Nancy Raatz
Shirinai Dosova has been a pioneer for women in ministry in the East. Her interview for the EastWest Church and Ministry Report is interesting and informative. As an American missionary woman who has served actively in Moldova and Russia for the past 13 years, I have been asked to respond to her interview. My response will center on three questions. First, what constitutes a woman being prostituted? Second, what is the biblical basis for women in ministry? And third, what are the future prospects for women serving in ministry in the former Soviet Union?
Sex Trafficking
In the interview, Shirinai Dosova states that women in Russia who have turned to prostitution have “lost their way.” She claims that women from Russia and other former Soviet bloc states cannot find work and thus become prostitutes. It may seem like a small point in an interview concerning women in ministry, but I believe the path to prostitution deserves further explanation.
A great deal of misunderstanding surrounds the issue of prostitution and human sex trafficking in the East. My husband and I served in the Republic of Moldova for ten years where we established an after-care ministry for victims of sex trafficking. (See Andrew Raatz, “Healing the Natashas: Observations on Trafficking Aftercare in Moldova,” East-West Church and Ministry Report 18 [Spring 2010], 16, 15; [Summer 2010], 11-13.) A large percentage of the women who came through our ministry had been sold into prostitution in Russia, but whether in Russia, Turkey, or the Middle East, they did not take prostitution as a job because they could not find other work. Rather, they were promised legitimate work abroad; upon arrival their documents were seized; and they then were forced into sex slavery. They were held against their will and forced to prostitute themselves for their pimps. Beatings, starvation, and death threats kept them captive. Most women are not engaged in prostitution because they have “lost their way,” but because they are slaves. It is time for the evangelical churches in Russia to stop seeing prostitution as an occupational choice, but to realize it is a system of slavery holding women in oppression and destroying their value and dignity.
The Biblical Basis for Women in Ministry
In contrast, the Bible underscores the value, worth, and dignity of women. We see women redeemed from their past and used of God when we read the narratives of Rahab, Bathsheba, and Mary Magdalene. We see women serving in leadership in the characters of Miriam, Deborah, and Priscilla. Jesus valued women in his actions toward them. The Apostle John tells that it was women who first heard, believed, and proclaimed Jesus’ resurrection. Women were leaders in the early church. Romans 16 is almost entirely about the Apostle Paul’s colaborers, a good portion of whom were women. The early church believed they were living in the last days, as proclaimed by the prophet Joel, and that the proclamation of Christ to their broken world required the labor of both men and women.
On the day of Pentecost, Peter quoted Joel 2 in explaining to the crowd what had happened: “In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions and your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy” (Acts 2:17-18). Peter understood that the outpouring of the Spirit was for men and women. He understood that God would use men and women to establish His church. We are living in the last days. It is time for the church in the East and West to realize that God’s Spirit is poured out on ALL flesh, and both men and women are needed fully in the work of the church.
Recently I received ordination in my denomination, the Assemblies of God, in the United States. I stood among 12 candidates for ordination, five of whom were women. We ranged in age from mid-thirties to early sixties. As I sat hearing their names called and watching them walk across the platform, I was struck by the great number of young women in the class— some young singles, others married and being licensed to preach alongside their husbands—all stepping forward into the calling God had on their lives and our denomination recognizing that call.
My mind drifted back to 30 years earlier when I attended Bible college. Few women sat in the ministry classes because few believed they could be ministers. A professor proclaimed that the church would not accept women as ministers and told females to change their major. The message to young women was that preaching is a place for men only. The night of my ordination I realized that a huge change had taken place in my lifetime. The shift did not happen overnight and is not total. Men still far outnumber women in our pulpits, as lead pastors, and on church staffs. Still, I see positive change: women are preaching, they are lead pastors, they are on church staffs. They are leading ministries to children and victims of trafficking. They are Christian college presidents and in denominational executive leadership positions.
The Prospects for Women in Ministry in the East
Likewise, I have seen a shift in the East with women in the church in the 13 years I have served in the East. Women lead worship in churches. They head Christian schools. They lead ministries outside church walls. This is a massive shift from 20 years ago. Recently I shared the preaching at a women’s event in southern Russia with a pastor’s wife. I preached one session, and she preached the other. No one questioned that either of us preached the Bible. That is what we came to do. These examples bring hope for the place of women in ministry in the East. The work, whether in the East or the West, will be completed with men and women serving alongside one another to bring the hope of the Gospel to a lost world.
Nancy Raatz is an Assemblies of God missionary serving in St. Petersburg, Russia