Comments | pickledherring: Women in the pulpit

pickledherring

Women in the pulpit

Sep 10, 2009 09:36

Since I'm on the subject anyway this morning, I happened to visit a church on Sunday (no, it didn't burst into flames when I entered) and it was my very first experience in a church led by a female pastor ( Read more... )

ism, church, sexism, conservative christianity

Comments 12

david_bridger September 10 2009, 14:00:46 UTC

It's good to see people getting things right. :)

pickledherring September 10 2009, 16:44:07 UTC

It was an interesting experience. I think I'll visit again.

supergirlat40 September 10 2009, 16:01:23 UTC

In the Southern Baptist church I grew up in, the extent of women as leadership was to lead the CHOIR (back to the congregation) but they couldn't lead the congregation in song. The woman who often led the choir when the male minister of music was out/sick/gone had a Doctorate in music from a prestigious university and had retired...but they'd have to find a tone-def guy from the congregation to come up and "lead" the songs for everyone else.

pickledherring September 10 2009, 16:43:25 UTC

Sounds like how I grew up. I had my parents on top of that who also felt that women shouldn't wear pants to church or acolyte even when the church finally allowed it.

I heard all the arguments and the bible quoting and I'm sick of the whole irrationality of all of it. None of it holds up in court, so to speak, but people cling to it anyway - including some women! O.o

jadeejf September 10 2009, 16:32:17 UTC

It really didn't burst into flames? Weird.

;)

I'm glad you had such a good eye-opening experience, and I'm *so* with you on the awesomeness of guys teaching Sunday School :D

pickledherring September 10 2009, 16:39:33 UTC

Here's one of my favourite arguments for banning women from leadership roles:

Jesus picked 12 men as his disciples so obviously if women were meant to be leaders in the church he would have picked a woman.

(Isn't it good to know that scripturally the only leadership appropriate to the Christian church is male Jewish nondisabled thirtyish leadership?)

jadeejf September 10 2009, 17:16:51 UTC

Is it wrong that I totally thought "Hmm, that would be one good-looking church."?

I think my mind is in the gutter today. ;)

pickledherring September 10 2009, 17:26:14 UTC

ROFL

It might be. It really might be.

aefenglommung September 10 2009, 22:50:55 UTC

Women clergy are not unusual where I come from. Good women clergy -- or men clergy -- are what I look for.

pickledherring September 11 2009, 00:24:58 UTC

That is definitely the key. Good clergy. Why does it seem like they are so hard to find?

aefenglommung September 11 2009, 04:43:28 UTC

I don't know. But I read a lot of history, and in every age, people are complaining about the low quality of the run of the mill clergy. I actually think that -- pound for pound -- the clergy are better today than they were hundreds of years ago. But there are still a lot of duds.

pickledherring September 11 2009, 11:45:19 UTC

That would be really awesome and I hope they are although I wonder why it would be different now. Several guesses spring to mind but I'd need to study it further.

Also, it kind of bothers me because I feel like there are a lot of not-great reasons to become clergy. I sometimes wonder if there are people who ignored spiritual leading in that direction and some people who became clergy who shouldn't. But on the other hand, I figure God can use even mediocre clergy for his own purpose.