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<DIV><SPAN class=inside-head><STRONG><FONT size=6>Having faith in
women</FONT></STRONG></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV class=byLine id=byLineTag>By Oliver "Buzz" Thomas</DIV>
<DIV class=byLine> </DIV>
<DIV class=inside-copy>Chicken Little was wrong. The sky isn't falling, but the
glass ceiling appears to be. In February, Harvard announced the appointment of
its first female president. The month before, Nancy Pelosi was sworn in as the
first female speaker of the House of Representatives. Bigger still, Sen. Hillary
Clinton is the Democratic front-runner for the presidency. In politics and
academia, women are finally getting their due.</DIV>
<P class=inside-copy>Meanwhile, back at the religious ranch, the Roman Catholic
Church, the world's largest Christian organization, still hasn't ordained one
female priest, much less a bishop or cardinal. Southwestern Baptist Theological
Seminary, the world's largest graduate school for ministers, recently sent
packing its only female professor who was teaching male students in the school's
department of theology. The seminary's board chairman said hiring a woman to
teach men theology had been a "momentary" lapse. </P>
<P class=inside-copy>Not all is gender-remiss in the world of religion. The
Episcopal Church recently installed its first female presiding bishop. Sunday,
hundreds, if not thousands, of female clergy preached to America's faithful.
What's puzzling is that the nation's two largest denominations (Catholics and
Southern Baptists) have managed to keep women down on the farm this far into the
modern era. It's even more surprising given that women perform the vast majority
of work in churches. (Stroll through the kitchen, choir rooms, offices, library,
nursery and Sunday school rooms of your own church and see what you find.) </P>
<P class=inside-copy>Does the New Testament really justify the church's shabby
treatment of women? On the surface, it would appear so, at least if we listen to
St. Paul:</P>
<P class=inside-copy><I>Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I
permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent. I
Timothy 2:11-12 </I></P>
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<P class=inside-copy>Although this verse seems to give a clear explanation of
the role of women in the church, things aren't always what they seem when it
comes to interpreting the Bible. The first rule of good biblical interpretation
is always to examine the <I>historical context</I> in which a passage was
written. If we don't know why the verse was written then, we stand little chance
of understanding what it means now.</P>
<P class=inside-copy><B>A first-century perspective </B></P>
<P class=inside-copy>Paul's letters were written in the first century to an
audience of Jews, Romans and Greeks. Again, this was not the 21st century. It
was the first.</P>
<P class=inside-copy>First-century life was much like it had been in the
previous millennium. That is to say that in most ancient civilizations, women
had no rights. Under Hebrew law, a woman was a thing to be bought, sold or
coveted like a piece of property or a neighbor's goat. Old Testament laws
against rape and adultery gave no recourse to the woman who was violated. Any
fines that were levied against the perpetrator were paid to the woman's father
or husband who, for all practical purposes, <I>owned</I> his daughter or wife.
Marriages were business transactions, with a young woman being the commodity
over which men bargained. Whether she brought 50 cattle or 500, all women were
chattel. The only thing folks haggled over was the price. </P>
<P class=inside-copy>Things were little better in Greece and Rome. Under Roman
law, a woman had no rights. As a child, she was her father's; as an adult, her
husband's. Both had the power of life and death over her. Little wonder the
Apostle Paul instructed women as he did, since most self-respecting Jews and
Romans of the first century wouldn't have allowed a woman to teach them
anything. She would have enjoyed about the same reception as a slave or a child.
Had a woman done otherwise than submit to her husband, she could have been
killed. In fact, it is remarkable that Paul gave women the recognition that he
did. By first-century standards, he was a liberal. </P>
<P class=inside-copy>In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul makes provision for
women to prophesy (i.e. preach) in the church. In Romans, he sends greetings to
his friend Phoebe, a deacon. And, throughout his missionary journeys, he worked
collegially with many women, some of whom the New Testament mentions by name
(such as Euodia and Priscilla). Most notable is his reference in Romans, chapter
16 to "Junia" as an <I>apostle </I>of note. Conservative scribes could never let
this pass, so some early manuscripts were changed to read "Junias" or "Julius,"
both male names. </P>
<P class=inside-copy>Today's Greek New Testament (the language in which the New
Testament was written) as well as more recent English translations, such as the
New Revised Standard Version, correct the problem and acknowledge Junia as
having been called by Paul as an apostle.</P>
<P class=inside-copy>This unusual level of respect within the church for women
didn't originate with Paul. Jesus had publicly associated with women — even
outcast women such as prostitutes and Samaritans — at a time when few rabbis
would be caught speaking to any woman outside of his own family. No, the Apostle
Paul did not give the church license to dominate women. Paul's ultimate hope for
both men and women was that there would be no distinctions within the church. As
he put it in his letter to the Church at Galatia, "There is neither Jew nor
Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
Now that's radical stuff.</P>
<P class=inside-copy><B>How to justify past sins </B></P>
<P class=inside-copy>This is not the first time the church has had to escape the
clutches of biblical injunctions that have no place in today's world. St. Paul
ordered slaves to submit to their masters and masters to be good to their
slaves. He never even hinted that a better option for masters would be to
<I>free </I>their slaves. Even the most literalistic interpreters of Scripture
now concede that for one person to enslave another is sin. Yet, during the 19th
century, Southerners, of whom I am one, used the Bible to justify their sin. Two
centuries and a bloody civil war later, we should know better.</P>
<P class=inside-copy>So, I ask the male leaders of our religious institutions:
Will we do the same? The secular world is ready to confer upon women the
loftiest mantles of leadership. Will God's own people stand in the way? When
church leaders quote texts written in the first century to people living in the
21st century, do we not sound like my Southern forebears who tried to stop the
abolitionist movement (and later the civil rights movement) by quoting the
Bible? </P>
<P class=inside-copy>The irony here is palpable. An institution that prides
itself on being the conscience of society has become a barrier to half of its
members reaching their full potential. It's even worse than that. What many
churches are doing would be illegal were it not for the First Amendment's Free
Exercise Clause shielding church from state. Perhaps the saddest thing is that
by subordinating women in this fashion, churches are cutting themselves off from
a huge talent pool. In a world run amok, can we really afford it? </P>
<P class=inside-copy><I>Oliver "Buzz" Thomas is a minister, lawyer and author
of</I><I>10 Things Your Minister Wants to Tell You (But Can't Because He Needs
the Job</I>).</P>
<P class=inside-copy> </P>
<P class=inside-copy> </P>
<P class=inside-copy><TR><TD valign="top" colspan="2"><SPAN
class=va_main_header><STRONG><FONT size=5>CENTURIES OF
PROGRESS</FONT></STRONG></SPAN></TD></TR><TR><TD valign="top"
colspan="2"></TD></TR><TR><TD class=vaText colspan="2"></P>
<P>From the biblical time of Eve, women have had powerful roles in Western
religious theology, history and institutional life. Though it has been a slow
climb, women have risen to official religious leadership positions throughout
the world and specifically in the USA. </P>
<P><B>1136: </B><NBSP></NBSP>Hildegard of Bingen, a great German mystic and one
of the most prominent women in the history of the Roman Catholic Church, becomes
head of the Benedictine monastery of Disibodenberg in Germany. She traveled in
powerful circles and eventually founded a convent. Her writings still hold sway
today. </P>
<P><B>1431: </B><NBSP></NBSP>Joan of Arc, who believed that God had ordered her
to save the French from the British and led French troops in battle during the
Hundred Years War, is tried for heresy and witchcraft. She is burned at the
stake at age 19 in the town of Rouen. She is later found innocent and canonized
by the Roman Catholic Church. </P>
<P><B>1637-38: </B><NBSP></NBSP>Anne Hutchinson, a religious leader who openly
shared and taught controversial views that an individual's faith alone can lead
to salvation, is tried for heresy and exiled from the Puritan Massachusetts Bay
Colony. </P>
<P><B>1769: </B><NBSP></NBSP>John Wesley, a founder of Methodism in England,
writes to Sarah Crosby, a female preacher: "In public you may properly enough
intermix short exhortations with prayer; but keep as far from what is called
preaching as you can." </P>
<P><B>1853: </B><NBSP></NBSP>Antoinette Brown Blackwell is accepted as a
minister at the First Congregational Church in Wayne County, N.Y. She is the
first female minister of a major U.S. denomination. </P>
<P><B>1922: </B><NBSP></NBSP>The Central Conference of American Rabbis, a Reform
Jewish rabbinical group, adopts a resolution as its official position that says,
"Women cannot justly be denied the privilege of ordination."</P>
<P><B>1956: </B><NBSP></NBSP>Presbyterian Church (USA) votes to ordain women as
ministers. </P>
<P><B>1970: </B><NBSP></NBSP>Two of the three church bodies that would later go
on to merge and form the present-day Evangelical Lutheran Church in America vote
to ordain women. </P>
<P><B>1972: </B><NBSP></NBSP>Sally Priesand is ordained as a rabbi
<EMDASH></EMDASH>the USA's first <EMDASH></EMDASH>by the Hebrew Union
College-Jewish Institute of Religion, a Reform Jewish institution in Cincinnati.
</P>
<P><B>1976: </B><NBSP></NBSP>Episcopal Church in the USA votes to ordain women
as priests and opens the way for them to become bishops as well.</P>
<P><B>1976: </B><NBSP></NBSP>Pope Paul VI approves the publication of
"Declaration on the Question of the Admission of Women to the Ministerial
Priesthood." It states that the church does not consider itself authorized to
allow women to be priests, for Christ called only men to be apostles. </P>
<P><B>1977: </B><NBSP></NBSP>The Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches
votes to ordain women as ministers. </P>
<P><B>1985: </B><NBSP></NBSP>The first Conservative female rabbi, Amy Eilberg,
is ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City. </P>
<P><B>1992: </B><NBSP></NBSP>Church of England's national assembly, the General
Synod, votes in favor of the ordination of female priests.</P>
<P><B>2004: </B><NBSP></NBSP>Mary Ann Glendon, law professor at Harvard
University, is named president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. She
is the first woman to be named president of one of the 10 pontifical academies.
</P>
<P><B>2006: </B><NBSP></NBSP>Katharine Jefferts Schori of Nevada becomes the
first female presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church and the first woman to
head a national or regional church in the worldwide Anglican Communion. </P>
<P><I>By Victoria Shapiro </I></P></TD></TR></DIV></BODY></HTML>