ordination consternation
Sunday night I went to an ordination service. It’s not the first one I’ve attended, but it’s the first one I’ve attended as a critically-thinking adult. The other times were when I was a kid, including my own father’s, which I don’t remember at all save for the photographs which allow me to manufacture memories based on the images of my three-year-old self in white tights.
This ordination was for my old youth pastor, who’s still youth pastor, but after seven years has completed his Calvinist seminary education.
There’s a strict and boring order of service to these things, the lowlight of which being a talk by some pastor guy that went on and on. In truth it was only fifteen minutes (I was checking the clock, believe me), but seemed waaaaaay longer. That’s what happens, my dad says, when you try to preach without notes! You have to be a really good speaker to speak without notes and not make an ass of yourself. This particular pastor guy was not one of those speakers.
That’s the explanation my dad offered for why this pastor guy, when talking about young pastors going out into the world, referred to all the “young men” God has blessed us with to serve as pastors. Our denomination is loathe to ordain women, we all know this, but can we at least keep up some sort of rhetorical pretense of equality?! Again, my dad blamed this slip of the tongue on the pastor guy’s lack of notes, but I blame it on systemic sexism and idiocy.
Back when I went to bible college (a denominational one), there was a little bit of a kerfuffle when the dean of students was planning to leave her job with the college and go teach at a seminary in Brazil. Despite the fact that any man with her qualifications would have been ordained already, the denomination only saw fit to ordain her before her big missions thing to Brazil in the name of expediency, since ordained clergy have an easier time with immigration bureaucracy.
The dean of academics spoke out on her behalf, calling the situation for what it was: sexist, and racist. Sexist for the obvious reasons, and racist because why was a woman good enough to teach non-white people in Brazil but not good enough to teach white people men in North America?
Just once in my life I want to have a woman pastor. The church I currently attend has three full-time pastors and they’re all men. I could leave this church, I guess, but if all the feminists leave then how are things going to change? I don’t know.
I’ve been wondering for awhile when and if the point will come when I’ll have to leave this particular church, when what I believe and what they believe will be too far apart for me to have a place in the community. What draws me there now is the familiarity, the people I’ve known since I was five.
I was raised some of these concerns with my small group the other week, and they immediately launched into a litany of praise of me, outlining how much they appreciated my contrary and slightly disruptive presence in their group. But I wasn’t fishing for compliments; I’m serious. I don’t know how long it will last, you know? A year, two, three… but eventually something’s going to have to give.
Then again, that night after the ordination service, I had a really good talk with my dad and brother and realized that the gap between their theology and mine may not be as wide as I thought it was. And at least they’re both feminists, though they’d never admit it or label themselves as such. But trust me, they are. (We can smell our own.)
January 18th, 2006 at 4:57 pm
good thoughts jenny. ordination in itself is a bit ridiculous, but it tends to become a gong show at times.
just a bit of clarification however… in the denomination to which you are refering (and the specific situation with the dean of students) it is the church that chooses whether to ordain or not. the denomination merely confirms theology and call. it was her church that refused to ordain her on numerous occasions - until she went to brazil. and remember, she also refused it (and rightly so).
January 18th, 2006 at 5:02 pm
Ohhhh right. I should indeed have added that bit about the woman in question declining the, um, honour.
What you say about the denomination/church relationship is true, of course, though I didn’t at all make that clear in my post. However, inasmuch as a denomination is, among other things, a collection of like-minded churches, you have to agree that the denomination in question shies away, in general, from the oridnation of women. There are plenty of feminists in the denomination — my father included — but the feminism that appears in his generation (of which the dean of academics I mentioned is a part) hasn’t burst through into practical application in the denomination, yet, which sucks.
And the worst part is, without existing woman pastors, there won’t be more women pastors, because little girls sitting in the pews don’t grow up thinking, “Hey, that could be me up there.”
(An aside — turns out my mom actually wanted me to be a pastor! Too bad I turned out all rebellious and shit.)
January 18th, 2006 at 6:56 pm
now that IS interesting. and i would agree with your take of the denom. i try and take the approach that if God has ordained one to be a preacher, then he or she should preach. what i LOATH is when anyone (male or female) become pastors to prove a point. fortunatley that is happening less and less.
January 18th, 2006 at 7:16 pm
what i LOATH is when anyone (male or female) become pastors to prove a point. fortunatley that is happening less and less.
Do you think this happens a lot? What kind of context are you talking about? Feminists becoming ordained just to prove that women can become ordained, or what?
January 20th, 2006 at 11:07 am
really i’m speaking about two personal examples, and about 2 dozen that i was only slightly involved in. of the two, one was a female who quit the ministry 6 months after she was ordained because she had “paved the way, even if [she] never really felt called to ministry at all” (her words). the second was a fella who became a pastor, got licenced, all to perform a same-sex wedding. right after the wedding, he went back to being unemployed. (once again, this is someone i know and this is HIS take, not mine).
i agree that the responsibility is also with the churches hiring these individuals, but it makes me sad that the “call” to ministry can be abused so badly.