About ten years ago I was preparing for one of my regular trips “home”, to Germany. I then enjoyed the privilege of being able to combine annual professional and personal travel, often lasting an extended period.

A family in my wider clan of in-laws invited my for a farewell dinner with some other friends and rellies. This was before they got used to me travelling overseas for several weeks or months. The family had (well: still has) two daughters, both of whom then were somewhere under ten years old. And as a family they are quite active in their local Lutheran church.

After dinner, the girls insisted that we all meet in the lounge room. It may have been winter time, at least I remember it was dark. In the lounge room, these kids had prepared something like an altar, complete with a crucifix, a bible, some broken bread and a cup of wine. They wanted to celebrate a worship service with us, and in fact had drafted a complete order of worship. I can’t anymore remember the details of this worship service as such, other than that its significance came to my mind immediately in the context of the seemingly eternal debate amongst Australian Lutherans about the Ordination of Women.

So, a few grainy dark images remain of this night, taken with my old mobile way back then and reminding me once in a while of the event. However, there was a sincerity that stuck in my mind ever since. It was very much the girls’ expression seeing me leave this time for several months and wanting to send me off with a blessing in the community of their family, as they had seen it happen in their local church time and again. In fact, for me this was the first (and, I think, only) time ever happening in a private family context.

In a discussion sometime last year about the Ordination of Women in the Lutheran Church of Australia this story crossed my mind and I relayed parts of it to the other people. One response dismissed my experience with these kids as “cultural” rather than “spiritual”. I was puzzled, but there was no space to follow up this statement. This distinction did not really make much sense. What other than “culture”, or part of it, is religion in any given society? And how can I judge as an outsider, even if I knew these kids, their — or any other person’s — spirituality?  

I can’t remember these girls ever talking about the professional option, or a spiritual calling, to become a minister of the Word, even though they were invited to read the Gospel from the lectern of their church to a rather large congregation, ever since they were somewhat confident in reading. Given their close affiliation with faith and church this calling may still come, but I rather doubt it.  

While I am no insider with Lutheran congregations in Australia, it seems to me there is scant space for girls and young women to explore an active involvement with the church. Of course, I am aware of some of the LCA youth and student related programs, some of which these two girls have attended. However, today, I see them slowly drifting away. This is no surprise and happens around the world, and in the churches of my own home country. But where is the space for young women like these two, and their peers, to explore Theology and faith traditions through the eyes of other women for a present-day world?  

My home church, as in many other countries, now registers more women studying for ministry than men. Their contribution— as that of the highly competent and committed women theologians here in Australia — has enhanced our perception of Biblical writings. A typical example is the re-translation of the Biblical account by 40 female and 12 male theologians in German speaking Europe. They applied gender-inclusive language where possible and marked socially controversial translations as such rather than downplaying the issue. The German language, unlike English, allows for the clear distinction between male and female nouns. The “Bibel in gerechter Sprache” (Bible in a just — or: inclusive — Language, published 2006), or “BigS”,¹ as it became known, not surprisingly caused quite some discussion, but it opened doors for a fresh look at Biblical stories for younger women and generations of our age.²

I have been wondering if these two girls, now young women, will ever have a chance to explore “culture” and “spirituality” as did the women involved in and around the “BigS” translations. There are similar movements around the world, most importantly in former colonised countries, to re-translate the Biblical account in a local context. It seems to be the irony of the Ordination of Women debate to battle around a cultural pattern that has little if any to do with the spirituality of Christian faith; rather it picks up a cultural tradition of the admonishment of women in the early Christian churches some 2,000 years ago and a male-female divide in parts of our present-day society.  

Even if these two young women will never (again) assume a role as worship service celebrants, I wish and pray that they will find the freedom to explore their faith as was possible for those many women around “BigS” in Europe, and the women theologians here in Australia, and to document and present in the language of their own time and faith their perception of what they have been able to study in the Bible.

¹ Ulrike Bail, Frank Crüsemann, Marlene Crüsemann, Erhard Domay, Jürgen Ebach, Claudia Janssen, Hanne Köhler, Helga Kuhlmann, Martin Leutzsch, Luise Schottroff (Eds.): Bibel in gerechter Sprache. Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 2006, ISBN 3-579-05500-3 .  Find online here.

² For more on the translation and controversy see this brief article by Susanne Scholz, The Bibel in gerechter Sprache (BigS): The Secular Press, Kirchenherren, and Theology Professors React To a New German Inclusive Bible (Translation from German), on the Society of Biblical Literature website.