(OPINION) A new poll suggests that most Evangelical pastors serve in churches that don’t allow women to serve as senior pastors but are open to letting females serve in other leadership roles.
Lifeway Research released a survey based on responses from 1,000 Protestant pastors Tuesday, inquiring about their views on the role of women in the Church. The survey has a sampling error of plus or minus +3.2%.
The poll, conducted from Sept. 1-29, 2021, revealed near-unanimous support among senior or sole pastors at Protestant churches for allowing women to take on some leadership roles within their churches, while support was much more divided regarding the ability of women to serve as senior pastors.
Scott McConnell, the executive director of Lifeway Research, said in a statement that “the reason some pastors make a distinction between women leading as pastors or deacons or even teaching men compared to other leadership roles is because of how they interpret the Bible.”
“In the Apostle Paul’s letters, he gives instructions to churches regarding these specific roles. But Protestant churches disagree on his intent,” McConnell said.
Overall, 94% of respondents reported that their churches allow women to minister to children, 92% said that their church permits women to serve as committee leaders and 89% of those surveyed indicated that women can minister to teenagers at the church.
Most pastors responded that women at their churches may teach coed adult Bible studies (85%) and serve as deacons (64%). In comparison, a slight majority (55%) stated that women can become senior pastors at their churches. Only 1% of the sample led churches that forbid women from serving in all of those roles.
Forty-four percent of Evangelical pastors and 14% of Baptist pastors answered in the affirmative when asked if their church permitted women to serve as senior pastors.
Like Baptists, less than half of pastors affiliated with the Church of Christ (25%) and the Lutheran Church (47%) and 43% of non-denominational pastors serve at churches that allow female senior pastors.
Majorities of Methodists (94%), Pentecostals (78%) and Presbyterian/Reformed Pastors (77%) come from churches that allow women to serve as senior pastors.
The overwhelming majority of Baptists noted that their churches allowed women to minister to children (90%) and teenagers (81%) and let them lead committees (87%).
Still, the survey found that Baptist churches were less likely to allow women to minister to children than Pentecostals and Methodists. Almost all (99%) of pastors in both traditions asserted that women can serve in that role.
Lutherans (89%) and members of the Church of Christ (88%) were just about as likely as Baptists (90%) to permit women to minister to children.
Pentecostals (98%) and Methodists (97%) were also more likely than Baptists (81%) to enable women to serve their churches by ministering to teenagers. A slightly higher share of Lutherans (87%) allowed women to minister, while the Church of Christ was the least likely to do so (74%).
When asked if women can lead committees at their churches, nearly all Methodist pastors (98%) said that they could, followed by 92% of Lutherans and 90% of Presbyterian/Reformed pastors.
Only 84% of pastors affiliated with the Church of Christ serve at churches that permit women to lead committees, a slightly smaller share than the 87% of Baptists. (Christian Post)
