Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Ordaining Women Religious Leaders Boosts Commitment Among American Worshipers

A new book exploring the ordination of women in American congregations found that most women don’t mind if their religious leader is a man or a woman — they care if their house of worship allows women to serve as its principal leader.

The book, “She Preached the Word: Women’s Ordination in Modern America,” is based on a nationwide telephone and internet survey of Americans who attend religious services. The goal was to learn whether those who worship in congregations with female rabbis or pastors show higher levels of spirituality and religious investment than women who have male religious leaders.

When it comes to personal commitment and trust in their religious community, the authors noted, policies that give women the potential of gender equality are psychologically empowering, even if the women’s current leader happens to be a man. Men, on the other hand, are equally invested and trusting in religious communities that do not ordain women as they are in ones that do.

The research also concluded that politics are a heavy factor. Democrats and political liberals, both male and female, are “more likely to trust in their congregations and feel more emotionally invested in their membership when their congregations allow women to be ordained,” authors Benjamin Knoll and Cammie Jo Bolin wrote in a guest post for Religion News Service. Women’s ordination signals that the congregation is theologically progressive, keeping in line with political liberals’ beliefs. In the same vein, political conservatives and theological traditionalists are not affected if their congregations choose to ordain women or hire a female leader.

Alyssa Fisher is a news writer at the Forward. Email her at [email protected], or follow her on Twitter at @alyssalfisher

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.