On Digging, Dialogue, and Decision-Making

Abstract

The papers in this special issue of The Review of Religious Research represent a significant milestone in the current movement for the inclusion of women in all facets of the life of the contemporary Christian churches. There are, as I see it, three primary arenas in which that movement has been framed: the feminist movement, more widely but especially within the churches, the denominational structure concerned with women's inclusion; and those among us who have found in this issue a fertile ground for the pursuit of research concerning the phenomenon. Each of these arenas has its own motivations, its own styles, its own issues. Often these can seem to work at cross purposes. The coming together of these three elements is what I have called the significant event. The churches, as institutions that celebrate some of the most deeply held perceptions and expectations of human culture, have been a particular problem for the feminist movement. Worshipping a God who has been almost universally referred to in masculine terms, exhibiting a long tradition of male leadership and patriarchal style, churches have more often than not defined the social role of women in a far more limited way than that claimed by the feminist movement. Yet at certain points in history, the churches-or at least some of them-have opened up new channels of action for women who have felt the call of God to move out into new roles of service, proclamation, and leadership. These women, acting out their perceptions of a divine mandate, have been among the most invincible in the struggle for freedom of action and legitimation of their role. Modern society has not responded particularly positively to claims about a call from God, so much of what has been spoken and written by religiously motivated women has been brushed aside as rhetoric, special pleading, or even demagoguery. "Horror stories" of how the church has treated some women are brushed aside as isolated cases, and their narrators are discounted. Modern people demand documented "facts," percentages, statistics. And so it is that some researchers are called in to provide reliable documentation. In this context, they may serve either side of the debate, depending on their findings and how they are interpreted. What we find here, for example, are a number of studies that offer at least glimpses into the "objective" reality in which the argument is taking place. Both feminism and its detractors require research to make their points acceptable; and this is true in the Church as it is elsewhere. The churches are, in spite of their ancient roots, institutions of modern society. Especially for those closest to the mainstream of modernization, that means that they partake of the bureaucratic ethos of modern organizations. In addition to the claims of church feminists that the exclusion of women from ecclesiastical positions violates the universalism of the call of God, churches must deal also with the bureaucratic ideal that Berger, et al. [1974] have called "moralized anonymity." Bureaucracies are expected to fill positions on the basis of the ability of persons to fulfill a Job description, and on that basis alone. Any consideration of other