to be true of the 1927 study on
The Relative Status of Women in the Church and the 1948 study of
Women in American Church Life done by the Federal Council of Churches in
cooperation with other interested organizations.(19) The women themselves have
been concerned about their own ministries for years. In 1919, Miss M. Madeline
Southard and Mrs. Ella L. Kroft, both Methodists, organized the ecumenical
Association of Women Ministers, and began to publish The Women's Pulpit.
Since 1919, the women have kept a record of their achievements as pastors,
preachers, counselors, administrators and educators.(20) Now, prodded by women,
much more attention is being given by denominations to the problems of ordained
women. In the past these problems have been underscored and exploited as
reasons for preventing the ordination of women, or for discouraging women from
seeking ordination, or for encouraging women to fulfill ministry in some way
other than a vocation which requires an ordained person. Now these problems are
being considered as vocational challenges to be resolved.
Women
in the ordained ministry sense that they have been and tend to be marginal
people in the life of various denominations. It is not simply that they are few
in number. Because of what women call the sexist attitudes of congregations and
colleagues in the ministry, they feel that they are really not accepted. Women
feel that they are so unaccepted that denominations do not even live up to
their own policies with regard to ordained women. Congregations, whether they
are United Church of Christ or Presbyterian, are not ready to call a woman as
pastor. Superintendents of the Methodist Church have difficulty persuading
congregations to receive and welcome a woman appointee. Fellow ministers
tolerate women sometimes with condescension, an attitude felt all the more by
women who are likely to be isolated individuals in conferences and presbyteries
and in small rural churches in these bodies. This sense of marginality is felt
even within the positions in which women do better financially, that is, as
associates or assistants or as members of national or regional denominational
staffs. Ordained women in these positions feel that they gain their advantage
in ministry over other sisters by being helpmates to men and by suffering, more
often than not, the paternalism of the dominant male employers. With the
increase in the number of ordained women, this keen feeling of not being
accepted and of being on the fringe of the church's life may diminsh.(21)
Ordained women have other professional problems. While these problems may be
aggravated because they are women, they are similar to the strain and stresses
of males. For example, single women—those who are unmarried and those who
are widows—suffer from much loneliness in ministry. This loneliness is
related to lack of acceptance by congregations and colleagues. It is also
related to singleness among women and is aggravated by service in parishes in
small rural communities in which family life can be important. It is also
related to aging and is likely to increase as a woman grows older. It is not
always assuaged by the occasional invitation to dinner and to holiday
gatherings, or even the development of spiritual resources to cope with the
feeling. For example, ordained women who are married, have the responsibilities
of husband and children in addition to parish obligations. These added
responsibilities complicate the work of an ordained woman. But women do not
believe they have to forego marriage and family any more than do men who are
called into ministry and they do not believe the complications are
insurmountable. Married women are called upon to set their priorities and do
their planning more carefully than they would if they were single. More
difficulties arise with regard to the conflict between a woman's vocation and
that of her husband. If the husband happens also to be an ordained minister,
congregations may try to call two ministers for the price of one, without
giving to the woman the recognition and monetary reward which is her due. They
consider themselves fortunate to have a trained minister's wife. If the husband
happens to be in an occupation which is other than the ministry, then couples
often have to make a decision about the importance of one over the other. If
the husband's career turns out to be the more important, the ordained woman
places on herself some limitations with regard to the calls and appointments
which she can allow herself to accept. Because of this latter circumstance,
women often find themselves in marginal churches. Then, another problem arises
in that an ordained woman does not feel that she can fail in ministry She feels
that she will bring reproach upon other women who trying to establish
themselves in a fresh field dominated by men. As has already been indicated,
its not just women who face these problems. Men do also. Moreover, the problems
ordained women face trouble women in other professional and nonprofessional
callings.(22)
Women
face problems in gaining the necessary training for the fulfillment of
ministry. Females have been admitted to theological education since Oberlin
opened its doors somewhat reluctantly to Antoinette Brown in the 1850's. They
face a male dominated educational establishment within all the major Protestant
seminaries. In part, this is because women form so small a proportion of the
personnel of these institutions, despite the fact that Georgia Harkness, a
person with the highest qualifications, has been engaged in theological
education for years. A 1971 survey for the American Association of Theological
Schools disclosed that women held only 81 of 2,904 faculty positions in
seminaries, and one fourth of these held nonteaching appointments.(23) Women
have found the curricula of seminaries male oriented and that biblical,
historical, theological, ethical and pastoral studies are taught in prejudiced
ways without regard to the interests of women. They find that seminaries have
been unable to help them, as women, to develop models for their ministries. In
the past, seminaries have reflected the sexist attitude of the larger American
community and their denominations, and they have encouraged women to train for
and seek employment in the church as non-ordained personnel—for example,
as religious educators. Now that this attitude has changed and seminaries are
encouraging women to seek theological training, another problem has emerged.
Placement offices find that women expect the seminaries to change the attitudes
of churches for which the institutions train ministers. This is a much more
difficult assignment than that of adapting seminary curricula to meet the
demands of a new group of students.(24)
Much
more needs to be done to assess the experiences of congregations over which
women have served as shepherds. Women are growing more and more conscious of
their own history and their own experiences in ministry and, therefore, our
knowledge of women in ministry will multiply in years to come. Those problems
which have been mentioned here are closely related to the experiences which
congregations have with their female pastors, and the way in which these are
resolved often determines the nature of that experience. Now they are
considered challenges to be met, not barriers to the ordination of women for
the ministry. Ministry, according to ordained women, is too important to be
left to men.
III
These
experiences are shared by women in the several denominations mentioned. There
are several other ecumenical dimensions connected with the ordination of women
which ought to be considered. The drive toward the ordination of women was an
ecumenical drive in which the Congregationalists, the Methodists and the
Presbyterians influenced one another. In each denomination, there were those
men and women who resisted and, indeed, still resist the ordination of women.
But this resistance was finally overcome by sizeable majorities in
congregations, conferences and presbyteries, so that these denominations
recognize the right of women to ordination and a full participation in the
ministries of these denominations. It may be argued by some that the ordination
of women by the United Church of Christ, the United Methodist Church and the
United Presbyterian Church only indicates how far from true faith and order
these bodies have strayed. They have made the reunion among Christians much
more difficult. I shall return to this point about faith and order shortly.
There, are, however, some things which ought to be noted about the ecumenical
nature of the women's movement.
Denominations may be able to resist ordaining women to the ministry, but they
cannot prevent women who seek ordination from gaining it in American society.
Women who believe that God has called them into the ministry may choose to
fight the battle for ordination within their own denomination. Those who seek
ordination, but do not wish to fight the establishment, may leave their
denominations and ask for ordination in other churches. According to a number
of older women in ministry, they left both the Methodist and Presbyterian
churches before 1956 to seek ordination by Congregational churches when their
denominations refused to ordain. They decided that life was too short to expend
energy in challenging male prerogatives.(25) Some women may leave the church
altogether. It may, of course, work the other way Some men and women do not
believe that their denominations should ordain women. Recently both the United
Presbyterian Church and the Presbyterian Church in the United States have been
faced with cases in which men seeking ordination or who are already ordained
have maintained, on biblical and theological grounds, that they could not
participate in the ordination of women, despite the constitutions of the
churches which have been changed by due process. The 1975 General Assembly of
the United Presbyterian Church ruled that refusal to ordain women on the basis
of sex is contrary to the Constitution, and that persons who refuse to do so
may not themselves be ordained. The Presbyterian Church in the United States
has suffered a separation of a small number of churches in part because the
congregations now organized as the Presbyterian Church in America disagree with
the denominations from which they separated on the ordination question. No
denomination should ordain women because of the threat that those who wish to
be ordained may leave to join other Christians who will recognize their
calling. But because of the liberty which we have to change our denominational
affiliations, some women may choose to switch rather than fight.
The
women's movement itself is an ecumenical movement. This is as true today as it
was in 1853 when Antoinette Brown was ordained by a Congregational church in
New York state and stimulated the desire of other women for ordination. Nothing
happens to women in one denomination which is not noticed by women in another
denomination, and it is impossible for denominations to seal themselves off
from one another in the society in which we live.(26) Moreover, ordained women,
no longer invisible, serving usefully in a variety of fields and resolving
their vocational problems, are a continual incentive to other women. The United
Church of Christ, the United Methodist Church, and the Presbyterian Church have
task forces authorized in the recent past to deal with women's concerns. These
task forces share their findings with each other. The United Church of Christ
and the United Presbyterian Church have voted women into the highest elective
office of the church. Judge Margaret Haywood of the UCC and Mrs. Lois Stair of
the UPCUSA served with distinction as moderators without the dissolution of
their respective denominations.(27) Methodist women are pushing the various
conferences to elect women to the office of bishop and to share more fully the
superintendency of the church with women.(28) Through the National Council of
Churches, these denominations are also related to one another as well as to
denominations which do not ordain women. The women keep in touch with one
another through the United Church Women and now through a special commission on
Women in Ministry (1974) established to coordinate the affairs of ordained
women of member denominations. The Reverend Claire Randall, an ordained
minister of the United Presbyterian Church, is general secretary of the
National Council. She is a constant reminder to women of their potential as
leaders in the church and their prospects in ecclesiastical affairs.
As
indicated previously, the American Association of Theological Schools has been
giving more attention to the problem of training women of various member
denominations for church vocations. This ecumenical agency has been monitoring
and dispersing through Theological Education the interdenominational
experiments which have been going on across the country. It has encouraged the
development of models for ministry which may be helpful in the education of
women.(29) As a matter of fact, as the number of women ministers increases, and
as the denominations which ordain women face and deal with vocational problems,
the ordained ministry may become more and more attractive to women who
heretofore had not considered it as a vocational option. Women in denominations
which will not ordain them may still be drawn to such ministry.
The
most important ecumenical problem has to do with true faith and order.
Continued cooperation between denominations which do and those which do not
ordain women is not the issue, except in those areas which call for the mutual
recognition of ministries. Conversations about the union among various
Christian bodies has been further complicated because of the ordination of
women. At this point, however, it should be noted that women have been raising
some serious questions about ordination itself. They have been engaged in a
theological quest which cannot be dismissed because some author insists that
God is a woman and should be addressed as She. Behind the attempt to get rid of
sexist language in hymns, prayers, and ecclesiastical usage is a desire to
deliver the church from the Babylonian captivity of male chauvinism and
masculine assumptions about the nature of Christian faith and life. Letty M.
Russell, Assistant Professor of Theology and Women's Studies at Yale University
Divinity School, addresses this problem in her book entitled Human
Liberation in a Feminist Perspective—A Theology. Russell sees her
theology as ecumenical, not as a special pleading for women. She seeks to
liberate all human beings and to serve the whole church through the insights
which she, as a woman, brings to the theological adventure. It is not my
purpose to explore all of her ideas, or those of other women who have been
involved in theological consciousness raising. It is important to point out,
however, in connection with this essay on ordination that Russell argues for an
“open ecclesiology.” She raises serious questions about the
ordination of any Christian to ministry. On biblical and theological grounds
she argues that the ministry of the body of Christ is shared fully by all of
its members, female and male.
“Why should men,” she writes, “or anyone else be ordained to a
special clerical status when all share the one calling of the whole
people.” All Christians share in the one ministry of Jesus Christ. She
suggests further that whatever contribution particular ministries may make to
the one ministry of Christian servanthood, no one can be defined and
perpetuated solely by the “all-male caste system”that hangs
over from the past and still dominates most American denominations, even those
which now ordain women. Women have no defect that bars them from sharing fully
with men the responsibility of ministry, defined even in terms of a succession
from Christ and his Apostles, whose ministry was and still is one of
liberation.(30)
In
1848, the convention which gathered at Seneca Falls to draft and adopt the
“Declaration of Sentiments” also wrote a series of resolutions among
which was the following:
Resolved, therefore, That, being invested by the Creator with the same
capabilities, and the same consciousness of responsibility for their exercise,
it is demonstrably the right and duty of women, equally with man, to promote
every righteous cause by every righteous means; and especially, in regard to
the great subjects of morals and religion, it is self-evidently her right to
participate with her brother in teaching them, both in private and in public,
by writing and by speaking, by any instrumentalities proper to be used, and in
any assemblies proper to be held; and this being a self-evident truth growing
out of the divinely implanted principles of human nature, any custom or
authority adverse to it, whether modern or wearing the hoary sanction of
antiquity, is to be regarded as a self-evident falsehood, and at war with
mankind.(31)
Letty
Russell's argument may be more sound biblically and theologically than this
natural rights feminism of the first part of the nineteenth century. The spirit
of determination is the same and the aspirations expressed in the little
Wesleyan Chapel in upstate New York in the nineteenth century are gradually
coming to fruition. Women realize more and more that they, who often form the
majority on the rolls of America's major denominations, should not be and
cannot be excluded from the full ministry of the church of Jesus Christ. Women
desire to contribute the gifts which God has given to them toward the building
of the body of Christ. This desire has not been and is not likely to be
quenched by male members of that body. As the feminists now assert—the
sisterhood is powerful and determined.
Notes
1.
“Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions, Seneca Falls Convention
(1848),” in Aileen S. Kraditor, Up from the Pedestal (Chicago:
Quadrangle Books, 1970) pp. 185-186.
2.
See “Antoinette Louisa Brown Blackwell,” in Edward T. James, ed.,
Notable American Women, 1607-1950, A Biographical Dictionary, vol. I pp.
158-161 (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,1971); Laura
Kerr, Lady in the Pulpit (New York: Woman's Press, 1951).
3. It
is not the purpose of this essay to explore the biblical and theological
debates which have taken place over the ordination of women. The author is
indebted for insight into this history of ordination and into the experiences
of ordained women to Georgia Harkness, Women in Church and Society
(Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1972) and Elsie Gibson, When the Minister is
a Woman (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970).
4.
For an early list of denominations which ordained women see Inez M. Cavert,
Women in American Church Life (New York: Friendship Press, 1948)
published for the Federal Council of Churches, pp. 87-91.
5.
“Pastoral Letter of the Massachusetts Congregational Clergy (1837),”
in Kraditor, pp. 50-52.
6.
“Report of the Commission on Ordained Women, Church Assistants, and Lay
Workers,” from the Minutes, National Council of Congregational Churches,
1921, pp. 37-46.
7.
Thomas Alfred Tripp, “Professional Standards of Woman Ministers,”
The Minister’s Quarterly, V (August,1949), pp. 3-6.
8.
Figures supplied by the Task Force on Women in Church and Society of the United
Church of Christ from the report to the General Synod of 1975. See also The
Common Lot, the newsletter of the Task Force. In connection with the free
church tradition, it should be noted that the American Baptist Convention has
been ordaining for many years, while the Southern Baptist Convention has been
ordaining women since 1964. See Sarah Frances Anders, “Woman's Role in the
Southern Baptist Convention and its Churches as Compared with Selected Other
Denominations,” Review and Expositor, LXXII (Winter, 1975),
pp.31-40, and Elizabeth J. Miller, “Retreat to Tokenism,” A Study of
the Status of Women on the Executive Staff of the American Baptist Convention,
mimeographed by the Divisions of Christian Social Concern of the American
Baptist Convention, October, 1970.
9.
For a concise history of this development see Frederick A. Norwood, The
Story of American Methodism (Nashville: Abingdon Press), pp. 350-353.
10.
"Anna Howard Shaw," Notable American Women, III, pp. 274-277.
11.
Norwood, p. 416.
12.
“The Status and Role of Women in Program and Policy Making Channels of The
United Methodist Church,” Report of the Study Commission to the 1972
General Conference on the Participation of Women in The United Methodist
Church, 1972, p. 19. For a longer treatment of this history see Norma Taylor
Mitchell, “From Social to Radical Feminism, A Survey of Emerging Diversity
in Methodist Women's Organizations, 1869-1974,” Methodist History
(April, 1975), pp. 21-44. Also see The Yellow Ribbon, the Methodist
women's newsletter.
13.
See Jeanne Audrey Powers and Ellen Kirby, “Wise Women Journey Into the
Light,” Response, 7 (May, 1975), pp. 8-11, 31.
14.
Minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States
of America, (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication,1821-1835), pp.
378-379; Minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the
United States of America, (New York: Presbyterian Board of Publication), 1872,
New Series, II, p. 89.
15.
Clifford Earle, “The Response of the Church to the Movement for Women's
Rights,” Unpublished paper, 1970; also Ben M. Barrus, Milton L. Baughn,
Thomas H. Campbell, A People Called Cumberland Presbyterians (Memphis:
Frontier Press, 1972), pp. 279-281, 429.
16.
See “Milestones to Today,” Presbyterian Life, 24 (February 1 ,1971),
p.21. Also, for the way in which the suffrage movement forced the Presbyterians
to deal with women's rights, see Elizabeth Howell Gripe, “Women,
Restructuring and Unrest in the 1920's,” Journal of Presbyterian
History, 52 (Summer, 1974), pp. 188-199.
17.
Figures supplied by the Office of Counseling Resources, The Vocation Agency,
United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America for 1975. See also
“Report of the Task Force on Women,” Minutes of the General
Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.
(Philadelphia: Office of the General Assembly, 1972), Part I, pp. 268-304.
18.
Ernest Trice Thompson, Presbyterian in the South, 1890-1972 (Richmond:
John Knox Press, 1973), III, p. 479.
19.
See The Relative Status of Women in the Church in the United States,
(New York: 1927) published for the Federal Council of Churches; also
Cavert, pp. 69-75. Cavert includes in this study brief histories of several of
the women ministers.
20.
See various issues of The Woman's Pulpit. For samples of recent articles
see Hazel E. Heffren, “The Ecclesiastical Status of Women,” The
Woman's Pulpit, 50 (April-June, 1972), pp. 6-7, and also by Heffren,
“New Life Styles and Women Ministers,” The Woman’s Pulpit,
31 (October-December, 1973), pp. 405.
21.
See Report to the General Synod of the United Church of Christ, 1975, copy
supplied by the Task Force on Women in Church and Society; Charles Ray Gipson,
“Women in the Ordained Ministry, A Study of the South Indiana Annual
Conference of The United Methodist Church,” 1974, copy supplied by the
Task Force on Women in the Ministry; Anonymous, “How to Quench the Spirit
Without Really Trying,” Church and Society, 68 (September-October,
1972), pp. 25-37.
22.
See the above reports for treatments of some of these problems. I have found
Gibson, When the Minister is a Woman, very helpful in discussing these
problems. Also see for some case studies, “The Princeton Seminary
Woman,” Alumni News, XIII (Autumn, 1972), pp. 4-24; and Newtonia V.
Harris, “The Reverends Miss, Mrs., and Ms.” United Methodists
Today, 2 (May, 1975), pp. 5-10.
23.
"Women in Theological Education: Past, Present, and Future," Theological
Education, VIII (Summer, 1972), p. 211.
24.
See articles in “Women in Theological Education: Past, Present, and
Future.”
25.
Gibson, p. 21
26.
See Genesis III, Interfaith Newsletter.
27.
See Mary Ann Gehres, “Her Honor the Moderator,” A.D., 4 (May,
1975), pp. 14-16; and Mary Ann Gehres, “The Moderator Visits the Nation's
Capital,” Presbyterian Life, 25 (February 15, 1972), pp. 8-11.
28.
Powers and Kirby, p. 31.
29.
See “Women in Theological Education: An Issue Re-examined,”
Theological Education, XI (Winter, 1975), pp. 63-126.
30.
Letty M. Russell, Human Liberation in a Feminist Perspective.
(Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1974). especially pp. 172-185.
31.
Kraditor, p. 188.
Dr.
James H. Smylie is professor of American church history at the Union
Theological Seminary in Virginia. Dr. Smylie was born in Huntington, West
Virginia, and obtained his undergraduate degree at Washington University in St.
Louis, Missouri. In 1949, the year of his ordination, he took his Bachelor of
Divinity degree at Princeton Theological Seminary. In the following year he
gained his Master of Theology degree and, in 1958, his Doctor of Theology
degree in Church History, also at Princeton.
After
two years (1950 to 1952) as assistant minister of the First Presbyterian Church
in St. Louis, Dr. Smylie began teaching at Princeton Seminary and remained
there until 1962. From 1960 to 1962 he was that school's director of studies.
Dr.
Smylie has been visiting professor at numerous schools, including the
Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, the Perkins School of Theology, and Sweetbriar
College. He joined the faculty at Union Theological Seminary in 1962.
He is
the editor of the Journal of Presbyterian History and a contributor to
numerous journals and encyclopedias. Dr. Smylie is also the author of three
books: Clouds of Witnesses, Into All the World and Presbyterians and
the American Revolution.
Contents of “The Ordination of
Women: Pro and Con ”
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