“I Answered His Call: Women in Senior Pastoral Roles”
Despite the leaps and bounds that have been made in reinventing gender roles for women in the home, workplace, and public service, one area in which women continually find themselves being obstructed is that of pastoral ministry. Due to traditional views on women that can be traced back to pre-Hellenistic Middle Eastern social constructs, women who are called to preach or serve as senior pastors face massive criticism and are prevented from fulfilling their calling. One of the sources such critics turn to for their obstruction is scripture itself. Using scripture to justify the obstruction of women in pastoral ministry is to commit eisegesis as opposed to exegesis. This is not just a Christian problem, however, but a religious problem across the board. In this presentation we see this manifested in three case studies: Rabbi Sally Pritchard, the first female rabbi of the American Jewish community; Mother Superior Mary Clare Millea, an abbess and Vatican advocate with a PhD. in Canon Law; and the Right Reverend Vashti Murphy McKenzie, Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. By reviewing each of these American women of different faiths we see that despite their religious differences, they each tell a story of a contemporary woman who had to overcome traditional viewpoints and misapplication of scripture to answer God’s call to serve Him in pastoral ministry.
CM 499, Capstone
Mary Ann Winter-Messiers
P114
3:30 – 4 PM