Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Female ministers

I put this list together two years ago for a debate of denominations with female ministers. I'd love to open up a thread and have people add to it. So please post if I have missed one that you know of.

Just picking American churches:
  • Quakers since at least the early 1800s
  • The Congregationalist church since 1853
  • Salvation Army since 1865
  • United Methodist church since 1880
  • Church of the Nazarene since 1889
  • Church of God since 1909
  • Mennonite Church since 1911
  • Assemblies of God since 1914
  • United Reformed Church since 1917
  • Baptist churches since 1920
  • PCUSA since 1930
  • Anglicans since 1942
  • Hussite Church since 1947
  • Evangelical Lutheran Church since 1948
  • Old Catholic Church since 1949
  • Church of the Brethren since 1958
  • Metropolitan Community Church since 1968
  • Church of Scotland 1969
  • Evangelical Lutheran 1970
  • Reformed Church in America, elders 1972
  • Episcopal Church 1976
  • Lutheran Ministry 1976
  • Reformed Church in America, minister 1979
  • Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 1984
  • Church of England, 1992
  • Scottish Episcopal Church as priests, 1994
  • Seventh-day Adventists 1995
  • Christian Reformed Church, 1995
  • Scottish Episcopal Church as bishops 2002
  • Worldwide Church of God, 2007

  • 9 comments:

    Anonymous said...

    Church of Scotland 1969;
    Scottish Episcopal Church 1994 - as priests, and as bishops 2002 [none as yet]

    Just curious why you want to open this as a thread? What's the discipline issue...?

    CD-Host said...

    Thanks for the additions, I've added them above. The discipline issue is twofold. First, women are frequently disciplined for attempting to lead. Frequently their leadership points to liberal churches with female leadership and indicate that female ministers lead to apostasy. By creating a list showing that it is normative in Christianity of all different types I hope to counter this argument. Second, discipline most often happens towards the weak, women and children. By arguing for female elders I hope to create a situation where the accused get a more fair trial and more reasonable restoration.

    Anonymous said...

    'Women are frequently disciplined'???
    women in 'leadership points to liberal churches... female ministers lead to apostasy'???

    Crikey, really? Not my experience in the main-line traditions I've known in Australia and UK. Must be [hate to label, argh] quite ultra-conservative churches you have in mind?
    If so, which ones - you've made me curious now, lol!

    CD-Host said...

    Oh yeah I'm talking ultra conservative. Reformed Baptist, PCA and OCA (rightwing presbyterian), IFBC (independent fundamentalist baptist). Those sorts of churches raise these issues.

    Anonymous said...

    Hello, your reference to a female led church or co-ed church being liberal is stated on the search by Google-that should be corrected as it is not true. The churches you list are primarily VERY conservative and what a breath of fresh air while still being intelligent and enabling women to rightfully have leadership positions within these churches.

    How can we possibly still be denying that Mary Magdalene was the first person Jesus appeared to and ought to be primary in the New Testament and stated as one of the disciples and apostles. She could be said to be the cornerstone of the church if it is true that Jesus appeared to her first which indeed my evidence tells me this is true. Women represent the other half of humankind creation and have been denied their rightful place in the other main conservative church far too long and you know which one I am referring to. I have been know to say that within my lifetime the largest church in the world WILL allow women to be priests and I will not die until it is so. They have denied long enough the truth of the story around women in the church and in fact there used to be female priests long ago and there was evidence of this as their remains were buried in the catacombs in Rome Italy where they buried the church leaders. They have covered up and hidden plenty of information as well as the fact that their priests used to be allowed to marry and have children. It is time the other chuches bond together to 1) enable women to have their say as they have important information to share and give a balanced perspective to the worship 2) bond all of the churches together enabling individuals to continue with any detailed differences in their worship but tying our similarities together which is the belief in one God or supreme being who oversees all of us and He is made up of the Godhead which consists of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit and since we have not acknowledged all of their stories as we do not have an accurate accounting of these since much was written secondhand regarding what was said and done. Therefore, we must rely on new God chosen speakers who have the influence of the Godhead and evidence of God's spiritual gifts including visions, to elaborate on what has been written. As well, the Muslims belive ONE (1) Imam will appear who will be sent by God to save their people but they have misinterpretted this and have all these men claiming to be Imam's without God confirming they are. The Jewish people believe their redeemer will be a woman and in the Book of Revelation there was sealed information so who is to say that God was not going to balance things out with the second coming of Christ by making this one a woman-God is like that and he does not deny his creation equal representation 3) staying stonger than the liberal and/or radical churches until they are not believed any longer and save their souls by becoming conservative.

    If you need to get in touch with me you know how to, prayer is one assured way and there is one more technical way.

    Sincerely,

    A female God appointed representative

    CD-Host said...

    Hi anonymous --

    Actually other than responding and hoping you read it I have no way of getting in contact with you. I don't get any special information from google I get your name.

    As for the "liberal" vs conservative ..... those are kind of relative terms. That being said it is accurate to say as you move left you find churches that are more female. Certainly though Assembly of God is seen as rather right wing.

    Jan Zizka said...

    Femdom is a tool of feminism to enslave men and make them weak and submissive.The funny thing is those who do femdom many a times revert back to other extreme-maledom.It does’nt take much intelligence to understand that this BDSM is only a sexual perversion designed to cause physical and mental trauma to people engaged in it and thus cause degeneration of society.Masonic(freemasons) writers for the last 200 years have written feminist and femdom sexual utopia in protestant countries under the secret guidance of catholic Jesuit preists.They promoted feminism and these sexual perversions only to destroy your protestant nations.Freemasonry is a secret society developed by Jesuits to enslave men and women of protestant countries through feminism and femdom and thus destroy protestantism secretly,results of which you can clearly see in mainline protestantism today.That is why you see masonic lodges only in predominantly protestant areas,never in catholic areas.

    CD-Host said...

    Hi jan welcome to the blog. First off are you sure you put this comment under the correct thread? I think I have 2 threads on here which address BDSM indirectly, Christian Domestic Discipline, but this isn't one of them.

    That being said I think I would differentiate between femdom which is sexual roleplaying and feminism which addresses power structures in society much more broadly. And yes people in the BDSM community are quite often "switches" that enjoy both types of play, though more often than not it is woman who like to switch. By and large: men who feel overburdened like femdom and men who feel powerless in their real lives like maledom type play, but of course those are generalizations. For women generally they start out as switches or bottoms and become tops later in life. Its really not much different than 5 year olds, "this time I get to be the Indians and you are the cowboys".

    Because it wasn't clear when you were talking about femdom proper (i.e. sexual) and when you were talking about feminism I had difficulty responding.

    Anonymous said...

    @CD host-you said woen generally start there sex life as subs and end up as dommes-that is just a cowardly lie(infact most women i have seen like to be dommes and many men like to be subs when they are young because of popular fantasy lies about sex,but when they see the truth they eventually tone down and and accept the god ordained roles-that is male dominant and female sub ) to escape from the truth that God made women to help men and be submissive to them just as christ is to God the father-not to rule or have authority which god has given to men-just as christ rules over his church.Women can have authority over other women and childeren but not over adult men,bible is very clear in this issue.However hard you try to lie you cannot escape from reality-that is the word of god-Jesus Christ.If you despise me now for saying this ,then look at the state of these "chistian" churches who ordain women in authority position over men,who allow immodest dressing for women,who "allow" homosexuality without thinking they are actually promoting and perpetuating destruction of god ordained ways clearly defined in the Word.You will see clearly the effect of Jesuit-freemason plot to destroy protestantism through feminist-femdom indoctrination.If you really believe in jesus then you must stand up against these shady forces and say no to both feminism and femdom(and also maledom roleplaying since roleplaying itself is a perversion of god ordained ways of sexuality and life)
    Now since i have said so much,don't think i am a catholic or an orthodox "christian".Infact i am as much against idolatry(practice of intercession to saints) in catholic and orthodox churches as i am against feminism (churches who ordain women in authority position over men,who allow immodest dressing for women,who "allow" homosexuality without thinking they are actually promoting and perpetuating destruction of god ordained ways clearly defined in the Word.) in the protestant churches.