The Church's Other Half

Download or read book The Church's Other Half written by Trevor Beeson and published by SCM Press. This book was released on 2013-01-03 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Women have always constituted at least half of the church’s membership, but for almost 2,000 years were excluded from any significant part in its leadership. After the example of Jesus, the earliest Christian communities were wholly inclusive in their organisation, but a patriarchal model derived from the pattern of the secular Greco-Roman societies was soon adopted. This restricted women to subordinate roles from which the struggle to escape continues.