Portland, USA - The Disciples of Christ elected a 51-year-old woman to lead the 770,000-strong church Tuesday, marking the first time a major U.S. Protestant denomination has chosen a woman as its chief executive.
More than 3,000 church delegates stood up to register their "yes" vote for the Rev. Sharon E. Watkins in the massive convention hall here.
When not a single delegate rose to vote against her, the room erupted in applause. Some, including several from her home state of Oklahoma, sported T-shirts printed with her photograph. They wiped away tears as she took the microphone and said: "We are a church whose time has come."
'Significant statement'
"There have certainly been women bishops -- but I don't believe there's ever been another woman who's headed a mainline Protestant denomination," said Adair Lummis, co-author of two studies on women in the clergy and a researcher at the Hartford Institute for Religion Research. "It's a significant statement," she said.
Asked if her election marks a watershed in the Protestant movement, Watkins said: "I think it is significant. Firsts are always significant. We take note of them, and so in that sense, it is important."
She said the church -- which counts former Presidents Ronald Reagan and Lyndon Johnson among its past members -- has a long history of promoting women. "We've been ordaining women since the 1800s."
Women in the clergy
Headquartered in Indianapolis, the Disciples of Christ was founded on the American frontier in the 19th century, according to the church's Web site. Claiming no official doctrine, the church preached unity among Christians and allowed each congregation to become virtually autonomous -- taking divergent positions on hot-topic issues such as abortion.
Churches that began ordaining women early did not necessarily do so in the interest of true equality, Lummis said.
"Having a woman ordained -- as wonderful as it is -- doesn't necessarily lead to more women in positions of leadership," she said.
Early on, some were ordained as a stopgap measure -- for instance to temporarily fill in for a husband who left his pulpit empty to go to war.
A survey of women in the clergy, conducted in 1983 and again in 1993 by the Hartford Institute, found that although many congregations had significantly increased the number of ordained women, it was men who held the best parish positions on the whole.
"Even if they came out of the seminary at the same time, it was the men who were consistently getting the better position," Lummis said.
"As women, we were graced," said delegate Adonna Bowman of Indianapolis, her eyeliner runny from her tears. "We're thrilled to death," said Bowman, who is the executive director of the Office of Disciples Women.
Tom Jewell, the regional minister for Oklahoma, where Watkins is pastor of a church in Bartlesville, was the only delegate who spoke during the discussion session of the election, reading out a "Top 10 List for Sharin' Sharon." The No. 1 reason was that if elected, the church would get "52,560 hours of Sharin' Sharon" -- the breakdown in hours of her six-year term.
"It's very unusual," said Jewell of the election of the first woman president. "And it reflects a great readiness and receptivity to move into the future."