JJRS > Volume 44 Issue 1 A Church with Newly-Opened Doors: The Ordination of Women Priests in the Anglican-Episcopal Church of Japan

Miki Mei

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Voices began calling for the ordination of women in the Anglican-Episcopal Church of Japan (Nippon Sei Ko Kai) in the 1980s. This article examines the worldwide debates on this issue, along with the development of feminist theology, and the responses within Japan. It traces the arguments presented both for and against the ordination of women, and the process that eventually resulted in the actual ordination of a woman as a priest in 1998. This article looks at this issue in terms of a reformation of the structure of sexual discrimination that had been formed in the church in Japan, and how it was the start of a way to revive the church in its mission to truly spread the Gospel of Christ.