Women have been leaders from the beginning of consciousness—learning where to find edible and healing plants and leading others to gather them, and passing on that knowledge to future generations. That is at least part of what Eve is up to in Genesis. Like Miriam, women have led celebration, song, and lament throughout time, and tended to bodies before burial as did the Marys of the Gospels. Women have challenged societal injustice with the tools available—words and prophetic actions—the widow to the judge, the Syrophoenician woman Jesus engages, the suffragettes, and women’s rights workers over centuries. Leadership means acting for change, and encouraging others to join a movement toward a different future. Christians speak of that future as the Reign of God, a society of peace with justice for all.
The Judeo-Christian tradition has had a mixed attitude toward women as leaders, particularly sacred leaders, in spite of a deep fund of feminine images of God—Wisdom, Shekinah, God as a mother bear; Ruach as Holy Spirit. God’s image is reflected across the spectrum of humanity in the Jewish tradition, with women leaders as matriarchs, prophets, judges, deliverers of their people, and in decidedly non-traditional roles and actions. Yet the formal religious leadership of Israel and Judah remained exclusively in the hands of particular groups of men until very recently. Women have always had a significant religious role in the family, including welcoming Shabbat and teaching children the ways of the covenant.
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