The first woman gained full clergy rights in the United Methodist Church in 1956. Now, 18 percent of Methodist clergy are women.
Fifty years after they first entered the pulpit, more and more women are wearing pastoral robes in today’s Methodist churches, especially in Missouri.
In 1956, the General Conference of the Methodist Church granted full clergy rights to Maude K. Jensen, a Pennsylvania woman who spent 40 years in Korea as a missionary. Today, women constitute more than 18 percent of United Methodist clergy nationwide. In Missouri, one of every four clergy in the United Methodist Church is a woman.
Earlier this month in Springfield, the Missouri conference celebrated the anniversary of full clergy rights for women with special worship services, speakers and information displays. Other regional conferences are having similar celebrations across the country and are also issuing special DVDs and books.
But while many Methodist ministers, both male and female, say that ordaining women is a good thing, gender remains an issue in the church.
The Rev. Kathy Morrison of Wilkes Boulevard United Methodist Church was ordained in 1993. She said that, despite having received the same training, male clergy receive more approval in the church than women.
“It may be accepted more than it was in the fifties, and it may be slowly gaining in acceptance,” Morrison said. “There is still a lot of resistance toward women clergy.”
Pat Norris, a first-year seminarian at Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, said she expects to confront some resistance among Methodists once she is ordained. However, she is excited about the possibilities for women and thankful to those who helped pave the way for her.
“That doesn’t mean that it’s going to be smooth in all situations for women from here on out,” she said. “There’s still an acceptance curve, you might say.”
The enrollment numbers at Saint Paul show that women’s interest in the ministry remains strong among Methodists. Of the most recent graduating class, 30 of the 54 students were women. The school’s enrollment of more than 300 students is split almost evenly between men and women, said Heather Chamberlain, Saint Paul’s communications director.
While Saint Paul doesn’t offer any classes specifically for women, classes do address the complexity of gender in the church, and several student organizations support female students in their seminary studies, including one specifically geared for couples.
Even though women can’t count on an easy road to leadership, Norris says their influence is increasing.
“There is an incredible leadership in (Saint Paul’s) first-year class,” Norris said. “A lot of those leaders are women. Something is changing, and it’s a positive thing. We can’t quite put our finger on it, but something is coming.”
Kieth Vessell, the director of Inviting Ministries at Missouri United Methodist Church on Ninth Street, disagrees with the notion that women face discrimination in the Methodist Church. Vessell, who also attends Saint Paul, said he doesn’t think much opposition to female leadership remains in the church, nor does he believe there are any disparities in the pastoral styles of men and women.
“I don’t know that you can say male or female,” Vessell said. “There are just differences in people. It’s good to have a broad spectrum of representation of Christ’s church in the pulpit. Their mere absence says something and their presence says something.”
The Rev. Gary Langley, pastor of Columbia’s Prairie Home United Methodist Church, recalls that he had a female pastor for a time when he was younger. He says he responded to her the same way he would have to a male pastor. However, he said men and women bring their own talents to the ministry.
“There are differences,” Langley said. “People have different gifts. Some of those gifts may fall along gender lines.”
Langley says that gender bias can be a problem in today’s Methodist Church, although it is one that is largely dependant on the mind-set of the congregation. More conservative areas of the state are more prone to traditional views of the clergy, while college towns like Columbia are more tolerant.
“Anyone attending school would have a more liberal viewpoint,” Langley said. He explained that in some churches prejudice exists in one form or another. “I don’t believe it’s right, but it’s there and it’s something we’ve got to continue to work against.”
Morrison says she won’t be “tooting her own horn” by making Wilkes Boulevard celebrate the anniversary of female clergy. Whether a person makes a good pastor has nothing to do with the differences between men and women. Rather, she says, it is mostly a factor of the congregation’s preconceived notions about gender. And not all congregants are as tolerant of change as others.
“There is no difference between an ordained woman and an ordained man,” Morrison said. “We all have the same basic leadership skills. It’s in the way people think. Because of that, a clergy woman still has to prove herself more than a man.”