Aizawl, Jan 22 : The concept of woman pastor is still something that the Baptist Church of Mizoram (BCM) can only think, but not turn into reality.
Even as the Mizo Hmeichhe Insuihkhawm Pawl (MHIP) or Mizo Women's Federation declared 2010-11 as the Year of Women Empowerment and the pastoral committee of the BCM recommended that R L Hnuni should be ordained as the first-ever woman pastor, the BCM assembly decided otherwise.
The BCM assembly, the highest decision-making authority of the church, held at south Mizoram's Lunglei district on Thursday night rejected the recommendations of the BCM pastoral committee, closing the doors again for ordination of a woman pastor in Mizoram.
Hnuni, the principal of the Baptist Church-run Aizawl Integrated Christian Studies (AICS), was earlier tipped to become the first-woman ordained pastor after recommendations of the pastoral committee.
She is one of the few women theologians who received doctorate degree in theology and her husband is also a well-known and highly educated priest and theologian working for the Baptist Church.
Mizoram Presbyterian Church, the largest church in the state, also has so far refused to ordain women as pastors, even as many women theological graduates and postgraduates were working in the church, thanks to the strict patriarchal culture of the Mizo society.
Around 40 years ago, Saptawni was the first Mizo woman to be elected as a "Kohhran Upa" or church elder, by the congregation of the Aizawl's Mission Veng branch of the Presbyterian Church. However, the Presbyterian Church declared her election as null and void as the church could not accept a woman as a church elder, though she was the wife of a pioneer church leader and an influential pastor.
Many trained woman theologians complained that it is difficult to break through the gender bias in the church, influenced by strict Mizo patriarchal tradition.
After many years of education in the church on gender equality, Hnuni recently expressed expectations, in a local television interview, that she would finally break this gender stalemate.
But her hopes were dashed to the ground by the decision of her church's highest authority.
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