Churches that don't allow women to be leaders.

[formergothardite]

I'm going to start a whole thread about this. Geniebell brought up that she goes to a church that doesn't allow women to be leaders (they can cook, watch children, and teach other women) but that she doesn't feel like this is sexist.

Anyway, that got me thinking, here in the South at least, it is very hard to find churches that allow women pastors/deacons/leaders and it isn't something that seems to bother most people. So I am wondering how many Free Jingerians attend churches that don't allow women into leadership roles and if they do, do they acknowledge that it is sexist and treating women as less than men.

I grew up in a church like that and if anyone dared to question it you were just told to be quiet because it is what the Bible say. Pretty crappy answer since the Bible can also be used to support slavery.

[smores]

I specifically attend a church when I go back to SC that not only allows women in leadership, but encourages anyone to lend a hand - i.e. even the younger kids can be part of the praise band, etc.

Of course, this is a Methodist church with a fairly liberal pastor.

I do not think it is that hard as long as you go Methodist, Presbyterian, or non-denominational in the deep south. At least, I never had trouble finding the right church, but that is because I don't take that shit lying down, either.

[contrary]

I grew up in the episcopal church, where women have been in leadership for ages. It was a total non-issue, even where i grew up in the deep south. It did take them anglicans awhile to get with women and gays as bishops, but in most other leadership positions, it's been common for most of my life.

ETA: as a result, i have zero frame of reference for any reason why any church would not allow women in leadership. i mean, i hear what they're SAYING, but it does not compute in my brain. my brain just rejects it as absurd and sexist.

[AudreyE]

I live in the South now, but I do not attend a Christian church. I'm Unitarian Universalist.

I grew up Methodist in the North, and, honestly, my experience was this:

churches that don't allow women to lead = Catholic or fundie freaks who aren't worth thinking about (so I didn't)

The South is a whole different ball of wax.

EDIT: My mother in law is an Episcopalian priest

[MarsGirl]

I'm Unitarian Universalist. Anything goes. :)

I would never attend a church that do not allow women leadership.

Or one that does not allow gay leaders (which is probably most... except I think one senate of the Lutheran Church does... and Episcopalians and United Church of Christ.)

[AudreyE]

Also, I don't understand how this could not be sexism. It is the definition of sexism (defining a person's social roles by his or her sex). That's what the word MEANS.

[formergothardite]

Around here most of the churches are IFB or Southern Baptist, neither of which allow women to be leaders. Even the huge churches that are Southern Baptist and cool with women working, wearing pants and getting divorced would never allow women to be a pastor or a leader. And people aren't really bothered by it, which I don't get at all.

Genie will have to explain how not allowing women to be leaders isn't sexist. I don't understand at all.

[kpmom]

I grew up as a Catholic but could not justify the Church's view of women priests, birth control, choice, etc. and haven't practiced Catholicism in decades.

I recently had a desire to get back to a church and have chosen an Episcopal church that I like very much. Similar traditions to Catholicism without the b.s.

[AudreyE]

Well, we know the answer: "Women have these wonderful, God-given roles, which are different from the roles of men, but equally important, and - gosh - all the men just appreciate them so much."

Even if "separate but equal" wasn't a crock of shit, it's so obvious that men don't think these jobs are as important as leading. If they did, then they would have chosen those jobs for themselves back at the dawn of patriarchy. They are the choosers, after all, and they wrote the "holy" books that assure us that God supports their power.

[AudreyE]

Hell, nobody thinks putting out coffee & cookies and wrangling little ones in Fellowship Hall is as important as making and enforcing the rules of the game.

[Austin]

I would never again attend a church that did not view women as completely equal in all things with no sparsed nonsense about "equal but separate role" crap. A gay friend recently tried to talk me into joining the Catholic church, because he finds his parish very "accepting". That's wonderful, but I doubt he would find the pope and the cardinals very "accepting", and I already know how those dudes feel about women. So, yeah - no.

[contrary]

ever so this:

Also, I don't understand how this could not be sexism. It is the definition of sexism (defining a person's social roles by his or her sex). That's what the word MEANS.

and also, that:

I recently had a desire to get back to a church and have chosen an Episcopal church that I like very much. Similar traditions to Catholicism without the b.s.

(we like to call it Catholic Lite :) )

[kpmom]

Hell, nobody thinks putting out coffee & cookies and wrangling little ones in Fellowship Hall is as important as making and enforcing the rules of the game.

Amen! I think geniebelle thought we were putting those things down. Not at all! I signed up for the after service coffee at my church. People appreciate coffee and cookies afterwards while they chat. But, my church allows women priests and bishops, and has an openly gay bishop in New England. Just because I don't want to be in leadership, doesn't mean I don't want other women to be allowed.

[formergothardite]

The church I attend which is basically UU and think taking care of children and providing food is important. But the people who are chosen to do these things are the people who are best suited to them, and it isn't always women. In fact the main person in charge of food is a man. He wasn't chosen because he was a man and he wasn't discouraged from applying for the position because he was man, he is just the best person for the job and he got it.

What genie doesn't seem to realize is when you say "Women do this and men do this." you are setting up a situation where you aren't picking the person who is best qualified for the job. And you are creating a situation where people are forced into roles or out of the roles they are best suited. And it is sexist to say this gender always gets to be the leader.

[ThisOlGirl]

When my kids were little they would want to help out with the baking/cooking. They were still too little to be of any real help, so I'd give them small tasks to do, like pouring the pre-meausred ingredients into the mixing bowl. Then I'd make a big fuss over what a great job they were doing and how helpful they were.

That's kind of how I see these women being treated in church when they aren't allowed to hold any leadership positions.

[dairyfreelife]

At my non-denom church, the pastors are all male right now, but there was a woman pastor who retired a couple years ago so they aren't opposed to women in leadership at all. There are women who head groups right now as well. They aren't reduced to baking and childcare. It's mostly women who do those things, but they aren't forbidden from any leadership role at all. I wouldn't go to the church if they didn't let women be a part of the church outside of typical "women's roles" :roll:

[Arielkay]

I attended the Church of Christ for a while. I went with a friend and met my husband there. I actually thought I could ignore all the "women should be silent in church" crap, but I finally snapped and quit going. I found an internet group for traumatized people that left that church. It's pretty much a freaking cult. Some are more liberal than others, but by liberal I mean "lets you have a kitchen and Sunday School" not "lets women have leadership roles beyond teaching little kids or throwing Ladies parties, etc". And the most conservative ones are scary as hell. They have divided families and caused pain and misery, all because people believe there's some evil God that will cause people to go to Hell for allowing instruments in a church, or letting a woman lead worship (or even singing, or handing out communion, or teaching anything with a male older than 12 in the room).

I live in the South (Texas) and there are a lot of these churches around. It's like a plague. I can't believe I went as long as I did, but I wanted to buy the kool-aid. When you live in the Bible Belt, if you aren't a Christian, you are pretty much the anti-Christ. I wanted so much to fit in. And there are some truly good (but misguided, I believe) people who still go there. It just breaks my heart to see intelligent women think they aren't good enough to lead a prayer because a penis is in the room. Stupid.

One preacher at a church I attended (he was way too intelligent to be working there, I think) said he thought the "submissive women thing" was on its way out. I don't know about that. Church is the one place that ignorant people can feel superior to others based on what god they believe in, or what sex they are, or what sex they want to have sex with, rather than what knowledge they have, or how they use this knowledge to help others around them. Sad.

About the only difference in these guys and people like the Duggars is that they don't expect everyone to have fifty babies. But as many Fjers pointed out, these so-called "liberal" churches are actually more insidious than the blatantly insane ones because people think just a little prejudice is no big deal. But it is. It really is.

[luckylibrarian]

I was raised Catholic. After I made my First Communion, I told my religion teacher that I wanted to be an altar boy. She said, "You can't. That's just for boys." I knew it was a load of shit then. I left as soon as I turned 18.

[snarkbillie]

Women aren't leaders in my church but there has been discussion that they technically could be as there is no theological reasoning that they're not, but then it's usually followed up by a "we're keeping with tradition and only having men though so we don't cause stumbling blocks" or some shit. I'm becoming increasingly disillusioned.

[formergothardite]

Snarkbillie, you admit that your church is sexist in doin this, don't you?

[emmiedahl]

I grew up feminist. We went to a lot of different churches, temples, whatever, because my parents were pretty agnostic. None of them were taken too seriously and my parents never really espoused one religion over the other. I was sent to a WELS Lutheran school for a few years, but that was because it was a great academic school.

I actually tried to be Catholic for a while in early adulthood. We went to a very liberal (by Catholic standards) church in Northern California. The women were in every position of power outside clergy and most of the people were hoping and advocating for the church to change. Even after I realized that I was still Jewish, I was comfortable allowing my children to be Catholic in addition to Jewish. Then we moved, and the new Catholic church was very fundie. My children were being taught unquestioning acceptance, which pissed me off. They actually learned a song "We are Jesus's sheep" for my daughter's first Communion. That was the last time we went. We now attend only strictly egalitarian religious organizations. Of course, on the Jewish front I am a Reform Jew, so no sexism there.

I don't want my daughter raised to serve cookies while the boys do important things. We keep bringing up "what if a girl is called to the clergy" at geniebelle's church. The fact is, who cares? It will just be the culmination of years of watching women treated like they are worthy of nothing significant or powerful. If it were me, the change needs to start happening now or I would take my children elsewhere.

tl;dr I understand why people hang on to churches that are complementarian if they are willing to be constantly speaking out and trying to effect change. But otherwise, you are just accepting the sexism every time you put a dime in the offering basket or your butt in a pew.

[snarkbillie]

Snarkbillie, you admit that your church is sexist in doin this, don't you?

Yes. When I first joined I asked a lot about whether it was egalitarian and whether women were "allowed" (yuck!) to be in leadership and they said all the right things but the longer I'm there the more I'm realizing it's just lipservice and that they're not less sexist than the churches I grew up going to.

They are maybe even being a little worse as the churches I grew up in had "theological" reasons for women not to be in leadership but this church admits those are not right and that women are equal and then they still refuse to let women do anything. It's really sickening. I haven't been to church in weeks and I am feeling more and more vindicated about not participating.

[SimplyMe]

I grew up in the Catholic church and as such, when my husband and I started attending non-denominational Protestant churches, it didn't seem unusual that there weren't women leaders in the churches. It wasn't until I met and befriended a fellow preschool mom, who is an ordained minister and very passionate about women being in church leadership roles, that I started to become interested in egalitarian vs complementarian views in the church. I'm still not entirely decided where I stand on the issue (yeah, go ahead and shoot me now), I don't believe that it's unbiblical to have women in leadership roles in a church, but I think the complementarian approach has worked for many many years and isn't a deterant to me either. I know my complacency on this issue will be offensive to many of you- but, that's how I feel.

Our current church doesn't have any women as pastors or elders, but I've never asked if it's something they are against. I would guess they might be, but I honestly don't know as it's not something that comes up.

In my reading on this, I found this very interesting set of studies done by a church some years back. It is quite detailed, if you read through all of the links.

http://www.gci.org/church/ministry/women11

Eta- please excuse my grammatical errors- I'm typing this on an iPhone.

[fakepigtails73]

I was baptized Catholic as a baby, but I don't practice any religion.

I once asked a Catholic priest why Rome is against ordaining women. His answer was that since Jesus and his apostles were males, women couldn't enter the priesthood. it was the only reason he could come up with.

I wonder though, if that is the only reason (i.e sexist excuse) in a lot of christian denominations? Are there any other reasons?

I wonder which will come first in the Catholic church: ending mandatory priestly celibacy or welcoming women into the clergy? I don't think I'll see neither in my lifetime, sadly...

(I think it's bullshyte)

[JemimaPuddle-Duck]

What do you specifically mean by "leaders"? Pastors, sunday school teachers, or any role with leadership over men?

I grew up in a Nazarene church and we had a female assistant pastor for awhile --- until it was found she was having an affair with the music director's wife, um that didn't go down too well. I will give them credit though that most of what I heard was about the adultery aspect of it and not the homosexuality. I believe they are raising their kids together now, no idea what happened to their husbands. Since being married, we've gone to a Southern Baptist, Reformed Baptist and a Christ Community, all of which didn't allow women pastors. We currently attend a non-denominational church and no, there are no women leaders, although we do have one female deacon (she also happens to be in charge of the kitchen). It's mostly ladies teaching the kids' Sunday school classes, but there would never be a woman in a position teaching men.