Survey Results: Changing Church Roles for Women?

An offbeat article in a recent issue of the New York Times considers the plight of women. The topic is hardly a surprising one these days. But the writer analyzes women’s struggle for equality not in society or the church but in detective stories, long a bastion for the superficial or decorative woman. He concludes: “For the most part, women are still subordinate characters in mysteries, but ‘they are not the props they used to be.’ ”

And what of women in the church? “Still subordinate characters”? Have they even ceased to be props?

To find out if attitudes toward women are changing in evangelical circles CHRISTIANITY TODAY conducted a survey among leaders and laity. Do evangelicals believe the New Testament teaches the subordination of women? Would they approve of female pastors? How fairly have evangelical denominations treated women? What changes should be made? What about the Equal Rights Amendment?

Two hundred fifty questionnaires were mailed: to most denominational leaders (liberal and conservative), magazine editors, teachers, students, original signers of the Chicago Declaration of Evangelical Social Concern, and presidents and deans of major denominational colleges and seminaries as well as interdenominational liberal arts schools.

Eighty-seven persons, about 35 per cent, replied. Of the thirty women surveyed, 73 per cent (twenty-three) responded. Only 29 per cent (sixty-four) of the 220 men responded.

Besides denominations, respondents work in such organizations as Pennsylvania State University, Messiah College, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, the Post-American, the Christian World Liberation Front, and the Claremont School of Theology. The answers reflect personal rather than official opinion. (See graph for denominations; see also editorial, page 37.)

The Equal Rights Amendment (quoted in full in the survey letter; see box) was overwhelmingly approved: 64 to 19 with 4 abstentions. Equal pay for equal work and equality under the law were cited most often as desirable results of the ERA. (The status of the amendment is: thirty-one states have ratified it; two ratified and then rejected it; a court dispute is pending. Thirty-eight states are needed for passage.) As Roberta Gunner, minister of Christian education and youth, House of Prayer Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, put it: “Women would be equal citizens under the law … something we … understood in our schooling was everyone’s right.” Many say there are few if any dangers in passing the controversial constitutional amendment. James C. Cross, a mission executive of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, says, “There will be many painful readjustments as a society moves from institutionalized male chauvinism to full personhood recognition, but both males and females will profit from this ‘emancipation proclamation.’ ” (LCMS president J. A. O. Preus did not answer that part of the survey.)

Among the minority voicing disapproval of the ERA was Nancy Tischler, humanities chairman at Pennsylvania State University (and an editor-at-large for CHRISTIANITY TODAY). She claims that the prospects of making women eligible for military service in the same way that men are, further breakdown in the family because more mothers are working (a point cited by most of those against the amendment), and excessive litigation to test the implications of the ERA far outweigh the advantages of the amendment.

Results on the next question were closer: thirty-two said their denominations had treated women fairly, while forty-four said no; three said yes and no, and eight had no answer. Even those in denominations that have historically allowed women to serve in any capacity, including that of pastor (denominations within the holiness tradition, for example), say women have not received “uniform acceptance.” Carl Thomas McIntire (son of Bible Presbyterian radio preacher Carl McIntire), who teaches at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto and is a member of the Anglican Church, says women “on the whole” have been treated fairly: “Only the priesthood is restrictive.”

Is the situation the fault of men—or of women? Graduate student Anne Eggebroten (University of California, Berkeley) seems to think men have kept women in a subservient role in church work. “Women always get stuck with all the kitchen work for church dinners,” she says, “while the male pastors and leaders sail in and out and say, ‘Thanks a lot.’ ” Patricia Ward, assistant professor of French and comparative literature at Penn State, believes “much of the unfair treatment has been unconscious and that most women evangelicals have never sought to challenge their assigned roles in the church.”

Some who responded to the survey complained of loaded questions in favor of the male viewpoint. “Would you welcome an otherwise qualified woman as principal pastor of your congregation?” provoked strong reaction. Despite the wording, fifty-four or 62 per cent answered yes, while five gave qualified affirmative replies, and one a yes and no answer. Three did not reply and twenty-four said they could not accept a female pastor.

Marlin Van Elderen, managing editor of the Reformed Journal (Eerdmans), said he could not welcome a woman pastor, but added, “I consider this … to reflect a defect in my character. Theoretically I can’t argue against it.” Another magazine editor, who asked not to be named, admitted that “mentally my mind says yes. Emotionally I hesitate, and theologically I don’t know.”

Others, such as Richard Pierard, author, professor of history at Indiana State University, and member of the Christian Reformed Church, were not opposed in principle but said, as Pierard put it, “In our particular local situation I am not sure it would be advisable at this time.”

“Do you think the New Testament teaches that women have a subordinate role in the Church?” Several people, on both sides of the issue, thought that question, too, was badly worded. Columbia Bible College president J. R. McQuilkin called “subordinate” a loaded word. Ms. Gunner said, “That’s a miserable way to state the question. Why must women always try to prove they are as important in the eyes of God as men!”

On this question the response was forty-six no, twenty-six yes. Two did not answer, three explained their uncertainties, four said yes with qualifications, and six voted yes and no. Pierard thinks, contrary to the findings of this survey, that the “evangelical rank and file” believe the New Testament teaches subordination of women: “I am appalled at the large number of books and articles that continue to pour from evangelical presses propagating this outdated concept,” he said.

Sociology professor David O. Moberg of Marquette University said that the New Testament teaches subordination of women because of “the culture of ancient Corinth and the Greco-Roman Empire of the first century.” He added that “we live under a different socio-cultural system today.” Moberg also pointed out that Jesus made the Samaritan woman a “preacher” (John 4).

Post-American editor Jim Wallis summed up the attitude: “The Church must face up to the issue of equal rights for women or it will lose the most sensitive young women it now has. Distorted exegesis must no longer be used by men to support a status quo that subordinates women.”

What is being done to change attitudes and make women’s equality in the Church a reality? Nothing, think several surveyed; others say it’s hopeless. But some organizations, such as the task force on women and religion of the National Organization for Women (NOW), Minneapolis chapter, and the World Council of Churches,The WCC uses a quota system to fill member denominations’ delegations to insure a balance between man and women, clergy and laity. Several churches have failed to include enough women, and as a result their delegations may not be seated at next year’s Fifth Assembly, to be held in Nairobi, Kenya. are trying to effect some changes.

The NOW task force in Minneapolis, headed by an evangelical, has attempted to “raise the consciousness” of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, for example. A spokeswoman says NOW wants women on Graham’s board of directors, and more women on crusade steering committees, and has asked for the names and addresses of current officers and members of the board. Thus far, says the spokeswoman, there has been no formal response from the organization.

NOW also picketed the recent Christion Booksellers Convention held in Minneapolis. The group protested Marabel Morgan’s controversial evangelical best-seller, The Total Woman, which claims that to follow Scripture a wife should flatter and never disagree with her husband.

On a more theoretical level the recent WCC “Consultation on Sexism in the 1970s” on the changing role of women in church and society drew 160 delegates, representing Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox churches from forty-nine countries. Fewer than ten ordained women participated in the week-long meeting. The group discussed the need to legislate equality but said little of the church’s role in the issue or of how to change attitudes.

Youth Specialties, Incorporated, which publishes the Wittenburg Door, is surveying twenty-five evangelical organizations on hiring practices. Unpublished preliminary results indicate attempts to provide women with equal employment and advancement opportunities, says Roberta Gunner, who is handling the survey for Youth Specialties.

Those responding to CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S survey had some suggestions. Let women serve as elders, deacons, and ministers, said some; others wanted to see more men in church kitchens and more women in board rooms. Encourage women to assert themselves to lead and administer in the local church, said most. Some said they would like no changes made. Among them were Harold J. Ockenga, president of Gordon-Conwell seminary, and the president of another well-known Christian college, who asked not to be named. G. A. Miles, president of the Washington Bible College, summed up this attitude: “The role of women in our church is biblical.”

Yet a majority of those who returned the survey say the Church at the present time is still “a strong force against women’s equality.” As Pierard put it, the Church needs to “challenge and refute the sexist doctrines so latent in our faith as practiced today.”

A German First

She’s an attractive, six-foot German blonde, single, fluent in three languages (including English)—and the first woman to hold a major post in the far-flung Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Recently appointed editor of Entscheidung, the German edition of Decision magazine, Irmhild Barend was raised in Berlin and holds a Ph.D. in literature from the Free University there (her thesis was on the meaning and function of biblical quotations in the writings of the nineteenth-century German novelist Wilhelm Raabe). She formerly edited Contrapunkt, an international German-language youth magazine, and first met members of the BGEA in 1971, when she was elected to the executive committee of the European Congress on Evangelism in Amsterdam.

DAVID VIRTUE

Black Catholics: Is There A Future?

Whether or not the Catholic Church can survive in the black community remains a crucial question.

In July the third black American Catholic bishop was selected: Father Eugene A. Marino, vicar general of the Josephite Fathers and a member of the team of black priests that went to Rome last year to confer with the Pope about black concerns. He will serve as an auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of Washington, D. C. At forty, he is the youngest of the some 300 American bishops. The son of a Puerto Rican father and a black American mother, Marino was considered the preference of the diocese’s 70,000 black Catholics.

But rather than signifying success for blacks in the Catholic Church, Marino’s appointment actually reveals their plight, according to some critics. The Washington auxiliary bishop was appointed only after four years of pleading, they say, and as an alternative response to an original request for a black to succeed Cardinal Patrick O’Boyle as titular head of the entire diocese. As a compromise to whites, the critics allege, a white auxiliary bishop was also appointed at the same time.

Warned the Illinois Black Lay Caucus: “If the church politicians do not appoint more black bishops soon, there will be no Catholic churches left in the black community.” Stern warnings have also come from James Dulin, former head of the National Black Lay Caucus, who has said, “I cannot in conscience continue to represent black Catholics in the Catholic Church in America, which is a racist institution.”

Blacks quickly cite examples of racism: No black ordinaries (bishops over dioceses) exist in the United States. No dioceses have social-action offices, though a few have recommended them. No blacks serve on as important a committee as the Committee on Health Affairs of the U. S. Catholic Conference. And there are no black members on three executive committees of the National Catholic Education Association, even though there are 369 predominantly black parochial schools. Even the Society of African Missions has not a single black priest.

The shortage of black priests is especially severe. Out of 57,000 Catholic priests, only 175 are black. There is but one black pastor in Harlem’s seven parishes. Baltimore, which boasts the oldest black Catholic church in the nation, only this year ordained its first black parish priest. Even the two largest black constituent dioceses in Louisiana have a total of only four black priests. Los Angeles has none.

“With only one black priest for every 4,573 black Catholics in the country, the situation is bleak,” commented Robert Robinson, community coordinator for the National Office of Black Catholics. He noted, though, that twelve more are to be ordained this year.

Another cause for concern is the flight of blacks from the Catholic Church. Rumors are that many of the reported 855,000 black members are becoming increasingly disenchanted with the structure’s alleged slowness to change. Since 1968, at least twenty priests have left the ministry, and 200 black sisters have withdrawn from congregations. And since 1973, twenty-five black seminarians have quit.

Other special problems center in parochial schools. All across the country, parochial schools in inner-city areas are being closed. Black auxiliary bishop Joseph L. Howze of Natchez-Jackson, Mississippi, says many Catholics are unhappy about supporting Catholic schools where so much of the population is black and non-Catholic. Although black Catholics in Chicago reportedly raised $6 million annually for their schools, charge complainants, the church this year closed its last school on the West Side. The protests of 315 black families who sent children there were in vain, and when parents milled angrily in the halls of the chancery, fourteen were arrested.

On the other hand, some positive changes have occurred for blacks in the church within recent months, largely as a result of pressures brought by black organizations within the church. These groups date back only to 1969, when 1,000 packed St. Peter’s Church on Washington’s Capitol Hill for the first mass concelebrated by ten black priests from various cities. This was followed by the first Black Caucus Convention in 1970 at Catholic University. There are now more than thirty-five chapters of the Black Caucus in various cities.

Conferences on black education, liturgics, and ministry are now frequent. The National Office of Black Catholics (NOBC) is doing research for a black religious-education curriculum, and plans are under way for a black Catholic theological center.

Fully 10 per cent of the church’s deacons are blacks. The NOBC has released a book of experimental black liturgies by Father Clarence Joseph Rivers of Washington, D. C. And in St. Louis a new Urban Service Apostolate has been created, specializing in inner-city ministries. This is joined by special black secretariats newly formed in several dioceses, the latest in Washington, D. C.

The Campaign for Human Development, called the anti-poverty arm of the church, this year has distributed more than $5 million to 150 black community programs.

But the National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus has reportedly still not been able to raise its goal of $70,000 in foundation grants to spearhead a drive to recruit candidates for the priesthood and other religious vocations.

JAMES S. TINNEY

The Verdict On Vets

A U. S. district court in Charleston, South Carolina, upheld the refusal of the Department of Justice to allow federal funds under any U. S. program to go to Bob Jones University, Greenville, South Carolina, because of the school’s refusal on religious grounds to admit black students on an equal basis with whites. The court agreed that for the Veterans Administration to expend public tax money under the G.I. Bill of Rights to support students at a college that prohibits the enrollment of blacks would violate the Constitution.

BJU is expected to appeal the decision to higher Federal courts on the ground that it interferes with the free exercise of religion by a veteran when his religious belief requires segregation.

GLENN EVERETT

The Day Of Prayer

Nearly 5,000 Americans met at the foot of the Washington Monument in Washington, D. C., last month to hear speakers urge a return to prayer for the nation and to lead in prayers of repentance as part of the If My People project (see July 26 issue, page 39). But fewer than 700 (according to police estimates) participated in the second part of the day’s activities—a march and prayer in front of the Afghanistani and Russian embassies for believers being persecuted in Muslim and Communist lands.

According to If My People coordinators, similar prayer emphasis days were held in Denmark, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Canada, Guyana, and other countries. Project officials said they were unable to give figures on the numbers of participants in each country until reports were received from local leaders. In Morocco, a sense of immediacy was added to the prayer day, attended by fifty Youth With a Mission (YWAM) staffers and others. Several days earlier some Christian nationals were arrested for, they claim, engaging in evangelistic activities.

At Washington, the crowds listened while speakers exhorted them to pray for repentance. They were disappointed to find that the headline speaker, Bible smuggler Brother Andrew, had canceled for health reasons. YWAM head Loren Cunningham instead gave the keynote address, exhorting his hearers to extend “Christian forgiveness” to the Muslim and Iron Curtain governments.

Religion In Transit

University of Pittsburgh scientists are scratching their heads over plants that grew when prayed over, according to the Pittsburgh Press. The scientists placed eight kernels of corn in each of two pans and prayed over one of the pans. Seven kernels sprouted in the prayed-for pan, three in the other. Now the scientists wonder whether it was the prayer or tone of prayer that caused the increased sprouting.

The American Broadcasting Company has purchased Word, Incorporated, which publishes books, tapes, records, Faith at Work magazine, and other multi-media material for a largely evangelical audience. The Waco, Texas, publisher’s authors include Keith Miller, Charlie Shedd, and Bruce Larson.

Dr. Andre Appel will leave his post as general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation in October to assume the presidency of the 235,000-member Church of Augsburg Confession (Lutheran) of Alsace and Lorraine in France. He will be the first clergyman to hold the position.

DEATHS

Samuel Hepburn, 73, former national commander of the Salvation Army in the United States: in Los Gatos, California.

George E. Wright, 64, biblical scholar, archaeologist and divinity professor at Harvard University; in Jaffrey, New Hampshire.

Americans gave more money to religious groups and causes last year than ever—$10.9 billion, up $650 million from 1972’s total. This was 41.4 per cent of the record $24.5 billion philanthropic total, continuing a decrease from 1964 when virtually half of philanthropic giving went to religion. The figures are reported in a study by Giving USA, a publication of the American Association of Fund-Raising Counsel.

The Black Unitarian Universalist Caucus has officially changed its name to the Black Humanist Fellowship. The name change created a controversy among some blacks in the Unitarian Church who felt the change would lead to schism and a separate black denomination from the Unitarian Universalist Church. In a lawsuit over the proposal a common pleas court allowed the change of name.

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