Abstract
This article focuses on female clergy as potential agents of change in the Church. I argue that the adoption of female clergy is one of the main factors that cause the Church to change its practices, policies and theological orientation. The first female ministers were ordained in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland in 1988. This is fairly late compared to other Nordic countries. However, the number of female ministers and female students has been growing fast and nowadays about 70 percent of theology students are female.The paper is based on quantitative surveys conducted among the members of the Clergy Union in 2002, 2006 and 2010 (N = about 1,000 each) and among the applicants for university studies in theology in 2010. The research shows that clergywomen are changing the Church in a clearly more liberal direction. They do it in various areas of church life: they change the perception of faith and dogma, the policies of the Church as well as daily practices in parishes. Clergymen are notably more traditional in their orientation, even young clergymen. Therefore it is especially the female clergy who serve as agents of religious change in the Church.
Highlights
This article is about female clergy as agents of change in the Church: How do the often undermined clergywomen transform and change the Church from within? This article will analyze the question from a sociological perspective and it is based on empirical material
Research indicates that female clergy themselves are in a key position to change the Church and that their role differs a lot in different churches [3]
Regression analysis shows that theological orientation is clearly a gender issue (Beta = 0.244, t = 6.924, sig. < 0.001) and not an age issue (Beta = 0.16, t = 0.449, sig. = 0.654) and liberal views have increased with the increase of female clergy
Summary
This article is about female clergy as agents of change in the Church: How do the often undermined clergywomen transform and change the Church from within? This article will analyze the question from a sociological perspective and it is based on empirical material. Research indicates that female clergy themselves are in a key position to change the Church and that their role differs a lot in different churches [3]. This may entail withholding information, sending double messages or in other methods, putting women into positions where they are likely to fail [5] Within these difficulties, the spiritual or divine dimension of their profession is found to be extremely important for clergywomen. Religious groups as well as individuals with this orientation tend to stress purely spiritual tasks, the basic function of religion They take the view that the religious message of the Bible should be taken seriously and that as such it has something to say at this time. They are seriously committed to views they consider to be pure doctrine and take a traditional attitude to morality [24,25]
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