Many women stay in religious groups that don’t let them become leaders. Here are three reasons why
CNN
Why do millions of women belong to religious groups like the Southern Baptist Convention that do not treat them as equal to men or allow them to have full control of their bodies? For many, it’s not a simple choice. Here are three reasons.
A week after she went on National Public Radio to urge the Southern Baptist Convention to officially accept women as pastors, the Rev. Kristen Muse received an unusual letter at her church office. The letter, addressed directly to Muse, was stuffed in a large manila envelope along with three pages of scriptural references. The writer asked Muse how she could call herself a pastor when the Apostle Paul said that “I do not permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man; she must be silent” in 1 Timothy 2:11-12. And, by the way, why was she wearing her hair long in church when the Bible clearly states that women should cover their heads or wear their hair short during worship? Muse then looked closer at the signature at the bottom of the letter: It was a woman’s name. “It hurt,” says Muse, the executive pastor of Hayes Barton Baptist Church in Raleigh, North Carolina. Her church is considering leaving the SBC because the denomination’s statement of faith declares that “the office of pastor/elder/overseer is limited to men as qualified by scripture.” “It hurts even more to know that’s a woman is saying that,” adds Muse, whose congregation has skirted the ban on women pastors because the SBC has traditionally allowed individual congregations some autonomy (her church is headed by a male senior pastor). “I just wonder how long her hair is.” Here’s another question the letter writer would not have dared ask:
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