In Klouda v. Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 22157 (ND TX, March 19, 2008), a Texas federal district court dismissed on First Amendment grounds seven state and federal causes of action brought by a Sheri Klouda, a faculty member who was forced to resign from her position on the School of Theology faculty at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. The Seminary’s new president, Paige Patterson, decided that all faculty teaching future pastors had to be qualified to serve as pastor of a local church—a position open only to men. Klouda rejected Patterson’s offer for her to move to become Associate Director of the Writing Center at her same salary. In a lengthy opinion, the court reviewed many of the 5th Circuit’s decisions involving the ecclesiastical abstention and ministerial exception doctrines. The court concluded:
The record clearly establishes that Seminary is a "church" and that plaintiff is a "minister" as contemplated by the ministerial exception doctrine. Moreover, the record establishes as a matter of law that the employment decision made by dfendants concerning plaintiff was ecclesiastical in nature. If the court were to allow plaintiff's claims to go through the normal judicial processes the procedural enanglements would be far-reaching in their impact upon Seminary as a religious organization.”Reporting on the decision, the Associated Press notes the tension between conservative and moderate factions in the Southern Baptist Convention. It says that the Seminary’s theology faculty currently includes one female professor, but she teaches only women’s classes. From the school’s website, it appears that she is the wife of Seminary President Paige Patterson.
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4 comments:
The subjugation of women was part of the curse after The Fall. A result of sin. We resist with Christ's blessings all the other effects of the curse --pestilence, disease, death itself, pain in childbirth --AND why not subjugation of women?
St. Paul wrote in an inspired letter to Timothy that HE didn't allow women to preach or teach. But elsewhere he said that the young men and young women would prophesy/tell forth the Word. And the Holy Spirit --and thus the Gifts of the Spirit --were presumeably given to women as well as men. Jesus let Mary sit at His feet with the men to learn from Him --in a culture that didn't teach the women and men together --if they taught the women in synagogue at all. (I don't know about that.)
The irony is that some of the churches that were most Bible-faithful about lifestyle/holiness issues, the most "fundamental" and restrictive, nevertheless ordained women! since the 19th century!! I'm referring to those churches that were more conservative than the Catholics and the mainline protestants--specifically the holiness churches and the pentecostals --these typically believed that God could annoint a woman with the gift for teaching and preaching things that even men would benefit from hearing --not that many women aspired to preach --but many of their missionaries and Sunday School teachers for adults have been women --often because they were willing and available when men were not.
One visiting speaker, a seminary prof, asked a male chauvinist church if they realized that there would probably be more women going to Heaven than men --and that they would be given authority, according to the Word.
Also, the Bible says --Paul wrote --"In Christ there is no male nor female, Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free --but all are one in Christ Jesus."
Hey, I agree with Barb. The folks at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary are nuts and wrong to discriminate against women.
Will wonders never cease? some agreement with Barb! I'm giddy!
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