Controversy Over Women's Roles

Theology and Language

As had been true for several decades, issues dealing with women—their rights and roles in reproduction, in the family, and in the workforce—were controversial in all areas of U.S. society. Jewish and Christian groups grappled with what kind of leadership, if any, women should exercise in their synagogues and churches. Women attended seminaries, were ordained, and found work on church and synagogue staffs in increasing numbers, but were still seldom senior rabbis, pastors, and denominational executives or bishops. Women's roles were particularly problematic in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam because the Bible and Koran were written in and about patriarchal societies, as were other works important in Jewish and Christian contexts (for example, the Talmud, Church Fathers, and Hadith). All of this literature takes for granted that men have absolute authority over all members of their house-holds (including male children and slaves) and that they head governments. A society that counts descent through the male line will find female sexuality dangerous, because the free exercise of it could lead to a confusion of male bloodlines; for this reason the Old Testament requires women to be virgins until marriage, but no such standard is held for men. As religious groups experienced internal conflict between conservative and liberal elements, the understanding of women often became a test case: is the patriarchal culture found in the Bible divinely inspired, which means that the passages limiting women's roles are God's will and therefore still in effect, or is the patriarchal culture and its understanding of women merely a human phenomenon and therefore not binding? The controversy was deeper and more significant because it involved the nature of Scripture and tradition as well as concern over the role of women. Language itself became not only a means of but also a subject of controversy as biblical translations, hymnals, and theologians using gender-neutral or feminine language in speaking of God were seen as departing unforgivably from centuries of tradition, while those who adhered to traditional ways were rejected by liberals as sexist and oppressive. The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible (1991) used inclusive language for people while retaining masculine wording for God; The Presbyterian Hymnal: Hymns, Psalms, and Spiritual Songs (1990) used inclusive language for both. Both works were consequently rejected by some congregations.

Family

Concern with women's roles in religion involved both the family and the broader worshiping community. The "traditional" American family has usually been understood as having a male breadwinner and a female homemaker, although this model was not as widely found in previous generations as many believe; in fact, it was always a largely upper-and middle-class phenomenon, since poorer families needed all adults to work. Wealthy individuals depended on poorer women to leave their own children in order to serve as nannies, cooks, and maids. In the latter decades of the twentieth century divorce rates and households consisting of a single parent and child or of cohabiting unmarried adults increased. A 1998 study by the University of Chicago found that 18.2 percent of children lived with single parents as opposed to 4.7 percent in 1972, while only 51 percent lived with both parents in 1998 as opposed to 73 percent in 1972. The study reported that families consisting of young children and two married parents, only one of whom worked out-side the home, dropped from 45 percent to 26 percent between 1972 and 1998. In 1998 this type of household was less common than cohabiting childless couples or married childless couples. Many who saw these trends as alarming believed that the cause lay with feminism and its emphasis on self-fulfillment, requiring a career outside the home. In 1992 Pat Robertson referred to the feminist agenda as an "anti-family political movement." Because of concerns about the role of mothers in the family and the status of biblical texts defining that role, the issue of women in the workforce became a religious matter; as a result, religious groups paid particular attention to pre-serving the traditional family. In this spirit the First Baptist Church of Berryville, Arkansas, closed its daycare center (which served twenty-seven children) in March 1997. The church declared that by running a daycare center it was encouraging women to work; by closing the center the church urged families to live on one salary, giving up luxuries such as "big TVs, a microwave, new clothes, eating out and nice vacations." Biblical statements, such as Titus 2:5, which calls women "keepers at home," were used to justify the new policy.

Authority

In May 1994 Pope John Paul II issued Ordinatio Sacerdotalis (Priestly Ordination), saying that the Roman Catholic Church "has no authority what-so-ever to confer priestly ordination on women" and that "this judgment is to be definitively held by all the church's faithful." In November 1995 the head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said, with papal approval, that the ban on women priests was "founded on the written Word of God" and was infallible. Bishop Anthony M. Pilla of Cleveland, president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB), said to those who favored women's ordination, "I ask you now prayerfully to allow the Holy Spirit to fill you with the wisdom and understanding [to] enable you to accept it." Still, approximately 60 percent of American Catholics consistently favored the ordination of women to the priesthood. The same week as the Vatican ruled against it, approximately one thousand women and men gathered in Washington, D.C., to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the "Women's Ordination Conference." Speakers made it clear that they would continue to "keep the focus on ordination" while advocating broader changes in the hierarchical and male-dominated Roman Catholic Church.

The Re-Imagining Conference

The feminist and women-led ecumenical "Re-Imagining Conference" in November 1993 (sponsored by the Presbyterian Church of the United States of America, the United Methodists, the Evangelical Church in America, the American Baptist Convention, and the United Church of Christ, among others) was seen as embodying the anti-scripture, anti-family, and anti-authority attitudes that had concerned conservative Christians. These Christians were upset at the use of feminine pronouns and images to describe God at the conference, particularly in the context of a worship service directed to "Sophia," the personified-as-female Wisdom of God who often speaks in the biblical book of Proverbs ("Sophia" is the Greek word for "wisdom"). In another event that troubled conservatives, Delores S. Williams, a Union Theological Seminary professor, reportedly dismissed the relevance of the crucifixion: "I don't think we need folks hanging on crosses and blood dripping and weird stuff… we just need to listen to the God within." Conference sponsors were also accused of blasphemy and idolatry. Members of the United Methodist "Good News Movement" and the Presbyterian Lay Committee called "the worship of the Goddess Sophia" the "worst heresy in 1500 years of Christianity." Mary Ann Lundy lost her job as Director of Women's Ministries at denominational headquarters for the Presbyterian Church USA as a result of her support for "Re-Imagining." Advocates of the conference, However, said statements were taken out of context. Catherine Keller of Drew University argued that "the goddess Sophia" was an invention of conference critics and that Sophia is "simply a biblical female metaphor for the Holy." The conference, she said, was simply a chance for women to celebrate "the sacredness of women's lives as reflecting the image of God in which we were all created."

Ordination

Since women had been substantially represented in the secular workforce for several decades, some religious leaders felt that it was time for the religious world to catch up. Others perceived the interest in women's ordination to be an indication churches and synagogues were compromising with society rather than holding fast to the laws and traditions that guided them for centuries. Those on both sides of the issue were able to claim some victories in the decade. Several Christian groups ordained or otherwise placed women in specific leadership positions for the first time. In 1992 April Ulring Larson became the first female Lutheran bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (less than three months after Maria Jepsen in Germany became the first female Lutheran bishop worldwide); in 1996 Ruth Hoffman was the first woman ordained in the Christian Reformed Church; in 1998 The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints appointed Linda L. Booth and Gail E. Mengel as the first women on the Council of Twelve Apostles; also in that year Kay Ward became the first female bishop in the Moravian Church of America. Nevertheless, feminism in general was increasingly demonized: in a 1992 mailing Robertson said, "The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians." In 1998 the Southern Baptist Convention amended its articles of faith (The Baptist Faith and Message) for the first time in thirty-five years to say that a woman should "submit graciously to the servant leader-ship" of her husband, who has the "God-given responsibility" to provide for and lead the family. On the other hand, on 11 November 1999, the Texas Baptist Convention voted to reject this amendment.


Sources:

Nancy J. Berneking and Pamela Carter Joern, eds., ReMembering and Re-Imagining (Cleveland, Ohio: Pilgrim, 1995).
"Citing the Bible, Church Closes Day Care," Christian Century, 114 (23-30 April 1997): 405-406.
"A Converted Conference," Christian Century, 111 (16 February 1994): 160-162.
Stephanie Coontz, The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap (New York: BasicBooks, 1992).
James R. Edwards, "Earthquake in the Mainline," Christianity Today, 38 (14 November 1994): 38-43.
"An 'Infallible' No from Rome," Christian Century, 112 (13 December 1995): 1207-1208.
Martha Inane, "Single Parents, Divorce More Accepted," Louisville Courier-Journal, 24 November 1999.
Catherine Keller, "Inventing the Goddess: A Study in Ecclesial Backlash," Christian Century, 111 (6 April 1994): 340-342.
Jane Redmont, "The Women's Ordination Movement, Phase Two," America, 173 (9 December 1995): 16-19.
William H. Shannon, "Tradition and the Ordination of Women," America, 174 (17 February 1996): 8-9.
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