With Courage and Compassion

Women and the Ecumenical Movement

Aruna Gnanadason

• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781506430249
• eBook ISBN:
  9781506430256
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religious Ecumenism & Interfaith

With Courage and Compassion celebrates the contributions of women to nations, societies, churches, and the ecumenical movement. Through creative forms of resistance and daring theological exploration, women have enriched and advanced theological discourse and called for transformations in within human relationships with one another and with the earth. The World Council of Churches (WCC) has, since its inception in 1948, responded to the call of women for recognition of their leadership and theological gifts with efforts at affirmation and inclusion. However, all is not well. Structures and processes that permit many forms of exclusion and even violence against women in societies in the church and the ecumenical movement persist. This book analyses what lies at the heart of the struggle women go through and why the vulnerability of women continues to be exploited. It calls for a new theological vision and political imagination to transform unjust attitudes and systems that still exist, particularly in the ecumenical movement.

3

The Ordination of Women to Priesthood: Dilemma or Promise

We will continue our exploration into what being church means for the world today as we strive for new models of leadership—ready, responsive and courageous; caring, loving and compassionate; inclusive, hospitable and embracing. . . . so that the Church will be each day truly the Church of Jesus Christ. We as women, as the Spirit leads us, will pour our ointment on the feet of the church.

Aruna Gnanadason^[1]

Throughout the history of the World Council of Churches, the question of the participation of women in the life of the churches has been a central commitment. It is certainly not possible or good to generalize the situation of women in all churches, however, women in different places and contexts have said that their leadership and spiritual gifts are not honored adequately by their churches. As the composite report of the Living Letter’s visits to the churches during the Ecumenical Decade of the Churches in Solidarity with Women describes it:

Women are a majority in most congregations and participate strongly in the spiritual and liturgical life of the church. They are active in parish life through a wide variety of lay ministries—diakonia, fund raising, teaching and counseling. They gain strength and satisfaction from all these kinds of participation and even if their contribution is not always recognized and they are unable to attain leadership in these areas. Diakonia provides good opportunities for valuable participation, including access to the ecumenical movement.

On our travels we also met women—feminist theologians and lay women—who are ready to assume new roles in the church. These women are determined to draw out the liberating strands of their faith. Some have found no place in the church to nurture their spiritual questioning and after much frustration, have started alternative church movements, new ways of being the church, of expressing their spirituality. It could be said that, rather than these women leaving the church, it is the hierarchical church which has left them.^[2]

Women have spoken of the glass ceiling that blocks their upward mobility in leadership and the slippery floors that restrict and stifle their uninhibited and creative participation. There is evidence in the work of the WCC that the question of the ordination of women to priesthood is not by any standard the most important issue that has gripped the attention of women in the churches and the ecumenical movement in the last sixty odd years. In fact, it is only occasionally discussed as women grapple with more fundamental questions regarding their life and witness in the church and their prophetic role in society. Feminist theologians have questioned any static understanding of the orders of the church. Letty Russell, for instance, writes,

The orders of the church can also be dynamic and changing in their responsibility to build up the community for its ministry in the world. Church historians and theologians no longer hold that a particular pattern of ministry was established by Christ from the beginnings of the church. Rather, they search for ways to show that a particular church tradition represents a continuation of the basic Tradition of Jesus’ life and ministry, and continuing presence through the Spirit in the life of the Church.^[3]

Women from the Orthodox traditions would draw attention to the many ways in which women’s ministries have been understood and affirmed in their churches—the exclusive focus on ordained ministry is questioned by some women theologians from Orthodox churches.^[4]

The issue of ordination to priesthood, however, does deserve consideration because it has been an issue of importance to many women (including some women from Orthodox churches) and does come up both in discussions among women and as a point of tension, on occasion, in the work of the WCC. It has also been perceived as a threat to Christian unity—hence it is an important issue to consider in any review of the participation of women in the ecumenical movement. Discussions on the ordination of women have not been easy as many churches still have not recognized this call of women. Many women speak of their pain as they encourage their churches to recognize the spiritual and pastoral gifts they offer to the churches and their ministries. Feminist theologian, Melanie May, an ordained minister of the Church of the Brethren, who served on the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches draws attention to the link between women in ordained ministry and the unity of the church. She writes,

Discussion of the ordination of women is threaded through the ecumenical movement in the twentieth century. This thread of discussion is, however, a slender one and has, at times, been all but unraveled by silence on the subject. Today, we seek to weave this thread more integrally into the search for the visible unity of the church, acknowledging that the visible unity of the church is predicated on the recognition of all baptized members and the recognition of all those who are called to ordained ministries. We cannot, therefore, achieve the visible unity of the church unless we are willing to talk together, in truth and in love, about the question of women’s ministries, including the ordination of women.^[5]

Earliest reference to the subject in WCC records is found in the report on the Life and Work of Women in the Churches that was prepared by a few women for the First Assembly of the WCC in Amsterdam, in 1948. The Report, referring to the ordination of women, states,

Some churches, for theological reasons, are not prepared to consider the question of such ordination, some find no objection in principle but see administrative or social difficulties; some permit partial, but not full participation in all the work of the church. Even in the last group, social custom and public opinion still create obstacles. In some countries, a shortage of clergy raises urgent practical and spiritual problems. Those who desire the admission of women to the full ministry believe that until this is achieved, the church will not come to full health and power. We are agreed that this whole subject requires further careful and objective study.^[6]

The fact that this was an issue recorded in the first ever official voice of women in the ecumenical movement is indicative that it has been for many women, an issue of vital importance. But then the reaction of Sarah Chakko, a Syrian Orthodox woman from India, who was asked to present the report, “who felt that the question of the ordination of women was only a minor part of the whole problem,”^[7] captures well the complexity of this issue and the unfinished discussion in the ecumenical movement.

The Community Study and its Reference to the Ordination of Women

The Community of Women and Men Study that is referred to in the previous chapter, which had culminated in a major conference in Sheffield in 1981 had explored three major areas—theology, participation and relationships—all three areas where change was urgently needed. The process had reiterated that “The unity of the church requires that women be free to live out the gifts that God has given them and to respond to their calling to share fully in the life and witness of the church.”^[8] The process was an ecclesiological study and had focused on the recognition that “women’s issues” are issues concerning the wholeness of the whole church; a study of church unity with particular reference to the experiences of women. As a result:

Significant ecclesiological challenges emerging from the study included questions about the structures of the church, about how power and authority were exercised and by whom. The question of power and exclusive leadership inevitably brought up the controversial questions of the ordination of women to the priesthood and the episcopate. Although there was no agreement on the answers to these questions, at Sheffield, they were clearly, and often painfully, articulated.^[9]

The discussion on the ordination of women in the Community Study recognizes,

the complexity and diversity of the existing situations both within and between the different churches. The state of the discussion is also at different stages in different cultures. Amongst the churches, there is a plurality of practice embracing those who do ordain women, those who do not, and those who are hesitant for ecumenical reasons.^[10]

The report goes on to say that as knowledge of theology and sociology develop,

we are offered a chance to deepen our understanding and practice of ministry and our relations with one another . . . . The issues involved in this matter touch us at our deepest level, embedded as they are in liturgy, symbolism and spirituality. There can be no real progress if church, state or any group within the church seeks to force a change in practice without taking this into account.^[11]

The Community Study also points to the fact that the problems of ministry are related “to the social and cultural context where the identity of the church and individual Christians is being constantly challenged.”^[12]

Women from all parts of the world have described their own struggles with their churches on this concern. They have challenged their churches for blaming the patriarchal cultural contexts of their societies as the basis for excluding women. Musimbi Kanyoro gathers together some of the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Table Of Contents
• Preface
• Words of Gratitude
• Women creating places of hospitality for human flourishing
• Women have made a difference
• The ordination of women to priesthood: dilemma or promise
• The church as a sanctuary of courage
• Moving forward: holding each other up gently
• Select Bibliography
• Appendix: Significant Ecumenical Moments and Events
• Index