Interview Question

PHL 2350, Philosophies of World Religions 1

Course Learning Outcomes for Unit VI Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:

2. Analyze the potential for possible historical causes of misunderstandings and conflict within and between the world’s different religious peoples. 2.1 Evaluate the causes for women’s positions in various religions.

5. Identify differing interpretations of religious tenets within a religion.

5.1 Analyze the differences between the early and modern Christian church.

6. Utilize research strategies for creating a coherent argument. 6.1 Create questions concerning the struggles of women in religions using support research.

Reading Assignment Chapter 1: Religious Responses, pp. 26-28 Chapter 9: Christianity

Unit Lesson Leadership Like any organization, religions have many different types of leaders. Some lead quietly by their example, like Mother Theresa, while others lead through speech intended to inspire faith, like TV evangelists or travelling tent preachers. There are also many different levels of leaders and requirements of those leaders within the various religions. Some religious leaders are ordained by a governing body, some are not. Leadership may involve presiding over worship as well as preaching, pastoral care (which involves caring for congregation members as well as community members), administrative duties, and more. Other forms of leadership can have an impact beyond congregations, such as writing (e.g., Thich Nhat Hanh or C.S. Lewis), or contributing to interpretations of right practice and belief or even performing healings or miracles. Some have lead through protest measures, even self-immolation (such as Thich Quang Duc who burned himself in protest of the government’s persecution of Buddhists in South Vietnam). And of course, the most influential leaders are those who founded the religions such as Mohammad, Jesus Christ, and the Buddha. Within Christianity, you will find varying terms for the main leader or clergy of a church: pastor, minister, preacher, priest, or reverend. The different labels for the leader of the church tells you something about what that church or denomination believes to be the most important characteristic of that leader (though not all of their functions). For example, if a church calls their leader preacher, it tells you that they believe the main function of that leader is to preach. If they call their leader pastor, that tells you that the most important function of that leader is to provide pastoral services to the members of the congregation, such as visiting them in the hospital, making visits to the members’ work or home, or scheduling visits at the church to discuss the members’ personal and spiritual lives. A priest is a leader who is required to go through a lengthy ordination process and earn a Master of Divinity at a seminary (school for future clergy). A priest’s primary function is liturgical—performing the rites of ceremony for the sacraments, especially Eucharist and Baptism. Ordination is a formal process that occurs in some form or fashion in most religious traditions. Ordination is a way to set apart a person as someone with special gifts for leading and teaching people in the religious setting. One world religion exception to this process is Islam. Muslims consider ordination to be a defining

UNIT VI STUDY GUIDE

Leadership and Women

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process of other religions and therefore reject the process. Muslim leaders, Imams, Caliphs, Sheikhs, Maulanas, and other titles, are named as leaders because they lead congregations in prayer, or they have religious education, or they are a respected elder in the congregation. They are chosen to lead by either previous leaders or their community, but there is no formal ordination process. In the Buddhist tradition, there are ordination processes for monks and nuns set down in three sacred texts according the Buddha’s teachings. In Tibetan Buddhism, the ordinand (person who is going through the ordination process) must make 253 vows—that’s a lot of vows! A very interesting aspect of Buddhist ordinations is that in the Soto Zen tradition, there is a practice of posthumous ordinations. The reason for the ordination of the dead is that the texts only lay out funeral rites for fully ordained monks. So, they ordain lay people so that they can follow the funeral procedures laid out in the sacred texts for an ordained person (Williams, 2005). Most religions also have unofficial leaders – people who are sought for their wisdom and knowledge. These people might be writers, theologians (those who study their deity), ascetics (someone who chooses to live a strict life of prayer, fasting, and self-denial), or prophets. These unofficial leaders can have wide-ranging influence. So, while everyone in the world with a television has heard of the Roman Catholic Pope Francis as the head of the Roman Catholic Church, most people have probably also heard of Mother Theresa, an unassuming Roman Catholic nun who served the poor in Calcutta, India. It was not her job to lead the church as it is the Pope’s, but her example of service made her a globally known as an influential leader. Women As you will read in your textbook, women have often been relegated to the position of supporting roles in religion. Most religions follow a patriarchal structure in which the male leaders act as a type of father figure. Some religions do not even allow women to fully worship in the same ways that men do, much less lead congregations. There are a few notable exceptions to this traditional male structure. Wicca is a religion with a god and goddess; the goddess is often thought of as Mother Earth. Mother Ann Lee was a leader in the Shaker church. She brought the Shaker church to America from England and grew the membership into the thousands. She was said to be the embodiment of Jesus Christ in the female form by her followers. And of course, a very notable exception is Mary Baker Eddy, who founded Christian Science—a church that uses both the Christian Bible and a book written by Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health, as their sacred texts. There are other exceptions, but for the most part religions have had patriarchal structures. However, that does not mean that women have not been integral to the success of religions. Even while being denied leadership roles, women have supported, unofficially lead, and ran the institutions of religions. So why is there this common thread among religions? That brings us to a very anthropological understanding of religions. Religions are created in and amongst the cultures of the world, and historically men have been in charge of whatever political or social structures existed, perhaps because of their physical strength or hunting skills, but that is another anthropological conversation. The point is that religions are made up of people who are seeking to understand their universe in terms they can understand, so their understanding of the world cannot be devoid of their culture, bringing us back to a lesson from the first unit—that we look through lenses created by our own spheres of existence. Interestingly, if you look at the founders of some religions, you will see that they did not necessarily treat women the same as their followers did. For whatever reason, they were able to look beyond the bounds of their cultures. For instance, Jesus Christ, the founder of Christianity, did not treat women like others in his culture did. There are stories in the Christian sacred texts of Jesus conversing with women and treating them with the same respect as men—teaching them his lessons about God. There are even passages in the sacred texts that suggest that women travelled with Jesus and supported Jesus and his disciples financially. Because of this, women were early leaders in the Christian churches, but eventually culture took back over and it has been a long road to women becoming official leaders again in Christianity—in some denominations. Also, Muhammed, the founder of Islam, encouraged the equal treatment of women, and somewhat interestingly in a conversation about leadership, he encouraged people to seek the guidance of his wife Aisha when he was not available (PBS, 2002). Consequently, as some cultures have changed regarding views about women, women’s leadership roles have evolved in the religions effected by those cultures. You can see these cultures’ changes reflected in many religions. Women’s ordination has become almost the norm in several Christian denominations. The Episcopal Church of the United States elected a woman as their presiding bishop/primate—The Rev. Dr. Katharine Jefferts Schori in 2006. In 2008, Tenzin Palmo was given the title of Jetsunmna, which means Venerable Master, after years of spiritual practice, teaching, and

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finally beginning the building and leading of a nunnery. Dr. Amina Wadud is a leading voice for the feminist movement in Islam. The examples go on and on. Women’s roles in religion is an ongoing issue, especially in religions where the predominate culture perceives women’s rights as legally not the same as men’s. However, even in these cases, there is discussion, protest, and some change.

References The Office of his Holiness the Dalai Lama. (2014). Ordination in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. Retrieved from

http://www.dalailama.com/messages/buddhism/ordination-in-the-tibetan-tradition Muhammed: Legacy of a prophet. [Video file]. (2002). Public Broadcasting Service. Retrieved from

http://www.pbs.org/muhammad/ma_women.shtml Williams, D. R. (2005). The other side of Zen: A social history of Soto Zen: Buddhism in Tokugawa Japan.

Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Suggested Reading 10 inspiring religious women. (2011, August 15). Retrieved from

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/15/women-religious-leaders_n_924807.html 50 powerful women religious leaders to celebrate on International Women’s Day. (2014, March 10). Retrieved

from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/08/women-religious-leaders_n_4922118.html Fischer, N. (2010). For full inclusion of women in American Soto Zen Buddhism and all religions. Retrieved

from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/norman-fischer/for-full-inclusion-for-wo_b_772357.html