Roughly 1,600 Baptist women in the United States have been ordained to the ministry, according to a new report released by Baptist Women in Ministry.
Authors Eileen Campbell-Reed and Pamela Durso released their report, The State of Women in Baptist Life, at the organization’s annual meeting June 21. The report, Campbell-Reed said, helps to validate the needs of Baptist clergywomen, illustrate growth and losses and research nationwide trends.
The study did not offer a breakdown of the national total by state, but Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF) numbers indicate that 50 ordained women serve in Alabama, 17 in staff positions and others in chaplaincy or other ministry roles.
The study reported that 60 Baptist women nationwide became ordained ministers in 2005. According to the report, 102 women serve as pastors, co-pastors or church-starters in churches affiliated with the Alliance of Baptists, the Baptist General Association of Virginia, the Baptist General Convention of Texas or CBF — the groups most closely aligned with Baptist Women in Ministry. The authors said the study did not encompass all Baptist groups but “the perspective of this report rests firmly in the moderate-to-progressive constellation of Baptist organizations in the southern United States.”
The results showed social, political and theological changes in recent decades that shifted church roles for Baptist women, they said.
“While the pastorate continues, for the most part, to be only marginally open to women, and growth there is incremental, a larger number of women now serve as associate pastors and in specialized ministry roles on church staffs,” the report states. “Many women have found places of ministry as chaplains in hospitals, prisons, the military and other organizations and agencies.”
The report started with a historical look at women in pastoral roles. One of the first groups to ordain women, Northern Baptists (now ABC-USA) ordained May Jones in 1882. It was after 1965, however, that percentages of ordinations rose to a more measurable level. That year, American Baptists adopted a resolution affirming the equality of women and advocating the ordination of women.
While growth has continued since then, it comes at a slow pace. According to the report, the American Baptist Women in Ministry reported an increase of 13 more women who served as pastors in 2005 than 2004. Of these women, 374 served as pastors and 29 served as co-pastors.
In the CBF, 5.5 percent of pastors in CBF-affiliated churches are women. About 28 percent of the chaplains and counselors in the CBF and ABC-USA in 2005 were women, while the Alliance recorded 52 percent of its chaplains were women. Southern Baptists reported 8 percent of their ordained chaplains and counselors are women, according to the report.
For much of the research regarding Southern Baptists, Campbell-Reed and Durso relied heavily on work from Sarah Frances Anders, a professor of sociology at Louisiana College in Pineville. Anders kept extensive statistics about Baptist women and in 1997, documented 1,225 total ordinations of Southern Baptist women. That year, the report said, Anders recorded 85 women serving as pastors and more than 100 serving as associate pastors.
On the missions field, percentages between male and female workers remain closer together. In a section of the study that evaluated SBC mission boards, 31 percent (3,096) of the North American Mission Board missionaries in 2005 were women appointed to full-time service. For the International Mission Board, 53 percent (2,695) of the total 5,050 workers were women. (ABP, TAB)
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