Just one in five Christian women in the United Kingdom claim females should not be in authority over men in Church leadership.
That’s one finding from a new survey conducted by Premier with more than 800 women from across the country.
It also found, four out of five Christian women say their Church is a place where female voices are always listened to and honoured.
The findings are being re-leased on International Women’s Day. To mark the occasion, we’ve been speaking to a variety of women who hold different roles within their church.
Priscilla Reid is a former Church elder from Christian Fellowship Church (CFC), in Belfast, Northern Ireland where she served for 20 years.
She told Premier her experience of becoming a church elder was quite positive, however that was not the case for others: “I think I was in a very smooth, privileged, blessed position com-pared to some of the stories I hear from other women who’ve been in leadership.
“I really didn’t come up against a lot of opposition.
“I did feel affirmed. I did feel the doors open for me. I never felt like I was I was getting a lot of resistance.
“[However] I’ve met a lot of women who’ve been actually very damaged. I met with one just on Friday and she was damaged by the reactions of many male colleagues.
“Perhaps out of their in-securities, things that would be valued in a man are presented as negative in a woman.”
Reid talked about how certain scripture in the Bible – of only men being allowed to become elders in the church – was taken in literal context, by some of their congregation. Something she believed should be challenged.
“It was really important for us that we could say, hand on heart, there is another way to view these difficult passages of scripture, there is another theological proposition that is totally valid and so therefore, we did study it.”