I’m a little late in responding to the national news story about the fired female Sunday school teacher. I think it’s worth risking untimeliness to weigh in because this story has been on my mind this week.

My first thought is that the uproar seems a little misguided. Why? Because the big deal made in the news coverage is about her gender, not that she was dumped after 54 years of teaching. In my opinion, that’s the real news here. It’s really wrong to “fire” someone, male or female, who has served that long in a volunteer capacity unless there’s some evidence of inappropriate behavior. (The church has been mum on that topic.)

Furthermore, the church board claims in its recent media statement that 55 percent of the board’s members and 87 percent of the church’s Sunday school teachers are women. If that’s true, then women are teaching men, unless only 13 percent of the church membership is male, so that’s not the real issue here, most likely.

Here’s the thing, though: There are plenty of churches in this country where women are made second-class citizens in terms of the spiritual leadership roles available to them. That, in my opinion, is what ought to be the news here.

I’ve attended several churches over the years with varying policies about women’s leadership roles. Two of the most inspiring and insightful spiritual role models I have known were women: one, a youth minister in a Baptist church I knew for several years; the other, an Episcopal priest I knew for about 20 minutes. Both were kind-hearted and encouraging people who were, if anyone is, looking to connect with God personally and share themselves with others.

I’ll say more about this in another post, but I consider the passage in question (1 Timothy 2:11-13) to be culturally outdated. I fully believe that it is totally fine for a woman to teach men and for a woman to serve as a minister or pastor.