Women in the Church and Society (AQA A-Level Religious Studies): Revision Notes
Women in the Church and Society
Introduction: Gender debates in Christianity
Christianity today contains diverse views about gender and sexuality. These debates typically occur between two groups:
- Traditional/conservative Christians who follow historical teachings
- Liberal/progressive Christians who emphasise modern interpretations
The central question is how the Bible should be interpreted. This raises three key issues:
- Are Christian beliefs timeless, or are they shaped by their historical and social context?
- If teachings are timeless, where do we find authentic Christian teaching? In the New Testament texts? The early Church creeds? The original words of Jesus?
- If teachings can change and develop, how should believers decide what to accept?
Understanding these interpretive debates is crucial for examining how views on women's roles in the Church have evolved throughout Christian history. Both sides claim biblical authority, but they approach the texts with different assumptions about context and change.
Women in the Church before the nineteenth century
The early Church (New Testament period)
When the New Testament was written, Christianity expanded through the eastern Mediterranean, moving from a Jewish sect to a separate religion open to Jews and Gentiles.
Women held positions of authority in the early Church:
- Paul refers to Phoebe as a deacon and patron of many
- Junia is described as an apostle
However, the New Testament and later Church writings also contain passages expressing views we would now consider sexist.
Second to fifth centuries: Growing negativity towards women
Between the second and fifth centuries, negative attitudes towards women became more pronounced in the writings of Church leaders.
Key Church fathers who held sexist views:
- Tertullian (c.155–c.240 CE) - called women 'the devil's gateway'
- St Jerome (c.347–420 CE)
- St Augustine of Hippo (354–430 CE)
These leaders believed:
- The world was damned because of Adam and Eve's sin
- The physical body and everything connected to it should be despised
- Women were particularly associated with sin and temptation
Evidence of women's active roles: By the fifth century, several Church councils forbade the ordination of women as deacons. This suggests women were already serving in these roles, and Church authorities saw this as a threat to their control.
Medieval period: Opportunities through monasticism
Celibacy: The choice to abstain from marriage and sexual relations for social or religious reasons.
From the fifth century onwards, Christian monasticism offered similar opportunities for men and women. Convents provided women with:
- An escape from male-dominated society and motherhood
- Opportunities to study and engage with the arts
- Positions of great responsibility
Example: Hildegarde of Bingen (1098–1179)
Hildegarde was a German Benedictine Abbess who:
- Led a convent
- Wrote music, poetry and letters
- Expressed progressive views on women (what we would now call feminist)
- Became very influential despite not being highly educated
Her achievements demonstrate how monastic life could provide women with opportunities for leadership and intellectual work that were unavailable in secular society.
Protestant Reformation onwards
Protestant Reformation: The period during the sixteenth century when new churches formed separately from the Roman Catholic Church as a result of protests against Catholic beliefs and practices.
Although the Church and society were generally dominated by men from early Christianity through the Medieval period and Protestant Reformation, there were many exceptions. Women played supplementary roles but also held positions of influence.
The Reformation brought major social changes that affected women's place in society and therefore in the Church. Understanding nineteenth-century developments is crucial for understanding current debates.
Women in the nineteenth century
Traditional social structure and property rights
For centuries before the nineteenth century:
- Men controlled their wives' property when they married
- Most men and women worked in or around the home, or laboured for landowners
- Women were based in the home with responsibilities for childrearing
- Women took on extra work for cash
- In wealthy households, women ran businesses, organised servants and managed accounts
Nineteenth-century changes
The nineteenth century brought radical transformation to women's roles in both society and the Church.
Economic changes:
- Technology transformed the world
- Many men travelled to work in factories and offices
- Wives stayed at home
- Single girls often worked 'in service' in wealthy households
Intellectual developments: Following the Enlightenment period, there was emphasis on reason and evidence as ways of understanding humankind and the world.
However, this did not automatically lead to gender equality. Common beliefs included:
- Women, being physically weaker than men, should focus on home and education of children
- Men should perform manual or military tasks
The rise of women's education
By 1848:
- Bedford College and Queen's College in London were established to train women as teachers
- The 1870 Education Act provided universal primary education for both boys and girls
The expansion of women's education was a critical turning point. Access to education gave women the tools to challenge traditional assumptions about their capabilities and roles, laying the groundwork for broader social change.
The women's rights movement
The nineteenth century saw the start of the women's rights movement:
- Feminist ideas spread among educated middle classes
- Laws gradually changed to reflect women's aspirations
- Women began to be accepted in professions such as medicine
Limitations in the nineteenth century:
Despite progress, women faced severe legal restrictions:
- Very few women had the right to vote in national elections
- Women could not sue in court
- Women could not own property
- Married women were seen as their husbands' property
- Husbands controlled all rights over their wives' bodies regarding sex, children and domestic work
Women's increasing public roles
Despite legal restrictions, women were:
- Increasingly employed away from home following the industrial revolution
- Very active in charitable work and social welfare (particularly middle-class women)
Catherine Booth and female ministry (1859)
Catherine Booth, wife of General Booth who founded the Salvation Army, published Female Ministry: Women's Right to Preach the Gospel in 1859.
Her arguments:
- God has given women natural qualifications for public speaking: graceful form, winning manners, persuasive speech, and emotional nature
- Women have been excluded from preaching by lack of education, custom, prejudice and narrow interpretations of scripture
- Critics must prove either that women lack ability to teach or that preaching makes them lose feminine character
- Women speaking under the influence of the Holy Spirit are not claiming authority for themselves but are vehicles for delivering the gospel
Booth's work is significant because it represents one of the first systematic theological defences of women's ministry from within a conservative evangelical tradition. Her arguments combined appeals to women's natural abilities, biblical authority, and the work of the Holy Spirit.
Impact of the First World War
The First World War (1914-1918) brought further change:
- Jobs traditionally undertaken by men were filled by women when men went to war
- By 1918, women's new role was established in the economy and society
- The challenge became how to interpret New Testament passages that appeared to oppose women's empowerment
- This task was aided by developments in biblical scholarship
Key Points to Remember:
- Women held positions of authority in the early Church (Phoebe as deacon, Junia as apostle), but Church fathers like Tertullian and Augustine developed increasingly sexist views.
- Medieval convents offered women opportunities for education and leadership, with figures like Hildegarde of Bingen becoming influential.
- The nineteenth century brought major changes: women's education expanded, the feminist movement began, and women increasingly worked outside the home.
- Catherine Booth argued in 1859 that women have natural qualifications for preaching and should be allowed to minister.