The Ordination of Women:Reflections on Theology and Practice

by Ian M.Fraser from What is ordination coming to? pp.14-21

Report of a Consultation on the Ordination of Women held in Cartigny, Geneva, Switzerland 21st-26th September 1970
edited by Brigalia Bam, first published by the World Council of Churches 1971
reproduced on our website with the necessary permissions.

The Ordination of Women: Reflections on Theology and Practice
Ian M. Fraser

A Wider Perspective

Is the ordination of women an important issue? Is it worth serious attention?

We have tended to answer this question according to the amount of interest it arouses in the major world Church facilities and confessions. I would like to ask a question which has a more geographical reference – is this a world concern or simply a regional one? Is the question being defined, and accordingly delimited, by the type of approach made and the type of emphasis placed by people who live in the Northern Hemisphere? Let us take two instances:

l) It is in that part of the world, particularly in the U.S.A., that there is a polarising of forces concerned to degrade or free women. Wesselmann in his paintings on The Great American Nude expressed the garishness of the seductive female image which was being projected by the media, particularly film; and at the same time one is aware of his compassion for what is ultimately a product of exploitation, including self-exploitation. Henry Miller, strangely proud of his sexual inadequacy (he seems to have been incapable of establishing a lasting sexual relationship) was succeeded by Harold Robbins who took exploits and fantasies like Miller’s and churned out of them endless popular paper-backs. In both instances women are reduced to their erogenous zones (a woman becomes ‘tits’ or ‘cunt’). In James Bond films heroines are presented like a primitive sacrifice to the hero, to be used and cast aside as if he were a God and they were a lower, mindless form of existence (it is interesting that Sean Connery, who played the hero, thought this idea of relationship with women the most awful rubbish). Toplessness in cabarets and eating-houses brings the trend from the canvas, the page, and the screen into three-dimensional presence. It seems to be thought impossible to sell anything effectively without having female charm, nude if possible, in the advertisement. I have two marvellous examples, in one of which a nude is advertising a dredging company, in the other of which a nude recommends a particular make of motor tyre – as you might expect, it would take a skilled disc-jockey to work out the connection between the two. For some time I had a poster nearly all of which was taken up with a picture of an attractive young girl whose brief top showed most of her breasts and whose jeans were zipped two-thirds down the front. The legend said “FEEL…. FEEL….FEEL….” and as you read you wonder for a fraction of a second whether this can be an advertising poster at all or simply an invitation to erotic indulgence; but the legend goes on”…. the strength of this powerful radio….”! I would say that what is being presented here is disposable woman. The underlying thesis is that women are not persons, but that some women have desirables which men can extract for limited purposes, the rest being discardable like any cigarette box.

Over against these are the Liberation Movements, again, particularly in the U.S.A. It is no wonder that one of their main points of concentration is the image of women being projected by the mass media and that one of their points of conviction is that women will never be treated as persons as long as de-personalized seduction is one of the chief weapons in the armoury of these media. Among young people there is an instinctive and powerful cultural reaction which to me seems as important as that of the Women’s Liberation Movements. For me, this was one of the telling points of the film “Woodstock” (and it must always be remembered that music has been understood as a language by a whole generation of young people all over the world in a way which has not happened previously in history – why do we still attach more importance to conferences than to music festivals, I wonder?). I would select two points which struck me. One was the obvious conviction of these young people that to establish person-to-person relationships was of supreme importance (surely new and more adequate sexual habits must be ancillary discoveries to the establishment of significant personal relationships, especially in a society in which one of the sexes has been so demeaned). Another was the regular procession to the lake in the morning. Young people of both sexes stripped off, washed themselves, swam about a bit in the lake, came back and got dressed for the day. This was so completely unlike a peep-show, and so completely different from the self-conscious unselfconsciousness of films produced by nudist clubs, that I was driven to try to express its meaning. I found it to be an exercise in acceptance. It was as if this girl said to those around her “here I am, a bit too fat and with floppy breasts -but I believe that I am accepted by you just as I am and for what I am without trying to cover up or pretend to be someone else”; and as if a young man, similarly placed, was saying “here I am with my stick legs and not-obviously-husky body and I believe I am accepted as I am and for what I am without having to pretend I am different”. To me, aged just over fifty, this was an act of iconoclasm. I belong to a generation who remember the full impact of the Hollywood image of women, whose suggestion was that you were worth attention and love if you had what it takes physically, but not otherwise. “Woodstock” reasserted the importance of people as total persons, to be accepted because they were persons, not because they conformed to some agreed social norm.

The ordination of women is one of the ecclesiastical expressions of this wider and more general battle. It may be, in fact, that the battle for true relationships at every level, from the face-to-face to the realm of power structures, is being so thoroughly joined that, even in this context, the ordination of women is becoming a periphery issue. At any rate, my main question at this point is whether the concern for new status for women, which contains within it the concern for the ordination of women, characterizes a particular culture which has reached a particular historical crisis-point or whether it is of world significance. We must ask seriously why there appear to be parts of the world which have no interest in the question, or at least count other questions so much more pressing, that it can be left aside indefinitely. Of course it may be that one part of the world is prophetically engaged in a struggle into which all the rest of the world must in their destined time also enter. But we have so often assumed that the issues which are of first importance for the Euro-American context are the issues to which the whole world should give priority, that we have reason for at least pause and thought.

2) We must ask seriously whether the obsession with ministry in its narrower sense and ordination which has clearly marked Faith and Order discussions over two decades, is due to a particular cast of mind which is not world-wide as is assumed, but is distinctively Western. The habit of tight categorizing, of producing church institutions which are strongly and clearly structured of having lines of authority drawn so that people know exactly where they are in some hierarchical scheme – is this not peculiarly Western (and a bit devilish? – there is little play for the Holy Spirit). I recognize that I am using the word “Western” in a very broad sense – the Celtic Church, whose nourishment from the first centuries has built up the community of Christians in Scotland, had a very different style and elan. But I believe the word is commonly used to describe a cast of mind as well as a geographical area, so I ask leave to use it. How, in the history of the Church, it has not only been by decisions which have gone through all the proper processes, but by visible endowment with native gifts and authority that people have emerged into leadership roles in the churches; and they have been acknowledged as being divinely-appointed, not only through the acceptable ecclesiastical vetting procedures, but by the consensus of the Christian community. So they can be set apart even if there is no focus of their setting apart, no ritual act to express this and to convey or confirm authority. They can be taken while they are tending the flock and set to work by an authority which is recognized for what it is, yet which seems to have no awareness of ‘preparation for the ministry’ processes. Where this emergent role of leadership is not thwarted by overwhelming institutionalising tendencies, women have as good a chance to exercise authority and fulfil leadership roles as men. As Gaba says in a preparatory paper: “In practically all African societies, women can be religious leaders, discharging the duties of ritual or sacred specialists”. One must also take note of situations where ordination is icing on a cake already baked. In Pentecostal Churches, all that is intended by ordination is often already effectively there, and the act of ordination becomes more of an after thought, a practice imported from elsewhere without affecting the reality of the situation. In the West itself now, much of the holy guff which has surrounded ordination is being dispersed, and there is radical questioning about what it effects and what relationship it has to the kind of leadership which emerges furnished with its own authority and gifts. Thus, not only the concern for the ordination of women, but the preoccupation with ordination itself, may have nothing like the importance we appear to be attaching to it by the attention we give it. As the Christian community sees itself more and more as a servant of the world community, and realizes that, in its own life, it is intended to be a kind of first-fruits of that world community, our concentration on ordination may dissolve into wider questions regarding the forms of leadership which are needed if the Church is to exercise a true ministry in the world, and our concentration on the ordination of women may have to appear in new perspective as merely one aspect of the struggle for true status for women and genuine human relationships between the sexes in society.

Where the Matter Stands

ven if the focal points of Faith and order work over the last twenty years has been over-determined by the Euro-American majority whose priorities naturally dominate it, there have been great gains.

One great Church family apart (which at the mere mention of ordination of women shows withdrawal symptoms) hard work has been done on biblical and theological aspects of the subject. From this has emerged a clear result. There is no biblical or theological barrier to the ordination of women. Recently there have been Orthodox theologians who have confirmed this verdict from the Orthodox point of view, as they understand it. One of the points of significance which has been raised in recent years is the tendency of ecclesiastical structures to conform to the authority-structure of the country in which they are set – we must keep asking whether objections which are presented as biblical or theological are not in fact sociological or ideological. Over the last few years it has also become clear that the fear that, whatever the theological and biblical basis for it night be, churches which change their practice to ordain women would offer an obstacle to union negotiations with other churches, has proved to be quite groundless. Whether churches are prepared to take action as a result or not, a great deal of the undergrowth of assumptions and counter-assumptions has been cleared away by effective scholarship.

How then are we to assess the present situation?

a) We can regard the matter as already settled. The case for ordination is now clear – what is needed is time and imagination to press the case home and to overcome conservatism. If churches do not proceed to give women the same freedom to present themselves for ordination as is accorded to men, this can only be because of disobedient traditionalism, or expediency regarding the timing. The latter point may have to do not only with the strategies of those who present agenda items to the churches, it may be that a good deal of time is needed for churches with particular histories to reassess theology and practice. According to this point of view, the ground is now clear, and all that is needed is courage to walk on it – as more and more churches are in fact doing.

b) There are some who are preoccupied more with questions of the true integration of women into the ministry of the total Church, since so many attempts to use their gifts in ministry appear to be half-hearted, inadequate, and still subtly affirmative of male dominance. I select some of these attempts:

i) Women may take over the traditional pastoral roles occupied by men. They may bring a distinctive touch and flair to the fulfilment of their pastoral work, but if they accept the traditional assumptions of pastoral ministry, their access to this office will leave all the burning questions about the validity and status of such ministry unanswered.

ii) In one or two cases, jobs have been made for women, e.g. the lector in Finland. According to the testimony of lectors, they tend to be ‘nowhere people’ neither integrated in terms of an old or a new conception of the church with other forms of ministry so as to have the same status as males. In financial and house provision, there is discrimination when a lector gets married as there is not with men. They are expected to be parish-bound, and women’s-organization-bound. Their real interests manifestly lie elsewhere, in probing new possibilities of pastoral service, particularly in hospital work, family counselling, industrial mission, and vocational schools. The brightest idea for dealing with this jobs-tailored-for-women solution appears to be to open the office to men as well.

iii) The gifts of women are being used in team-ministries. This is often one of the most satisfying outlets for the gifts and skills of women, partly because team-work using a balance of skills offers a rational and rewarding approach to problems posed in a pluriform society. But here too women may be thought of basically as auxiliaries, the role of the female being to fit in with the male. There may be the hidden suggestion that men are all-capable and equipped for leadership where either team or individual initiative is called for, but that women are suitably gifted only for corollary aspects of ministry. The argument for the use of women according to their different-giftedness may be a snare – it may subtly insinuate a continuance of the help-mate role. Freedom is needed to match gifts to need so that it is the actual gifts of persons, whatever their sex, that determines their mating with tasks.

c) The last feature of the situation I would bring to your notice is the fact that when the door is open so few women go through it. Why is it that, once the eldership is open to women, only a tiny proportion of women present themselves for office, and that when women can be accepted for ordination, so very few offer? It is often suggested that women have been so accustomed for such a large part of history to disinheritance, that it will take a long, long time for them to act out their reinheritance once this is achieved. I have my doubts about this argument. In a relatively short period of history people have made the change from primitive to mechanized farming, from political disinheritance to political effectiveness. Is there rather something in the male-female division of responsibilities in society which means that a token representation of women in places of authority and decision-making will suffice? Von Allmen has argued that there is something in the constitution of men and women as God has chosen to make it which would indicate distinctive and reasonably designable types of role which each should play in society. This I cannot accept, simply because what constitutes the human sexually has no sharp distinctive edges to it, and because human nature is continually showing new potential which constantly makes obsolete clear lines of sex/functional demarcation drawn by society. But the question remains with me.

Moving Forward

It is clear that we are in a situation where many factors exist which are pregnant for the production of change, and yet that change may happen only marginally, and that old attitudes may prevail. On what do we need to focus at this particular point of history?

What seems lacking to some is a positive theological case for ordaining women. It is agreed that the negative work has been done well, but it is believed that this clearing away of the brushwood of bad biblical exegesis and bad theological thinking is insufficient. Can we then prepare a theologically-argued case for ordaining women as part of the necessary pattern of the Church? I believe not. We can produce no positive theological case for ordaining Scotsmen – by a clear oversight on the part of God, they were not represented among the apostolic band: but the extension of the Church to the Gentiles cleared the way for the ordaining of people of all nations. The same extension of the Church to total humanity is, surely, the basis for opening the possibility of ordination to total humanity. In the most modest situation, where the poor theological and biblical exegesis which supported all-male ordained ministry has been cleared away, but no move is made towards a positive opening of the possibility of ordination to women, – the position should yet be seen to exist that any woman can put herself forward on the same basis as a man to have her call tested. Once the ground is cleared for ordination of either sex, it is not likely to be through further theological argument but through willingness to test the call of women on the same basis as that of men that the implementation of change is likely to take place. In any case, a theology of the ordination of women would probably simply be a fashion-item at a time when theologies of everything under the sun are being posited. I expect any time to hear of a theology of sewage disposal – in fact, I think it might be better based than many since it can be rooted in the theological understanding of man’s stewardship of the creation!

What, then, is to be the focus? If we concentrate on the equipping of the whole people of God for the work of ministry, will not the service and status of women sort itself out – not only in preserves which have been marked out for the ordained, but in all spheres of life? For me, the priority is that we come level with a remarkable agreement in theology which already exists in the churches, on the ministry on the whole people of God as a participation in the ministry of Christ. This needs to find expression in concrete acts, in changes of structures, and maybe particularly in projects and experiments in special circumstances and on a limited basis which need not commit the whole Church until their strengths and weaknesses have been tested out in practice. If this is not done, the ordination of women, instead of being a sign of renewal, can become a distraction from the demand of renewal. Add a few ordained women to an unreformed ordained ministry and how much further forward are you? Simply to ask this suggests the dimensions of the question. Add a few more laity to existing clerically-dominated structures, add a few more young people to existing senior-dominated structures – and all that you have is a face-saving operation. You fail to deal with that godly dissidence and frustration which belong, to my mind, to the Holy Spirit’s pressure to r eform radically church institutions. It is when the question of the ordination of women is seen in its total context of reinheriting the whole people of God, and then seen as a dimension of the quest for the reinheriting of the whole of humanity so that all human beings are accorded dignity and significance, that the ordination of women can be recognized as an important issue. A group like this, to the extent to which it is serious about its subject, will not be preoccupied with its subject: it will be aware that the question of the ordination of women is of importance only in the context of much larger questions concerning the future of humanity and the future of the Church.

Why do we hold back?

All our work in this field can turn out to be a theoretical exercise. What keeps the churches in bondage?

There are fears – of action leading into the unknown; of the threat-potential of women, laymen in general, and youth; of getting into the wrong Church league with churches less immaculately conceived and divinely-protected through history in their tradition, doctrine, liturgy etc. Finance – clearly churches which allow that every form of ministry should be open to women are not all prepared to provide equal pay and conditions of service; and the threat of redundancy may loom larger for some males. Loaded biblical exposition as the ally of sheer untruthfulness. A continuing cult of immaturity for all but ordained men – laymen, women, the young being given consolation places in the structures of authority, but not being dealt with as if they could be full adults, capable of every type of responsibility. The suffocating weight of the past; and inflexibility towards the future. Superstition e.g. re the uncleanness produced by menstruation, and, in some societies, the new status which can be accorded at the menopause, which releases a woman into something like male-equivalence!

For these reasons, the service and status of women in the churches remains one of the points at which churches are challenged to accept and live by the liberation which their faith proclaims, shaking off the shackles of fear, self-interest, idolatry and superstition.

Possible Foci

Looking forward, I suggest two theological focal points, plus one line of existential research to be pursued through imaginative forms of relationship and calling for theological reflection, as potentially fruitful concentration points among others:

1. A Christological exploration of the meaning of the new humanity in Christ “Stand therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made you free’ not only in relation to the re-realisation by the Church of its mission and goal, but in regard to the reinheritance of all humanity.

2. A fresh examination of the work of the Spirit. Ministry which is participant in the ministry of Christ is equipped by the Holy Spirit by a whole diversity of gifts and has many forms of expression. The Holy Spirit is always bringing new tricks out of the bag – what does his activity mean for the fashioning and refashioning of ministries of all kinds? Note Anne Barnett on the independent African Churches which make it possible for women to have “… a prestige and authority they would never know in their parent bodies” back in Western countries; and the insight of D. Barrett on the relationship between the history of enthusiasm and the emancipation of women.

3. There has always been more space in the Church than has been used. Often by the term of the constitution of a Church itself people are completely free to act directly, in free association with one another, in enterprises which may chart directions for the life of the Church in the future. We need concrete experimentation in ‘mutuality’ in all forms of ministry. In many more cases, people should go ahead, try out possibilities experimentally, risk failure.