A Quick Question
What percentage of pastors are female?
The quick answer - Not Enough!
The longer answer - According to a study done in the mid 1990's by Barbara Brown Zikmund, Adair Lummis and Patricia Chang there are 16,321 female clergy in 15 Mainline and conservative Protestant denominations. This means that roughly 12 percent of clergy in those denominations are female.
The distribution is not equal across denominations however. The more theologically liberal groups such as the Unitarian Universalist Association and the United Church of Christ lead in the percent of their clergy who are female with 30 and 25 percent respectively.
Most theologically conservative groups in the list - the Southern Baptist Convention, the Free Methodist Church and the Assemblies of God all have less that 10 percent of their pastors being female.
The table below gives the total clergy and percent of female pastors as of 1994.
| Denomination |
Total Clergy in 1994 |
% Female Clergy |
| American Baptist Churches |
5758 |
12% |
| Assemblies of God |
18,570 |
8% |
Christian Church
(Disciples of Christ) |
5469 |
18% |
Church of God
(Anderson, IN) |
2955 |
10% |
| Church of the Brethren |
1163 |
12% |
| Church of the Nazarene |
3413 |
11% |
| Episcopal Church |
11,314 |
12% |
| Evangelical Lutheran Church in America |
13,225 |
11% |
| Free Methodist Church |
1878 |
1% |
| Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) |
14,578 |
19% |
| Southern Baptist Convention |
35,130 |
4% |
| Unitarian-Universalist Association |
1236 |
30% |
| United Church of Christ |
7297 |
25% |
| United Methodist Church |
20,617 |
15% |
| Wesleyan Church |
2190 |
11% |
If you are interested in reading more of the research findings from this study, visit the section of our web
site about this study.
Visit the section of our site devoted to the topic of
women and religion if you want to know more.
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