Former Lutheran minister Noel Schultz awarded OAM for decades-long campaign for women’s ordination
Schultz left the Lutheran Church in the 1980s over the issue, later joining the Uniting Church, and attended the 2025 ordination of Rev Sue Westhorp
Noel Schultz, a 94-year-old former Lutheran minister, has been awarded an Order of Australia Medal (OAM) in the King’s Birthday Honours for services to the Lutheran and Uniting churches. The award recognises Schultz’s seven-decade campaign for the ordination of women, a cause the Lutheran Church of Australia’s synod finally approved in 2024.
Schultz left the Lutheran Church in the 1980s after being denied leave to accept a position as director of pastoral care and community education at St Michael’s Uniting Church. His theological advocacy for women’s rights was deemed a step too far by church leadership, prompting him to join the Uniting Church, where women held many leadership positions.
His doctoral thesis, titled Neither Male nor Female – the Bible, Women & the Ministry of the Church, challenged traditional interpretations prohibiting female leadership. The work was updated and published in 2024 as a 90th birthday present, generating significant discussion among Lutheran teachers and congregants regarding theological and sociological contexts.
In 2024, a small conservative group with ties to American Christian fundamentalism left the Lutheran Church following the vote to allow female ordination. Schultz attended the 2025 ordination of Rev Sue Westhorp, the second woman to become a Lutheran pastor in Australia, at St Paul’s Box Hill in Melbourne.
Schultz expressed to his daughter, Julianne Schultz, in 2018 that he feared he would die before women were allowed to become pastors in the Lutheran Church. The Governor-General’s office contacted him regarding the award, though he initially protested that the recognition should have been shared with his wife, Cynthia, describing their advocacy as a team effort.