Defining equal is difficult, but let’s say that equality is a matter of actual religious principle. I know this is true of the Quaker faith, are there any others? There are some Christian Protestant branches which allow women to lead churches, but none that I know of have ever had a women in the “top job” of their organization. Do they preach equality in business, relationships, and family life?
Reform Judaism.
From its inception, the Reform Movement has been committed to equality between men and women. Our movement has consistently supported the advancement of women in the work force and women’s rights in general. The insight and idealism of the movement led it to blaze a trail for equality with its ordination of women almost two decades ago.
Is this an actual religion, or an attempt to change a religion?
There’s a difference?
Is Protestantism an actual religion, or an attempt to protest a religion?
I just read your link. Unlike Protestantism, it is not a religion in and of itself. It is an attempt to change an already existing established religion: “From its inception, the Reform Movement has been committed to equality between men and women. Our movement has consistently supported the advancement of women in the work force and women’s rights in general. The insight and idealism of the movement led it to blaze a trail for equality with its ordination of women almost two decades ago. In 1983 the UAHC resolved “To examine its practices and call upon the UAHC and individual congregations to eliminate any sex discrimination and apply the principle of economic equity for all.” However, the ideals of our movement have yet to be fully realized. A recent survey of salaries in the rabbinate showed that in every congregational category in which women are serving as rabbis, they are being paid significantly less than men. Other data strongly indicate that similar disparities exist for cantors, administrators, and other synagogue professionals.”
I wonder if the Episcopal Church might qualify? They had a woman, Katharine Jefferts Schori, serving as presiding bishop from 2006 to 2015.
It succeeded, Reform is the largest denomination in the US, larger than Conservative and Orthodox combined.
When my parents belonged to a reform synagogue many decades ago, there were no woman rabbis and, even more, women were not permitted to do a Torah reading. The first place I saw that was at the Bat Mitzvah of my cousin’s daughter in a Reconstructionist synagogue around 35 years ago. And the congregation was so new, they didn’t have a building but rented space from a Quaker Meeting House at Haverford College.
Modern “Orthodox” Judaism isn’t any less a movement to alter a religion, though it lays claim to being the correct form of Judaism.
Is any religion not the current outcome of different interpretations, schisms, charismatic sects, etc.?
ETA: When I was working in Tel Aviv over 40 years ago, the conservative congregation near my apartment was very matter of fact about women doing Torah readings.
AIUI, “Reform” is a type of synagogue, much like Presbyterian is a type of church.
Are Lutherans “an actual religion, or an attempt to change a religion?”
To avoid an entire thread of this, let’s all agree that any group which meets regularly, has a written belief system, and has given themselves a name, qualifies as a religion for the purposes of this discussion. I am aware that this definition will rope in some cults as well, but then how many groups might we argue whether they were cults or religions?
If they treat men and women as equals, I am willing to take the risk of upgrading them undeservedly.
I think I’d have to argue that NO Abrahamic religion can possibly qualify, due to the basic foundation scriptures being profoundly misogynistic. Right from Genesis, all the Abrahamic scriptures insist that MALE is the default and women were created from man–particularly galling since at no time has any man ever gestated or birthed a baby, (aside from those who have a fundamental disagreement between their physical and mental/emotional perception of themselves. As Reg said to Loretta, “Where’s the fetus gonna gestate, you gonna keep it in a box?”) so it’s exceptionally ludicrous for these religions to attempt to abrogate continuation of the species from women.
That takes care of the majority of the current world’s religions. Judging by the cultures that espouse it, Hinduism doesn’t appear to be at all favorable to women’s rights but I can’t speak to the actual tenets of the religion, it’s not my flavor.
Buddhism, maybe?
Many Christian religions will tell you that Jesus came to save us from the darkness, and the Old Testament is the description of what people believed when they lived in the darkness. It’s really only American Christianity that preaches the Old testament on an equal footing with the New.
And in the Christian sects which include the Gnostic texts (Egyptian, Coptic, Ethiopian, etc.) there are whole chapters about the female apostles that the early Catholic church suppressed. So I can’t agree with Abrahamic religions being disqualified wholesale.
But then you get right back to “No, what’s written down isn’t what we REALLY believe! Now read this book and believe all of it–except don’t but do but don’t but do.” Isn’t the expression “It’s a whole bible, not a bible full of holes?” And if you chuck out the entirety of the bible and the torah and the q’uran then it’s not an Abrahamic religion any more, is it?
And I think we’re seeing first hand and real time just how thin the veneer of equality really runs in these religions–as soon as the leaders get the tiniest shot they’re ripping rights away from women with a briskness and using religion as the justification.
So no, I cannot and will not agree that any Abrahamic religion can possibly qualify as treating women as equals. Old testament or new, every bit of it is soaked in misogyny and you can’t wash it out.
Jesus said pretty clearly that he had come to make a new covenant. That the ten commandments could be replaced by the golden rule. He wasn’t vague about this. You can be a Christian and never read the Old Testament. I question whether people who are living by Leviticus are really Christians even though they like to use the title.
“It’s a whole bible, not a bible full of holes?”
Those are the words of an American preacher, they didn’t come from the bible.
I’m not going to argue this any more, as you’ve clearly never read the Gnostic texts. You are just going to have to trust me when I say that there are Christian denominations that worship the divine feminine in the Holy Spirit. Or go look it up. But it’s not the topic of this thread.
The Rev. Elizabeth Curry was Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America from 2013-2025.
So we have two documented examples of women who headed religious denominations.
The incoming Archbishop of Canterbury is a woman:
The former Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada was a woman:
Several moderators of the United Church of Canada have been women:
And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence.
– 1 Timothy 2:12
Uh huh. Pretty sure First Timothy is in the New Testament.