{"id":5007,"date":"2020-11-03T02:06:20","date_gmt":"2020-11-03T02:06:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/?p=5007"},"modified":"2020-12-01T00:29:06","modified_gmt":"2020-12-01T00:29:06","slug":"editors-introduction-womens-ordination-august-september-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/editors-introduction-womens-ordination-august-september-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Editor’s Introduction: Women’s Ordination August\/September 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"

[1] August 18, 2020 marks the 100th<\/sup>\u00a0anniversary of the ratification of women\u2019s right to vote in the United States. November 20, 2020 will mark the fiftieth anniversary of the first woman\u2019s ordination in a Lutheran church in the United States.\u00a0 Despite Lutheran views about two kingdoms and American views about the separation of church and state, these two events and the histories that led to these two events are tangled together.\u00a0 For centuries, church, society, and political communities\u00a0debated whether women should have the same rights of leadership that democracy and Lutheranism already extended to men.\u00a0 To mark these anniversaries and to explore their connection, this issue of JLE focuses on the matter of leadership, especially Lutheran women\u2019s leadership in the United States: in the church, in the state, and in the academy.<\/p>\n

[2] As readers will be reminded in this issue, the fight for women\u2019s full inclusion in American political life was fought especially by women preachers in Protestant traditions that allowed women\u2019s ordination. The fight against women\u2019s suffrage was waged especially by male preachers who argued from a hermeneutic lens that suggested Scripture prohibited full equality between men and women.\u00a0 The history of the women\u2019s suffrage movement is entangled in the history of women\u2019s full inclusion in the church, as Elizabeth Cady Stanton noted in her Declaration of Sentiments in 1848 where she denounced the way men allowed women in both church and state only as subordinates.<\/p>\n

[3] The first two essays in this issue explain the history of the connection between suffrage and ordination.\u00a0 Jessica Crist\u2019s article explains this history\u00a0in the United States, while Julie Tatlock\u2019s specifically looks at the history as it pertains to Lutherans.\u00a0 Both essays demand the reader consider their own views anew about the connection between church and state.\u00a0 Historically, theological views have influenced politics and political changes have altered theological views.\u00a0 These essays require the reader think deeply about the role of church and state in the fight for women\u2019s equality just at the time the ELCA develops a new social statement on government. Moreover, these essays require the reader think deeply about the role of culture and tolerance.\u00a0 The ethical question looms, do we have a responsibility to advocate for women in synods and cultures other than our own?<\/p>\n

[4] This question comes to the fore in Evangeline Anderson-Rajkumar\u2019s brilliant and spiritually moving account of her own journey towards ordination as an Indian woman raised by a deeply faithful Lutheran father in a synod that does not allow women\u2019s ordination. Her article makes a profound theological and spiritual argument for women\u2019s ordination that calls to every reader to support women in whatever vocation the Holy Spirit calls them, despite cultural, synodical, and political pressures to work simply within the system.<\/p>\n

[5]\u00a0 Working\u00a0to uncover how the system works and does not work to support women clergy in the ELCA, Mindy Makant has interviewed a large number of women pastors.\u00a0 Her article discusses these interviews and names the challenges and opportunities women pastors face and the challenges and opportunities they give their congregations and the church as a whole.<\/p>\n

[6] In both the fight for women\u2019s suffrage and the debate over women\u2019s ordination, a key component has been the education of women.\u00a0 In places, times, and cultures, that mostly men read and teach Lutheran theology, there is a tendency to ignore the writings that support female authority in both Scripture and Luther\u2019s works.\u00a0 Luther himself knew how important it was for every individual to read thoughtfully in order to allow Scripture to inform life.\u00a0 Luther demanded that girls\u2019 schools be created in every town, so that girls, just like boys, could learn to read Scripture for themselves and apply their own hermeneutic to the text.\u00a0 Yet, in Europe and the United States it has taken a long time for women to find a place in the theological academy.<\/p>\n

[7] Specifically, in the United States, the road to women\u2019s leadership in Lutheran higher education has been slow.\u00a0 On one hand, women were teaching in Lutheran parochial schools as early as 1852, but they were mostly untrained themselves. In 1874, Carthage College, was the first Lutheran college in the U.S. to grant a bachelor\u2019s degree to a woman. In 1892, St. Olaf was the first Lutheran institution in the U.S. to have a female faculty member; she was the chair of the history department.\u00a0 In 1910, Jennie Bloom Summers was the first woman to serve as faculty at a Lutheran seminary.\u00a0 She taught Latin at the Divinity School of the West in 1910.<\/p>\n

[8] When women read, write, and teach in prominent roles in the academy, their ideas inform the church and state.\u00a0 Caryn\u00a0Riswold, DeAne Lagerquist, and Amy Carr discuss in their essays the importance of the vocation of the teaching theologian. \u00a0Riswold\u00a0and Lagerquist remind readers in their short essays that political leaders and clergy are important, but so too are those with academic vocations. \u00a0In short, to paraphrase bell hooks, intellectual work is real work, intellectual work is activist work, intellectual work is service to neighbor. With that in mind,\u00a0Carr\u2019s\u00a0essay reminds readers of the many Lutheran women (and men) who teach theology outside of the context of ELCA colleges and seminaries.\u00a0 She asks the church to consider ways to find and recruit these theologians to help with the important work of creative and constructive Lutheran ethics, theology, and philosophy today.<\/p>\n

[9] The year 2020 has been a challenging year so far.\u00a0 The nation has watched the impeachment of Donald Trump, the crisis of a pandemic, an uprising of a hopeful anti-racist movement, and an opposing force of white supremacism. \u00a0In such a time of crisis, women\u2019s legal authority to lead in politics, inclusion to teach in higher education, and ecclesial authority to preach in the church are not just rights to be celebrated but obligations and responsibilities.\u00a0 I am grateful for the authors of the essays in this issue for honoring that obligation, and I am grateful for readers of these essays for considering their responsibilities to women who seek to serve their neighbor and honor their God in their vocations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[1] August 18, 2020 marks the 100th\u00a0anniversary of the ratification of women\u2019s right to vote in the United States. November 20, 2020 will mark the fiftieth anniversary of the first woman\u2019s ordination in a Lutheran church in the United States.\u00a0 Despite Lutheran views about two kingdoms and American views about the separation of church and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-the-editor","category-feminist-mujerista-womanist-theologies"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nEditor's Introduction: Women's Ordination August\/September 2020 - Journal of Lutheran Ethics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/editors-introduction-womens-ordination-august-september-2020\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Editor's Introduction: Women's Ordination August\/September 2020 - Journal of Lutheran Ethics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[1] August 18, 2020 marks the 100th\u00a0anniversary of the ratification of women\u2019s right to vote in the United States. 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