Lutheran Women in Ministry. By Jennifer Houston. Introduction

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1 Lutheran Women in Ministry By Jennifer Houston Introduction On November 22, 1970, Elizabeth Platz was ordained the first woman pastor in Lutheranism in America. Twenty five years later, in 1995, women clergy accounted for thirteen percent of all active clergy in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). The presence of women in the ordained ministry has been an important change for the church. Women have brought their own gifts to church leadership and theology. Yet for some women, the struggle to find a place in the church continues, and there are still barriers for ordained women to break through. This paper will begin with a description of the history of women's ordination in the Lutheran Church. This background information is important for understanding how women came to be where they are today. I will continue with a discussion of how women fit into the structure of the church today. Following this is an examination of three major areas in which women have brought change to the church. First, women's spirituality leads them to have different styles in ministry from men, which leads to changes in the church itself. Second, women have brought new and different ways of doing theology and biblical interpretation to the church since they have been ordained. Third, women's presence in the ordained ministry has affected and is changing the gender roles of men and women in the church. The last section involves the future of the church and what must be done to include women more fully on all levels. I will state my vision for what the church can be if it becomes a community that values equality and justice for women and for all those who have been oppressed. To obtain information on the ordination of women in the ELCA, I conducted research of various kinds, including eleven interviews. Of those I interviewed, ten are clergy, and one is a lay member of an ELCA congregation. Six are women and five are men. Of the ten clergy, six are parish pastors currently working in an ELCA congregation. The remaining four are a college chaplain, a retired bishop, a seminary professor, and a bishop's assistant. As far as was possible, I chose interviewees who varied along lines of age, gender, location, and type of ministry in order to get an accurate picture of the range of opinions and ideas that exist about women in ministry in the ELCA. In this paper, I have used the interview responses as evidence. This is not empirical evidence or proof, but I have used it to get an insider's perspective on what is going on in the ELCA with women's ministry. For additional information, I have also consulted books, articles, and church publications from a variety of sources, both from within the ELCA and outside of it.

2 The History of Women's Ordination Lutheran Women Before 1970 To find the roots of the ordination of women in the Lutheran Church, one must go all the way back to the Reformation. Although Martin Luther, writing in the sixteenth century, was certainly not a feminist by modern standards, he made many reforms in the church that aided women at the time, and also made the ordination of women in the future a greater possibility. "Luther, of course, never dreamed of ordaining women. Nevertheless, his understanding of the public ministry of Word and sacrament paved the way for the decision in 1970 to ordain women" (Madson 1988, 32). Two of Luther's major doctrines were justification by faith, and the priesthood of all believers. Both of these ideas led to a changed understanding of clergy and laity. Clergy were no longer "higher" than the laity, because all Christians are sinners who have freely received the grace of God. In addition, Luther taught that ministry was not reserved for clergy, but that all Christians have the responsibility of proclaiming the Word of God in their daily lives. Pastors differ from laity in that they have a special responsibility to be educated and make sure that the Word is being proclaimed correctly, and that the sacraments are being administered properly. Unlike the Catholic doctrine of ministry in which the priest must represent Christ in the sacraments and therefore he must be male, Luther's doctrine of ministry contains nothing that would exclude women from filling the role of pastor as well as a man (Grindal 1988, 24). According to Gracia Grindal, professor of rhetoric at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota, Luther's doctrine of baptism may have been the one that left the door open for the ministry of women. In baptism the old nature of sin dies and a new life in Christ is born. Luther taught that this happens the same in both men and women, so this doctrine leads to an assurance of at least spiritual equality for women: If Baptism is the sacrament which radically changes people, and frees them for both the priesthood of all believers and their vocations in the world, then women are included in a way they had not been before. No Christian has a ministry superior to another; no vocation is more Christian than another. Now, instead of being the gateway to hell, as a good many Christian theologians called them in the early church, women can now be members of the royal priesthood and persons of importance to the community. This should have been, and apparently was for some women, an invitation to equality in the church's life and mission (Grindal 1988, 26). 2

3 Some women in Luther's lifetime did read his theology as liberating, especially the wives and daughters of the reformers. A few women at this time, such as Olympia Morata and Margreta Blarer, became educated in Greek and Latin to enhance their work in the community, or simply for the sake of the education itself. Luther taught that women should be educated so that they could read the Bible for themselves (Grindal 1988, 27). Despite the advances Luther's theology gave some women, as the Lutheran Church developed over the next few centuries, women were still not given the same rights as men, and were not allowed into the ordained ministry. Many have argued that the closing of convents after the reformation was actually a step backwards for women because it closed the only opportunity that women had for independence at that time. As their Christian vocation, women were expected to be good wives and mothers. Women who were educated were the exception that proved the rule. It was in the nineteenth century that women in the church really began to take responsibility for promoting themselves as a part of the priesthood of all believers. It was during this time that women began meeting together to form church groups for women. Perhaps most importantly, it was in the nineteenth century that women began to do missionary work in other countries. Women formed "Ladies' Aids", organizations that raised money to support missionary work. Women missionaries came back from overseas and preached sermons, and told congregations of the work they had done in other countries work that was much the same as the work done only by male pastors in America. Women also began to get more education, and took leadership in founding and teaching at Lutheran colleges across America (Grindal 1988, 29). In the twentieth century, Lutheran church bodies in Europe began ordaining women. Norway was the first to permit the ordination of women in 1938, although the first woman was not ordained until The Lutheran Church in Denmark allowed women's ordination in 1947, and ordained its first woman in According to Joseph Burgess in Can Women Serve in the Ordained Ministry?, by 1968 there were women who had been ordained in Czechoslovakia, Sweden, France, and Germany (p. 4). For most of the early twentieth century, Lutheran churches in America were still debating whether or not women should be allowed to vote in congregational meetings, so the question of the ordination of women had barely even been raised. But by the 1960's, many Lutherans in America had taken note of the trend in Europe to ordain women, and had begun considering if their own Lutheran churches should be taking the same step (Burgess 1973, 4). By the end of the decade, it was one of the major issues being discussed in Lutheran churches in America. 3 Theological, Biblical and Social Hurdles to Women's Ordination When discussing the ordination of women, most people agreed that there was not much in Luther's theology of ministry or the church's doctrine of ministry that spoke directly to the issue of the ordination of women. Many pastors and theologians began studying the issue in the 1960's. In 1969, the Division of Theological Studies of the Lutheran Council in the U.S.A. adopted the findings of the committee it had appointed to study the issue of women's ordination. The committee was comprised of one man from each of the major Lutheran church bodies in America at that time The ALC, the LCA, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, and the Synod of

4 Evangelical Lutheran Churches. Although the committee was only four, they enlisted the help of several other men to research the history of Lutheran theology, practice, and biblical interpretation. Many of the traditional arguments against the ordination of women were discussed but quickly rejected by the members of the committee (Tiemeyer 1970, 9 10). These traditional arguments included that women are the weaker sex and incapable of fully receiving God's spiritual gifts, that God is male, that Jesus was male, and that all twelve apostles chosen by Jesus were male. These arguments were rejected by the committee on the basis of Lutheran theology and biblical interpretation. For example, "the 'God is male' contention was not only judged weak, it was rejected by all Lutherans who took part in the Council's study...the apostles were male argument was also rejected by the study participants, because it is not a part of serious biblical theology" (Tiemeyer 1970, 10). The theological argument against the ordination of women that gave the committee the most discussion was the "order of creation" argument, taken largely from Genesis 2 and 3. According to the argument, women were created by God second, and therefore, by their nature they are subordinate to men. Another form of the argument is that women are subordinate to men because it was Eve who sinned in the garden. After she eats the forbidden fruit, God says to Eve, "your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you" (Genesis 3:16). Ironically, one of the people who argued this position most strongly was Luther. According to Luther, before the fall Eve was in all ways equal with Adam. Subordination was part of Eve's punishment. But this punishment still applies to all women: If Eve had persisted in the truth, she would not only not have been subjected to the rule of her husband, but she herself would also have been a partner in the rule which is now entirely the concern of males. Women are generally disinclined to put up with this burden, and they naturally seek to gain what they have lost through sin. If they are unable to do more, they at least indicate their impatience by grumbling. However, they cannot perform the functions of men, teach, rule, etc. (Luther 1958, 147 8). According to Luther, another proof that women were made subordinate to men was that Adam named Eve. "It is not God who gives her a name; it is Adam, as the lord of Eve, just as he had previously given names to the animals as creatures put under him" (Luther 1958, 148). As a consequence of the fall, women are subordinate to men, and their function in life is to have children and care for the household. They are not to have a public life (Luther 1958, 147). The committee and those they consulted were divided on the order of creation argument. "Repeatedly they asked whether God had ordained an eternal, unchanging subordination of woman to man, or whether, instead, he is actually changing the orders of creation by his constant action in history" (Tiemeyer 1970, 10). Some argued that redemption through Christ did away with the order of creation in Genesis. But others argued that this could not be the case because the New Testament does not do away with the subordination of women. For example, 1 Corinthians 11:3 states, "but I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and 4

5 the husband is the head of his wife, and God is the head of Christ." Since the New Testament does not do away with women's subordination, the committee faced the task of deciding how to interpret certain New Testament passages that had been used to exclude women from ordained ministry which speak about the nature of women and their role in the church. The passages focused on were 1 Corinthians 14:33b 36, and 1 Timothy 2: Corinthians 14:33b 36 says, As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silence in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as even the law says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. What! Did the word of God originate with you, or are you the only ones it has reached? This passage seems straightforward, until you read the passage just a few chapters earlier in which the author, Paul, says that when a woman prays or prophesies she should do so with her head covered (1 Corinthians 11:5). Prayer and prophecy were activities done in churches, and Paul does not condemn women for participating in these activities which require speaking out loud. Yet a few chapters later he states that women should be silent. How to reconcile this apparent contradiction was part of the debate surrounding the ordination of women. The committee concluded that Paul's lack of clarity made this 1 Corinthians passage a poor argument against the ordination of women. "Whatever the explanation, the puzzle makes this passage questionable grounds for prohibiting ordination" (Tiemeyer 1970, 13). The other major passage brought forth by those who argued against the ordination of women was 1 Timothy 2:11 14: 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. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet woman will be saved through bearing children, if she continues in faith and love and holiness, with modesty. This passage also seems straightforward at first glance. Many people used this passage as proof that the ordination of women is unscriptural and not theologically permissible. However, if the church were to actually follow this passage literally, there would have had to have been drastic changes to women's role in the church, even in If women are to be truly silent in church, they could not read scripture lessons, sing in the choir, or perhaps even teach Sunday school. When considering this difficulty and other ambiguities in the passage, such as what it means that women are saved through bearing children, the committee decided that this passage could not be conclusively used against women's ordination either (Tiemeyer 1970, 14 15). There is also scripture that was used by members of the committee to support the 5

6 ordination of women. One of them was Genesis 1:27, which states that men and women were both created in the image of God. Another was Galatians 3:27 28: "For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus." Many argued that with Christ a new age had come, and all barriers between people should be broken down (Tiemeyer 1970, 22). Some also argued for women's ordination because women are part of the priesthood of all believers (1 Peter 2:9). But as with the passages discussed earlier from 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy, these passages do not speak directly to the ordination of women, and therefore, nothing absolutely conclusive could be drawn from them by those studying the ordination of women for the Lutheran Council in the U.S.A. The committee concluded, "the arguments are sufficiently inconclusive now that the churches may adopt differing practices in this regard without violating the gospel" (Tiemeyer 1970, 49). The committee decided that each Lutheran church body must decide for itself. Of course, the members of the Lutheran Council committee were not the only ones discussing the ordination of women in the late 1960's. There was a lot of discussion throughout the Lutheran church bodies about theological and biblical issues relating to the ordination of women. But these were not the only issues that threatened to keep women from the ordained ministry in the Lutheran Church. For many, the debate was not an intellectual one, but an emotional one. There was fear of what it would mean for the church to begin ordaining women. No one knew exactly what changes it would bring (Grindal 1988, 30). The ordination of women was something never before done in the history of Lutheranism in America, and it was not a change to be taken lightly or accepted easily by those who felt at ease with the status quo. This state of affairs was summed up by the Rev. Herbert Chilstrom, who was at that time the Presiding Bishop of the ELCA, in the preface of Lutheran Women in Ordained Ministry, a collection of personal essays and reflections on women in ministry: I am open to change but I also resist it...by 1970, when my church the Lutheran Church in America decided to ordain women, I was intellectually and theologically ready for it. But not emotionally. I recall vividly the first time I saw a woman dressed in clerical garb. It was at a convention of the church in the summer of She was coming down a flight of stairs in a large hotel in Dallas. My head had done its work. But my heart was saying, 'No, I'm not ready for this.' Over the next several years, my head and my heart came together. I began to know several women pastors. I acknowledged my sexism. I saw the gifts they brought to the Church through their ordination (Chilstrom 1995, 11). Another concern for many was the ecumenical movement. People feared that if women were ordained in the Lutheran Church, it would lead to difficulties in relations with denominations that did not ordain women (Grindal 1995, 38). The ecumenical movement was flourishing in the late 1960's, and the church resisted anything that might threaten it. There were also many issues 6

7 involving gender roles and what women could and could not do. Many people figured that married women would not be able to be pastors, because the role of pastor and the role of wife would be incompatible. Would their husbands follow them wherever the ministry led them, as pastor's wives had always followed their husbands? The same thing went for the role of the mother, and people thought that if women had children, they would have to leave the ministry (Platz interview, 1997). There were also smaller issues, such as what women would wear if they were ordained. People felt the clerical collar was in itself masculine, and could only be worn by men. Another barrier standing in the way was simply that people could not envision what a female pastor would be like, because they had never had the experience of seeing one (Platz interview, 1997). There were also barriers within women. Being raised in a church that reserved ministry for men, many women had trouble seeing themselves as pastors because they had been taught not to put themselves in that role (Hedahl interview, 1997). The Rev. Andrea Hagen, ordained in 1975, commented, "I think I encountered the greatest resistance within myself" (Hagen interview, 1997). For men and women there was a fear of thinking about all the changes that would have to be made in the church and within individuals to make women's ordination a possibility. But there was also a spirit of newness and excitement in the church. There were women and men in the church who knew changes needed to be made, and they took the initiative to make it happen, knowing the road ahead would not be an easy one. "Change is disturbing, but it may be necessary" (Burgess 1973, 6). Many people began working together to make the ordination of women a possibility. In the next section I will discuss how women came to be ordained in the LCA, the ALC, and the AELC, the three predecessor church bodies of the ELCA. 7 The Path to Women's Ordination The ELCA was formed in 1987 when three Lutheran Church bodies joined together. These were the Lutheran Church in America (LCA), the American Lutheran Church (ALC), and the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches (AELC). Prior to the formation of the ELCA, all three of these predecessor church bodies had begun ordaining women. In the 1960's women's and men's roles in society were changing under the influence of the women's movement and economic changes. The upheaval in family and community could not be kept out of the church for long. "In short, the hard shell of custom and tradition that circumscribed roles of women in the church was being cracked" (Marple 1995, 23). Women in Lutheran churches formed their own organizations to promote the welfare of women. An organization within the LCA called Lutheran Church Women (LCW) was active in providing education and opportunities for women, making sure that women were represented in church delegations, and making sure that women were recognized for their leadership and influence in the church. The LCW would also become active in supporting the movement to get women ordained in the LCA. In 1970, the Commission on the Comprehensive Study of the Doctrine of Ministry sent a report to the LCA church wide convention stating that there were no theological or biblical reasons for denying women ordination, and recommending that the convention vote in favor of

8 the ordination of women. The board of the LCW voted unanimously to call for the ordination of women, and to do all they could to rally support at the 1970 convention. At the convention on June 29, 1970, the issue of women's ordination came to the floor, and the delegates voted to change the word "man" in the bylaw that defined a minister of the church to "person". The resolution was passed by an overwhelming majority of the delegates (The Lutheran 1970, 7). The question was no longer if women would be ordained, but who would be the first? In the 1960's Elizabeth Platz attended and graduated from the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg. She graduated from that seminary with a Master of Divinity degree, the degree that prepared men for ordained ministry, at a time when that ministry was not open to her. In 1970 when the ordination of women was approved, Platz was a lay chaplain at the University of Maryland, College Park, with all the educational qualifications of an ordained pastor. As a lay chaplain, Platz was happy with her job. However, looking back, she expressed that, "it became very clear to me at each worship service that there was a call I had toward the sacraments" (Platz interview, 1997). There was also something in the role of pastor that attracted her "there was a respect and a trust in the role" (Platz interview 1997). So when she was called by Bishop Paul Orso and asked to consider ordination, she was open to the idea. So the date for her ordination was set. But as Platz put it, "I had not decided to be ordained, the Church had decided to ordain me" (Platz interview, 1997). The path to women's ordination in the ALC was very similar to that of the LCA. Just as the LCW was active in the LCA in support of women's ordination, an organization called the American Lutheran Church Women (ALCW) was active in advocating women's ordination in the ALC. At the request of one of its members, two women from the board of the ALCW were appointed to join an already formed committee of ordained men who were studying the issue of women's ordination. The two women, Margaret Barth Wold and Evelyn Streng, both made presentations to the committee giving scriptural and theological support to the idea of women's ordination. Their presentations swayed the committee to make a recommendation to the ALC General Convention in the fall in favor of women's ordination (Wold 1995, 19 20). At the Convention in October of 1970, the board of the ALCW was present, and the resolution to allow women's ordination was passed by a vote of 560 to 414. Barbara Andrews was born in 1935 with cerebral palsy. She spent her entire life in a wheelchair. After graduating from college, Andrews served in Lutheran Campus Ministry, and enrolled in Luther Seminary in St. Paul. She graduated from seminary with a Master of Divinity degree in Luther Seminary faculty certified her for ordination, even though the ALC had not yet approved the ordination of women. Andrews was ordained just two months after the ordination of women was approved at the ALC General Convention. On December 22, 1970, she became Pastor Andrews, the first ordained woman in the ALC. After her ordination, Andrews served as a parish pastor, and then as a nursing home chaplain. In 1978, Barbara Andrews died in a fire in her apartment. For many, her life and ministry were symbolic of the struggle of both women and the disabled to find their rightful place in the Church and in society (Thompson 1995, 54). The AELC was formed in 1976 by a group of people who were unhappy with the way things were going in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS). In the late 1960's and early 1970's tension mounted between LCMS president Jacob A. O. Preus who believed in literal 8

9 biblical interpretation, and the president and faculty of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, who were teaching the historical critical method of biblical interpretation. In 1974 part of the faculty and student body of Concordia Seminary left and formed Concordia Seminary in Exile (Seminex). LCMS refused to recognize the ordination of those who graduated from Seminex, so those who were in support of Seminex broke away from LCMS in 1976 and formed a new church body, the AELC. In the very same year that it was formed, the AELC approved women's ordination. In 1977, Janith Otte, a graduate of Seminex, was ordained. Otte had enrolled in Concordia Seminary in the hopes that she could make a difference and work towards the ordination of women in the LCMS (Otte 1995, 59). With her ordination, all three of the ELCA predecessor church bodies had begun ordaining women, so the ordination of women was not a big issue when the ELCA was formed in However, the LCMS does not ordain women to this day, and it remains one of the major issues that preserves the division between the LCMS and the ELCA. 9 Overcoming External and Internal Obstacles On November 22, 1970, Elizabeth Platz was ordained in the University of Maryland Chapel. The event achieved national press coverage. This widespread attention would lead to a great deal of support for Pastor Platz. But it would also lead to a great deal of anger towards her from people who feared what she stood for, or believed that what she was doing was wrong. Platz received bags full of hate mail from people all over the country: What you encountered were people who felt that this was not permissible by scripture, and people who thought it would truly ruin the church...and there were people who felt that this was contrary to the will of God, that woman was created as a second order of creation and that their role was to be supportive of men. For some people this was so frightening a change. There were usual refrains...images from the book of revelation, 'you're the whore of Babylon', 'you're the Antichrist.' It hurts terribly when you're at that stage, when you have your own insecurities. I had to have my phone changed because there was someone consistently calling early in the morning, so I had the number changed and unlisted (Platz interview, 1997). Although Platz received much hatred because she was the first woman, her transition to the ordained ministry was not too difficult, because she remained at the University of Maryland as a chaplain, doing many of the same things she had been doing previous to her ordination. Platz commented that, "there is no question that if the Bishop would have had to place me in a parish that it would have been bitter, because somebody would have had to have been willing to step forward and say, 'we're willing to take this risk'" (Platz interview, 1997). For the women that followed her to enter parish ministry, the way was often bitter, as

10 Platz predicted. To understand what these women faced, one must understand the Lutheran call process, the process by which pastors are placed in congregations. When a pastor is eligible for call, their name is offered by the bishop's office to congregations in the area who are looking for a pastor. The bishop or the bishop's staff decides where to send the names, but it is the congregations who decide what pastor to call to their congregation. A call committee of members of the congregation interview the candidate, and the congregation votes on whether or not to call a particular pastor. Needless to say, there were probably not too many congregations in 1970 who would have given a woman serious consideration in an interview. The Rev. Susan Hedahl was among the first ten women ordained in the ALC. She was ordained in 1975, and is now a professor of homiletics at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg. In her interview, Hedahl described her experience as one of the first women to go through the call process: We got so many negative appraisals of who we were, that, 'you're not going to be able to do this'...i was sometimes asked to go on interviews once I got my degree just to give congregations experience in interviewing a woman, and they would have no intention of calling me. So there was a lot of open dislike, sometimes hatred, and you just kind of went ahead not knowing (Hedahl interview, 1997). It was not only from men that these women felt resistance to their presence. Middle aged women were a group that seemed to have a hard time accepting the ministry of women. Young women and older women were the ones who encouraged the newly ordained women. "The grandmothers were the best proponents for women pastors in the congregations. They were old enough to see the good that would come from it" (Orso interview, 1997). The Rev. Beth Neubauer was ordained in 1976, and is now in team ministry with her husband. She described her experience of the call process: The times that I was probably passed by, by parishioners who would not even shake my hand, were in large congregations in the call process. The women who passed me by were women in the forty to sixty year age range, and it just struck me that they were afraid. It was a real threat to them...we presume that the reason was that those women had followed traditional norms...and we were just on the brink where women were encouraged to go into careers, to become pastors...but the older women were fantastic (B. Neubauer interview, 1997). So it seems that most young women were excited about the changes happening in the church, and that older women had a perspective that allowed them to view those changes in a positive way. However, some middle aged women had trouble accepting it because they saw young women taking opportunities they had never been given. Perhaps some of them had wanted to become 10

11 pastors when they were younger, but they were kept out of the ministry then, and they may have felt like it was too late for them in This may have led to some resentment of the younger women who were able to take the opportunities open to them. Another struggle for the first women who were ordained was that they did not have any models of ministry to follow. They had to forge their own path for what it meant to be women in ministry in the church. This problem was summed up by Hedahl: "Since we hadn't seen women, being the first who did ministry as ordained, we were in a place to create everything out of nothing, basically. And so we didn't know what we were going to do, or how we would even do it" (Hedahl interview, 1997). The Rev. Andrea Hagen, assistant to the bishop of the Maryland/Delaware Synod, also recalled this experience after her ordination: "I think it was difficult for me to think about being ordained because I had never known any ordained woman...i knew Beth Platz who was ordained in 1970, but what I mean is I really hadn't had the opportunity to experience female pastors, or to see myself as a woman in that role" (Hagen interview, 1997). These women had to put themselves in a role that they had never seen any woman in. 11 Women in the Church Structure The Contemporary Situation In 1996, there were 1,904 women serving as ordained ministers in the ELCA. This was 10.9 percent of all ordained clergy. If you count only those pastors who have not retired, women accounted for 14.5 percent of all ordained, active clergy. Although these numbers are not yet equal with men, the numbers continue to rise, as ordained women have steadily made their way into the life of the church since In the leadership of the church, women have not only been allowed to do what men have done in the past, but they have also used their own unique gifts to influence the church itself. "When the conventions of the ALC and LCA voted in 1970 to approve the ordination of women, few of us knew what an upheaval would occur in our own lives, or in the life of the church" (Grindal 1988, 30). In 1995, the ELCA's Commission for Women conducted and published a comprehensive study entitled, Twenty five Years after the Ordination of Women: Participation of Women in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The study reveals both the gains women have made, and also how far they still have to go to reach equal representation with men among the ordained. Although the number of women ordained every year began leveling off after 1987, the percentage of all clergy that is female has continued to rise every year since This is in contrast to other denominations which ordain women. While the percentage of women active in the ordained clergy of the ELCA continues to rise, the percentage of women active in the clergy rosters of the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Disciples of Christ, and the United

12 Methodist Church all began to drop since 1986, according to the study (p. 4 5). One fact that the study showed was that there are significantly more women than men on leave from call (ordained but not currently serving in a position in the church). In 1994, 13.4 percent of ordained women were on leave from call, and only 6.7 percent of ordained men were on leave from call. There is no easy answer as to why this is the case. Most likely it is due to a number of different factors. Some women take time off to have children. Women may still be more tied to a geographical area than men because of a husband's job, and it is more difficult to get a call with less geographical mobility. As will be discussed later, there also seems to be a glass ceiling for women in the structure of the church. Women who are frustrated with their inability to move up in the hierarchy of the church may decide to take a leave of absence instead of taking a position that is similar to or lower than the positions they have held in the past (Dowhower interview, 1997). These factors may play into why women decide to take a leave of absence from ministry in the church. 12 The Church as a Male Structure Although women are increasingly moving into leadership positions in the church, many ordained women still feel as though they are women working in a masculine system. Church leadership has so long been dominated by men that some have said that the structure and hierarchy in the church is a masculine system. Women pastors are trained by this masculine system: Seminary education is set up according to a very male model... women would prefer, I believe, a much more interactional model that is more practically oriented to real life, and less ivory tower, less abstract, more concrete. It is very oriented to the mind and not the whole person...the seminaries do not respect the need for youth ministry and children's work. They have a tendency to demean it because it's not a male thing, it's less than the work of the mind (Hagen interview, 1997). Currently, about forty percent of students at ELCA seminaries are women, but only twenty percent of seminary faculties are women (Anderson 1995, 132). Women are still trained mostly by men, and they learn to fit into the structure in order to advance in the hierarchy of the church. But that very hierarchy may depend on a more masculine understanding of power. The ELCA is divided into regions, or synods, with one bishop over each synod. Bishops are elected by representatives from each congregation, and representatives from each synod elect one bishop to preside over the ELCA as a whole. Out of the 65 synods with one bishop each, there are only two women bishops in this country. According to Hagen, the whole idea of a bishop who has authority over his domain is a male model. "The women who have gotten where they have gotten have gotten there by being taught by men, by fitting into a system that men set up" (Hagen interview, 1997). Some women may have trouble fitting into this system because they have a

13 different understanding of what power is. "I do think that at this stage women still have a somewhat different perception of what power is...i think men are still more political and structurerelated, and women are still more people related" (Platz interview, 1997). Men tend to understand power through structures and authority, but women tend to understand power through relationships with people. On June 12, 1992 the first female bishop in America was elected to the La Cross Area Synod in Wisconsin. The Rev. April Ulring Larson was only the second Lutheran woman bishop in the world. The first was the Rev. Maria Jepsen, the Bishop of Hamburg in the North Elbian Evangelical Lutheran Church in Germany, elected just two months earlier in April of Larson's election was a big step because it showed that women were beginning to move into positions in the church where they would have the power to make decisions and changes that could make the church a place where women feel at home, and make it easier for other women to follow in their footsteps. However, her presence as a bishop also makes one aware of how few women there are in positions like hers. Only one other woman has been elected bishop in America. Andrea DeGroot Nesdahl was elected to the South Dakota Synod in Although it is a positive step that these two women have made, women still have a long way to go before they are equally represented with men in the leadership of the ELCA. Because they struggle to fit into a masculine system, many ordained women also struggle to hold onto their identities, and what it means for them to be a woman and an ordained pastor at the same time. Having grown up in a church where "woman" and "pastor" were two titles that could not apply to the same person, ordained women have had to work to assimilate both of these aspects into their identities. The Rev. Marcia Cox, pastor of Augustana Lutheran Church in Washington, DC, commented, "it took me a year to figure out what it meant to be a pastor. I'd wear the collar all the time, just because I didn't know what it meant" (Cox interview, 1997). Hedahl recalled what it was like for her and other women who were among the first ordained in the church to become pastors and try to maintain their identities as women: Some women tried to act like the guys, some tried to be ultrafeminine, some just tried to be themselves, there's a whole range of how women acted...if anything I have tried very hard to understand what it means for me to be a woman...because I'm not the ministry, I'm not my pastor, I'm me, whether I'm ordained or I decide to leave the ministry, I'm still me, a female, and I need to keep that intact (Hedahl interview, 1997). There is a temptation for women who want to advance in the church hierarchy to lose some of their identity as women. It is helpful for women in ministry to develop characteristics that have traditionally been considered "masculine" to make their ministry as effective as possible, just as it is helpful for men to develop some characteristics that have been considered "feminine" (Hedahl interview, 1997). However, women should not have to change who they are as women in order to have full leadership in the church. "The church decided to ordain women...you don't have to become a pseudo male" (Platz interview, 1997). One thing that has helped women be assured of having their voices heard in the church 13

14 structure is the ELCA's quota system. The system calls for 60% laity and 50% women on all boards and committees at both the synodical and national level. The system also calls for the inclusion of people of color. Many women clergy find a sense of security knowing that women are present in all the decision making bodies of the church (Schmidt 1996, 79). There are, however, some ways in which the quota system has not fulfilled its purpose. First, although it is followed fairly closely on the national level, it is not always strictly enforced at the synodical level, and certainly not at the congregational level. Second, it has not done much to get women into high positions such as heads of commissions, or seminary presidents (Schmidt 1996, 80). Another drawback of the quota system is that it can lead to a feeling of "tokenism." A woman who is asked to be on a committee may get a feeling that she is only there because her presence as a female is needed, not that her gifts are being valued. Many of the clergy I interviewed had mixed feelings about the quota system. Many of them expressed that they feel there are problems with the system, but that it is necessary to ensure that the church is inclusive. The Rev. Dick Dowhower, pastor of All Saints Lutheran Church in Bowie, Maryland, expressed his thoughts about the quota system: "I think it is better than nothing. I don't know that it is ideal, but I don't know of a better way to ensure inclusivity of gender, language, and color" (Dowhower interview, 1997). The need for a quota system reveals how the church has failed at inclusivity. The church should strive to reach a place where a system is not needed to ensure that everyone's voice is heard. However, in the church as it is today, the quota system is still needed. "Probably it will eventually get voted down. I'm glad that it has been there for a period of time. I think it has helped bring more women into leadership" (Hagen interview, 1997). 14 The Glass Ceiling and First Calls Several of the clergy I interviewed mentioned the term "glass ceiling" to indicate how it is still difficult for women to move up into higher leadership positions in the church (Dowhower interview 1997; Miller interview, 1997; B. Neubauer interview, 1997). I do think there is a glass ceiling. I think that women are very apt to get first calls and second calls where they are looking for someone who is right out of seminary, or maybe someone who is a second income in the family. Those calls seem to find women easily...congregations who can be choosier choose men (B. Neubauer interview, 1997). Women are often welcomed into assistant or associate positions upon graduation from seminary, in congregations where there is a male senior pastor. When women leave these "first call" positions, however, it is often difficult for them to find congregations who will call them as the senior pastor (Orso interview, 1997). There are only a few women who are senior pastors of large, prominent congregations. It is also very unusual that a congregation will have a female senior pastor and a male assistant pastor. Women who are senior pastors often get called to

15 churches that are less desired, such as small rural parishes. "Women, being not preferred, will go anywhere and take the jobs nobody else will take" (Hagen interview, 1997). Much attention has been paid to the fact that, when they come out of seminary, women wait longer for their first call to a congregation, than men do. In 1996, Jan Erickson Pearson and Martin Smith published a report for the ELCA's Commission for Women entitled "Analysis of the Length of Time Spent Waiting for First Call." The report showed that women wait an average of 3.3 months longer for their first call than men do. This fact seems discouraging at first, but there are other factors that are involved. In general, those who are older when they are ordained wait longer for a call, and on average women get ordained a few years later in life than men. The average age of women at their ordination is The average age of men at their ordination is Another factor that lengths the time spent waiting for first call is placing restrictions on the call due to a spouse's job. More women than men place restrictions on their calls. The fact that women wait longer seems to be a combination of factors, including gender, age, and restriction. One of the greatest barriers for ordained women that remains is that there is still resistance to their ministry in the congregations (Hagen interview, 1997). In the ELCA today there are not many who would actively argue against women's ordination. However, actually accepting a woman's ministry can be a different story. "For some, ordaining women is fine, as long as their church doesn't call one" (Delloff 1990, 8). Hagen, as assistant to the bishop in the Maryland/Delaware Synod, is involved in the process of placing pastors in congregations. In her position she is able to see the prejudice that still exists in congregations. Some congregations will tell her that they do not want to interview any female candidates. No matter what the congregation says, the bishop's office still sends male and female names to each congregation that has an opening for a pastor. The congregation, however, can still decide not to call a woman on the basis of her gender. Congregational call committees and church councils and members of congregations on the whole are still significantly prejudiced against female candidates. It doesn't mean a woman can't be called there. It just means she has to be better, she has to be clearly better. And they will still call men, in my opinion, who are not as competent as women who are candidates (Hagen interview, 1997). To reach the same level of acceptance in a congregation, a woman must be better than a man. "Women have to be that much better, because the edge will be given to the male" (Orso interview, 1997). Some people feel that women have not yet proved themselves and their capability to do ministry. Therefore women have had to work harder and be better than men in order to prove that they are just as effective in ministry. Of course, not all women have had bad experiences in the call process. Some have been very accepted and appreciated in their ministries. In 1995 the Rev. Ann Rowe Church was called to be the associate pastor at St. Martin's Lutheran Church in Annapolis, Maryland, where the Rev. Gerald Miller is the senior pastor. Church says that she did not have much trouble being called to St. Martin's and accepted by its members. "The process for me was not that difficult, but I think 15

16 the experience has been very difficult for other women, and I try to be very conscious of that" (Church interview, 1997). Even if a woman is accepted by a call committee and called by a congregation, she can still feel prejudice once she begins working in a congregation. After Church was called to St. Martin's, one member left the church because he believed that women should not be ordained (Brock interview, 1997). Cases that extreme are rare, but they do exist. Twenty eight years after the first ordination, some women still have to deal with prejudice in the church. But even when facing prejudice and struggling to fit into the church structure, women have still expressed their own spirituality, and developed their own styles in ministry. The ways in which women may do ministry differently from men and how this has affected the church will be discussed in the next section. 16 Women's Spirituality and Style in Ministry Differences in Men's and Women's Ministry Fran Ferder and John Heagle, authors of Partnership: Women and Men in Ministry, stress the importance of not over emphasizing the differences between men and women. Patriarchy thrives on exploiting differences, and the gospel should be viewed as something that reconciles the sexes, for "there is neither male nor female...in Christ" (Galatians 3:28). Putting too much emphasis on the differences between men and women has the danger of creating and perpetuating stereotypes that reflect negatively on women (Ferder & Heagle 1989, ). Keeping this in mind, it is still the case that everyone I interviewed expressed at least a few differences they have noticed between the way ordained men and ordained women operate. This does not necessarily mean that there are inherent differences between men and women. Of course there are many exceptions among both male and female clergy, but in general our culture raises men and women to value and focus on different things, and this may lead to different approaches to ministry. Several of the people I interviewed said that they think that women bring more compassion to ministry (Orso interview, 1997; Miller interview, 1997; Brock interview, 1997). According to Hedahl, women's spirituality is more based in community and relationships than men's, and so women strive to create community in congregations (Hedahl interview, 1997). Women are generally viewed as better at relating to people. This can be especially true in a oneon one situation, such as in counseling. "I think women's experience of marginalization have made them much more aware of the people who sit on the borders who could be very easily forgotten" (Hedahl interview, 1997). For this reason, women may be more aware of the children and elderly in their congregations (Hagen interview, 1997). Bob Brock is a lay member of St. Martin's, and was the chair of the call committees that