Women’s right to vote and their representation in Lutheran synods
(Lutheran World Information) – 2019 marks 100 years since women gained the right to vote in Germany. In the course of the celebrations of this significant anniversary, a new study has revealed that the Protestant churches in the country still have to strive to fulfill the standards set out in the Lutheran World Federation’s (LWF) gender equality policy.
In January, the Center for Gender Research in the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) published a new report entitled “Frauenwahlrecht in der Kirche” (Women’s Voting Rights in the Church). It examines the process of development in the 20 churches that currently belong to the EKD, ten of which belong to the LWF.
In the foreword to the report it is stated that: “Although the question of voting rights provoked debates and statements even before the era of the German Empire (1871–1918) and was discussed in some regional churches as early as the 1950s and 1960s,” this chapter of church history concerning equal rights had not yet been fully studied.
In addition to “providing an initial overview of the introduction of women’s voting rights”, this work intends “to shed light on the internal church debates about women’s right to vote in the early 20th century and their connection with political processes”, before turning to women’s “representation in the regional synods”.
Women in society: they first voted in 1919
Over the course of the 20th century, political developments took place that had a significant impact on both women and churches. The elections to the National Assembly of the Weimar Republic on January 19, 1919, were the first in Germany in which women were included both as voters and as candidates. This event followed the First World War (1914–1918), which led to the end of the German monarchy and the founding of the Weimar Republic in 1918, creating a parliamentary democracy in Germany. “What is more, it was a turning point for gender equality,” said Dr. Antje Buche, one of the women who created this publication.
Dr. Antje Buche is a leading researcher at the EKD’s Center for Gender Research and led the project “Women’s Voting Rights in the Church“.
For the churches, the new political system meant the end of the sovereignty of some secular rulers over the churches – the law separated church from state. Church leadership thereby became accountable to the synods, and the administration on the whole remained in the hands of church leaders.
Political changes demand new church constitutions
In the following years, the churches adopted constitutions of their own making, which were modeled on the principles of state legislation. Theological reasoning played a role only when there was no agreement on the adoption of a secular solution, for example, on the central question of women’s voting rights. By around 1925, all but one of the Lutheran churches had adopted constitutions of their own making, most of them gender-inclusive, allowing women to vote and stand for election at the level of the regional synod.
There were also exceptions. In the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria, women had the right to vote in the synod, but not to stand for election until 1958. Similarly, in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Schaumburg-Lippe, it was only in 1953 that women were granted the right to vote and to stand for election. The Church of Lippe (in which Lutherans are a minority) did not approve women’s right to stand for election at all levels in the church until 1967.
Women in the church: a thorny road
The new study notes that even before 1919 there were heated debates about granting women the right to vote in the church and in society. The first demands for universal women’s suffrage in Germany arose in connection with the revolution of 1848. While the proletarian women’s movement resisted the dreadful social condition of working-class women in workshops, factories, and households, the middle-class women’s movement sought access to education and economic independence, with permission to earn their own living.
“The church was almost the only space accessible to women outside their homes. More than half of the congregation members were women, and they performed the greater part of the church’s social work,” – Dr. Antje Buche, leading researcher at the EKD’s Center for Gender Research.
Women’s right to vote in the church became an important additional arena for these debates half a century later, around the start of the 20th century. “The church was almost the only space accessible to women outside their homes,” Buche explains. “More than half of those attending services were women, and they performed the greater part of the church’s social work.”
However, the hopes that women would gain the right to vote in the church earlier than in the political sphere were too optimistic. “The Protestant elite was too closely tied to the hierarchical Prussian state, and many were skeptical of and even rejected democratic renewal,” Buche observes.
Theological arguments for and against women’s voting rights
Theologically, this attitude was justified by Paul’s exhortation that “the women should keep silent in the churches” (1 Cor 14:34), as well as by respect for the “order of creation”, which strictly prescribed diametrically opposed gender characteristics and consequently different tasks for men and women.
“Supporters of women’s rights argued that both sexes are created in the image of God according to Gal 3:28, and referred to the work of diakonia, which was carried out mainly by women, underscoring its central importance in the church,” Buche explains.
The situation today: there is still much to be done
But what is the situation in the church synods today? “Since the 1920s,” Buche says, “the proportion of women in regional church synods has definitely increased”, and they include women of various backgrounds. “However, no synod has achieved equal representation of women and men,” she adds.
While the LWF gender equality policy, for example, requires that member churches of the communion reach a quota of 40 percent representation of women in their leadership bodies, only four of the ten German LWF member churches have met these requirements.
Regional synods consist of both ordained and lay members, with the latter forming the majority. In eight of the LWF member churches, women make up 40 percent or more of the lay members. With 50.8 percent, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Württemberg has the highest representation of women.
An example that a commitment to establishing gender equality exists is the law on governance structures adopted in November 2018 by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Saxony. It emphasizes that gender equality is the basis for shaping the church’s governance structures, and refers to the LWF’s 12th Assembly, which calls for “full participation for all”.
In the spirit of the “universal priesthood”, the position of synod president in almost all of Germany’s regional churches is reserved for lay persons selected from among the synod members. At present there are four women who hold this leadership position.
Hannover, Germany/ Geneva | 13./02./2019.
Source: Lutheran World Federation