“What’s wrong with us that we don’t have space for folks to transcend and expand our understanding of what it can be to be female and what it can be to be male?” asks Rev. Emily McGinley of the Urban Village Church in Chicago. Her ministry reaches out to and welcomes transgender people, whom she says pose complex theological questions for faith communities. More →

August 14, 2015

“Whenever women are treated as inferior in the eyes of God, this is a misinterpretation of what Jesus Christ taught.” Watch more of our conversation with President Carter on women’s rights around the world. More →

May 9, 2014

The preference for male children in India dates back centuries, driven by religious custom, and the widespread abortion of female fetuses has led to an increasing gender gap. Will a rising and urbanizing middle class change this? More →

April 5, 2013

“There are no scriptural barriers to the ordination of women,” says Jane Via, a Roman Catholic woman priest in San Diego. But theology professor Thomas Rausch maintains that “the Catholic Church is not ready for the ordination of women right now.” More →

January 11, 2013

“To have a situation in which we recognize the full equality of women changes everything,” says Union Theological Seminary president Serene Jones. More →

May 25, 2012

“There is a whole historical world of women who have risen as leaders in religious communities because they were called to do it, not because someone said they could,” according to the first woman president of Union Theological Seminary. More →

May 25, 2012

In India, sex selection by sonogram is officially illegal, but widely practiced. And there is no Hindu or legal prohibition on abortion. More →

June 1, 2001

Women are a mainstay in black churches, except in the pulpit. Will the “stained-glass ceiling” limit the careers of the record numbers of women entering divinity schools? More →

February 20, 1998