The Crone of Temple, Texas

Are women as valued as men in churches?

Many people apparently think that calling women guys doesn’t matter. Some of the people to whom I say “I’m not a guy” insist that “guys” applies to everyone. That’s the same claim that we heard in the church and elsewhere for years, about using only masculine pronouns to refer to everyone from God all the way down. That claim has come—and unfortunately still comes—not just from many men but also from some women, and it’s wrong.

Using masculine pronouns for groups that include both men and women makes the women invisible, in effect. It says they don’t matter enough to mention. Most importantly, it engraves this mistaken impression into us at an unconscious level where its effect is especially powerful because we’re not aware of it.

That’s what also happens when we use only masculine pronouns for God or use only masculine titles like Lord and King. Largely without realizing what is happening, we get the impression that God is male, which in effect says that being male is infinitely more valuable than being female. And this usage, especially when it is combined with seeing the man Jesus as uniquely divine, as so many Christians do, often contributes to believing that only men are entitled to represent God officially in the church, as some Christian denominations still claim.

We quote scriptures saying there is neither male nor female in Christ, but our churches’ actions often give a very different message. Women, like men, are made in God’s image, and about 60% of church members and more than 50% of the U.S. population are female, yet many Christians refuse to give women their rightful place in the church and the world. We’ve made progress, but we still have a long way to go. It’s time to discard traditions that put women down or make them invisible. It’s time for more Christians to wake up, to speak up, and to refuse to give up until the changes God is calling us to make have become a reality.

Fortunately, some aspects of how women are treated— especially women in generations younger than mine—have improved in recent years, but I find that most of what I wrote years ago still applies. It applies especially in the church, and it applies especially to how we talk about God.

What pronouns imply.

For many Christians, the subject of money is taboo in church. Many don’t want any advice from the church about how to spend their money. They don’t want to hear requests for money, either.

That’s odd, because Jesus apparently spoke often about money, and he didn’t mince any words about how it should be used. The Old Testament prophets did the same. In fact, use of money is one of the subjects addressed most often in the Bible.

A Connections article I wrote some time ago, about Communion, brought an unusual number of responses. Almost all were enthusiastic. Several readers liked the whole issue so well that they made copies and distributed them to church groups they were in.

In that article, I wrote about my most memorable experiences of Communion on three very different occasions.

The three experiences this reader was referring to were:

• Alone at home, one day, immersed in a book written by a kindred spirit whose words had greatly expanded my view of God and heightened my awareness of God’s presence. My bread and wine were a cracker from the pantry and a glass of orange juice from the refrigerator.
• At a restaurant one night after an evening worship service, with three laywomen friends. We had met and become friends in a life-changing two-year program that was soon to end. Our Communion elements were wine, coffee, and dessert, and no one recited a ritual, but we were fully aware that we were observing Communion together.
• High up in the balcony of a huge barn-like convention center at an event attended by several thousand methodists. Servers were stationed all over the main floor and balcony, and we took Communion standing in the nearest aisle.

None of these experiences was in a church building. I didn't kneel at any altar. On one of the occasions, no one else was physically present. On two no clergyperson was present, and the traditional words, bread, and grape juice were missing. Yet for me, these experiences, more than the hundreds of times when I’ve taken Communion in traditional settings, were true Communion. I think God was present in all of them. What do you think? When has Communion meant most to you? What makes Communion Communion?

One reader, however, objected to my calling some personal experiences Communion. He wrote, "Of the three significant spiritual experiences you listed, only one would qualify as Communion." The others, he said, in which no clergyperson officiated and the standard words were not spoken, "were not in the technical sense Communion."

Jesus wasn't prescribing a method. I doubt that "the technical sense" matters to God. When Jesus said "Do this in remembrance of me," I don't think he was defining a precise method for us to follow. We don't know the exact words he said, and they were in a language we don't speak, so their basic intent is all we can hope to duplicate. He evidently used the ordinary food and drink that happened to be available, and an ordinary room. And he often berated groups like the scribes and Pharisees for emphasizing procedural technicalities instead of intentions.

Christian tradition includes a wide variety of religious practices, and there's no reason to see tradition as a universal or perpetual rule. So although we need some consistency in how we present Communion in our worship services, I don't think God cares whether our individual experiences qualify as Communion in what anyone else defines as "the technical sense."

Have you ever had a profoundly spiritual moment in life that seems to have stuck with you much more strongly than “technical” church sacraments?

Eucharist, Communion, the Lord’s Supper. It has been a central feature of Christian worship—some Christians say the central feature—throughout the church’s history, yet churches differ widely in the importance they give it. Some include it in every worship service, while others observe it much less often. 

Christians seem to have widely different feelings about Communion, too. For many Christians, Communion is vital. They get upset if their congregation skips one of its usual Communion times. They want Communion brought to their bedside if they’re too sick to come to church. For many other Christians, however, Communion is something to avoid. They deliberately stay away from church on Communion Sundays.

Is Jesus the main or only requirement?

What are the two or three elements necessary for a group of people to be the church, and what makes the church distinctive from other community enterprises of goodwill and service? My own answer was that for a group to be a church, it must take Jesus as its model.

Without Jesus as an example and motivation, is a group something other than a church? Even though it may do valuable things for good reasons, such as making people happy or meeting important needs. Do you believe that unless the group exists because it attributes some kind of authority to Jesus, and thus sees the need to do what he did and what he commanded, the group is not a church?

Many believe Jesus Christ as the sole basis is both necessary and sufficient - a group doesn’t qualify as a church without Jesus, and if a group seeks to embody Jesus, it doesn’t need anything else in order to qualify.  Is there more a church must believe or participate in?

More than three centuries ago Galileo made important new discoveries about the laws of motion and their application to the solar system. (He supposedly demonstrated them by dropping a cannonball from the tower of Pisa.) But Galileo was criticized because his findings contradicted what "everyone" believed. The Roman Catholic Church excommunicated him for heresy, and only within the recent past has the Catholic Church finally admitted that Galileo was right. He wasn't a heretic after all.

A dismaying look at the past

Recently a friend and I were talking about our childhood years. Hers were spent in rural Oklahoma and mine were in Texas. We recalled how "everyone" considered associating with African Americans unthinkable. It never entered our minds that there might be anything wrong with treating people of color as inferior and making them use schools, restaurants, and other facilities that were separate from those we used. We assumed this system was God-given. We were horrified by the few white people who associated with black people and treated them as equals.

Religious and secular history are full of instances like this, when what "everyone" assumed was God's will turned out not to be. The priests and worshippers in the days of Isaiah, Amos, and Jeremiah couldn't believe what these prophets said God wanted. Religious people at the time of Jesus' birth couldn't believe that God would send a baby into a poor, insignificant family to be the world's savior.

History also includes appalling examples of people claiming that following Jesus required treating people cruelly. Crusaders in the Middle Ages mistakenly claimed to be defending God's truth by killing infidels. Witch-burners in early America claimed to be rooting out evil for God.

The issue isn't just who is right

As Christians we must stand up for what we strongly believe. And holding each other accountable and offering guidance are important aspects of being the church. Also, the church must have some general guidelines that define it.

But offering is very different from forcing, and guidelines are very different from detailed rules that are declared compulsory for everyone. Besides, people sincerely trying to obey God can easily come to different conclusions about what God wants with regard to a specific issue. And right is rarely all on one side.

At Christmas God again asks us, as individuals and as congregations, a crucial question that we keep trying to avoid: is our own comfort or God's will our top priority? Advent is a good time for a new answer.

Christians need to be both conformists and nonconformists. We need to say no to some of the world's ways, and to make clear why we're saying no. But the church can't afford to be so unattractive, unavailable, invisible, or incomprehensible that the world overlooks us or dismisses our beliefs without even considering them seriously. And we can't afford to stay comfortably holed-up inside our church buildings and among our Christian friends.

At Christmas it’s easy to miss the point about Jesus. When we see him as a cute baby, we may forget what he grew up to be and do. This time of year when churches give special attention to the coming of Jesus is an especially good time to reconsider how Jesus’s teaching and example apply to the world we live in.

Focusing on the baby Jesus can help us remember, instead, if we let it. It can remind us of the great potential that all babies represent. It can remind us of the need to care for the many babies and children in today’s world who won’t realize their true potential without our help. If focusing on Jesus as a baby has that result, it can help us follow Jesus more closely.

Buying Christmas gifts for babies and children in our families can also be a helpful reminder if we let it. Our Christmas gift-giving to friends and family can easily be an end in itself, but it needs to be instead a reminder to help the children and adults whose needs are much greater than those of our immediate family and circle of friends. It can remind us of the love and justice Jesus called his followers to show to the world. And the help that’s needed is usually more than giving Christmas gifts to needy people. It’s likely to include working to change the conditions that cause people to be needy.

Baby Jesus was probably cute and cuddly like most other babies, but that aspect of Jesus isn’t what’s important for our faith and our efforts to follow him. Baby Jesus was important not because he was cute and sweet, but because he became the adult who brought salvation and showed the world what God was like. That’s why Christmas is an especially good time to look at the world around us and ask ourselves what God wants us to do about what we see. If we’re willing to hear God’s answer when we ask what Jesus would do, we may see Christmas in a new light.

Today we’re talking about a topic that, to some, might seem to be a close book subject. We’re discussing the topic of homosexuality, specifically homosexuality within the church, Christianity’s perspective on it, and the use of language within the Bible. Barbara will read some excerpts from her February 1996 Connections newsletter - and the reason that’s important is because in the mid 90’s the topic of homosexuality was tearing churches and family’s apart.

Over the centuries people have come to think of crones as mean, ugly, old women, like the witches we now see pictured at Halloween. The original meaning, however, was largely positive.

In pre-Christian Europe, Walker observes, older women were in charge of religious rites and official sacrifices. In the Middle East and Egypt, they were doctors, midwives, surgeons, and advisors on health care, child rearing, and sexuality. They also took care of the soul, conducting ceremonies for every event from birth to death. They were the record-keepers, too. They wrote histories, kept vital re­cords, transcribed and edited scriptures, and admin­istered libraries. "Elder women," writes Barbara Walker, "were the religious and secular teachers, universal educators of the young."

In many pre-patriarchal societies, then, getting older wasn't negative for women. They were the healers, arbiters of moral law, owners of the sacred lore, and mediators between the realms of flesh and spirit. Because they were seen as having wis­dom, they had power. That view is rare now, but it's one we crones could benefit from reclaiming. It may even be one God is calling us to reclaim.