In a historic vote, the Christian and Missionary Alliance (CMA) has agreed to allow women to serve in pastoral roles, with 60% of delegates gathered at their 2023 General Council meeting signing and sealing the fate of the denomination.
For years the CMA, with its 6 million members in 22,000 churches in 90 countries, has been laboring with a dysfunctional and schizophrenic policy on pastrixes. The denomination allows women to be ‘consecrated for ministry’- letting them preach, teach, baptize, marry folks, oversee funerals, and counsel congregants- while withholding the coveted title of ‘pastor’ from them.
Instead, appointed ladies received titles like ‘Consecrated Women of God,’ a moniker many women felt was an insufficient half-measure, pushing them to grasp for more. While they can now be ordained as pastors, the “senior pastor” role is still relegated to men only, which, as anyone with half a brain knows, will be the next domino to fall.
Founded in the late 19th century as a parachurch ministry and later formed into a new evangelical denomination in the 1970s, the CMA has a significant emphasis on missions and missionary work, Jesus’ role as a healer, and an intense focus on personal sanctification, such as “High Life Movement which half the time is nothing more than a bastardized form of sinless perfectionism in disguise.
Speaking to the gathered delegates, U.S. Air Force Chaplain Krista Lain insisted that these new freedom afforded by the denomination would only show that the CMA stands behind their pastrixes, sharing:
“Being ordained would make my life a lot easier as a military chaplain, not having to make the big long explanation, but it’s so much more than that. I am called to join God in raising up a vast army from dry bones by the breath of the Holy Spirit. … I know I have angel armies backing me up. But I wonder, do I have the Alliance family backing me up?”
