Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2019 August 12

= August 12 =

More or less than half of Church (in the widest sense) going Americans belong to faiths where women can lead local units?
For Catholics, Latter Day Saints (CoJCoLDS), (most) Orthodox Jews and Muslims their local units can not be lead by women, but for many other faiths they can, but I was wondering whether there were more Church (Synagogue, etc) going Americans that belonged to units where women can or where they can't. My *guess* is that counting would involve a lot of independent Protestant Churches, so I'm not even sure where the data is here. :( — Preceding unsigned comment added by Naraht (talk • contribs)
 * This looks like a good place to start your research. -- Jayron 32 12:52, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Jayron32 -- That's an interesting listing. I was a little surprised to see that Southern Baptists have any clergywomen at all.  My guess would be that among church leaders (as opposed to "clergy"), the Southern Baptist percentage would be even less than 4%... AnonMoos (talk) 15:15, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Baptist church governance ends at the local congregation. Many individual Southern Baptist congregations would choose to only have male pastors.  However, there is no higher organization to force them to do that.  If an individual congregation felt led to call a female pastor, there's literally no higher authority to stop them.  -- Jayron 32 15:19, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Additionally, it should be noted that even among Baptist congregations that would not have a female lead pastor, there may be other staff members (Children's minister, Youth minister, Music minister, Worship leader, Deacon, etc.) that females could hold, so it depends on how we're defining "leadership". Some Baptist churches have no females in any leadership position, but those are in the minority.  I would imagine that most Baptist churches have some females in positions of leadership below the lead pastor position.   I attend a "middle of the road" Baptist church which is affiliated with the SBC, and we have always had at least one female on staff in some position.  At one point we had two (music minister and children's minister).  Additionally, we've always had female Deacons as well, at least as long as I have been on the Deacon board.  It's less than 50% (which is something I have been working on through my congregation to improve) but generally between 20-30% of our Deacon board is usually female.  -- Jayron 32 15:34, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Also, as I am thinking about this, it ALSO ALSO depends on how one is defining "Clergy". Is one counting anyone with the title "Minister" or "Pastor"?  Only lead or senior pastor?  Only those ordained?  Only those with theology degrees?  Definitional differences between what one might call "clergy" could cause one to question the stats.  I would need to know by what method did they count clergy.  Indeed, in Baptist churches the word "clergy" is rarely used.  Our church bylaws only refer to the "Ministerial staff" or "professional staff", the word clergy does not appear at all.  We draw some administrative distinction between the Lead Pastor and other Pastors and Ministers (in terms of how they are hired and who they report to from an HR perspective) but that's about it.  The word clergy is not used officially.   -- Jayron 32 16:00, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm not the OP and they haven't corrected you so maybe I should shut up, but I think you've broadened the question, which was only about the leader of the local unit. I daresay that there are likely some denominations that disallow females from doing any kind of facilitation of services, but that's not the same as saying "You, as a woman, cannot lead this flock." Matt Deres (talk) 14:38, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I was answering the follow-on question after I posted my first source, asked by AnonMoos 15:15, 12 August 2019 (UTC), not the original question at that point. -- Jayron 32 15:03, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
 * women CAN lead local catholic (also: anglican, coptic, orthodox) units. In some case they even have a title for that: abbess. Gem fr (talk) 21:52, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * OP here. Specifically lead clergyperson for each congregation. And in regards to the abbesses, let's make it the general geographical units for the churches. The information on the Southern Baptists was interesting, I didn't realize that there was that much freedom from Southern Baptist congregation to congregation. So to get that information, you'd need to dig down to not just which SBC locations have female pastors, but which ones would be willing to hire one. Urg. And as for the study, it appears that is limited to Protestantism, if I'm reading it correctly...Naraht (talk) 23:22, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * You don't seem to realize that an abbey is a local congregation, with its own chapel (don't call it place for the cult, as monk/nuns are basically culting 24/7), and that an abbot/abbess is just the same rank as a bishop (difference being, he/she leads monk/nuns instead of laypersons). Women cannot administer specific sacraments (except extraordinary circumstances), and while this role does usually conflates with leading, it is different. But then again, just read abbess. Now, if you are interested only in leading laypersons AND consider is a true leader only the person administrating sacraments (both being misconceptions), then I guess you will imagine that Mother Teresa and other women, like Leadership Conference of Women Religious members, somehow don't qualify as leaders. Gem fr (talk) 05:59, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
 * For this purpose, I don't. But even if I did, it represents such a small percentage of Catholic congregations as to not make a difference in the round number that I am looking for.Naraht (talk) 11:23, 13 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Per Ordination of women the other religions you would need stats for besides protestant Christianity are Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam (one known case if restricting to the US), Judaism, Sikh religion, Taoism, Wicca, Orisa-Ifa and Zoroastrianism. 70.67.193.176 (talk) 14:28, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
 * For Judaism, the figure seems to be 350 women rabbis out of 3,700 congregations and 5.3 million adherents. For the Sikh religion, it is 200 congregations and 500,000 adherents and either men or women may lead services; I can't find any surveys of how this breaks down in practice. 70.67.193.176 (talk) 21:58, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Estimates for Wicca: 3 million practitioners, half of whom are solitary. Those who try to estimate numbers seem to feel it's impossible to estimate how many covens the nonsolitary practitioners represent, nor am I finding any numbers on how many people take leadership roles or male-female numbers, though others may have more luck. 70.67.193.176 (talk) 15:25, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Further to this, it's incorrect to assume that non-solitary Wiccans (as opposed to solitaries like myself) each belong to only one "coven" (a term which we recognise as familiar to non-practitioners and may use for their benefit, but which many of us do not use amongst ourselves).
 * While some initiates may confine themselves to one circle (the more usual term) of general worshippers, others may belong to two or more simultaneously, each of which might specialise in a different particular aspect of study and practice. For example, one circle may concentrate on herb lore and healing, another on historical research, a third on performance and development of ritual magicks, etc. Some circles might be permanent establishments, others might exist only for a few months to work on a specific project.
 * Hopefully most people by now also understand that the number of members in a circle (or "coven") is not set: it could range from less than half-a-dozen to perhaps thirty – the "traditional" 13, like so much else, was a mediaeval fantasy.
 * For these reasons it is not possible (without access to detailed statistics which I'm sure are not publicly available) to make correlations between numbers of Wiccans and numbers of circles ("covens").
 * As far as leadership goes, as a consequence of basic Wiccan tenets nearly all circles have a male and a female as coequal co-leaders, although there are a few exceptions. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.123.24.56 (talk) 17:15, 15 August 2019 (UTC)