Women Still Bound in Church, Notes Female Seminarian

By Lillian Kwon, Christian Post Reporter Tuesday, June 05, 2007

A female seminarian plans to make others like her more aware of the "disconnect" between female-friendly seminaries and the church at large.

Kathy Wolf is a second-year Master of Divinity student at Columbia Theological Seminary, an educational institution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). She's currently working on a self-designed ministry project to help provide a "critical gender lens" throughout a female student's educational process.

"There is a gap for women who are in seminary and in the midst of the ordination process," said Wolf, according to the Presbyterian News Service.

While acknowledging that seminaries are encouraging and nurturing places for women, the Rev. Bridgett A. Green, associate for Racial Ethnic Young Women Together, noted the reality when leaving a seminary.

"[W]hen you leave that environment you are more isolated," she said, according to PNS. "And even though in the church we honor and value justice and equality, in our human frailty we don't often succeed."

Memorial Park Church in Allison Park, Pa., just voted on Sunday to leave the PCUSA over its departure from scriptural authority and join the conservative Evangelical Presbyterian Church. Nancy Lee Cochran, spokesperson for Memorial, said the congregation chose EPC over other Presbyterian groups such as the Presbyterian Church in America because of its heavy emphasis on mission and strict adherence to the Bible. Also, with women serving at all levels of leadership in the church, Cochran noted that the congregation could not have considered a denomination that does not respect that. EPC allows women for ordination while PCA does not. Still, only two women serve as pastors in the EPC, one of whom plans to retire soon, according to Christianity Today magazine.

Women's role in the PCUSA, on the other hand, has advanced over the past century and the 2.4 million-member denomination just celebrated the 50th anniversary of women as ministers of Word and Sacrament last year.

Still, amid advances, 23-year-old Wolf recognizes the reality for women in the larger church. It's harder for women to become head pastors and they receive lower pay, she noted. Moreover, "women are more geographically bound, which, could make their call process a lot more difficult."

"I think a lot of women are not acknowledging this coming into ministry, especially women of my generation," the seminarian said, as reported by PNS.

The tool Wolf plans to complete by fall is meant to "increase awareness and help women prepare themselves to be as aware and as successful as possible in their first call in any work in the church."