FEB. 5, 2008

ELECTIONS 2008
A female ‘pastor in chief’?

Most Americans say the nation is ready for a female president, but is the country ready for a woman to take on the traditional presidential role of comforter, inspirer, moral voice and quasi-spiritual leader? In a country where women’s leadership roles in religion are hotly debated, opinions may differ sharply.

Why it matters

Women’s leadership roles and scriptural references to them have been discussed and debated for decades as some denominations have expanded opportunities for women to lead and others have limited them. While presidents are not religious leaders, they frequently have invoked religious language and values. How would Americans’ views of a female president and Americans’ views of female religious leaders influence each other?

Click the map for interview sources in your state and region

ACADEMICS
• Sue Crawford is an associate professor of political science at Creighton University in Omaha, Neb. She co-edited Christian Clergy in American Politics and co-authored Women With a Mission: Religion, Gender and the Politics of Women Clergy. Contact 402-280-2569, Crawford@creighton.edu.
• Melissa Deckman is an associate professor of political science at Washington College in Chestertown, Md. She is co-author of Women With a Mission: Religion, Gender and the Politics of Women Clergy and Women and Politics: Paths to Power and Political Influence. Contact 800-422-1782 ext. 7494, mdeckman2@washcoll.edu.
• Adair T. Lummis is a sociologist of religion and a faculty associate in research for the Hartford Institute for Religion Research in Connecticut. Her specialties include women in church leadership. She has co-authored several books on women’s leadership, including Clergy Women: An Uphill Calling. Contact 860-509-9547, alummis@hartsem.edu.
• Laura Olson is professor of political science at Clemson University in Clemson, S.C. Her books include, as co-editor, Christian Clergy in American Politics and, as author, Filled With Spirit and Power: Protestant Clergy in Politics. Contact 864-656-1457, laurao@clemson.edu.

RELIGIOUS
CHRISTIAN
• Katie Geneva Cannon is president of the Society for the Study of Black Religion. She was the first black woman ordained in the United Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), and she is Annie Scales Rogers Professor of Christian Ethics at Union Theological Seminary in New York City and Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Richmond, Va. She wrote the book of essays Katie’s Canon: Womanism and the Soul of the Black Community. Contact 804-355-0671, kcannon@union-psce.edu.
• Joy Fenner is the first female president of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, the largest Baptist state convention in the nation. Contact her through the Dallas office, 214-828-5100.
• Jacquelyn Grant (see her bio at TheHistoryMakers.com) is Callaway Professor of Systematic Theology at the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, where she founded and directs the Center for Black Women in Church and Society. She wrote White Women’s Christ and Black Women’s Jesus: Feminist Christology and Womanist Response. She is also assistant minister at Victory African Methodist Episcopal Church in Atlanta. Contact 404-527-5712, jgrant@itc.edu.
•Barbara Harris, a retired Episcopal bishop, was the first female bishop in the Anglican Communion. She currently resides in Massachusetts. Contact through the diocese’s contact page.
• The Rev. Eileen Lindner is deputy general secretary of the National Council of Churches, which represents 100,000 Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox, evangelical, historic African-American and Living Peace congregations. Contact her in New York, 212-870-2333.
• The Rev. Julie Pennington-Russell is senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Decatur, Ga. A megachurch, it is the largest woman-led church affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, whose Faith and Message statement states, “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.” The church is also affiliated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. Contact 404-373-1653, jpr@fbcdecatur.com.
• Katharine Jefferts Schori is presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church. Contact her in New York City, 212-716-6273, pboffice@episcopalchurch.org.
• Emilie Townes is president of the American Academy of Religion and the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of African American Religion and Theology at Yale University. Her books include Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of Evil. She is the first African-American woman to be elected as president of the AAR. She is a member of the American Baptist Churches denomination. Contact 203-432-3240, emilie.townes@yale.edu.
• Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite is president of Chicago Theological Seminary and ordained in the United Church of Christ. Contact 773-752-5757.
• The Rev. Sharon Watkins is general minister and president of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), a mainline Protestant denomination. Contact her in Indianapolis, 317-635-3100.

JEWISH
• Tamara Cohn Eskenazi  is editor of The Torah: A Women’s Commentary (2007) and a professor of Bible at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles. Contact 800-899-0925 ext. 4263, estenazi@huc.edu.
• Rabbi Janet Ross Marder was the first woman elected president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the association of Reform rabbis in the United States. She is senior rabbi of Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos Hills, Calif. Contact 650-493-4661, rabbi_Marder@betham.org.
• Dina Najman is rosh kehillah, or “head of the community,” at Kehilat Orach Eliezer Orthodox synagogue in Manhattan, N.Y. She was given the position even though she is not an ordained rabbi; Orthodox Judaism does not ordain female rabbis. Read an Aug. 21, 2006, New York Times story about her. Contact info@koe.org.

MUSLIM
• Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad is professor of the history of Islam at the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. She is co-author of Muslim Women in America: The Challenge of Islamic Identity Today (2006), among other books. Contact 202-687-2575, haddady@georgetown.edu.
• Ingrid Mattson is president of the Islamic Society of North America. She is also a professor of Islamic studies and Christian-Muslim relations and director of the Islamic Chaplaincy Program at Hartford Seminary in Hartford, Conn. She is widely respected among American Muslims for her scholarship. Contact 860-509-9531 (office), 860-509-9534 (department), imattson@hartsem.edu.
• Jane I. Smith is professor of Islamic studies and co-director of the Duncan Black Macdonald Center for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations at Hartford Seminary in Connecticut. She is co-author of Muslim Women in America: The Challenge of Islamic Identity Today (2006). Contact 860-509-9532, jismith@hartsem.edu.

HINDU
• Karen Pechilis is the NEH Distinguished Humanities Professor and professor of religious studies at Drew University in Madison, N.J. She teaches courses and has published on many aspects of women in religion, including her edited volume on leadership, The Graceful Guru: Hindu Female Gurus in India and the United States. Contact 973-408-3124, kpechili@drew.edu.

BUDDHIST
• Rita Gross is professor emerita in the department of philosophy and religious studies at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. She wrote the entry on “Women’s Issues in Contemporary North American Buddhism” in the 2006 Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America. Contact 715-836-254, grossrm@uwec.edu.

SIKH
• Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh is professor of religious studies at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. She has written about gender and women’s roles in Sikhism in North America. Contact 207-859-4644, nksingh@colby.edu.

Background

• Read an undated explanation of why the Southern Baptist Convention’s Faith and Message was revised in 2000 to say, “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.” The explanation was written by the executive committee of the SBC, the largest Protestant denomination in America.
• The Roman Catholic Church says its doctrine that only men can be priests is infallible, which in Catholic teaching means that it is irreversible and without error. See a Nov. 19, 1995, New York Times story about the statement, issued with then-Pope John Paul II’s approval by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which was headed at that time by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who is now pope.
• A January 2008 CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll found that 65 percent of adults said America was ready for a woman president. It’s posted by PollingReport.com.
• A January 2006 CBS News/New York Times poll found that 92 percent of Americans said they would vote for a qualified woman for president, and 55 percent said America is ready for a women president. Read the poll. Read a Feb. 5, 2006, CBS News story that notes that Gallup Polls found that 52 percent of Americans said they would support a woman for president in 1955, 73 percent in 1975 and 82 percent in 1987.
• A September 2006 Gallup Poll found that 6 in 10 Americans said they thought the country was ready for a female commander in chief.
• Ninety-nine percent of senior megachurch pastors are male, according to research from the Hartford Institute for Religion Research.