After my Bachelor of Divinity (B.D.) with full hope and excitement, I approached many Churches in my diocese for work but the only response I got from them was a “no.” I wondered “why.” When questioned, "am I not qualified enough?" The response I got was “you are a woman and there is no place for a woman in our church.” What? Am I unwanted to God than the men working in the church? Does God not love me because I am a woman? What am I, a woman, actually allowed to do? Many reasons were given why women were not ordained. They blamed us for bringing evil into this world. Even quote Paul’s statements against women like “women should be silent in the churches,” (1 Cor. 14:34); “I do not permit a woman to teach or have authority…” (1 Timothy. 2:12) and so on.
These verses, to me, seem so unfair. Is God not a God of justice, goodness and compassion? What good is it to give me a gift and deny me the opportunity? If God does not like or value me the same as God values the men, just because I am a female, is God truly good? Can I still follow “Him”? Does God only want men to be ordained and not women?
Today, women’s ordination is related to the men enacting control over roles women ought play in churches. Some of us who take scripture seriously and have a great passion for theology and ministry feel frustrated, but forced to “shut up and be passive wimps”. We cannot stay silent anymore. We women must defend our call to pastoral ministry. Our personhood and dignity is questioned by those who doubt the validity of our calling by denying ordination.
In many churches’ we are not admitted to ordained ministries and therefore excluded from fully participating in the life and mission of the Church. Many churches refuse to recognize us as equal members in Christ when it comes to ordained ministries of the Church. We have been brainwashed into believing in our inferiority and dirtiness. Having accepted our inferior role, we bring into the church the taboos against us operative in our own indigenous cultures.
However, going through the gospels it is clear that Jesus treated women as persons with dignity and worth. He gave great importance to women to the extent of contradicting Jewish customs, laws, and traditions. For instance, he allowed a woman with a flow of blood to touch him by brushing aside the Mosaic law that declared women to be impure or dirty during menstruation and childbirth (Mt. 9:20-22). Jesus himself spoke and acted always in the context of his time reaching out to those in need and fulfilling their needs. Therefore, let us be agents of change taking direction from Jesus. Let us attempt to identify the issue of ordination in the church, and build life-affirming communities amidst the concept of dirtiness that surrounds women in the church.
Prayer
O God of justice and equality, guide us in envisioning and creating a church where men and women equally participate and minister together. Help us to take inclusive and compassionate steps toward empowering a human culture where your love, justice and peace shall prevail. Amen.
Author: Gifta Angline Kumar.
About the Author: Gifta completed her Bachelor of Divinity from the Bethel Bible College, Guntur and Master of Theology from the North India Institute of Post Graduate Theological Studies, Kolkata. She is currently pursuing Doctorate of Theology from South Asia Theological Research Institute, Serampore.
First of all I would like to appreciate Gifta Angeline for thought provoking writing. Really it is a great challenge in that context. I pray that there will be changes in the churches on such gender discrimination.
ReplyDeleteYes, we must rise up and break these age-old taboos and traditions that confine us. The leaders of the church and congregations must move towards change, acceptance and gender equality.
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