Issue: March 2016: Women’s Ordination

Forty five years ago the ELCA’s predecessor church bodies took the courageous and wise decision to no longer keep women away from the ministry of Word and Sacrament. We want to commemorate such an important occasion in the life of the church by looking back to previous articles in the Journal of Lutheran Ethics dealing […]

When, during my tenure with JLE, some internet blogger referred to me as the “editrix” of JLE, I was baffled and uneasy. Given the context I was pretty sure it was not intended to be a compliment, and I found the vaguely sexual overtones kind of creepy. A few years Nadia Bolz-Weber named her first book “Pastrix,” and from the definition given on the book jacket I concluded that my intuition was correct. I stand in awe of Pastor Bolz-Weber’s literary acuity, calling women-despisers (misogynists) out and owning their puerile insult all in one bold stroke. ​

In the past few decades, many more texts about women in the Reformation have been unearthed, giving us a much fuller view of who these women were and how they impacted the Lutheran movement. Stjerna commends social historians and translators for working with these texts and urges theologians to explore these texts as well. She then explores how women’s public roles were inscribed into the household as convents ceased being an option for women. Finally, Stjerna examines the primary examples of women who did write their theology during this time, particularly in letters. ​

Addressing a group from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Cameroon, Bloomquist outlines the reasons why Lutheran church bodies often choose not to ordain women. Looking at Christian history and scripture, she explicates how women’s ordination is grounded in the heart of the gospel, while also utilizing real life examples of the value of women’s ordained ministry and the ability of people to grow in their understanding of culture and taboos when it comes to spiritual life.

[1] Jürgen Moltmann’s place in the history of Christian theology since the 1960s is secure. Together with Wolfhart Pannenberg he established the theology of hope in the 1960s, reclaiming the centrality of eschatology for Christian thinking and life and contributing significantly to the development of political and liberation theologies. His 1972 work, The Crucified God, […]

In 1981, the United Evangelical Lutheran Church in Argentina was debating women’s ordination and Stumme wrote this paper arguing in favor. He argued that the Confessions are not the law when it comes to women’s ordination. Instead we should look to the Gospel, lifting up Galatians 3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”