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Back in 1853, Antoinette Brown, a U.S. Congregationalist who later became a Unitarian, was the first woman to be ordained in a mainline Protestant church. But for the next century, most Protestant women had to content themselves with unofficial roles. They gradually built their own empires through intertwined efforts for evangelism, Sunday school, foreign missions, abolition of slavery, Prohibition and woman suffrage.
Until Protestant barriers began to fall in the 1950s, most women leaders were in Pentecostal or Holiness churches or groups where local congregations ordain clergy. Admission of women pastors in Sweden's Lutheran Church caused a stir across Europe because its clergy claim common lineage with Anglican, Catholic and Orthodox priests. In the U.S., African Methodist churches had previously allowed women clergy, and in the 1950s white Methodists and Presbyterians followed suit. The first woman rabbi in the U.S. was ordained in 1972. Today U.S. Protestant seminary enrollments are nearly one-third female. But there is strong opposition among most local congregations, in not only the Southern Baptist but also the National Baptist (black) conventions, the Church of God in Christ (a huge, black Pentecostal group) and other denominations. In the Mormon religion, with its unique doctrines, the lay priesthood is limited to men.
Change came with great difficulty for the Anglican Communion. During World War II, the bishop in Hong Kong ordained a woman as a priest, but she resigned when the Archbishops of Canterbury and York objected. Matters moved quickly after a 1968 conference of the world's Anglican bishops ruled the theological arguments on women priests "inconclusive." In the mid-1970s the Episcopal Church -- the U.S. Anglican branch -- elevated its first women priests. The early ordinations, when 11 women were ordained in a blaze of publicity by retired bishops who had little to lose, were illegal. By 1976, when the Episcopal Church officially authorized ordination, Canada had already done so, and 12 more of the 30 Anglican provinces worldwide followed suit. About 80% of the 1,500 Anglican women priests are in the U.S.
Last week's vote in England ensures that within world Anglicanism, where clubbish amiability was once the 11th Commandment, the issue will remain unresolved. Those who oppose female priests vow to organize schisms and semischisms. Numerous bishops and almost 3,000 of the country's 10,500 priests have declared themselves unalterably opposed to change. "We have ceased to march in step with one another," says London vicar Christopher Colven, "although we still share a broad approach and are bound together by affection."
The details in England's legislation almost guarantee future flare-ups. Traditionalists are angry at a rule that says a current bishop can refuse women priests in his diocese but his successor must approve them. The bishop of London, David Hope, said in anguished tones that opponents "will inevitably and increasingly find themselves ignored and marginalized." Laywoman Elizabeth Miles, who runs an antiordination group with 6,750 members, hopes last-ditch lobbying will cause Parliament to reject the women's measure, but that appears unlikely.