Clergy Women_an Uphill Calling

Clergy Women: An Uphill Calling is authored by Barbara Brown Zikmund, Adair T. Lummis, and Patricia M. Y. Chang. A major value of this book is that it provides a baseline of the situation in the early 1990's for predominantly white clergywomen. We look forward to new authors doing their own studies and books on clergywomen across denominations and ethnicities.

An extensive research to come out of Hartford Theological Seminary, which details quite importantly the life of clergy. However, I would argue that much of the comment is equally applicable to male clergy, so the book is not as exciting and as groundbreaking as one would perhaps expect. Similarly, from a feminist perspective, I was somewhat surprised to find a comment in the book which tells us that women clergy are often more able to go where they are needed in small communities because their husbands will have good jobs. Surely this is a step backwards? Otherwise a good read.