{"id":116240,"date":"2014-01-14T09:48:22","date_gmt":"2014-01-14T14:48:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/?p=116240"},"modified":"2014-01-14T15:27:48","modified_gmt":"2014-01-14T20:27:48","slug":"nyt-late-to-the-story-on-women-at-the-pulpit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2014\/01\/nyt-late-to-the-story-on-women-at-the-pulpit\/","title":{"rendered":"NYTimes late to the story on ‘Women at the Pulpit’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Proving that when there isn\u2019t really news, one can perhaps manufacture some,\u00a0The New York Times<\/em> is, once again, late to the story on a topic of religious significance. When last GetReligion examined the\u00a0Times<\/em>\u2018 timing on a story, George Conger found the Gray Lady, as the paper is known, to have just discovered<\/a> the rise of Calvinism in non-Calvinist precincts \u2014 a good five years of so\u00a0after<\/em><\/strong> many other media outlets had done so.<\/p>\n

Now, the\u00a0Times<\/em> has made another one of these startling discoveries:<\/a> there are women folk \u2014 yep, females! \u2014 in some of New York City\u2019s pulpits! They\u2019re actually preaching and leading congregations! The\u00a0Times<\/em> even has pictures! (Although, to be candid, the image shown here, of the late Aimee Semple McPherson, who was definitely a woman and definitely\u00a0not<\/em><\/strong> a New York City pastor, isn\u2019t among those photos.)<\/p>\n

My gripe isn\u2019t so much with the story itself, per se, but rather the \u201cnewness\u201d of this, not to mention the tremendous assumptions buried in a paragraph such as this one:<\/p>\n

Contributing to the growing numbers of women becoming pastors are real estate and denominations. Churches formed in nontraditional spaces, like storefronts, offer aspiring pastors more opportunities to preach. And in Holiness and Pentecostal<\/a> churches, ordination and authority often come directly from the Spirit, said the Rev. Dr. Dale T. Irvin, president of the New York Theological Seminary.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now\u00a0that<\/em><\/strong> is quite a mouthful, isn\u2019t it? They\u2019ve had storefront churches in New York City for, what, 50 or 60 years at least? And only\u00a0now<\/em><\/strong> are women empowered to preach in them? I\u2019m sorry, but as a native of New York City (born in Manhattan in 1957 and having lived in the borough of Queens, chiefly, through 1985) who has returned scores of times since leaving, I recall lots of situations involving women in preaching situations long before this sudden \u201cboom.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In the 1970s, for example, the Episcopal Church had women as priests in Manhattan; I remember meeting one at a social gathering. By 1987, the Rev. Dr. Florence W. Pert, who had spent the previous 14 years as director of lay activities for Marble Collegiate Church, became the first woman ordained in the Collegiate (Dutch Reform) Churches of New York City and a senior associate minister at Marble Collegiate, renowned as the longtime home of the late Rev. Dr. Norman Vincent Peale.<\/p>\n

And mention must be made of the Salvation Army, whose \u201cinvasion force\u201d that landed in New York Harbor in 1880 consisted of one man, Commissioner George Scott Railton, and seven \u201cHallelujah Lassies,\u201d also known as ordained women ministers in the movement. All of these examples \u2014 and I\u2019m sure there are plenty of others \u2014 suggest that women have been preaching in New York City for far longer than, say, the past 30 years in Brooklyn. I\u2019ll even venture a guess that Greenwich Village\u2019s long-present Metropolitan Community Church congregation has likely had a female minister or two during its time, not to mention Unitarian Universalist and other groups in the city.<\/p>\n

Also, while I understand\u00a0The New York Times<\/em> is a newspaper and not a theological sounding board, might it not be helpful to define, however quickly, words such as \u201cHoliness\u201d and \u201cPentecostal\u201d and even \u201cSpirit,\u201d which presumably refers to the Holy Spirit, for an audience quite possibly unfamiliar with such terms? I\u2019m guessing there are few, if any, Holiness or Pentecostal church members in the\u00a0Times\u2019<\/em> newsroom; how many of its readers are familiar with these groups or these terms?<\/p>\n

While it is certainly laudable that\u00a0The New York Times<\/em> is turning its attention to the subject of women in the pulpit, and while I understand this is a photo essay and not an encyclopedic entry, I still have the feeling that a lot is lacking here. Some of those missing elements could have been supplied, I believe, without either compromising the overall integrity or turning this into a text of epic proportions.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Proving that when there isn\u2019t really news, one can perhaps manufacture some,\u00a0The New York Times is, once again, late to the story on a topic of religious significance. When last GetReligion examined the\u00a0Times\u2018 timing on a story, George Conger found the Gray Lady, as the paper is known, to have just discovered the rise of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1629,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,7,67,18,4,48],"tags":[2819,2408,2812,2818,2817],"class_list":["post-116240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evangelicals","category-journalism","category-pentecostalism","category-people","category-social-issues","category-worship","tag-holiness-churches","tag-ministry","tag-nytimes","tag-preaching","tag-women"],"yoast_head":"\nNYTimes late to the story on 'Women at the Pulpit'<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Proving that when there isn't really news, one can perhaps manufacture some,\u00a0The New York Times is, once again, late to the story on a topic of religious\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2014\/01\/nyt-late-to-the-story-on-women-at-the-pulpit\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"NYTimes late to the story on 'Women at the Pulpit'\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Proving that when there isn't really news, one can perhaps manufacture some,\u00a0The New York Times is, once again, late to the story on a topic of religious\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2014\/01\/nyt-late-to-the-story-on-women-at-the-pulpit\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"GetReligion\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-01-14T14:48:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-01-14T20:27:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/files\/2014\/01\/ASMcuttingcake.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mark Kellner\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mark Kellner\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2014\/01\/nyt-late-to-the-story-on-women-at-the-pulpit\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2014\/01\/nyt-late-to-the-story-on-women-at-the-pulpit\/\",\"name\":\"NYTimes late to the story on 'Women at the Pulpit'\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2014-01-14T14:48:22+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-01-14T20:27:48+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/#\/schema\/person\/a9959112ba23257dcfe6835566c57be4\"},\"description\":\"Proving that when there isn't really news, one can perhaps manufacture some,\u00a0The New York Times is, once again, late to the story on a topic of religious\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2014\/01\/nyt-late-to-the-story-on-women-at-the-pulpit\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2014\/01\/nyt-late-to-the-story-on-women-at-the-pulpit\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2014\/01\/nyt-late-to-the-story-on-women-at-the-pulpit\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"NYTimes late to the story on ‘Women at the Pulpit’\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/\",\"name\":\"GetReligion\",\"description\":\""The press . . . just doesn't get religion." - 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