Emerging Women

By Heather Weber

Recently, in the New York Times, I read this story about the class action suit female employees brought against Wal-Mart in 2001. One of the original plaintiffs, Stephanie Odle, tells of her initial complaint in finding out that one of the male employees, in a parallel assistant manager position, was receiving 23K more per year than she was. When she brought this to the attention of her supervising manager she was told that the male assistant manager had “a family and two children to support.” At the time, Odle was a single mother of an infant.

This situation occurred in a secular arena, but I see parallels to the church today in the message that is being sent to women who serve and lead: for some reason, women’s time and work is less valuable than the work of their male counterparts, as evidenced by the way they are compensated (or not compensated). In my extended family network, I am related to male youth pastor and his wife (a preschool teacher, grad student, and mother of three). About 10 years ago, when they were just starting out as a married couple, Rob* got a job with a very low starting salary at a rural Lutheran church in the Midwest. With his hiring came the “understanding” that Megan would also be overseeing the adult Sunday School class administration as well as other areas of church life. Rob was officially paid the salary. Megan was expected to work for free. I should mention that quite soon after “they” took the position, Megan gave birth to their first child. Wobbly and exhausted, she was back at the church doing unpaid work within five days of the birth because it was expected she do “her” job. Now she says she should have known better. But shame on those church people for turning a blind eye.

This sort of situation doesn’t happen in the secular, regulated business arena as much as it does in church infrastructure these days. What’s occurring is a two-for-one: the church gets double the labor and the woman works for free because, somehow, her work doesn’t quite measure up as being worthy of remuneration.

What are your experiences and observations on this topic? How and why do you think churches get away with rationalizing their failure to compensate women as they do men? Is there spiritual rhetoric being used to justify it? If so, what?

*names are changed to protect privacy

Heather Weber is a part-time assistant pastor in Iowa City, IA, and a homeschooling mother of three. She has an MFA in creative writing and blogs about (among other things) the intersection of life, culture, and faith at www.onravenstreet.com.

By Julie Clawson

Jim Henderson of Off the Map is working on a book on how the church treats women. As part of his research he commissioned the Barna Group to conduct a survey of women’s experiences in the church. They (Barna Group) spoke with 603 women who met the following qualifications: 18 years or older, described themselves as “Christian” And had attended a Christian church service at least once during the past six months. Among those women, 63% met the survey criteria for being a “Born Again Christian.”

Here’s a bit of what the survey discovered –

1. 84% say that their church’s perspective on women in ministry is almost identical, very similar, or somewhat similar to their own.
2. 83% say that their Senior Pastor is somewhat, highly or completely supportive of women leading in their church
3. 82% say they can tell by their church’s actions that the church values the leadership of women
4. 81% say that their church provides women with the same degree of leadership opportunities as Jesus would.
5. 72% say they possess a lot of spiritual freedom in their life
6. 70% say that the media has little influence on their decision-making
7. 71% say fear is not something they experience ever or often in their life
8. 62% say that ALL leadership roles are open to them in their church.
9. Only 1% say they often struggle with jealousy
10. Among those who feel they are capable of doing more to serve God, and should be doing more, only 4% say that their fear of failure is holding them back from doing more to serve God.

Jim admits that these results seem almost unnaturally positive and asked for other women to comment if these results actually represent their own experience. Here’s what a few Emerging Women wrote on their own blogs concerning the results -

Pam Hogeweide responded -

When I first saw these stats, I had to reread them three times just to make sure I was understanding the data. It then became apparent to me: if a woman in church believes she is only meant to serve and lead other women or children, then yes, of course she is content within her church experience. If today’s Christian woman is convinced by the men in power who teach her that she is to remain dutifully in her biblically mandated role, then this is the perception she will report from.

To answer Jim’s question for myself, No, these stats do not match my experience, nor the experience of many, many women on the road of faith I have known for the last 28 years.

Kathy Escobar commented as well –

once i look up and out at the reality of women in the typical evangelical-y church system i get really, really sad. and really, really mad. when i read these statistics i honestly thought it was a joke. they are not representative of the majority of women that i know and their experiences. but then i remembered that most of the women i hang out with on a regular basis are, on the whole, no longer drinking the christian company kool-aid.
what do i mean by the company kool-aid?

i mean the things that the system tell us to believe. the things that leaders engrain into the community’s culture. the things that are backed up with “we’re 100% certain this is what God meant.” the subtle and direct messages that “good christians believe this.” the herd mentality that is so strong in any homogenous culture–this is the direction everyone’s going so i better tow the line and walk this way, talk this way, too.

And Sonja writes –

It made me angry to read these statistics. It made me angry, not just for the women … but for all the people involved in those churches. They are losing out. This is not the Kingdom of Heaven that Jesus talked about in the Sermon on the Mount, or as he walked with his disciples or at any time. Would even Peter, or John the beloved disciple be able to answer these questions so affirmatively? How about Mary Magdalene? Good grief, if even the disciples struggled with jealousy why on earth can only 6 women out 603 acknowledge it? Perhaps it was the word, often, that threw them off. Maybe they decided that they could deny that jealousy was something that strolled in and regularly did battle in their hearts. I know I will stand up and say that I am jealous all the time. It doesn’t make me mean anymore, but acknowledging it to myself and being able to laugh at it has made it easier.

Then this report made me sad. The kind of sad that aches in my bones. Because when I look at it I see poverty. The church in North America (like the US) may have a lot of money. It may have a lot of stuff. We may also have a lot of people for all I know. But we are starving to death. Emaciated and dying for lack of food, water and oxygen. Worse, we are doing it to ourselves. With a huge smile on our faces. We are a people with anorexia or bulimia. When we look in the mirror we see fat and happy, but the reality is we are starving. Dying.

In all truth I lost my faith in the Barna Group’s ability to conduct meaningful surveys years ago. The way they ask their questions, and especially who they ask them of, doesn’t exactly represent reality as I know it. But I get that for women in churches that tell them that “1. Women must not lead in the church, 2. To question that is to question the Bible, and 3. That to question the Bible (or admit there might be different interpretations) is a slippery-slope into unchristian liberalism” OF COURSE they are going to say that they are in agreement with their church’s confining views of women. I bought that lie hook, line, and sinker for years, I know that world.

So like the other women have expressed, these survey results sadden me. They do represent a segment of the church – one where patriarchy rules disguised in biblical clothing. These women don’t have the freedom to question their position without fear of being mocked or excluded from their fellowship. They don’t even have the freedom to admit they experience fear or jealousy (what sort of sick repression is going on here in our image first church world????) They don’t believe that they are allowed to be happy in any other setting. I get that that part of the church exists. But it’s not my experience anymore. Maybe the women who have escaped that world might not fall into Barna’s strict definition of Christian (didn’t a few years ago they define a Christian as one who believes in the Bible’s inerrancy?) I don’t know, I just know that some of these results are disturbing on a deep and visceral level. There is much we can learn from the results, and I am eager to read Jim’s response in his book. But I also think there is a real danger of these statistics being grievously misused in defense of the continued oppression of women and the silencing of half the church. I pray that is not the case.

By Anonymous

What does it mean to be an abuse survivor and a Christian?

I’ve had good cause to wonder about this.

I am a survivor of emotional abuse. During the brief relationship I had with a young Christian man who went to my church, I was emotionally and mentally assaulted on an almost daily basis and told that I was bringing it on myself with my “crazy” behavior. By the time our relationship ended, I didn’t know down from up anymore. My entire sense of self was nearly obliterated by means of his chronic degradations. My entire reality was destabilized by him telling me that most of what I believed or experienced was wrong. What was worse, because he had endeavored to keep our relationship a “secret”, very few people knew we had even been together, let alone what he had done. I didn’t even understand the reality of what had been done to me until months later, and I had to resort to therapy in order to deal with the post traumatic stress disorder and hypervigilance that was interfering with my behavior every day. To make matters worse, going back to that church was not an option for me at the time. I felt at the time (and I still do) that it is not safe for me to be where he is, and opening myself up to the ridicule, blame, and disbelief that I felt I would experience from him and members of my church by exposing his abuse is simply not something I can face. I cannot even live in the same town right now; I live elsewhere.

I have been lucky enough to find a church family that affirms me where I am now. Therapy helps me to regain power over myself; as I do so, my need for vengeance against him diminishes. Forgiveness remains an open question, one I am amenable to in the future, but is simply not possible now. Kindly meant remarks such as “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle” and “Well, why didn’t you leave him?” serve to fuel my rage. God sure as hell didn’t give this to me. Furthermore, blaming the victim for being unable to understand or combat the violence that was inflicted on her or him remains counterproductive at best, outright cruel at worst.

I wonder what it means to be the body of Christ when abuse has happened within it. What was done to me was justified by him with crude moralistic weapons. It was compounded when certain people I trusted treated me like I must have done something to deserve it. Neither of these has anything to do with Jesus or his teachings; quite the opposite, in fact. Yet I find time after time that Christians, including people that I cared for and trusted in my church community, still hold these anti-Christian attitudes. Hence my fear, which in one sense is unfounded (for maybe I am not giving them enough credit) and in another sense is very much based in reality. I’ve seen what happens to women who accuse famous men of rape in the media. I’d rather not have something similar play out in my own life.

What does it mean to be a woman in the church? What does it mean to be silent about violence perpetrated within the church? There is no doubt in my mind that Christ is by my side, weeping tears with me, gently bringing every new healing into creation, holding me up when I feel I cannot go on. I am not so trustful of his followers. Something about having the most fragile parts of you violated makes you wary of trusting people again. My own mother could barely believe that this happened to me. In the early days of understanding, trying to sort through what had really happened, one of my classmates said, “It could happen to anyone. You’re not alone.” I am not alone. What does that mean for me? What does that mean for the church?

What does reconciliation mean?

I don’t know the answers to these questions. I know that my Creator came to destroy a system that is so firmly entrenched that even today, with all our so-called progress, survivors are afraid to speak up. I know that it is only in Christ that I will be healed and become whole again.

The Building Fund
By Marnie Bullock Dresser

My brother said monkeys lived in the sanctuary beams
And if I would just sit still that one would drop
On my head and hug me tight and sit on my lap.
I prayed and waited, hands cupping “please.”
We grown-ups say church walls hold memories.
Acoustic tiles keep every hymn ever raised.
If we could somehow tap the glass, the stains
Would pour forth scenes of Easter hats and solvency.
But O! This old wineskin has a problem with mold,
And once the roof is fixed, the furnace needs
To be replaced. The whole foundation’s mortgaged.
The best fund raising in the world can’t bring
The monkeys back. The dust from angels’ wings
Drifts down in the pale quiet and drifts like snow.

Marnie Bullock Dresser lives in Spring Green, Wisconsin with her husband and son and is involved in starting a home church after years and years and years of church in buildings.

By Lori Wilson

Last Sunday, our family stood in a row and recited the Nicene Creed together with our local congregation, in unison with other congregations around the world, and indeed down through the centuries. I find particular delight in joining my voice with that of thousands of others, acknowledging my own infinitesimal part in something much, much bigger than myself.

However, I discovered something new this time, something I hadn’t [perhaps consciously] noticed before: the language of the Creed is so highly propositional. It lists the things which we, together, claim to intellectually affirm. And while I’m all for intellectual understanding & inquiry & application, I hope that my faith is something more. I don’t wish to take issue with the specifics of the creed; others have done so and will continue to do so “till the end of ages, Amen.” What I’d like to see, though, is language that reflects a wholehearted devotion to this God, to this path, to this way of being. A more holistic approach, perhaps. Tiny adaptations, really, but changes that would alter how we interpret our experience and engagement. So here, as a trial run, is a way in which I might like to recite the Creed someday:

The story of my people begins with one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.

Our life is grounded in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

We are sustained by the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.

We find life and love in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.

We participate in one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

We look with hope for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

Lori is a home-based mom of two, volunteer-at-large, and proud survivor of 10 Michigan winters. She and her husband own Compass Outreach Media (http://www.compass-om.com/). Exploring faith–from the paradoxic vantage points of a rich heritage and a break-the-molds future–helps her get out of bed in the morning. This post first appeared at her blog QueFascinante.

Often when the topic of women in ministry is brought up, I inevitably hear someone say that the issue is just too controversial for them to deal with.  Either the topic is not permitted in their church context or they have very complementarian friends who might “be offended” if they broached the subject.  So for them keeping the peace dictates their behavior.  They just don’t go there.  Others may be supportive of women in ministry, but just don’t want to rock the boat or may think that there are far more important issues to address.

Whatever the case, the outcome is that the topic of women in ministry is simply brushed aside.  The problem with that is that in choosing not to engage the issue, those people are, for all practical purposes, making a choice to keep women silent.  To defer judgment on whether or not to let women pursue their callings is to say no to women.

So the question is – is risking offend a few people, getting personally ostracized, or having some tough conversations worth hurting not just women but those that they could be serving?

I’ve also been in churches that acknowledged that this can be a controversial issue – but that choose to err on the side of love.  They didn’t want to risk muzzling the spirit of God because of a theological (cultural?) debate.  They admitted that they could be wrong, but that they would rather respect and affirm the image of God in women than risk being judged for silencing God.

What’s the experience in your churches?  Is this issue addressed or avoided with a litany of excuses?

I thought that I would post this in case there are any readers from the Philly area.

“God always shows up in the most God-forsaken places.”
—Alan Roxburgh

In some ways, it doesn’t get any more God-forsaken than suburban America. This “Missional In Suburbia” seminar will take a look at two important topics: Suburbia and the Church. For some people, there is a sentiment that its impossible to really be the church in the ‘burbs. But for others, we believe that this is the place that God has called us. If we are going to stay, we need to ask what it means to “be the church” in a culture that is defined by comfort, consumerism, isolation, wealth, strip malls and hidden poverty.

This one-day seminar will focus on the development and culture of suburbia and the opportunities and challenges that this context presents the Church. We are honored to have Al Hsu, author of The Suburban Christian, lead the discussion along with some other local pastors and thinkers.

This one-day conference is open to all and will be helpful for pastors, lay leaders, and members of congregations. Our goal is to have some substantial discussion around practical issues that relate to the everyday practice of the Church and the Christian life.

Event Details:

* Location: The Well (Feasterville, PA)

* Cost: $25 (includes lunch)

* Dates: August 9, 2008 (On Friday night, August 8, there is an optional “open house”/”meet and greet.”)

* In Partnership With: Philly Emergent cohort, Ecclessia Network, and C4ML at Biblical Seminary

Register online now at: church.thewellpa.com