Women in Church and Society
Presbyterian & Reformed-Roman Catholic Dialogue
1970
We, the
members of the Worship and Mission Section of the Reformed/Presbyterian and
Roman Catholic Consultation in meeting at Morristown, New Jersey, May 14, 1970,
have begun a study of the difficulties encountered by women as they live out
their role in society, and especially of Christian women as they seek to
fulfill their ministry within both the church and the world.
We have
begun our study by listening to a cataloguing of many grievances by two female
leaders within our respective churches-one a Roman Catholic and one a United
Presbyterian. We have found the evidences of discrimination based upon sex to
be so substantial that we are obliged, being led, as we believe, by the Holy
Spirit, to confess our guilt as members of our respective churches and as
members of our social order.
Within the
fellowship of the church, it would appear that we have obliged women to
exercise a secondary and often demeaning ministry. We have either denied them
part in the ordained ministry or have granted them to have part with
reluctance, and then have proceeded to hedge their ministry with severe
limitations. We have in effect denied that God has created us male and female
and has called us to one ministry in Jesus the Christ.
We confess,
moreover, that our way of life, our folk cultures, and even the very idiom of
our speech have assigned to women a secondary and, at best, a supportive role,
and moreover, that we have failed to challenge the injustice of these concepts
as they have rooted themselves within the life of the church. We found
ourselves inclined to believe that the whole Christian community must summon
the will and discover the ways whereby the equality of the sexe4s is boldly confessed
before God and man confessed both in word and in deed. This equality of
personhood, whether male or female, whether married or unmarried, can no longer
be stifled.
We are also
aware of massive discrimination against women in the secular order and in the
work-a-day world. We are asking ourselves whether we have discharged our
responsibility by way of insisting upon free and equal treatment in the secular
order or whether we have been content to pass by on the other side? We, here and now, acknowledge that it is also our concern
and our responsibility that women suffer neither rejection nor discrimination
within the world and its secular patterns of life.
With these
thoughts and purposes in our mind, we wish to report to our respective churches
that we plan to continue our study. It is our purpose, by consultation and by
research, to ascertain more fully the facts and to do our part to discover and
to create new patterns of life wherein women will experience no disadvantages
by reason of their sex.
Moreover,
Christian women must be welcomed into decision-making positions within the
church, must participate fully and freely in the priesthood of all believers,
and it is our belief that further study should be given to the ordination of
women to the special ministries within the church, lest we deny them the full
potential of their ministry. Such is the trend of thought and the scope of
study which we intend to pursue.