Why read The Hidden History of Women's Ordination?

Book cover of The Hidden History of Women's Ordination: Female Clergy in the Medieval West

Book description

The Roman Catholic leadership still refuses to ordain women officially or even to recognize that women are capable of ordination. But is the widely held assumption that women have always been excluded from such roles historically accurate? How might the current debate change if our view of the history of…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Hidden History of Women's Ordination as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Lisa McClain

Author

So many Christian churches struggle over who ought to lead. Do female priests/pastors fulfill or discount God’s intentions? How does one know? Scripture? Tradition?

Macy digs into the long-term history and finds that women were clearly ordained in the early church, but evidence of that ordination has been erased or explained away. Women used to perform many duties that we associate with religious leadership today, including some sacraments.

Furthermore, some were ordained, receiving vestments, staffs, and mitres. Their gradual exclusion from their traditional roles happened over centuries and was virtually complete by the 13th century, as the Church redefined ordination…

From Lisa's list on how we got so confused about women, gender, and Christianity.