RECOLLECTIONS of the impact made by women ministers during the years when their presence was rarer than it is now are among the responses to Project Violet, an initiative that has now secured widespread commitments to improving the experience of Baptist women ministers.
Launched in 2021, the project is named after Violet Hedger, who became the first woman to study at a college for Baptist ministry, when she entered Regent’s Park College, Oxford, in 1919 (News, 17 May). The aim was to explore the “theological, missional, and structural obstacles” that women ministers faced in the Baptist community in England and Wales. It has been co-led by the centenary development enabler for Baptists Together, the Revd Jane Day, and by Dr Helen Cameron, Research Fellow at the Centre for Baptist Studies at Regent’s Park College.
Over the past three years, 16 pieces of research have been undertaken by Baptist women ministers, culminating in 57 “requests for change”. Last month, a “commitment-to-action report” was published, setting out how churches, regional associations, and other stakeholders had responded to these requests. The majority were accepted or modified; only a small number were declined.
The Baptist Union Council has voted to affirm these commitments. They offered, Ms Day said, “real hope of systemic change”.
There are more than 2000 Baptist women ministers, and 40 per cent of those training for ministry in the Baptist Union are women. Individual Baptist churches, however, retain the freedom under the Declaration of Principle to interpret scripture under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. This includes the freedom to adopt a complementarian and headship theology that restricts ministry positions for women.
A submission to the project from the Revd Brian Nicholls notes the “resurgence” of complementarian teaching in university Christian Unions and in some of the “new church streams” — fuelled, he writes, by teachers including the American Baptist theologian the Revd Professor Wayne Grudem.
Among the requests for change is that congregations that do not accept the ministry of women formally review that position before a settlement process (the search for a new minister), and then make the resolution of the church meeting known on their website.
The report says that women ministers can experience questions about their marital status, spouses, and children during the settlement process, “which suggest they are being evaluated as women rather than as Ministers”. It requests greater guidance on this, to be included in the advice on the settlement process.
There was a positive response from the five Baptist colleges: only three requests were modified, and none were declined. The requests included the development of a module in “intercultural ministry”.
Some cautionary notes were sounded. The South Wales regional association spoke of the need to be “specific and strategic in looking at what we can do”, warning that there was “a danger that we may be overwhelmed by the size of the project”.
The Retired Baptist Ministers’ Network said that responding to the requests would involving “balancing many reasonable expectations, hurts and hopes, demands and requests . . . and all against the background of a Baptist Together Movement facing severe financial constraints and several other important demands and requests”. It also warned of “financial naïvety”.
Baptist churches are self-governing, but most (almost 2000) are part of the Baptist Church of Great Britain (“Baptists Together”), supported by staff in 13 regional associations. Figures for 2023 show that membership has declined by 40 per cent since 2000, to 99,121. A financial model review has been commissioned by the Baptist Union Council in recognition of the “unsustainability” of the current funding model. The Project Violet report says that, “as fewer churches are able to afford a full stipend, ministers are coming forward who are willing to pursue more than one vocation.”
Some submissions said that issues, such as those concerning the settlement process, also applied to male ministers.
Among those offering personal reflections was the Revd Dr Michael Bochenski, a former President of the Baptist Union, who recalled arriving at Regent’s Park College in the late 1970s with a “ministry is male” assumption. He recalled how hearing the Revd Dr Myra Blyth (the first female undergraduate to be admitted to the College) “so brilliantly . . . was mind-blowing for me”.
A submission, “What, me Lord?”, was made posthumously for the Revd Frances Godden by her husband, the Revd Harry Godden. She recalled that, in the 1980s, some members of the local congregation had been “horrified” by her call to ministry, and “tough months” had ensued. “Very precious to me has been working in harmony with many male colleagues and the occasions male ministers have shared concerns and appreciated my support,” she wrote.
Among the Project’s 57 recommendations is a call “for male Ministers to be allies in private and public”.