Male Clergy Research Articles

From Campus Ministries to Enclaves of Korean American Evangelical Churches: A Feminist Analysis of Korean American Evangelical Male Clergy Leadership Formation

From Campus Ministries to Enclaves of Korean American Evangelical Churches: A Feminist Analysis of Korean American Evangelical Male Clergy Leadership Formation

What Shapes Ambivalence towards ‘Feminism’ amongst the Clergy?

Abstract In 1994 the Church of England ordained its first women priests and since 2014 women clergy have been appointed as bishops, a senior role in the Church’s ordained hierarchy. However, their acceptance into these roles has been highly ambivalent. How ambivalence manifests and the role of deeper beliefs about gender in the Church is under-researched, especially in understanding the positions of male clergy who oppose women’s ordination. This article draws on data sets from two separate projects conducting semi-structured interviews with both men and women in ordained ministry and compares the ambivalence towards feminism held by female clergy and theologically conservative male clergy. The argument unpacks how institutional and cultural factors intersect with tradition-specific beliefs to generate highly ambivalent views about feminism as a movement. The conclusion suggests ways feminism is mythologised and used to reframe conservative male clergy as vulnerable and as potential victims of misandry.

Child sexual abuse by different classes and types of perpetrator: Prevalence and trends from an Australian national survey

BackgroundLittle evidence exists about the prevalence of child sexual abuse (CSA) inflicted by different relational classes of perpetrators (e.g., parents; institutional adults; adolescents), and by individual types of perpetrators (e.g., fathers and male relatives; male teachers and male clergy; known and unknown adolescents). ObjectiveTo generate evidence of the prevalence of CSA by different perpetrators, and trends by victim gender and age group. Participants and settingThe Australian Child Maltreatment Study collected information about CSA victimisation from a nationally-representative sample of 8503 individuals aged 16 and over. MethodsWe analysed data about 42 perpetrator types, collapsed into eight classes. We generated national prevalence estimates of CSA inflicted by each perpetrator class and individual perpetrator type, and compared results by victim gender and age group. ResultsAustralian CSA prevalence was 28.5%, with the following prevalence by perpetrator classes: other known adolescents (non-romantic): 10.0%; parents/caregivers in the home: 7.8%; other known adults: 7.5%; unknown adults: 4.9%; adolescents (current/former romantic partners): 2.5%; institutional caregivers: 2.0%; siblings: 1.6%; unknown adolescents: 1.4%. Women experienced more CSA by all perpetrator classes except institutional caregivers. Age group comparison showed significant declines in CSA by parents/caregivers, and other known adults; and increases in CSA by adolescents (current/former romantic partners). Individual perpetrator type comparison showed declines in CSA by fathers, male relatives living in the home, non-resident male relatives, and other known male adults; and increases in CSA by known male adolescents, current boyfriends, and former boyfriends. ConclusionsCSA by adults has declined, indicating positive impacts of prevention efforts. However, CSA by adolescents has increased. Further declines in CSA by adults are required and possible. Targeted prevention of CSA by adolescents must be prioritised.

The Bishop, ‘Magic’ and Women: Episcopal Visitation of the Diocese, Laywomen and the Supernatural, and Clerical Authority in the Central Middle Ages

AbstractTexts that prohibit laywomen from accessing the supernatural appear in the Libri duo of Regino of Prüm (c.906 CE) and the Decretum of Burchard of Worms (c.1020 CE). Regino and Burchard designed their handbooks for bishops to use as they visited their diocese. The handbooks forbade laywomen from accessing the supernatural through informal practices, which the texts contrasted to the male clergy's ritual access to supernatural authority. This article highlights that Regino's and Burchard's texts created a gendered hierarchy, one which associated women with illicit access to the supernatural and emphasised male clerical authority.

Voices Long Silenced: Women Biblical Interpreters Through the Centuries by Joy A. Schroeder and Marion Ann Taylor

Reviewed by: Voices Long Silenced: Women Biblical Interpreters Through the Centuries by Joy A. Schroeder and Marion Ann Taylor Amanda Brobst-Renaud Voices Long Silenced: Women Biblical Interpreters Through the Centuries. By Joy A. Schroeder and Marion Ann Taylor. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2022. 355 pp. The authors pursue the voices of women biblical interpreters, both Jewish and Christian, throughout the centuries. They identify many firsts among women interpreters and reveal the lengths to which women went to express their understandings of scripture in [End Page 200] various media, including diary entries, pamphlets, commentaries, devotional writings, and art. The book identifies the ways women interpreters have striven for justice and liberation, and deftly critiques places wherein women's interpretations have promoted racist, colonialist, or paternalistic ideologies. While the authors readily admit that their collaboration does not address every opportunity for examination (281), their volume draws together the voices of female biblical interpreters across the centuries, setting the stage for future projects. The work of the earliest women biblical interpreters has, by and large, been lost. The authors' "imaginative strategies to retrieve the lost voices" (2) may leave their readers wishing for firmer ground. Nevertheless, there is sufficient evidence to see the early tendences of women interpreters. Among these are efforts to "protect the delicate egos of male clergy" by giving a male credit for interpretations (22). Similarly, Hildegard of Bingen "use[s] diminutive language and references to her feminine 'weakness'" (30), and Margery Kempe presents herself as "unlettered" (51–52). The tendency for women interpreters to soften or diminish their interpretations to avoid suspicion or scrutiny becomes a consistent theme throughout the book. By contrast, there are also women interpreters who assert their abilities as exegetes, insisting that their work is not idle chitchat (69). Christian women used the Bible to defend their ability to interpret it, arguing that women are the paragons of discipleship in the Gospels (75) and that responsibility for the fall belonged to Adam primarily and Eve secondarily (101). Women interpreters also engaged in spreading their interpretations through pamphlets in the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries. Some defended male interpreters, as in the case of Marie Dentière's defense of John Calvin (74), while some demonstrated their own interpretive prowess, as in the case of Rachel Speght, who argued for muzzling men rather than women (102) in response to misogynistic interpretations of the Bible. Women also set the stage for feminist and anti-colonialist movements. Margaret Fell asserted women's capacity as preachers in 1666 (130). Rikvah bat Meir's interpretations garnered her recognition as an adept interpreter of scripture [End Page 201] and as "a female rabbi" (80). African women in the seventeenth century anticipated resistance to colonialism and anti-colonialist interpretations. Walatta Petros was known as an "archdeaconness" (118), and Kimpa Vita argued that it was wrong to install images of a white Jesus in churches (120). Phillis Wheatley, an enslaved West African woman, spread her interpretations through poetry, condemning the slave trade and arguing for the full dignity of African bodies, anticipating Jarena Lee's preaching in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This book is an accessible and well-researched volume that demonstrates women interpreters' voices have not been silent, even if their contributions were lost, diminished, or ignored. Although this work focuses on interpreters through the early modern period, the authors trace the developments of access to education, ordination, and the ways women's interpretations made way for new critical analyses of the Bible in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. At times, modern women interpreters have been unaware of their historical antecedents (279). This volume reminds one that, though women's interpretive journeys may be lonely and isolating, their paths are not untrodden. The gift of this book is that it models the ways marginalized voices might be brought to prominence while simultaneously holding readers responsible for their privilege, blind spots, and prejudice. Amanda Brobst-Renaud Valparaiso University Valparaiso, Indiana Copyright © 2023 Johns Hopkins University Press and Lutheran Quarterly, Inc.

The Impact of Marriage Norms and Gender on Anglican Clergy Actions in Response to Domestic Violence

Domestic violence (DV) is a gendered issue, with women more likely to be victim/survivors and men more likely to perpetrate abuse. With a strong emphasis on protecting the safety of women and children, the ways in which faith-based communities and leaders engage DV has come under scrutiny. Clergy are potential responders to DV and shape cultural contexts in which DV occurs. Yet, how religious norms relate to actions taken when clergy respond to DV remains under-researched. Using a survey of Australian Anglican clergy, this paper explores how views about “headship” and the sanctity of marriage relate to the uptake of actions by clergy and churches. Increased support for headship predicted a lower take-up of victim/survivor safety-focused actions by clergy and a lower frequency of actions by churches focused on DV organizations. Male clergy were more likely than their female counterparts to engage with perpetrators and to counsel couples. No independent associations were observed between actions and heightened support for the sanctity of marriage. While the strength of relationships between DV actions and both norms and gender was generally weak, these findings indicate that more work is needed to heighten awareness of the importance of actions focused on victim/survivor safety, connections with DV support services, the problematic practice of couples counselling, and challenges around directly pastoring perpetrators.

Black women’s bodies as sacrificial lambs at the altar

The youth in South Africa are subject to unemployment and the pressure to fit into society. The unemployment rate in South Africa is high; therefore, some find themselves desperate for employment and often find themselves hoping and praying for a miracle; hence, the number of churches in South Africa is increasing. People go to church to be prayed for by ministers in a hope to better their lives and that of their families. Some of these young South Africans became victims of sexual harassment, rape and gender-based violence (GBV) at the hands of their pastors. The aim of this article was to challenge the church in identifying ways to break the cycle of perpetrators among pastors and help find the role pastoral counsellors can play regarding both victims and offenders to prevent history from repeating itself. Domestic violence and abuse in South Africa have been investigated by various disciplines. One of the most difficult realities for the church is the existence of clergy who abuse their female congregants. The article will create an awareness of violence against black women at the temple of black churches which is vindicated by Christian faith as miracle and healing. The violence against black women at the temple of the churches is patriarchal violence as male clergy sacrifice them in the name of faith using the bible. Some scholars of Black theology of liberation (BTL) argue that Elmina Castle had a chapel where women trading took place. Elmina Castle had a dungeon that kept black women who were waiting to be sold to a trade master. This article also exposed patriarchal violence that has been engraved on black women using the Bible by male clergy and connected Elmina Castle to Bishops Israel Makamu and Stephen Bafana Zondo to see the position of black women in these temples. Black theology of liberation was used to expose oppression of black women, by black men, in black churches.Contribution: This article aimed to challenge pastoral care givers to remain ethical during pastoral care and counselling to those in need, especially young women. This study was a literature review study.

The Polish Catholic Church under German Occupation: The Reichsgau Wartheland, 1939–1945

The Polish Catholic Church under German Occupation: The Reichsgau Wartheland, 1939–1945

The Persistence of the Sacred: German Catholic Pilgrimage, 1832–1937 by Skye Doney (review)

Reviewed by: The Persistence of the Sacred: German Catholic Pilgrimage, 1832–1937 by Skye Doney Jonathan Sperber The Persistence of the Sacred: German Catholic Pilgrimage, 1832–1937. By Skye Doney. [German and European Studies.] (Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 2022. Pp. xxii, 345. $85.00. ISBN 978-1-4875-4310-5.) Skye Doney's book is a study of two major pilgrimages in western Germany during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: the septennial pilgrimage to the relics of the Aachen Cathedral and, especially, the pilgrimages to the Holy Coat of Trier, occurring at irregular intervals. Based on extensive unpublished material in ecclesiastical archives, the contemporary periodical press, the many pamphlets, fliers, memorial images, medallions, and other ephemeral forms of commemoration, and a thorough evaluation of the anthropological and historical literature on popular religious practice, the book contrasts official and expressly stated opinions of the church hierarchy and more bourgeois and educated Catholics on the one hand, and the not explicitly articulated aspirations of the hundreds of thousands or even millions of less educated and lower-middle or lower-class pilgrims on the other. The upshot is an eminently readable and very fruitful study, whose main premises might require some additional consideration. Doney outlines the development of a more bureaucratic organization of the pilgrimages—complete with pre-registration, entry tickets, assigned viewing times, and even medical questionnaires to fill out, in order to evaluate claims of miraculous healing. Proposals for pilgrimage songs or for memorial images and medallions required approval of the cathedral chapter, whose canons applied strict aesthetic criteria. Coterminous with this organizational process was the growth of a more empirical attitude toward the sacred. Positivist historical investigation would demonstrate the authenticity of the relics; pilgrims' claims of being cured of disease would no longer be accepted at face value but would require medical confirmation. The author is critical of this whole line of intellectual development, seeing it as a concession to Protestant and rationalist critics of Catholic piety and the sexist imposition of the evaluation of male clergy and physicians on the claims of miraculous healing by female pilgrims—although he does show that there was a male minority of claimants to the miraculous as well. Doney contrasts these changing opinions with the attitudes of the pilgrims, who yearned for the physical presence of the sacred in their lives. They aspired to touch the relics, to touch objects which had touched the relics, or, at the very least to take home a picture or medallion with an image of a relic. He argues that these attitudes persisted, largely unchanging, spontaneously expressed, and unprepared, over the entire period his book covers. This idea of a naïve, spontaneous, and unchanging popular piety is the weakest point of the book, largely because the author does not investigate any potential influences on it. He has nothing to say about the impact of ecclesiastically sponsored devotions—the two great nineteenth-century ones, to the Virgin and to the Sacred [End Page 414] Heart, and the early twentieth-century Christ the King devotions. (One of the officially disapproved proposals for a pilgrimage song does seem to work from Christ the King devotions.) Widely publicized experiences of other pilgrimage sites, especially Lourdes, are missing from his argument, although his study of potential pilgrims' correspondence with the pilgrimage organizers contains many mentions of Lourdes. Changes in the prevalence of disease, attitudes toward illness, or in the practice of medicine, as well as the increasing familiarity of Germans with medical treatment and the medical profession, as a result of the growth of the social insurance system, do not enter his discussions of claims to miraculous healing. Without any consideration of these developments, the assertion of an autonomous, persisting popular piety, in contrast to a changing clerically sponsored one, remains unproven. Jonathan Sperber University of Missouri Jonathan Sperber University of Missouri Copyright © 2023 The Catholic University of America Press

Lift Every Voice and Swing: Black Musicians and Religious Culture in the Jazz Century by Vaughn A. Booker

Reviewed by: Lift Every Voice and Swing: Black Musicians and Religious Culture in the Jazz Century by Vaughn A. Booker Alisha Lola Jones Vaughn A. Booker, Lift Every Voice and Swing: Black Musicians and Religious Culture in the Jazz Century (New York: New York University Press, 2020) Lift Every Voice and Swing: Black Musicians and Religious Culture in the Jazz Century, by religion and African American studies scholar Vaughn A. Booker, incisively challenges assumptions about African American jazz musicians’ performance of race, personal belief, and socio-cultural hardwiring toward or against Afro-Protestantism in the popular imagination. Booker’s titular pun—Lift Every Voice and Swing—follows a tide of publications over the last decade on anthems (see Shana Redmond’s Anthem: Social Movements and the Sound of Solidarity in the African Diaspora [2013]) and particularly on “the Negro National Anthem”—J. Rosamond and James Weldon Johnson’s “Lift Every Voice and Sing”—profiled in Imani Perry’s May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem (2018). Further, Lift Every Voice and Swing hearkens to the primacy of vocality and swing as prized organizing components and commoditized principles in religio- cultural performance practices that set apart popular African American musicians in the twentieth-century mediascape. After all, to echo Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington’s signature 1931 composition, “It Don’t Mean a Thing, If It Ain’t Got That Swing. ” [End Page 131] With a keen awareness of the African philosophical worldview that there is no bifurcation of the “sacred” and “secular,” Booker confirms that for many African American jazz and other musicians there is only a continuum between the religious and non-religious in the artistic discourses accessible to them. To illuminate this observation, he explores the extent to which four jazz tastemakers’ (networks’) commentary and performances influenced religious expression in multi-faith/transdenominational liturgy and popular religio-cultural portrayals: Cab Calloway, Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Mary Lou Williams. In the introduction, Booker establishes the parameters of “sacred” Afro-Protestant aesthetics, offering insight on the “swing concept” of vibraphonist and convert from Roman Catholicism to Christian Science Lionel Hampton. Hampton asserted that it was sacrilege for bands to swing (Negro) spirituals, especially in cinematic portrayals, presumably because of the sultry and sensuous musical associations that swinging prompts: “Sacred African American music was a cultural possession of Hampton and other African Americans, and, in his view, to transform it into a festive or entertaining commodity was to commit sacrilege and racial offense” (1). Hampton’s commentary reveals the extent to which Afro-Protestant religious expression is culture among African Americans, regardless of one’s personal belief. The first part of the book, entitled “Representations of Religion and Race,” comprises four chapters. Readers will note that Booker places taste-makers Cab Calloway and Ella Fitzgerald into the conversation by innovative means, tapping into often overlooked autobiographical material about Calloway, and, and taking alternative measures for Fitzgerald, who rarely interviewed and never produced an autobiography. The first chapter introduces a group of religious race professionals beyond male clergy who are middle-class leaders of Afro-Protestant denominations, organizations, and churches. In the second chapter, Booker concentrates on maestro Cab Calloway’s early jazz career and the extent to which, as a person who did not participate in institutional religion, he deploys religious humor to push the limits. Instead of typically centering Black male musicians within Bebop jazz discourse, the third chapter centers on the vocalist Ella Fitzgerald’s efforts to fashion her raced, gendered, and (non-)religious identity. Racial and religious reverence are investigated in the fourth chapter through Duke Ellington’s musical compositions in which he explores biblical and historical African civilizations. [End Page 132] Part two, “Missions and Legacies,” spans five chapters. The fifth chapter attends to Duke Ellington who was influential in religious literature while maintaining core conversation partners who were not formed in Christianity. We learn in the sixth chapter about Ellington’s theology through his recorded private thoughts in relation to his compositional practice. Composer Mary Lou Williams is featured in the seventh chapter, which examines her religious thoughts following her conversion to Roman Catholicism. Following Williams through her business archives...

A Man Just Like Other Men? Masculinity and Clergy in Spain during Late Francoism (1960–1975)

While the notion of masculinity has been incorporated by European and North American research into the field of study of religious history, in Spain its introduction is still in its infancy. This article reflects on the contribution of religious discourses and the experiences of male clergy to the construction of different identity models of masculinity within a very plural Catholicism, at a time of social mobilisation, political transition, sexual liberation, and religious secularisation. These changes questioned the Catholic masculine ideal of the first decades of Franco dictatorship (1939–1975) to propose new profiles of the virile religious archetype. The article states that the crisis of the priest, which is part of the religious crisis of the 1960s, can be interpreted as a struggle between different models of Catholic masculinity. At the same time, this crisis regarding the figure of the priest influenced religious, social, and political changes in Spain.

Funnel Representation of Catholic Women in Church Councils

This article problematises the low uptake of higher leadership roles by guild women of the Roman Catholic Church in Zimbabwe. This is despite the fact that they are “over-represented” in the small Christian communities, which they almost “own.” They far outnumber men at the funnel base of the organisation, though they are grossly outnumbered by males from the parish council to national levels. Those that make it to higher positions in the church committees, are often relegated to clerical portfolios. What is intriguing, is the fact that the small Christian communities, which have meticulously absorbed more women in all lay ranks, are the foundational bases of the church. They are the praxis units exposing Catholic dogmas to the community; during celebrations and bereavements, in the absence of the top brass mainly comprised of their male counterparts. They are the conduits that help the catechumens live their faith, and the veins and arteries that feed the Catholic establishment with resources. A similar scenario of firm ecclesiastical control has been noted regarding the same sodality in South Africa. The Manyano/Ruwadzano sodality of the women of the Wesleyan Methodist Church of Southern Africa (used as a control group for the research study that directed this article), presented an equally low uptake of leadership posts, despite the existence of women clergy. The disabling institutions were noted as the guild constitutions crafted or passed by male clergy against women, fear of scandal, inculturation and gender. The study recommends the fulfilment of church documents advocating parity between men and women in the election of office bearers. This article acknowledges the life work and career of the late Mary-Anne Elizabeth Plaatjies-Van Huffel, who dedicated all of her remarkable talents to promote gender-equality and social justice.

Rising against all odds: An analysis of the leadership experiences of three female clergy in the Methodist Church in Zimbabwe

The Methodist Church in Zimbabwe (MCZ) was established in 1891. In 1977, it was granted autonomy by the British Methodist Church. From 1891, top church leadership has been dominated by male clergy. This article explores three instances of a challenge to this trend. The first occurred in 1994 when there was a leadership crisis in one of the districts, and for the first time, a woman was appointed district chairperson. The second followed the election in August 2004 of a male presiding bishop. However, allegations of moral impropriety were made against him. He approached the secular courts, and it led to his withdrawal from the position. The church appointed a woman to the position of acting presiding bishop. When the time came for the substantive post to be filled in August 2005, she was not confirmed in the position; a man was elected instead. The third relates to the controversial appointment in 2017 of a woman to one of the five vacant positions of district bishops. The aim of the research was to analyse the way in which these three women rose to positions of leadership in a male-dominated church. A qualitative research methodology was followed, with data being collected through open-ended interviews. The study highlighted that to be a female clergy leader in the MCZ entails rising against all odds. The study concluded by encouraging the MCZ to support women on their path to leadership rather than overlooking or, worse still, undermining them.Contribution: In spite of the challenges female clergy face in their quest for leadership roles, this feminist ecclesiological study shows stories of rising against all odds, describing the momentum-gaining progress of the ecclesiastical effort in the MCZ to accommodate female leaders, despite slow-moving processes.

Postfeminist, engaged and resistant: Evangelical male clergy attitudes towards gender and women’s ordination in the Church of England

Despite the introduction of female bishops, women do not hold offices on equal terms with men in the Church of England, where conservative evangelical male clergy often reject the validity of women’s ordination. This article explores the gender values of such clergy, investigating how they are expressed and the factors that shape them. Data is drawn from semi-structured interviews and is interpreted with thematic narrative analysis. The themes were analyzed with theories on postfeminism, engaged orthodoxy and group schism. It is argued that participants’ gender values are best understood as postfeminist and that the wider evangelical tradition, as well as a perceived change in Anglican identity with the onset of women’s ordination, shape their postfeminism. Moreover, whilst evangelical gender values possess the potential to foster greater gender equality within the Church of England, gender differentiation limits this possibility, a limitation that could be addressed by increasing participants’ engagement beyond the Church.

One Faith, Two Authorities: Tension between Female Religious and Male Clergy in the American Catholic Church

One Faith, Two Authorities: Tension between Female Religious and Male Clergy in the American Catholic Church

Do Liturgical Vestments Have Gender?

AbstractThis article questions whether traditional Christian liturgical vesture has any intrinsic gendered identity. Vestments are worn by the clergy of various denominations, including in traditions where women are ordained into all orders. For some early female clergy, there was a discomfort about wearing garments traditionally associated solely with male figures, and even today certain vestment manufacturers distinguish between the type of products available for female clergy and for male clergy, or target select gendered clientele. This brief cross-disciplinary examination, of some scriptural, historic and socio-cultural understandings of vesture, concludes that, despite some seeming modern misconceptions to the contrary, vestments are inherently non-gendered, and that they appear predominantly to have been regarded as such at various stages of history. This is consistent with the liturgical understanding that vesture is not meant to be a statement of personal identity, but a symbol of ritual function and office within the gathered assembly.

We Are Our Sister's Keeper: The Experience of Black Female Clergy Responding to Intimate Partner Violence.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) affects all populations, regardless of race, education, or socioeconomic status, but Black women experience higher rates of IPV (43.7%) in comparison with White women (34.6%). Although evidence indicates that faith-based organizations and clergy play key roles in preventing and responding to IPV among Black women, limited research has been conducted in this area, and existing studies have focused on Black male clergy leaders' response to IPV. Using transcendental phenomenology, we interviewed 12 Black female clergy regarding their role as responders to IPV among Black women in their congregation. Each clergy leader participated in a face-to-face interview. Data analysis followed the modified Van Kaam seven-step process. One overarching theme emerged-We Are Our Sister's Keeper, as well as three primary themes: Support Advocate, Spiritual Advisor, and Roadblocked Leader. The themes indicated that Black female clergy respond to the emotional and spiritual needs of Black women despite barriers (e.g., few outside resources, limited support from the Black church). The themes also suggested that clergy lack knowledge and training for responding to IPV. However, Black female clergy are passionate about providing holistic, culturally centered care by bridging the gap between the church and the community to better serve Black women who have experienced IPV. Findings support the importance of incorporating spiritual and emotional healing among this population when providing care and services. Further research is needed to develop interventions, such as a faith-based toolkit that incorporates community resources and guidance to better support Black female clergy leaders' ability to respond to IPV.

Women’s Ijtihad and Lady Amin’s Islamic Ethics on Womanhood and Motherhood

Women’s position, identity, and value in Islam have been affected by androcentric interpretations of the Qur’an and hadith throughout Islamic history. Women’s roles in society, as well as their position vis-à-vis Islamic sources and authority, have been shaped by these interpretations. In Shi’a Islam, due to the majority male clergy’s resistance, women have rarely reached the highest loci of Shi’i authority and jurisprudence. However, there have been women scholars who have transgressed these normative frameworks. Lady Amin, who was one of the most prominent Iranian theologians of the 19th and 20th centuries, is a notable example. Lady Amin had great knowledge of jurisprudence and gained the status of mujtahida at the age of forty. Her scholarly work addressed not only interpretations of the Qur’an and hadith, but also women’s issues and gender politics of her time. This study addresses women’s ijtihad in Shi’a Islam and investigates Lady Amin’s teachings on the topics of womanhood and motherhood. This study focuses on Lady Amin’s book of Islamic ethics, titled Ways of Happiness: Suggestions for Faithful Sisters, written as a Shi’i source of guidance with a specific focus on women and gender in Shi’a Islam.

One Faith, Two Authorities: Tension between Female Religious and Male Clergy in the American Catholic Church by Jeanine E. Kraybill

Reviewed by: One Faith, Two Authorities: Tension between Female Religious and Male Clergy in the American Catholic Church by Jeanine E. Kraybill Margaret Susan Thompson One Faith, Two Authorities: Tension between Female Religious and Male Clergy in the American Catholic Church. By Jeanine E. Kraybill. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2019. 172 pp. $27.95. One Faith, Two Authorities is a short monograph in which political scientist Jeanine E. Kraybill intends to “examine the very tension of policy and authority within the gendered nature of the Catholic Church and evaluate the level of influence female religious have on various social policy issues” (3). The focus is on what the author calls the “Assessment” of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, although she merges both the doctrinal assessment (2009–2012) and the subsequent mandate (2012–2015) into a single phenomenon. Using interviews, content analysis, and survey research, Kraybill hopes to provide an analysis of both the events of those fraught years and “what challenges still exist and where the faith is currently headed in terms of leadership models and roles” (17). For this reader, it seemed as though Kraybill was attempting to combine three different studies within a single volume. The first was an account of the assessment and mandate, including some background information and what some of the principal issues at stake seemed to be. The second was an examination of tensions between the LCWR and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, as well as the forms of leadership each exercises within American Catholicism. The third, and most successful, effort was an analysis of the extent to which the [End Page 99] USCCB and the LCWR agreed or disagreed on public policy issues; her conclusion is that they agreed far more than they disagreed. Through all three threads, the author wants to look at the role of gender in exacerbating tensions, as well as the significance of clericalism. Clearly, this would be a lot to accomplish in a lengthy and substantial volume; it’s impossible in a work of fewer than 120 pages of text. The result is a book that raises more questions than it answers. The author is a political scientist, not a scholar of gender or religion, and that is evident in some of the work she does not cite. Nowhere, for example, is the foundational work on religious life by Sandra Schneiders even mentioned, or that by other ecclesiologists or theologians. The 2018 volume by LCWR on the events covered here, However Long the Night, is nowhere to be found, but it would have helped Kraybill to avoid some of the factual errors that riddle the book, such as the lack of differentiation between the assessment and the mandate, the designation of NETWORK as an “affiliate” of LCWR, and repeated declarations that religious sisters are “outside the institutional church” (e.g., 24). Works on the Apostolic Visitation of American women religious by McCarthy and Zollmann, Ronan, Schneiders, and Thompson would have provided substantial background, as well as an intersectional feminist context that would have deepened and enriched the discussion here. Examination of male religious, including consideration of the Conference of Major Superiors of Men (CMSM), might have helped Kraybill to disentangle the disparate influences of clericalism and gender. So might familiarity with the concept of kyriarchy, introduced by theologian Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza over a quarter century ago, and explored deeply in her 2017 volume, Congress of Wo/men: Religion, Gender and Kyriarchal Power. The questions raised by this book are important, and they deserve serious consideration by scholars with a variety of competencies. While Kraybill is to be commended for her effort, this volume does not succeed at what it attempts to accomplish. [End Page 100] Margaret Susan Thompson Syracuse University Copyright © 2020 American Catholic Historical Society

Justifying Gender Inequality in the Church of England

Despite being a national institution, the Church of England is legally permitted to discriminate against its ordained female clergy in a number of ways, a phenomenon that is at odds with wider societal values in England. It is argued that this makes the gender values of this institution’s representatives worthy of examination. This article explores the gender attitudes of theologically conservative male clergy and the psychological processes that shape these attitudes. In order to do so, semi-structured interviews were conducted with fourteen evangelical priests in one diocese within the Church of England. A thematic narrative analysis was employed to interpret the data using descriptive, focused, and pattern coding. Three themes in particular emerged from the data, namely: “Theological parallel between the Church and the family”, “Created order of male headship and female submission”, and “Separation between Church and society”. The content of these themes reveals significant overlap with the contents of system justification theory, and so this was used to interpret the themes further. In light of this it is concluded that a perceived loss of social privilege and control shape participants’ traditionalist gender values.