Mrs Murphy's Arising from the Pew - feminist theology

Ecumenical Review, The, Jan, 2001 by Ninna Edgardh Beckman

It is no exaggeration to say that the Church of Sweden has not yet fully come to grips with the challenges of modernity. Some would certainly wish that the church had a moratorium on change, to give time for an inner contemplation of the changes undergone in the last century. But the situation does not allow for such a retreat: the world knocks on the door, both from within and from without. It is thus within the context of increased challenges from a late-modern society, including issues of expanding globalization, growing acceptance of neo-liberal values, and a steadily increased individualization that I think we have to interpret the challenges made by the feminist movement.

The context with regard to gender

With regard to gender Sweden is a society where great efforts have been, and are being made to minimize women's subordination. In 1995 Sweden was ranked number one in gender development and gender empowerment indexes by the United Nations Development Programme, and in the same year Sweden also received a special prize for extra-ordinary contributions in this area at the United Nations' Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. Gender equality is also one of the distinguishing marks of Sweden's contribution to the European Union during its presidency in 2001.

But in spite of all, this gender-division and the subordination of women prevails in Swedish society. Violence against women, segregation in the labour market (i.e. women doing the lowest-paid jobs and the unpaid housekeeping), and numerous, more subtle, forms of gender oppression survive alongside the official progressive politics.

These realities also show up in church statistics. In spite of the fact that the first ordination of women took place as early as 1960, and in spite of consistent support from laypeople, a survey in 1998 revealed that one fourth of male priests still rejected women as priests, with an additional 10 percent of male priests "unsure".(11) This aggressive work environment explains why much of women's ministry within the priesthood in the Church of Sweden has been quite defensive.

Certainly women as priests find individual ways of coping with androcentric language and with patriarchal patterns of ministry -- like the priest who told me that she suffers from a partial, but reoccurring, dyslexia when arriving at certain parts of the worship manual, especially those stressing the male and almighty lordship of the one Father. But partial dyslexia on the part of the priest -- however significant, not to say symbolic, this is -- unfortunately does not solve many problems for Mrs Murphy and her sisters. It is here that I think the importance of the feminist liturgical movement in Sweden will show.

In this movement new forms of worship are given room to grow, forms which women as priests have had difficulty establishing in their role as institutional servants. Not that women as priests are an insignificant group in this: on the contrary, my study has shown that women as priests have played a major role as providers of space, providers of elements of tradition and, not least, as authorizers of Mrs Murphy and other laywomen, in the Swedish variant of the feminist liturgical movement.