So my own view on this is that there are some excellent female clergy, like
@Paidiske , in denominations where women are presently ordained, where the membership of those denominations desire women to serve as presbyters or bishops. At the same time, there are other churches, such as the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and the Roman Catholics, which have a sacramental priesthood intimately connected with the tradition of their church, where owing to the extreme reverence most of the laity have for tradition, a change in the policies of ordination could cause a massive schism, and I think we can all agree that the last thing we need are more schisms.
However, in the case of Protestant churches which explicitly deny that the priesthood/ministry/pastoral office has a sacramental character, I don’t think there is any basis for these denominations to refuse to ordain women, except to avoid a schism, but at a certain point, one has to admit frankly that in such cases, it at the very least
looks sexist.
Whereas in the case of the Catholics and Orthodox, a thorough study of their theology will indicate that the male sacramental priesthood in those churches is not a sexist institution, particularly in the Orthodox Church, where several women such as St. Mary Magdalene, St. Theclas and more recently, St. Nino, an Armenian noblewoman who evangelized the Georgians in the fourth century, resulting in the entire kingdom of Georgia being the fifth country to convert completely to Christianity (the others, in order of conversion, being Edessa, Armenia, the Roman Empire and Ethiopia), as Equal to the Apostles. And the extreme veneration of the Virgin Mary we see in both the Catholic and Orthodox churches positively rules out sexism, since these churches believe that the most important person to be conceived by human parents, the person closest to, and in the most intimate possible relationship with, the incarnate God, was a woman, specifically, the woman who gave birth to Jesus Christ, who is God, as the Nicene Creed makes clear.
There is also another important issue to consider, and that is whether or not the women of a given church desire the priesthood. Several Roman Catholic women have expressed a desire for it, but it is not clear they are in the majority, whereas in the case of the Orthodox, the overwhelming preference among Orthodox women, in my experience, is, as one might expect given the extreme traditionalism of the Orthodox community, is to preserve the status quo.
Conversely, female pastors are strongly desired by a majority of members in several Protestant churches including the Church of England, most of the Anglican archdioceses in Australia, with the exception of the Archdiocese of Sydney, the Anglican churches in Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Canada and New Zealand, the United Methodist Church, the Episcopal Church USA, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church USA, and, interestingly, conservative denominations which have separated from some of these churches, such as the Anglican Church in North America, the North American Lutheran Church, and the Evangelical Covenant Order.
Furthermore, the history of the church indicates that women have always been ordained to the diaconate. While it is true that the deaconesses of antiquity performed a different liturgical function than the deacons, being ministers of Baptism rather than ministers of Holy Communion, they were nonetheless a part of the sacred diaconate, so those churches which refuse to ordain deaconesses do not posess either theological or ecclesiastical justification for such a practice.
We do have to consider, however, the preferences of the women in those churches. For example, do the women in the Southern Baptist Convention really want the SBC to resume ordaining female pastors? Given that the SBC does not have a sacramental, sacrificial priesthood bound up in sacred tradition like the Roman Catholics or Eastern Orthodox, there is not a compelling theological reason for them not to have female pastors, but on the other hand, my experience with Southern Baptist women is that, like Orthodox women, they do not want female pastors in their denomination, albeit for different reasons.
So, my conclusion on the issue is simply this: in the case of Protestant churches which do not consider ordination to be a sacrament, and which do not regard the priesthood as a sacrificial and sacramental office, there being no theological impediment to women in these churches serving as elders, presbyters, ministers, pastors or bishops, it comes down to two factors: the need to preserve unity in the church and avoid schism, and, more importantly in the long term, the desires of women in those denominations concerning whether or not they wish to see female pastors. If the women want it, there js no reason not to accomodate such a desire as soon as the risk of schism has abated, and conversely, if they do not want it, it seems to me that it would in fact be sexist, patronizing and condescending for the men in charge of that denomination to impose a female priesthood against the will of the women. For example,
@kdm1984 is a member of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, and in my experience, her views in opposition to female pastors are the prevailing opinion among the women in that church. How could it be anything other than an egregious example of sexist domineering male patriarchy if the men leading WELS decided to ordain women against the wishes of the majority of female members like
@kdm1984 ?
Lastly, there are some cases where there exist two denominations which share a common theological basis and a common tradition, but which differ chiefly on the subject of the ordination of women. If, hypothetically, theologically conservative women who are a part of, for example, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, the Anglican Province of Christ the King, and the Presbyterian Church in America, feel called to the priesthood, it seems the best course of action would be for them to join the North American Lutheran Church, the Anglican Church of North America, or the Evangelical Covenant Order (of Presbyterians), as these churches are equally theologically conservative, but also happen to ordain women, and all three of them have a pressing need for more clergy, and what is more, they are continuing to grow, whereas I believe the expansion of at least one of the churches I mentioned with a male-only priesthood is stagnant as far as denominational growth is concerned.
Pious women like
@Paidiske have a lot to offer those churches which are willing to accept their gifts.