So far, 2010 is shaping up as quite a dispiriting year for feminine spirituality. The RCC continues its strong stance against female ordination or any kind of female leadership (no surprise there), the Anglican communion is experiencing a significant worldwide push-back against female ordination (although women have been ordained in the U.S. church since the 1970s, England only permitted women to be ordained about 15 years ago and has been permitting protesting dioceses to opt out, which more and more are choosing to do), and even some Protestant denominations in the U.S. have started to "de-fellowship" congregations with female pastors in order to pressure women out of leadership roles. Polls show increasing numbers of Christians (including women) agree that women should not be permitted to lead in the church.
A letter-writer to the New Yorker recently opined that based upon all of the above, one can only conclude that Christianity is for men only, and all women should leave the church. An interesting point: Christianity is technically not a religion, it is a faith based upon the Resurrection, so one could argue that if women are excluded from ordination, they are excluded from the pews as well.
The purpose of this blog is to examine the many ways that Jesus has ordained women in the spiritual sense, and how this is not recognized by the male-imposed bureaucracies that have been created over the centuries. Is there any chance that women will overcome these barriers in our lifetimes? Probably not, especially given the above-referenced backlash against what little progress was made in the late 20th century. I think it is interesting (and more than a bit discouraging!) that in the 1970s, many people predicted that by the year 2000, women would have full parity with men in every area - education, business, religion - but we now see that a decade into the new century, not only are we far from parity, we seem to be losing ground from 20-30 years ago. What are the reasons for this?
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