Women and the American Churches

Extract

I have talked to many women around the United States who are establishing themselves in church positions hitherto exclusively male. They represent the principal Christian denominations and Judaism. Ages range from grandmothers to college students. Some reject the revolutionary label. But what they are doing adds up to a radical revolution. They are reformulating mankind’s most basic assumptions : not just the relationships between the sexes, but the notion of human nature itself, the notion of sin, the very notion of God.

Age is a factor in attitude. The younger women tend to more belligerency. But also important is the level of resistance of their churches to opening up the three male preserves: ruling, sanctification (ministration of the sacraments) and teaching. Women in Protestant denominations which give them some openings as rulers, ministers and theologians, are irked by tokenism but believe they can surmount it if they keep their cool. The higher resistance of Episcopalianism and Roman Catholicism is producing a strident, angry response.