The Culture Beat

Pastor Clay Austin of First Baptist Church of Blountville , Tenn., knows what he would say to his daughter if she ever told him she felt called to become a pastor herself.

“I’d tell her to go to the United Methodist Church, because the doors are open there,” the Southern Baptist minister said. “They’re not in the Southern Baptist Convention.”

If that sounds like odd advice, just remember that the topic of women in ministry can cause all kinds of tensions.

While church groups across a wide theological range ordain women as ministers, many do not, including the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. The Eastern Orthodox churches, the world’s second-largest Christian communion, do not ordain women as priests, nor does the Roman Catholic Church, the largest Christian denomination in the U.S. and the world.

But numbers don’t win philosophical debates, and advocates on each side of the question cite Scriptures and wield impressive theological arguments. Last week in this space, a few local women pastors talked about their ministries. This week looks at why some churches don’t believe women are called to be pastors or priests.

The Roman Catholic Church starts with Jesus’ apostles: He chose 12 men, and they later selected men to succeed them. That example wasn’t an oversight or a nod to society, according to Randy Stice, associate pastor of St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in Johnson City, Tenn. It was an explicit, everlasting decision.

“In other ways, Jesus did not follow the norms of his culture,” Stice said. “He spoke with women, and they were the first witnesses to the resurrection. So the fact that Jesus was not in other ways bound by the customs of his time and place but still chose men as apostles is significant.”

Women can work in almost any other aspect of church ministry, he said.

“One of the guiding principles is that there is diversity and mutual complementarity between women and men,” he said. “In our parish, they’re leaders of parish ministries. We have girls as altar servers and women as eucharistic ministers.”

But the Catholic Church draws a sharp line at the sacraments, arguing that because a priest stands “in the person of Christ” as he blesses the Lord’s Supper or baptizes a person, he should possess “a natural resemblance” to Jesus. Jesus’ presence is essential, Catholics will say, and so everything about him matters, including the fact that he was a man.

So the issue isn’t really up for discussion in the Catholic Church, Stice said. In a 1994 letter to Catholic bishops, Pope John Paul II declared that “the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.”

“The Catholic Church feels it’s bound by the example that Christ gave,” Stice explained. “The church is steward of the faith, but not master of it.”

The summary of Southern Baptist core beliefs, the “Baptist Faith and Message,” is concise and clear: “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”

The Baptists’ restrictions, said Austin, are based on biblical teaching, Austin said, but “their interpretation and their culture” also play a role.

All churches, first century or 21st century, live and work within particular places and times, and most Southern Baptists churches are not ready to accept women as lead pastors, according to Austin, even if many are employed as associates.

But as in the past, the possibility of change remains.

“We don’t rise above culture in interpretation of Scripture,” he said. “If we went back to the 1850s, we’d find rank-and-file Southern Baptists supported slavery. What changed? It was a long, hard cultural struggle. Perhaps the women-in-ministry issue is going to follow that course. But it will be a long learning curve.”

Austin said he struggles with the issue – obviously, considering the advice he would give his daughter. But he welcomes “anything that forces you to go back and examine Scripture.”

“I want to have a high view of Scripture, but I also have to interpret it,” he said. “Everyone has to decide for themselves how they would interpret Scripture. I encourage people to explore their call and what it really is. If that’s what you been called to do, don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.”

First published in the Johnson City (Tenn.) Press, 28 June 2008. Second of two columns on women in ministry.
Image: The Maria Sjodin Co., a fashion designer in Stockholm, Sweden, features a line of “casual priest” clothing for women clergy.

As Beth Yarborough was leaving her office at Jonesborough (Tenn.) Presbyterian Church (USA) recently, she met the photographer for the church directory, who was just coming in.

“Are you the secretary?” he asked.

“Actually, I’m the pastor,” she answered. The photographer froze for a moment in awkward shock.

“Oh!” he blurted. “The pastor?”

It was one of the few occasions from Yarborough’s seven-year pastorate when she was pegged by a stereotype. A man in her place, after all, probably wouldn’t have been asked if he was the secretary. But she laughed about it.

“After he got over the initial surprise, he was fine,” she said. “Having a woman as a pastor is still a bit of a rare phenomenon in this region.”

Indeed. With hundreds of congregations in northeast Tennessee, women serve as senior or “solo” pastors in maybe a dozen of them. Denominations across the theological spectrum – Pentecostal, evangelical and mainline Protestant – ordain women for all types of ministries. Others, of course – including the Southern Baptist Convention and the Roman Catholic Church, the nation’s two largest denominations – limit the types of ministries women can perform.

Still, any congregation can struggle when a woman steps into its pastorate, especially if she’s the first female in that role. Tradition often trumps accepted practice.

Sharon Amstutz, pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church (USA) in Johnson City for the past six years, has been warmly received, but she suspects a few families left when her ministry began because of her gender. But she also recalls a particular hospital visit with the church’s oldest member. He had opposed calling a woman as pastor. “But I was wrong,” he told her. She has felt accepted ever since.

In recent conversations with a few of the local women who are pastors, they all resisted two notions: first, that they are feminists in any militant, “I-am-woman-hear-me-preach” sense, and second, that just being a woman specially suits them – or hampers them – for ministry.

“In this culture, starting by saying ‘I’m a pastor’ can close down a conversation,” said Michelle Buckles, pastor of Cherokee United Methodist Church, Johnson City, since last summer. She explained with a scenario that won’t come from a male pastor. “Where I have my nails done, I didn’t tell them for a long time that I’m a minister. I just tried to let them get to know me. What I want to say if someone has a problem with a woman pastor is, ‘Please give me a chance to get to know you, and vice versa.’ I’m comfortable enough as a woman, as a minister, as someone trying to follow God’s call, to handle it.”

“There’s really nothing gender-specific I can think of,” Amstutz said. “As a woman, my greatest contribution (compared to male pastors) is that I bring food to the potlucks,” she joked.

They have all wondered whether women are particularly effective in providing pastoral care, but they know men can do that task equally well – although Yarborough did suggest at least one difference when she talked about visiting a dying parishioner in a hospital. The woman didn’t need more medicine, Yarborough realized.

“She just needed a hug, and so I climbed up beside her and just held her for a few minutes,” she recalled. “I don’t think a lot of men would do that.”

They are well aware that questions, sincerely held differences of biblical interpretation and even suspicion hover in the air over their roles, but none of these women doubt their own calling, just as they don’t expect male ministers to doubt theirs.

“My job is to help people be the body of Christ,” Amstutz said. “That’s not a power over them. I don’t see my job as having authority over anyone. We’re sorting through the Scriptures together.”

“I’ve seen God’s work in my ministry,” Buckles said. “(Author Frederick) Buechner defined vocation as the place where your deep gladness meets the world’s deep need. That’s where I’m living right now.”
Yarborough said she doesn’t think much about being a woman in ministry.

“If someone has a problem, I tell them to talk to God about it, because I know I’ve been called,” she said. “I just think of myself as a pastor. I focus on that. Here I am.”

First published in the Johnson City (Tenn.) Press, 21 June 2008. First of two columns on women in ministry. Next time: Why not women? Churches have reasons.

If he had a few minutes with Pope Benedict XVI (pictured here, arriving in the U.S.), the Rev. Gerard Finucane would urge the pontiff to mandate an hour of contemplation each day for every believer.

“If it’s five minutes or an hour – so be it,” said the pastor of St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in Johnson City. “We’re bombarded by so many voices, it’s hard to hear what the spirit of God is saying to each of us. We need some isolation, to get away from cell phones and TVs and clear out the clutter. It’s something our age needs.”

Unfortunately, Finucane didn’t have a chance for that conversation this week, when Benedict visited Washington, D.C., and New York City. It was the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s first visit to the United States since he was chosen to lead the Roman Catholic Church in 2005.

Besides, the pontiff, who turned 81 on Wednesday, needed to discuss other issues.

On Thursday, the first full day of a five-day visit, Benedict led mass for 45,000 people gathered in Washington’s new baseball stadium. After that event, it was striking how many people who attended described the “warmth” and enthusiasm they felt, sometimes in surprise since as cardinal he was known as “God’s bulldog” for his doctrinal rigidity. Many talked about their renewed sense of “hope.”

Hope is an important word. It’s no accident that for his visit Benedict selected a simple theme: “Christ our hope.” That was also the subject of an encyclical, a major letter to the church, which he issued last fall.

But now he was coming into a situation that could be read as hopeless or at least discouraged. The Catholic Church in the U.S. has been losing members and facing financial crisis. St. Mary’s, which has doubled in membership in the past decade, is an exception. Catholic colleges and universities struggle with tensions between accepted doctrine and academic freedom.

Most troubling of all, the American church is still reeling from a decade-long scandal of priests who sexually abused children, sometimes over the course of years and sometimes as their American leaders turned a blind eye. More than 5,000 U.S. priests have been accused of abusing about 12,000 children since 1950, according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The church has spent about $2 billion on legal claims.

Despite efforts to hold clergy accountable, thousands of members felt betrayed and vulnerable in their own churches. Grassroots groups that offer support for victims also call for a housecleaning in the church. Some brush off any suggestion that substantial changes have occurred.

So it was significant that as Pope Benedict began a major trip with hope as its theme, he addressed the sexual abuse scandal first and in direct terms. He talked about the “shame” he felt and promised that priests who committed pedophilia would be removed. He publicly spoke about the scandal three times in the next day. (The sex-abuse troubles briefly brushed the Diocese of Knoxville, of which St. Mary’s parish is part, with an accusation made years ago against the founding bishop. No problems have ever been reported from St. Mary’s.)

After Thursday’s mass, the pope unexpectedly met and prayed in private with a small group of victims. He had requested the meeting, and it was the first time the pope had met face to face with victims. They came away with both wait-and-see skepticism and – that word again – hope.

Benedict addressed other topics this week – immigration, war, the dangers of relativism, relationships between people of different faiths. For each one, it’s worth noting that Benedict tried to communicate hope by addressing difficult issues, often in blunt terms.

“The thing is that healing takes time,” Finucane observed. “We want to reach out and offer the care and healing we can. But obviously trust has been broken, so when the church reaches out, there’s some doubt about sincerity. We need time to rebuild the trust.”

But Finucane is, of course, hopeful.

“As the shepherd of this flock, (the pope) has the responsibility to speak out forcefully and to give direction,” Finucane said. “But the fact that he chose as his theme ‘Christ our hope’ tells me he chose not to adopt a negative tone, especially in the Easter season. If we follow Christ as the good shepherd, we have that hope to make changes in our lives and move forward.”

First published in the Johnson City (Tenn.) Press, 19 April 2008.