Looking Forward, Looking Backward: Forty Years of Women's Ordination
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Looking Forward, Looking Backward: Forty Years of Women's Ordination
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Overview
A wide-ranging exploration of the past, present, and future effects of women’s ordination on the church.
This book gauges the impact and implications of women’s ordination on today and tomorrow. What has women’s ordination meant for the church? For preaching? For pastoral care? For the episcopate? For lay women and for women across the Anglican Communion? The editor draws upon a rich variety of writers and thinkers for this book.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780819229236 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Morehouse Publishing |
| Publication date: | 04/01/2014 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 176 |
| File size: | 432 KB |
About the Author
Fredrica Harris Thompsett is the retired Mary Wolfe professor of historical theology at the Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, MA, where she has also served as academic dean for fourteen years. She is the author or editor of several books including Looking Forward, Looking Backward: Forty Years of Women’s Ordination and the highly regarded We Are Theologians.
Read an Excerpt
Looking Forward, Looking Backward
Forty Years of Women's Ordination
By FREDRICA HARRIS THOMPSETT
MOREHOUSE PUBLISHING
Copyright © 2014 Fredrica Harris ThompsettAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8192-2923-6
CHAPTER 1
Forty Years On—Notes on Priesthood, Women, and The Episcopal Church
From our vantage point in the twenty-first century, it appears inevitable that women would join men in all orders of ministry in The Episcopal Church. But for centuries, ordaining women to the priesthood was virtually unthinkable. In the late 1960s, a student from a non-Episcopal seminary wore a seminarian's collar with the black stripe while visiting the Episcopal convent where I was a novice. I confess I was among the wide-eyed who giggled at what was surely a joke. As it has turned out, the joke was on me: the person in a striped collar in 1967 is today a priest and a senior member of that order of nuns, regularly celebrating the Eucharist in the convent chapel. The unthinkable has become routine.
My generation of "decently and in order" Episcopalians, who had to overcome shock at the very idea, is passing away. Our personal paths to acceptance varied dramatically: short or lengthy, easy or traumatic, on a timetable independent of official actions of the General Convention, or of the ecclesiastical disobedience of a few pioneers. Although the ordination of the "Philadelphia 11" caused consternation and outrage among the "establishment" (especially among bishops), it thrilled and gave hope to many, hope that has proven well-founded. It is sometimes difficult to recall how intense the conflict seemed at the time, or even to remember why.
Where Are They Now?
In the decades since, attitudes and expectations in most corners of The Episcopal Church have changed dramatically. For one thing, there are the sheer numbers. In 1980, it was possible to recognize and know by name every woman priest. By 2013, 4,564 women had been ordained to the priesthood—37.8 percent of the total 12,086 ordained since 1976. In addition, 59 percent of deacons ordained during that period were women, 1,867 out of a total 3,167. The gender ratio of graduating seminarians seems likely to increase the proportion of women in the priesthood even more. Today it would be unusual to find an Episcopalian who had never encountered a "woman priest."
Women now minister in a wide variety of roles within the traditional structures of parish and diocese—interims and rectors of parishes, from small to large, multistaffed congregations; deans of cathedrals and seminaries; divinity school and seminary faculty; canons of dioceses and cathedrals; members of boards and commissions; bishops, both suffragan and diocesan. By 2006, in the House of Bishops outrage had been replaced by admiration: they elected a woman as presiding bishop.
Some ordained women moved beyond parochial/diocesan boxes, which had been none too welcoming to women in the early years. Chaplaincies in hospitals, schools, seaports, and nursing homes were more accessible (and more likely to provide a living wage). Others launched out further, establishing spiritual centers and retreat houses, or creating programs and congregations of the hungry and the homeless, single mothers, street people, addicts, prostitutes, and others of the sort Jesus commended to our care.
Who Are They Now?
"Women priests" today come in all shapes and sizes, liturgical and sartorial styles, personality types and spiritual traditions, preaching skills and political acumen, leadership traits and pastoral abilities—just like male priests (though women probably have more sartorial options). Most are happy to love even the smallest congregation, despite the typical part-time pay. More than one failing parish has been loved back into self-respect and self-sufficiency by a woman. In small churches and large cathedrals, they have emphasized hands-on outreach to the surrounding community-food pantries, urban gardens, tutoring programs, language classes. Yes, male priests do that too, and most of the "hands" have belonged to laywomen; but ordained women are particularly good cheerleaders when a congregation dares to do something new.
Despite a lack of evidence, from time to time fear arises that women in leadership will somehow drive men away. Worry about gender imbalance has increased in every period of significant ecclesiastical change, in part because changing the gender balance destabilizes power structures within a congregation or diocese. Women tend to exercise leadership differently than men, who benefit from the authority automatically ascribed to them by the culture. Theoretically, absence of a male leader could be experienced as absence of leadership altogether, which can make parishioners feel insecure enough to leave. But in fact, a 2003 survey found that "neither men nor women perceive a significant difference in church membership trends between churches with ordained women on staff and those without."
Reams of anecdotal evidence suggest that the ordination process has tended to favor men over women, as have search and deployment patterns, in some dioceses more than others. But year by year discrimination in these areas declines, as bishops, commissions on ministry and deployment officers recognize the gifts women bring to the ordained ministry—and as more bishops, deployment officers, and members of ministry commissions are themselves ordained women.
The Dark Side
Problems remain. Some women burn out quickly, or leave active ministry—for any number of reasons. Some believed the church would change faster, or slower, and were worn down by continual disappointment. Some tried to emulate a beloved (male) rector and were disillusioned to find that people did not respond to her as they had to him. Some came through the process and were ordained after it was no longer controversial, and were stunned to discover that the church is still home to misogyny. For them it hadn't been an issue, but protesting "I'm not a feminist!" did not prepare them for being slighted and discounted in myriad small and large ways. Discrimination or harassment illegal in the secular workplace flourished in some dioceses.
In the early years (I devoutly hope it is no longer true), some newly-ordained women were stunned by vulgar insinuations and propositions from male clergy, including bishops. Ordained women teased apart the intricate connections between gender roles, sexuality, and clericalism. They violated the old-boy code of secrecy, exposing clerical abuse that had previously been tolerated and protected. Others tried to be "just one of the boys," but that camaraderie stopped at the restroom door. I love the story about Bishop Barbara Harris, who certainly never aspired to be "one of the boys." During a break in the House of Bishops meeting soon after she became the first woman bishop in the Anglican Communion, she joined several other bishops in strategizing about an issue soon coming to a vote. The group drifted toward the back of the room, and the other bishops, still in lively conversation, all disappeared into the men's room. Bishop Harris, the story goes, didn't hesitate. Pushing the door slightly open, she called out, "If you don't stop talking about that right now, I'm coming in."
Outside the Episcopal Bubble
None of these things occurred in a cultural vacuum. Indeed, most Episcopalians were immersed in the social ferment of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s—the movements for civil rights, women's liberation, and gay pride which challenged power structures and turned conventional attitudes upside down—along with the international religious renewal sparked by Pope John XXIII and the Second Vatican Council.
There was resistance, in and outside the church. Were we selling out to the godless spirit of the age, or daring to follow the Spirit into a new era? The conflict was acute, to the point that some left The Episcopal Church, charging the church had actually left them by embracing dangerous beliefs and practices. Relationships were damaged or broken. There was much grief and anger, as those holding to a male-only priesthood created new institutional structures to protect that fundamental principle.
For the rest, clergy, people, and congregations adapted to an ongoing process of ecclesial transformation, just as organizations and people outside the church were adapting to changing societal norms affecting race and gender, power and leadership. Women entered shop floors and boardrooms, courtrooms and stock exchanges, the sanctums of government from city hall to the Congress of the United States. Some days it seems a painfully slow transformation, but looking back forty or fifty years reveals an extraordinary range, not just of "first women" invading male sanctums, but of changed expectations symbolized by the cliché that a girl child today can aspire to being a bishop or the president.
What Difference Does It Make?
Thirty years ago, psychologist Carol Gilligan offered a gender-based theory of difference between women's "ethic of care" and men's "ethic of justice." Her work, with its alternate perspective on moral development and the value of a distinctive female voice, was a foundational contribution to the ongoing discussion about the "equality" of the sexes. Does "equal" mean "same"? Are differences between men and women biologically based? Are they social constructions? Are they imaginary? Do women inhabit the priestly role differently than men? Do they lead in different ways? Do they bring special gifts to the ordained ministry?
For most of Christian history, so far as we can tell, priesthood was a male enterprise. The authority of the priest was intertwined with the authority of the male in secular society. Leadership and pastoral styles were shaped by masculine characteristics and values. They are not easy to separate, but the lived priestly experience of thousands of women is demonstrating that authentic priesthood can be exercised by women, bringing a new experience of wholeness to the body of Christ.
I'd love to know what it will all look like forty years from now.
CHAPTER 2Feminization of the Clergy and the Future: Sociological Reflections
"Women opened the door to the priesthood forty years ago; I assumed that gender equality would be the norm by now," a young female priest recently told me. Her remarks echo those of other young women who have watched the careers of male seminary colleagues move up a glass escalator while theirs have seemed to plateau. For some women, the shock, disappointment, and frustration of becoming aware that gender inequalities still persist in the church sets apart a generation of women who expected better. Many assumed that the sacrifices made by women four decades earlier had resolved the gender issue.
The Philadelphia Eleven changed history by undertaking an act that would ultimately hasten women's ordination to the priesthood in the church overall. Today women make up nearly half of those annually ordained to the priesthood, and about one-third of all active priests. At least 15 percent of the church's 110 dioceses have experienced women as diocesan, suffragan, or provisional bishops. Ordained women currently hold the two highest leadership offices in the church: presiding bishop and president of the House of Deputies. Yet this tremendous breakthrough can overshadow the challenges that remain, rendering persisting gender inequalities more difficult to see and voice.
Feminization of the Priesthood Revisited
The priesthood like law, medicine, and other professions has been feminized in terms of the rising percentage of women who have entered since the 1970s. In secular occupations, feminization has been linked to other traits such as declining prestige, fewer young men seeking to enter, and decreasing compensation when compared to nonfeminized occupations. Additionally, women become clustered into certain types of positions within feminized occupations, often at lower levels while the fewer young men who enter tend to be fast-tracked on a glass escalator to management positions offering leadership and higher compensation. Feminization as a result often has been blamed for damaging an occupation. Never has it been heralded as a positive trend.
Nearly two decades ago in a study of Episcopal clergy, I showed how some of the trends linked with feminization actually began prior to women's ordination. By the early 1970s, church membership was eroding from its peak little more than a decade earlier, budgets were tightening, controversies and conflict were endemic within the church over a range of issues such as the role of public activism, prayer book revision, and women's ordination. Both the number and average age of men entering the priesthood were rising, which created a growing pool of clergy for relatively fewer full-time and leadership positions than a decade earlier. Secular professions and opportunities also continued to poach the priesthood in terms of pastoral roles, responsibilities, and prestige while occupational self- understanding shifted from being set apart for ministry to enabling the ministry of all.
The fresh visibility of female clergy during a period when full-time placements, budgets, and membership were eroding, as well as a growing sense that men no longer would own the priesthood, triggered assumptions that women's ordination and occupational feminization were the cause of the changes occurring. By the late 1980s, a subtle backlash against women's ordination had begun to slow the strides being made toward gender parity. The backlash included nostalgic assumptions that the priesthood had lost the best and the brightest clergy as well as undermining talented female clergy through subtle attributions that they seemed a bit angry or aggressive, or questioning their ability or qualifications for leadership positions. Furthermore, as the vocational diaconate concurrently grew and feminized, some women reported pressure from their diocese to consider that vocational role instead of priesthood. During this time, the fewer young men being ordained moved more quickly into rectorships and leadership positions than did male clergy over the previous decade, while female priests were more likely to move laterally into staff positions and part-time placements.
A series of accommodating changes that overwhelmingly affected female clergy such as conscience clauses, flying bishops and alternative pastoral care arrangements, and prohibitions in some dioceses against interims being called as rector, served to limit women's opportunity and authority even though their competency in the priesthood and then the episcopate was both demonstrated and officially accepted. In short, the willingness to help women break fresh occupational ground was counterbalanced by anxieties over changing tradition, culture, and male dominance.
Gender parity or paradox?
After forty years of women in the priesthood, what strides have actually been made toward gender parity? Nearly a generation ago, my feminization study showed a persistent gender gap of nearly 20 percent in priests who had ever held a position as vicar or solo rector of a parish. In the 2009 "Called to Serve" study, the gender gap persists. Across the four decades of women's ordination, two interesting trends appear (Figure 1). First, although the gender gap is widest among those ordained in the 1970s, it narrows and then widens again for priests ordained since 2000. Second, the percentage of priests ever holding rector or vicar positions has declined-among men as well as women. 0%
These trends suggest multiple possible causes, such as men being called to rector or vicar positions more often than women in recent years, women being less likely to apply for them, fewer rector and vicar positions available for the pool of active priests, or newer priests expressing their ministry in more varied ways. Although some have argued that women may have different aspirations than climbing the priesthood's traditional career ladder, the "Called to Serve" study found that young women today are about 25 percent more likely than men to have applied for such positions but not been called. Moreover, women continue to be significantly overrepresented in parish associate and other staff positions (51 percent) and underrepresented as senior clergy (19 percent), according to 2012 Church Pension Fund data.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Looking Forward, Looking Backward by FREDRICA HARRIS THOMPSETT. Copyright © 2014 Fredrica Harris Thompsett. Excerpted by permission of MOREHOUSE PUBLISHING.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Foreword: Setting the Stage, Barbara C. Harris,Introduction: Getting a Running Start on the Future, Fredrica Harris Thompsett,
CHAPTER 1: Forty Years On-Notes on Priesthood, Women, and The Episcopal Church, Pamela W. Darling,
CHAPTER 2: Feminization of the Clergy and the Future: Sociological Reflections, Paula D. Nesbitt,
CHAPTER 3: Liturgy and Worship-Renewal of the Personal, Donald Schell,
CHAPTER 4: "Mid-Wives to Justice": Redefining Pastoral Theology, Sheryl A. Kujawa-Holbrook,
CHAPTER 5: The Impact on the Church of England and Wider Anglican Communion, Jane Shaw,
CHAPTER 6: Forty Years Later, a Theological Reading, Lauren Winner,
CHAPTER 7: The Ordination of Women: Some Theological Implications, Marilyn McCord Adams,
CHAPTER 8: "Stand There and Be a Woman": Women in the House of Deputies, Gay Clark Jennings,
CHAPTER 9: Women and the Episcopate: Looking Back and Looking Forward, Catherine S. Roskam,
CHAPTER 10: From Women Priests to Feminist Ecclesiology? Stephen Burns,
CHAPTER 11: May God Bless the Work of Our Hands, Winnie Varghese,
CHAPTER 12: Expectation Not Entitlement: Millennial Women Discern Their Place in the Church, Amity Carrubba,
CHAPTER 13: Toward an "Irregular" Embrace: The Philadelphia Ordinations and Transforming Ideas of the Human, Cameron Partridge,
CHAPTER 14: But We Thought We Were So Normative! A Male Perspective on Women, Authority, and the Church, Gary Hall,
CHAPTER 15: Experience of Women's Leadership in the Anglican Communion, Katharine Jefferts Schori,