Fifty Years of Ordained Lutheran Women

This week, I should have been out in Phoenix, Arizona attending the ELCA Rostered Ministers Gathering. In addition to time spent with seminary classmates and other colleagues, I was particularly looking forward to the planned celebrations for the fiftieth anniversary year for the ordination of women in the ELCA's predecessor bodies.

The logo for the ELCA celebrations this year.

In June 1970, the LCA convention voted to change "man" to "person" in its bylaws, allowing women to be ordained. The first ordinations of European-descent women in the LCA and ALC took place at the end of 1970. The first women of Latina and African descent were ordained in 1979. It took 22 years for the first white woman to be elected bishop, in 1992, and it was not until 2018 that two women of African descent were elected as bishops. LGBTQIA+ individuals have only been able to serve freely since 2009. Our first female presiding bishop was elected in 2013 (at the ELCA Churchwide Assembly held in Pittsburgh!). 

While many barriers have been removed, others still remain. Before coming to SWPA, I myself was denied an interview with a congregation for first call because the call committee did not think the congregation would accept a woman pastor. That was only six years ago, and the struggles have been and continue to be greater for women of color, those who are LGBTQIA+, women who are older, and women with disabilities.

I am lucky to have grown up knowing that women could serve as pastors (though it was not a vocation I considered for myself until well into college). By the time I was in first grade, I had heard a woman's voice from the pulpit in our Lutheran church. This is not the case for many people, and I know that many of you remember the days when girls were not even allowed to serve as acolytes in worship.

Across the world, women are still not able to be ordained in every Lutheran church body, and many Christian denominations do not ordain women, citing verses from 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy which state that women should not be permitted to speak in church or have authority over men. Ah - but it was a woman who first preached the Good News of the resurrection.

I am grateful for the persistent, faithful women who paved the way for me to answer God's call to be ordained and serve as a pastor. I am blessed by the faithfulness, creativity, compassion, tenacity, intelligence, and joy of the female pastors I call colleagues and friends. I am honored and delighted to be your pastor, and give thanks for these almost six years together!

With hope,
Pastor Kerri 

Bonus resources: 

• This page on the ELCA website links to videos, historical background, and study materials about this milestone anniversary.
• A video shared on Facebook of the joy-filled procession of all the women rostered leaders present at the ELCA Churchwide Assembly in 2019.
• This uncomfortable and sobering video out of the NC Synod, of male pastors reading comments made to their female colleagues by parishioners or other male pastors.
• This beautiful reflection from Pastor Emily Scott (author of the book we're reading in our Zoom book study!) about how to make sense of these strange, uncertain times in light of Bible stories about journeys and roads.