Many women stay in religious groups that don’t let them become leaders. Here are three reasons why

Analysis by John Blake, CNN

(CNN) — A week after she went on National Public Radio to urge the Southern Baptist Convention to officially accept women as pastors, the Rev. Kristen Muse received an unusual letter at her church office.

The letter, addressed directly to Muse, was stuffed in a large manila envelope along with three pages of scriptural references. The writer asked Muse how she could call herself a pastor when the Apostle Paul said that “I do not permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man; she must be silent” in 1 Timothy 2:11-12. And, by the way, why was she wearing her hair long in church when the Bible clearly states that women should cover their heads or wear their hair short during worship?

Muse then looked closer at the signature at the bottom of the letter: It was a woman’s name.

“It hurt,” says Muse, the executive pastor of Hayes Barton Baptist Church in Raleigh, North Carolina. Her church is considering leaving the SBC because the denomination’s statement of faith declares that “the office of pastor/elder/overseer is limited to men as qualified by scripture.”

“It hurts even more to know that’s a woman is saying that,” adds Muse, whose congregation has skirted the ban on women pastors because the SBC has traditionally allowed individual congregations some autonomy (her church is headed by a male senior pastor). “I just wonder how long her hair is.”

Here’s another question the letter writer would not have dared ask:

Why do millions of women belong to religious groups like the SBC that do not treat them as equal to men or allow them to have full control of their bodies?

Women in some churches face a ‘stained glass ceiling’

The question is worth asking now because the debate over women clergy has resurfaced since the SBC – the US’ largest Protestant denomination, with about 13 million members – made two highly publicized recent decisions involving women.

First, its “messengers,” or lay representatives, voted at their annual meeting last month to adopt a resolution declaring the SBC’s opposition to in vitro fertilization, or IVF, a popular fertility treatment used by couples who cannot naturally conceive.

And second, members voted down an amendment that would “clarify that the SBC only cooperates with churches that do not affirm, appoint or employ a woman as a pastor of any kind.”

That move, though, may only be temporary. The SBC has already expelled at least three churches, including one this year, for affirming female pastors. And the Rev. Clint Pressley, its newly elected president, supported the amendment.

Glance at photos from the SBC’s annual meeting in Indiana this year, and you’ll see what seems like a disconnect: Thousands of women raising their hands to support an amendment that would keep them out of the pulpit and restrict their full bodily autonomy.

Many accept the denomination’s official teaching that wives should “submit” to their husbands because, as the wife of one SBC leader once declared, a woman’s “submission in the home is actually training ground for submission to the Heavenly Father.”

Submission does not mean subservience — it means honoring the Bible, SBC leaders say. Some Southern Baptist leaders, for example, say they do not oppose women running for political office. But some also say the Bible declares that women should not have spiritual authority over men.

“It’s a matter of biblical commitment, a commitment to the scripture that unequivocally, we believe, limits the office of pastor to men,” R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said last year. “It is an issue of biblical authority.”

This stance toward women, though, is not limited to the SBC. Countless other female churchgoers are limited by what some call the “stained-glass ceiling.” Many religious communities don’t allow them to be ordained as pastors, bishops or priests.

The Roman Catholic Church, with roughly 52 million members in the US, does not ordain women as bishops or priests. Neither does one of the nation’s largest predominantly Black Christian groups, the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), or a handful of other conservative denominations.

Nor are these restrictions limited to Christian communities. Some Muslim groups consider the prospect of a female imam leading men in prayer within a mosque as heretical.  As a rule, orthodox Jewish groups do not accept women rabbis, but there are rare exceptions.

We live in an era where Kamala Harris, a woman, is the vice president of the US. Women CEOs lead Fortune 500 companies, run countries and command men in battle. And yet millions of women still give their time and money to church groups that won’t allow them to lead men.

One of them is Muse, who remains a member of the Southern Baptist Convention.

“That’s a hard question,” Muse says after a long pause, when asked why she belongs to the SBC given its policy.

Muse compares her relationship to the SBC to a close friend. She said that while she may disagree with the friend on some things, she values the relationship because they agree on the big issues.

“You want to guard the relationship, because the things you don’t agree on are minimal compared to the things you do agree with,” Muse says. “The main thing we agree on is that Jesus Christ is Lord, and we can work through the other things in love.”

Some women, however, can’t work through those differences — and ultimately leave groups like the SBC. So, what’s the difference between them and women like Muse?

CNN asked Muse and other Southern Baptist women that question. Here are three reasons why breaking away is hard for some to do.

Reason 1: They believe in a ‘separate but equal’ theology

Some outsiders may dismiss women who accept a ban on women clergy as caricatures, as stay-at-home housewives who bobble-head nod ‘yes’ to everything men say. Many women, though, hold sincere beliefs in a theology called “complementarianism.”

Complementarians believe that God created men and woman as equals, but with separate roles for each.

“We do not get to dictate what manhood and womanhood are all about. Our Creator does,” is how Mary Kassian, a women’s studies professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, explains her support for complementarianism.

Complementarians say that “some governing and teaching roles in the church are restricted to men” and cite scriptures that prohibit women from assuming authority over men.

“They have been convinced that to be a godly woman is to support male leadership, and that if they leave that stance, they will be abandoning biblical truth,” says Beth Allison Barr, author of called “The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth.”    

Many women find other ways to assert their leadership. Barr says the SBC has created “empowering mechanisms” that allow women to serve in leadership roles, such as leading music or children’s ministries or preaching sermons toward women.

The Roman Catholic Church has also created what some may describe as empowering mechanisms for women. The church does not allow women to be priests, in part because its leaders say that Jesus only chose men as his twelve apostles. Pope Francis, though, changed canon law to allow women to serve as acolytes and lectors — laypeople who perform functions such as setting up the altar and reading the Bible.

Even with this stained-glass ceiling, some women are so charismatic and eloquent that they amass a following.

One prominent example is author and speaker Beth Moore, who preaches to arenas filled with women and writes popular books. Moore, though, has become outspoken in recent years about confronting what she describes as widespread sexism and racism within the SBC. She left the SBC in 2021 in part over its emphasis on complementarianism.

Critics of complementarianism say it uses semantics to obscure sexism. Separate is never equal, they say.

“The phrase, ‘separate but equal’ was used a lot during segregation as a tool to continue the power of White supremacy,” says the Rev. Meredith Stone, executive director of Baptist Women in Ministry, a group that works with the SBC and other Baptist groups. “Well, we’re ‘equal’ but we have to be separate. They’re using the same framework.”

Reason 2: Leaving can be traumatic for their family

There’s a good reason why congregations often refer to themselves as a family. Infants get baptized in churches. Children join church youth groups. People get married and eulogized in congregations. But imagine all the friendships and support systems that you and your family leaned on being yanked away.

That’s the prospect some women face if they leave a church group like the SBC. They get canceled, according to Barr.

Barr has experienced that pain. A former SBC member, she drew criticism when she published a book on the subjugation of women in 2021, five years after she says she and her husband abandoned complementarian theology.

She left an evangelical church in Texas that wouldn’t allow women clergy. Barr, a history professor who specializes in women and religion at Baylor University, says her family paid a price.

“My husband and I said … it was worse than divorce,” Barr says. “It was a traumatic experience. You get labeled liberal, progressive, and not being good Christians or godly.”

Research shows that when human beings experience rejection, the brain processes the emotional impact like physical pain. Barr didn’t need a study to confirm that finding.

The potential trauma of leaving a church group is so painful that some women decide it’s not worth it, she says.

“You think about wives whose husbands may not agree with them on this issue and they’re being taught that their godly role is to be submissive to their husband’s leadership,” Barr says. “And so they stay because their husbands choose to stay, because their children are in that church, and all their friends are in that place.

“I mean, it was so disruptive to our children for us to be pulled out. It was trauma in our whole family. I understand why people stay.”

The fear of leaving a church group can even shape how a woman approaches having control of her body.

Cait West, author of “RIFT: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy,” says she grew up in a “Christian patriarchy movement” that’s become popular in some evangelical and conservative Protestant churches. She says she was not taught sex education, the concept of consent or that she should control her own body.

“If I were to exert any semblance of my own rights to my life and body, I would have been labeled sinful and possibly excommunicated,” she wrote. “Fear of abandonment and exile kept me in check.”

Sometimes a woman who leaves their church even risks losing the support of family members.

“My mom, she doesn’t really understand it,” says Muse, about her role as an executive pastor, which entails preaching sermons during Sunday morning service. “We didn’t see women preach or do ministerial things in the churches that we grew up with. But she’s always encouraged me to do what makes me happy and feel led to do even though she’s not understanding it.”

Reason 3: The financial benefits of the church outweigh the cost of leaving

In one of the most famous passages of the New Testament, Jesus advises his disciples to “count the cost” of following him.

Those who leave the SBC must consider a similar calculus. Plenty of women in the SBC are also working in pastoral roles in SBC churches. Many are on staff and enjoy what some say are hidden perks of SBC membership: good health insurance and retirement plans.

A woman might want to leave the SBC because of her principles, but principles won’t help her pay for her kid’s braces.

“Even male pastors that have reached out to me,” Barr says, “and they’re like, ‘I want to support women, but I’m the breadwinner of my family. All of the benefits are through me. We have four kids. If I lose my job, my family loses all of that.’ “

Some women don’t see a way out for them or their families, she says.

“When you are living in that system, it is so oppressive,” Barr says. “The cost is all you can see.”

Muse says her congregation is considering those costs now as well. Her church’s retirement fund is offered through the SBC, which would complicate efforts to leave.

Some women find ways to rationalize staying in the SBC even if they don’t agree with its policies. Some take on the full-time work of pastors, minus the title and the salary. Their rationalization: I don’t care what you call me; I know God has called me.

But some who left say the price was worth paying.

“The gains are so huge,” Barr says. “Once you get out of that type of system, you realize how much you have been lied to, how much bigger God is, how small God was made in that church. You realize that throughout church history, women have always served in these roles. You can breathe again.”

The debate over women pastors is as old as the Bible

Muse knows that church history that Barr alludes to, but that doesn’t stop insecurities from creeping in at times.

She says she sometimes experiences imposter syndrome and wonders if she is good enough and deserves her success. She feels this when she receives letters like the one from her woman critic.

“When somebody does question it, I think we all think, ‘Am I really believing what I believe?’” Muse says about female pastors. “And as a woman, I don’t want to cause conflict in my congregation or for it to be about me or anything like that.”

It also stings to know that she is not welcome at some SBC churches in Raleigh, where her church is located.

“There are churches that would not welcome me to even offer a prayer from the pulpit because of who I am,” she says.

But when doubts creep in, Muse says she takes refuge in the “markers” in her life — those moments where she felt guided to the pulpit by unseen hands: the exhilarating summer she served as a youth minister; the college professor who assured her she was called to the ministry; a luminous experience she had one night as a young woman when she heard the voice of God say to her about being a pastor, “This is what I have for your future.”

She also takes refuge in the same Bible that those in the SBC cite when arguing against women pastors. She says the Bible is full of women that led or taught men, including Deborah, a prophetess and judge who led ancient Israel; or Lydia, Priscilla and Dorcas, who were praised by the Apostle Paul in various New Testament passages as leaders in the first Christian church.

And she also points out that a woman preached the first Easter sermon. It was Mary Magdalene who proclaimed that “He has risen” on Easter morning.

“If we didn’t have the testimony of these women, our faith would be very different,” Muse says. “I think of women throughout scripture who allowed themselves to be used by God even when they didn’t feel worthy at times.”

What Muse doesn’t say is that after Mary proclaimed Jesus’ resurrection to the apostles, she, too, ran into an ancient version of the stained-glass ceiling. The Gospel of Luke says what happened next:

“But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.”

The Bible says that Jesus then suddenly appeared among them and urged them to look at his hands and feet to prove that he was no ghost. Only then did the disciples believe Mary’s message.

Men have been questioning women’s spiritual leadership ever since.

And that resurrection story, no matter how often it’s cited, hasn’t convinced enough men that a woman can preach the Gospel to them.

That may take another miracle.

John Blake is a CNN senior writer and author of the award-winning memoir, “More Than I Imagined: What a Black Man Discovered About the White Mother He Never Knew.”

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