Ordaining Women: Culture and Conflict in Religious Organizations

By Mark Chaves

Book Overview

Why does a denomination prohibiting women clergy support parishes run by women? Why does a denomination opt to ordain women when there are few women seeking to join that clergy? And why have some denominations ordained women so much earlier than others? In an examination of the complex relationship among religion, social forces, and organizational structure, this book draws examples and data from over 100 Christian denominations to explore the meaning of institutional rules about women's ordination.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674641450
• ISBN13: 9780674641457
• Release Date: November 1997
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 249 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 1.1" x 6.1"

Customer Reviews

A different angle of vision

Mark Chaves book looks at the ordination of women from a different angle than other books on this topic that I have read in my 20 years as an ordained woman in a mainline denomination. He helps to clarify the confusion that some ordained women have felt after spending years in school training for ministry and then finding that congregations are hesitant to call us as pastors or downright against the idea. Chaves shows how much of the impetus for ordaining women came from outside of the church itself and originated in the surrounding culture that was moving, however slowly at times, toward equity for women. The book is well thought through and ably presented. I highly recommend it to any persons interested in the current state of leadership in the church in North America.