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In Christianity, the ordination of women has been taking place in an increasing number of Protestant and Old Catholic churches, starting in the 20th century. Since ancient times, certain churches of the Orthodox tradition, such as the Coptic Orthodox Church, have raised women to the office of deaconess. [1]
Today, over half of all American Protestant denominations ordain women, [136] but some restrict the official positions a woman can hold. For instance, some ordain women for the military or hospital chaplaincy but prohibit them from serving in congregational roles. Over one-third of all seminary students (and in some seminaries nearly half) are ...
The Woman's Bible, a 19th-century feminist reexamination of the bible, criticized the passage as sexist. Contributor Lucinda Banister Chandler writes that the prohibition of women from teaching is "tyrannical" considering that a large proportion of classroom teachers are women, and that teaching is an important part of motherhood.
In contrast to the ordination of women to the Catholic priesthood, the ordination of women to the diaconate is being actively discussed by Catholic scholars, [54] and theologians, as well as senior clergy. The historical evidence points to women serving in ordained roles from its earliest days in both the Western Church as well as the Eastern ...
[131] Arguing from the biblical presentation of God revealing himself "as masculine, not feminine", they believe God ordained distinct gender roles for man and woman as part of the created order. They say "Adam’s headship over Eve was established at the beginning, before sin entered the world".
She also notes a sentiment in 1 Corinthians, which exemplifies the pattern of Christianity of all varieties, where Paul explains that women should be veiled in the church to signal their subordination to men because the head of every man is Christ and the head of a woman is her husband and that women should keep silence in the churches. As the ...
[8] Some conservative Christian women have critiqued Evans's interpretation for undermining faith in biblical inerrancy. [ 9 ] In 2010, historian Molly Worthen wrote that " 'Biblical womanhood' is a tightrope walk between the fiats of old-time religion and the facts of modern culture, and evangelicals themselves do not know where it might lead."
[3] [4] [11] Some critics say the Church and teachings by St. Paul, the Church Fathers, and scholastic theologians perpetuated a notion that female inferiority was divinely ordained, [12] while current Church teaching [13] considers women and men to be equal, different, and complementary.