As we scan the political, economic, judicial and academic landscape these days, women are ascending to leadership positions in unprecedented numbers. Think of it: the first woman Speaker of the House, three women serving as Secretary of State and the first credible woman candidate for President (Hillary Clinton). Even right-wing Republican women are running for the Senate -- without any discernable calls for them to go home, cook dinner and take care of the kids.
One third of the Supreme Court is female. Women are rising as CEOs in the business world. And for the first time in American history, women earned more Ph.D.s than men in 2009.
And So Also in the Spiritual Life
The trend is also true for women in the world of religion. As the host of Interfaith Voices, a public radio show heard on 71 stations across North America, I have interviewed many of these women leaders. Now, I have collected many of these interviews into a new book, Breaking Through the Stained Glass Ceiling (Seabury Books, 2010).
It provides human stories that document the fact that this dream of gender equality in the world of religion in being realized. In fact, the acceptance of women leaders in religion appears to have reached a "tipping point" in many faith traditions. Gender equality has become an accepted norm, culturally and theologically. It's just a question of how soon the new order of equality is actually realized.
There are landmark achievements like the election of Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori as the presiding bishop and primate of the Episcopal Church, and the election of Dr. Ingrid Mattson as the first woman president of the Islamic Society of North America. But the gradual rise of women leaders in the world of religion over the last forty to fifty years has been largely "under the radar."
It is time to recognize this historic trend. Women are emerging as leaders in faith traditions across the board, in many different roles and capacities. They are not only denominational and organizational leaders, but leading theologians and scripture scholars, prolific writers in the field of spirituality, prominent activists for social justice, peace and ecological sanity, leaders in forging positive interfaith relations and prominent journalists in religious media.
It's Not Nirvana Yet
The increase in women's leadership does not mean that we are headed for a religious feminist "Nirvana" in the next few years. But we are seeing the front edge of a trend that will continue -- and must continue -- for many decades until women's leadership in religion is taken for granted. Still, realism demands that we recognize the formidable obstacles that remain.
Discrimination in many faith traditions is still bolstered by theological arguments. In my own Roman Catholic Church, where ordained ministry is a necessary prerequisite for institutional leadership, women cannot even be ordained as deacons, much less priests or bishops. The Southern Baptist tradition, relying on a literal reading of scripture, has backtracked on its earlier practice of allowing women pastors; they are no longer ordained. Many right-wing evangelicals in non-denominational churches often preach the "headship" of men and refuse to allow women pastors. Even in mainline Protestant denominations, where women ministers have been around for decades, there remain pockets of resistance.
In Judaism, the struggle continues. The Conservative, Reform and Reconstuctionist traditions ordain women rabbis, but Orthodox Judaism does not yet permit them, although a few Orthodox women have been ordained in some seminaries. And the quest for equality goes on.
In Islam, women in some countries are Qur'anic scholars and even muftis (authoritative teachers), but women are not generally permitted to become imams or lead mixed-gender prayer services. Instead, they are usually relegated to the rear of mosques for Friday prayers, sometimes even to separate rooms.
The structures are much more informal in Buddhism and Hinduism, but women still struggle for recognition as gurus or spiritual mentors.
Even in the Baha'i tradition, where gender equality is a central tenet, the Universal House of Justice, an international body charged with guiding the growth and development of the global Baha'i community, is all male. Women are not eligible for election.
Sikhism is especially strong in recognizing and practicing the equality of men and women. It advocates active and equal participation in the congregation, in academia, in healthcare and the military, among other aspects of society. Female subordination, the practice of taking a father's or husband's last name, practicing rituals that imply dependence or subordination, are all alien to Sikh principles. That does not mean that Sikhs always practice what they preach, but the theological basis for equality is firm.
Two major religions in the world claim a woman founder. One is Christian Science, founded by Mary Baker Eddy. The other is the Seventh Day Adventists, founded by Ellen White.
The Sikhs, Seventh Day Adventists and Christian Scientists notwithstanding, we have a long road to go. But the path is clear and travel is easier than in decades past.
The Tide Has Shifted
The tide has clearly shifted because the culture has shifted. When Nancy Pelosi is Speaker of the House and Hillary Clinton can run for president as a credible, serious candidate, being a bishop or a rabbi, an imam or a guru, no longer looks like an impossible dream. This entire trend toward women's secular leadership makes it more "thinkable" that women can become religious leaders as well.
More than that, women theologians and scripture scholars have challenged patriarchal thinking and traditions for decades now. They have answered the traditional arguments that defended misogyny, and they have convinced millions with their fresh understandings of scripture, new theological insights or historical proofs that women were indeed leaders in earlier centuries in Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism and Islam.
Moreover, women are not only finding their theological voice, they are developing new attitudes, believing that they can preach, they can lead, and they can do it as well as men. They look to the women who are already bishops and renowned preachers like Bishop Vashti McKenzie of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the Rev. Sharon Watkins, president of the Christian Church/Disciples, who preached at the official Inaugural Prayer Service of President Barack Obama. And they ask themselves, why not me? Role models are producing a multiplier effect.
Finally, we live in an age of mass, democratized communication. The news that women are leaders, and the new theologies that underlie this, are everywhere. Feminist theology is not only in books, but at conferences, in the media, and on the Internet.
This egalitarian movement has become so pervasive that religions that continue to exclude women from official roles face a new cultural reality that accepts, and believes in, gender equality -- in the West and increasingly in other parts of the globe as well. Such faith traditions might well engage in an "examination of conscience" on this issue if they want to thrive in the 21st century.
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Category:Female religious leaders - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Women Religious Leaders -- women we do not often discuss | BlogHer
Global Connections . Roles of Women | PBS
Women Religious Leaders Speak of Faith, Healing | Womens eNews
Interfaith Voices | A public radio show promoting religious ...
http://bramin.wordpress.com/2008/04/14/buddhist-threatens-to-set-self-on-fireif-all-war-not-over-by-6pm/
For your family pictures are worth words too many but yes. Or be For as it says in your Declaration de Homo Sapient, ´When in the course of human evolution it be necessary to create among the following:
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!NAMESTE! Please, you all have a happy face mindless too like the others so many.
Start your own religion, ladies! Everyone else does - or is the pope's outfit the appeal? It sure can't be the actual dogma of catholicism itself! Can it?
Better to be cold than lukewarm.
It is called Wiccan.
. I thought being so young, thinking, while getting older still, will never come to pass, we are all tempted with doubt?. Exspecially, reading, hearing that one. Yah right, I thought, that will be the day, how could that ever happen, right? Never
Well in my old age, it has come to pass, I have -HEARD- was on the news, read, Man gives birth to a child. He on Oprah also, yes he was a man, changed, she sex for man, but still I HEARD-of such a thing.
Who has ever HEARD, of such a thing. God said, Man gives birth to a child, who has ever heard of such a thing? We have now right?. All written in the Holy Bible, that was, put together over how many thousand years ago, written long before, it came to be? God knows all, before it comes.
God creates all, knows long before He places us, in our mothers womb, what we will be, man or woman, and the purpose for what God, has created us for, even where God will place us.
God needs not the Y Chromosome, Testosterone, God created both also, for a purpose to serve him, long before, they needed to start working. God said: I knew you, long before I placed you in your mothers womb.
"Man gives birth to a child".....Jeremiah 30:6
This is in the spiritual arena, hidden as a parable or metaphor. As mentioned before, some religious folks, hard hearted on rules, have a difficult time making the connection.
Obviously, in the normal physical sense it can't happen, but it can happen to our spirit inside.....John 3:3-8
Jesus almost always referred to himself as "the son of man", that phrase means his spirit was born again inside him. Jesus, now because of the change, considers his physical outward nature perishing and his spiritual inner being growing, becoming the "real" "you". A new you, and a new name, like Abram to Abraham, Jacob to Israel, or even just Saul to Paul.
The "labor pains" or suffering of spiritual birth is what Job went through. David also describes it in the Psalms. One of the questions I usually ask folks is if they have ever been real sick in their life.
Look at Jeremiah 1:1 he is a priest, vs. 4 the holy spirit or "word of the Lord" comes to him and now vs. 6 he is a child (of spiritual birth) and does not know how to speak (does not know The Word(s)) vs. 9 The Lord (Holy Spirit) teaches him the Word(s) "put my words in your mouth".
Jeremiah 30:6 Ask ye now, and see whether a man doth travail with child? wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness?
In parts of the world that is exactly correct.
Times like this I am so, so grateful to have good, nonsexist, real men in my life who respect women's rights. I don't "serve" men. I'm not subservient. I act of my own volition, I've got agency, autonomy, and self-determination, and I'm having fun telling you there's nothing you can do about it.
Oh, and that part about "man was created first." Biologically, no. It's the reverse. You started out in utero as a female. We all did. You only became male some weeks into gestation, when the Y chromosome and testosterone went to work. So you've got it backward. That's a fact, not mythology.
Eve was jealousy, wanted to be greater then God. If not obedient here on earth, will not be obedient in God's house either right? God will not allow no one to steal the peace righteousness in His Kingdom, for to do so, Heaven will become what earth is -wars wars, suffering, pain sorrow, h@te, destruction etc. A house divided cannot stand. Why all Great Empires fell, was because of their greed, their wars, their jealousy, never content with what they are or have. Selfishness, greed, jealousy. God is a God of order, the world is out of order.
God is a God of order, not a foolish God. The world today is out of order.
He will to create great souls comparable to lilies and roses, but God has created smaller ones and theses, smaller ones, must be content to be daises or violets destined to give joy to God's glances. But know those who have been given much, have much to answer for, and those who are last will be first. For all are created to serve one another, so no one can boast, for all have been given to.
For history buffs, it's the difference between the military mind of the Duke of Wellington up against Napoleon. For instance, Napoleon would say, "We need to cross a river, send for engineers to build a new bridge at once." But Wellington played life as it lay. He would see two towns facing each other across a river and think, "That's where we find our bridge, waiting for us." Egotism in the first, humility in the man, with Blucher, who defeated him.
What God taught little St Theresa, And so it is in the world of souls, Jesus Garden, He willed to create great souls comparable to lilies and roses, but HE has created smaller ones and theses must content, to be daisies or violets, destined, to give joy to God's glances, when He looks down at his feet. Perfection- consists in doing His Will, in being what He wills us to be.
Little St Theresa was unknown to the world. She worked no miracles, she experienced no visions, she edited no books of learning, she preached no sermons, she was hidden in a convent. She was an ordinary nun, performing her ordinary duties with extra ordinary supernatural perfection, suffering great interior trials, known only to herself and God. But after Her death, God revealed to the world, the greatness of her Spirit. Her littleness and few words spoken, was why St Theresa, was called the Doctor of the Church. The depth wisdom of her few words, we are told scholars, could write many books just on her simple words.
Christ is the Head of the Body, told Christ is High Priest for ever, but all members (us) of the same body, are ONE. Move as ONE, having the same Desire, Will of God, who is head over all.
God's House is not divided. God said. A house divided cannot stand. We can only come, into perfection, when we accept, where God has placed us, and what God has called us to be. We cannot all be roses.
Christ explains this by using the Body, (flesh, we can see visible, to be able to understand, the invisible, spiritual, God ). No member, part, of the body is more important or valuable then another part of the Body, all members have a purpose, a function, for the good of the whole body. Be happy, accept, where God has placed you in the body, what God has called us to be.
When the toe hurts, the whole body suffers, right? All share in that suffering. When one receives joy, honor, all members share in that joy and honor.