Betty is a Prime Number: Matching Metaphors of Priesthood and Womanhood

Abstract

Religious congregations across the world are having to come to terms with the issue of the ordination of women to leadership positions – whether of priest, minister, elder or rabbi. The Anglican Church in Australia has had a long and difficult debate over whether to ordain women to the priesthood. Gender roles are socially constructed in the Church, as everywhere else. This article challenges us to see the resistance to the concept of “woman as priest” as sociological, not theological.