Stained Glass Ceiling
You would think that those liberal folks who send their daughters to their liberal mainline denominational seminaries where females fill over 50 percent of the seats would have been long successful in getting them pastorates in local churches. In a front page article in the New York Times on August 26, Neela Banerjee writes in an article called, “Clergywomen Find Hard Path to Bigger Pulpit,” that such women fill no more than 3 percent of the pulpits of churches over 350 members. Moving women into positions in denominational hierarchies and in seminaries seems easier than landing desirable senior pastorates. For example, women were elected this year to lead the Episcopal Church, the United Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church USA.
Evangelical churches, many of which do not ordain women, the writer says, force some women leaders to leave for other denominations that will accept them as ministers. Only one percent of conservative Protestant churches hire a woman, according to the article.
Getting church boards to hire women is a most difficult task. A man in one congregation covered his eyes whenever the woman pastor preached, and a co(male)-pastor admitted he could not focus on what his female colleague was saying when she preached. “When a senior pastor is consulted about whom he would like to succeed him, there aren’t any women on those lists,” the author quotes a female pastor as saying. “The good-old-boy network starts there.”
