Research Paper on:
Women and the Problems of Their Religious Ordination

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
The social and cultural distinctions that have historically defined gender have generated many of the problems regarding the universal acceptance of the religious ordination of women. Why has there  been such a reluctance to allow women to become formal religious officials such as priests or ministers, particularly within nearly all the denominations of the Christian Church (Chaves and Cavendish,  1997)? The Bible is most often cited as the main reason there is a lack of women in the clergy. Many of the passages in the Holy Bible  have been condemned by feminists and liberal theologians alike as a device "used to subordinate women in the church" (Hoover, 1999, p. 17). For example, 1 Timothy 2 (11-15)  says, "I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent" (Hoover, 1999, p. 17). Then, of course, there is the contention  that Adam was created by God first, and that Eve was created out of his rib, thereby ensuring feminine inferiority to the male (Hoover, 1999). There is the holy  trinity, which is regarded as the cornerstone of the Christian religion, which has a decidedly male connotation of the divine as the father, son and holy ghost (Ferrara, 1994).  There is also the belief that because Jesus was a male, those who follow in his footsteps by preaching the gospel to others must also be male. In fact,  Christ himself selected twelve males as his apostles, which implies that He believed only males could serve as the messengers of God (Ferrara, 1994).  There is the additional problem in terms of receiving the sacraments (in the Catholic Church, there are seven, which are the ritualistic passing of Gods grace onto