Getting Women Ordained

Abstract

This brief history of the decision to ordain women to pastoral service was first published in the volume, Called and Ordained (1990). It is here republished by Lutheran Quarterly with a new Afterword by the original author, Gracia Grindal. As she points out, the historical review of the matter is "worth considering since it raised the fundamental question of how Lutherans theologically understood the office of the pastor, a vexing issue as the question of the historic episcopate came up in the ecumenical conversations of the last century." Although the late 1960s were years of unprecedented social upheaval, Lutherans studied and debated women's ordination on the grounds of the Confessions and scripture. While the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod still does not ordain women, the Lutheran Church in America and the American Lutheran Church were on the basis of their study of their Confessions and scripture were compelled toward the decision to ordain women even at the risk of church unity and the ecumenical moment.