L'Accès des femmes au pastorat et la sécularisation du rôle du clerc dans le protestantisme / Women Pastors and the Secularization of the Role of the Protestant Clergy

In: Archives de sciences sociales des religions: ASSR, Band 95, Heft 1, S. 29-45

Abstract

As religious societies founded on the Bible, Protestant churches have proved quite receptive to social and cultural changes, and the flexibility of their hermeneutics has allowed them - after a long evolution - to admit women to the office of pastor. After describing how women fulfilled various religious functions in the past history of protestantism, the article, using France as case study, illustrates the elements that have facilitated the admission of women to the pastorate. The function of pastor now open to women has undergone drastic changes, and the author argues that the opening of the pastorate to women is part of a process of increasing secularization of the function of the clergy. This secularization process was initiated by protestantism when it allowed pastors to marry and partly desacralized their function.