Close Topic Options

Women As Religious Leaders

More and more religions are accepting Women as spiritual leaders/pastors/vicars/priests.

Is this something that you believe in strongly one way or another, or do you just accept it because your religion believes in it?

Personally speaking, and this is only my opinion, but I don't like the idea of having women religious leaders, and as a Christian, I feel that if Jesus had wanted women leaders, he would have chosen a mix of men and women in his disciples.

Of course I'm not just directing this question at Christians, as it's an important issue that effects many religions the whole world over. Please be mindful of other people's beliefs when you are replying to my thread!

<!-- EDIT BEGIN -->

Message Edited! JB@Trinidad: just cleaned up the title so it works better for you.

<!-- EDIT END -->

Leaders Religious Women

Now, this is coming PURELY from my point of view, because of my religious understanding.

I don't believe that any of the churches that you are speaking of are much more than social clubs, where people get together and discuss their understanding of truth. Since they are not really authorized by God, whatever they do is entirely up to them.

Of course, they are going against centuries of teachings and traditions within their respective churches, in order to conform to worldly philosophies, but that is their choice in the matter.

This is NOT meant to be a dig or an attempt to badmouth any other religion.

Women As Religious Leaders Beliefs Religious General

I appreciate your feedback Nighthawk, the reason I decided to start this thread, was that I go to a church, that as far as I had interpreted, do not believe in women Pastors. I was therefore more than a bit surprised when I turned up to church this morning , to find that they had invited a woman Pastor to lead the service!
I wasn't too happy about it, but my husband was ready to walk out. I thought it would be slightly rude to do this, so we sat it out. my husband however has told me to check the future services, because if there is a woman Pastor doing the service that week,he won't be there!

That is one of the good thing about your religion, at least you know 100% how the church stands on this issue!

Leaders Religious Women

I grew up in the Presbyterian church, and before I left, they had begun allowing female pastors to lead church services. A woman could not be a leader in the church, but could be a pastor and float between churches. Personally, I didn't think much of it until I started attending Catholic mass with my wife. Of course, in the Catholic church, female priests are not allowed.
I have had this discussion with a coworker of mine who belongs to a non-denominational church, and he is very against female pastors. His belief is that the Trinity is based off of male figures, and that since Jesus came in the form of man, that man should be the leading figures in church. I personally don't have a problem either way as I don't have a strong conviction to not having women lead the church.

Leaders Religious Women

In my personal opinion, I think it rest on the religion, or faith that woman is a member of. While I personally find nothing wrong with it, I feel that if you force the issue, putting a woman into a position of authority, you are risking losing your followers. Remembering that a shepards flock will only follow the shepard if they trust in the shepard, that same principle applies to a congregation or group of followers of any faith. And as women, do you really want to lead if no body wants to follow? Like I said, I see nothing personally wrong with it, but I know others in their faith do, and I think that they would benefit less if they were put into a position of being forced to have a woman in authority over them. The appointing of a pastor or priest shouldn't cause dissention in my opinion, though that sometimes happens with men too. Since I don't prescribe to a particular belief system, but come from one, I hope my opin can add something different to the discussion.

Women As Religious Leaders

Malexander, I agree with your coworker, personally speaking I don't think I have given it much thought until it actually affected us. We chose our church for various reasons, but one of the reasons was because it had male Pastors, we wouldn't have considered it unless it had. I think this was what disturbed us when out of the blue they sent a woman Pastor to do the service-- 'it just didn't sit right for us'.

Konquererz, You have a very valid point I feel, that forcing women Pastors on a church could lose half the flock. I actually didn't realize that we were so bothered about the issue, until it happened to us.

I am appreciating everyone's feedback, it has certainly been helpful seeing it from other people's views!

On another note, or maybe not, we will not be returning to our church, as from last night. Reason being-- we were quite preturbed to find a woman Pastor yesterday, but would just have coped with it, but yesterday evening at the evening service, one of our Pastors (male I might hasten to add) stood up and told us that God was a woman, and from now on, we wouldn't be referring to 'mankind' as this is 'sexist', but instead, we would have 'humankind', also according to this Pastor, the book of Paul from the bible is 'manmade', and we should only believe the parts of it that were favourable to women!
It was all too much for my husband, he just had to get up and walk out,something that he has never done before, my 16 year old son, at the end of the service spoke to the Pastor politely, but did tell him that he didn't believe any of the aforementioned.

sorry, but absolutely not in my book! if there are people out there that believe in that, fine, but my personal opinion is certainly 'no thank you-- not for me'

Edited: DianeC on 27th Feb, 2006 - 7:38pm

Women Religious Leaders

DianeC, I don't blame your husband at all for walking out after a comment like this was made. Did the pastor use Biblical references for making this claim? The only argument I have heard of women being involved as religious leaders was Mary Magdalene as one of the apostles, of course which stems from issues discussed in the DaVinci Code. However, for a pastor or leader in a church to outright state that God was a woman is very disturbing in my opinion.

Women Religious Leaders General Religious Beliefs

Hi Malexander, no, he didn't use any biblical reference when he stated that God was a woman, in fact he didn't even say that this was his own opinion, (which would have shed some light on it) or where he had come to this conclusion from.
I could cope with having one Pastor 'going off tangent' but the other 2 Pastors stood there and said nothing-- they didn't even decline it or back it up, but rather remained silent.
As the old saying goes-- less says more-- It certainly spoke volumes to us anyway!
I agree with you, I found it very disturbing.
It just leaves you feeling 'let down' really.

It's certainly going to be a question I ask first before I start at any other church *shrugs*