RELIGIOUS CRACKPOTS AND FREE THINKERS
by Alison Miller
September 5, 2004
Picture the minister, rabbi or other spiritual leader of your childhood congregation. If you didn't have a childhood congregation, what do you remember thinking a minister looked like? It is my hunch that, like me, many of you were raised with a spiritual leader who was tall, white, had a deep booming voice, flowing robes, and maybe even a white beard. Given the human inclination to create God in our image, it is no wonder that this description also fits the God of many of our childhoods. My tall, bearded, male minister was Forrest Church, so fortunately he didn't proclaim such a mirror image God. I was raised with his definition of God as "that which is greater than all and yet present in each." It was truly a privilege to hear his well-crafted reflections about life's meaning and purpose every Sunday.
Yet, I humbly put forth that there is something I can offer as a younger woman with a clear, if not booming voice standing tallÉ wellÉ tall with the aid of a wooden box at your pulpit. My minister helped us glimpse truth through the eyes of a man, and I hope to learn how to do the same through the eyes of a woman. I find it helpful to view big concepts like truth, love, justice and God from different angles and in different ways. Gender affects the way we perceive and are perceived in the world, and thereby adds to our perspective on truth.
Unitarian Universalism creates space for all people to share their religious convictions whether they are men, women or transgender. We need to pause. This is still a radically inclusive idea with which even we still struggle. Over 150 years after the first woman minister in this country was ordained, it is still far from commonplace. I spent my divinity school years in Boston, a predominantly Catholic City, where most people couldn't imagine a woman in the position I am here with you this morning. I want to share a couple of stories that helped me see how opening the ministry up to women has the power to transform lives.
I was invited to preach one Summer Sunday at the First and Second Unitarian Church of Boston. It was an honor to lead worship in a congregation with such a long history, including the tenure of distinguished ministers like Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the forty-three year tenure of Rhys Williams (Forrest's mentor). Most Unitarian Churches did not start having women ministers until the nineteen seventies. In fact, it was actively discouraged, so it is not surprising that First and Second Church has never had a woman called to their pulpit. Inspired by third wave feminist ideas that you can be both feminine and a feminist, I thought I'd wear a pink skirt and black high heeled sandals that day. It was paired with a very sensible black sweater set, but I'm guessing I was the first person to wear that kind of outfit in their pulpit.
During coffee hour the most amazing connection happened. A woman came up to me with tears welling in her eyes. She was also wearing a pink skirt, black sandals and a black sweater. She introduced herself as Susan and told me that she was raised Catholic. She had always felt a pull towards the priesthood, a profession not open to women. Her theology had since become more liberal, and she decided to visit a Unitarian Universalist church while visiting Boston. It was the first time she ever saw a woman preach. All of a sudden she was hit by the fact that her dream, her call, to serve a church could actually become a reality.
My second story is about a man that I met while working as a hospital chaplain. I knocked on his door and announced that I was the floor chaplain and asked if he would like a visit. He looked quite surprised. He said, "You're the chaplain! You're a lot prettier than most of the priests I know!" He told me his name was Phil, and that he was in the hospital for a procedure to decide when he would have a triple bypass. We talked for a long time. Phil was really concerned about not living up to his duties as the man in his family. He was hopeful the bypass would give him more time, but was frightened that he would leave his wife and children alone without enough money to live on. He felt he was leaving them with nothing. At least, nothing that counted. He also felt guilty about his family taking care of him, even in this time of critical need. As the man he was to provide financial means, and as an adult he was meant to be a caretaker. I tried to help him tease out the valuable contributions he made to his family besides money. I began to understand how the "doctrine of gender roles" perpetuated in society and by many religions is damaging to both women and men. He had many stories about taking his family on trips and spending time with them; it was very clear that they would be left with much love. Tears streamed down his cheek as he began to let go and grieve the person he could not be and accept the many gifts he did bring his family. As I left, he shared with me the wonderful compliment that he thought women should be able to be priests.
It was fascinating how often the topic of gender roles would come up when I would visit patient's rooms. I suppose, a women minister walking into a patient's room seemed to invite the conversation. At first, I worried whether I was somehow getting my patients side-tracked on politics rather than the stuff of their lives. Soon I discovered that the "should women be priests question" almost always evolved into a story about a personal struggle to "break out of" or "fit in to" a particular gender box. I believe that people have an inner sense of who they are, and who they are meant to be. Unfortunately, this doesn't always match the will of society. It is hard to let go of the life we are supposed to lead and to begin to live the life of our heart's longing.
Recently I read From Preachers to Suffragists, a book about three women who had the courage, wisdom and stamina to listen to the deepest sense of who they were meant to be. These women are Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Olympia Brown and Anna Howard Shaw. All three had a radical religious calling: Each one became a preacher interested in the redemption of individuals and later left her pulpit to become a suffragist interested in the redemption of American society. It is clear that they all viewed their decision to become full time champions of women's rights as an extension of their call to the ministry. They viewed the sacred and the secular worlds as filled with God's love and intention, and they used biblical rhetoric and religious thought as a means of persuasion.
They also shared in common the influence of liberal religious thought. The Congregational Church ordained Antoinette Brown Blackwell in 1853 where she served only one year before leaving to become a full time suffragist. Years later in 1878 she actually affiliated with the Unitarian Association. Although our liberal denomination welcomed her, she could not find a church that would call a woman to serve as their minister until 1902. She continued to preach at that congregation of All Souls in New Jersey through her ninetieth year.
Olympia Brown was a life-long Universalist who was the first woman in this country officially recognized by a denomination. She served Universalist congregations for twenty-five years. Later, she left to work full time for women's rights. As you can imagine, there are many debates about who was the first true woman minister, Blackwell or Brown. (In any case, it's a Universalist and a Unitarian, so it works out well for us.)
The third woman I mentioned was born and raised in a Unitarian family who sadly aimed to sabotage their daughter's career. She was fortunately recruited by a liberal minded Methodist minister and finally ordained in 1880.
Modern day historians occasionally make the mistake of portraying the church only on the side of those who fought against equal rights. It is true the anti-women's rights people of the nineteenth, twentieth and, even, the twenty-first centuries claimed to have "Home, Heaven and Motherhood" on their side, and they hurled the insult of "Home breakers, Religious Crackpots, and Free Thinkers" at their opponents. Reading the nineteenth century rhetoric is a bit like opening up the newspaper today and reading how the state of marriage is threatened by working women and gay people. Women's rights advocates were seen as an element that could destroy the moral and religious foundations of the nation.
You may feel that linking women's vote with our current struggles to enlarge civil liberties to gay families is a stretch. Yet, one sheds important light on the other. Women voting, having an education, and speaking in public was controversial all the way into the mid 1900s because these actions appeared to go against church teachings about gender and sexuality. Theology has been used to support the idea that "woman was man's divinely ordained subordinate" and that a hierarchical, heterosexual relationship represents God's order. Blackwell, Brown and Shaw were often called upon to answer the vicious claims of the religious right. They boldly spoke out about centuries of corrupt interpretations of scripture that went against God's intention for the equality of man and woman, clearly found in the Biblical account of creation.
Blackwell, Brown and Shaw are important because as ministers they wholeheartedly embraced their ability to shape public opinion. They responded to their inner sense of who they were and modeled the possibility of a re-ordered, a better ordered society. The fact that they did so prompted much anger from the world. The same year Blackwell was ordained, she was prevented from speaking at a National Temperance Convention in New York. A crowd who opposed women speaking in public (mostly made up of ministers) shouted her off of the platform. Reflecting upon the incident she wrote, "There were angry men confronting me, and I caught the flashing of defiant eyes; but above me, and within me, and all around me, there was a spirit stronger than they all. At that moment not the combined powers of earth and hell could have tempted me to do otherwise than to stand firm." Blackwell's call came from a deep place within, since there were no examples she could look to in the world. This was the case with all three of these brave women. The truth of who they were was coming from the inside out. They required the courage to defy the norms of our society, a difficult decision even to this day. Shaw writes, "I would live my life, not the life which had been urged as the destiny of all women but the life which face to face with my Creator I believed was my right and his will."
These three women also gifted their generation and our generation with a liberal theological message supporting rights for all people. One of their common theological understandings could be termed a realized eschatology. Eschatology refers to the end to which religion points or the "end time." These women spoke against the God of eternal punishment and proclaimed the good news of a benevolent God. They spoke against the notion of humans as helpless or wholly dependent on the whim of an unmerciful God and proclaimed the notion of human agency and empowerment as the traits that would bring about the divine plan. In other words, they believed that through diligent work on the part of the faithful, such as people working for peace in the midst of terror or people struggling for family rights. They believed that through that kind of diligent work, the kingdom of love, justice and mercy could be realized here on earth. Olympia Brown writes, "The omnipresent father É knows no difference between the darker and the lighter skin, the stronger and the weaker intellect, he endows all with inalienable rights, he gives all the title deeds to liberty." They based much of their theological work on the story of creation in Genesis upholding the notions that women and men were both created side by side from the first feminine-masculine human being called Adam. The submission a woman showed her husband was the same idea of service that we all owe our fellow human beings, the kind of service that a man should show a man or a man should show a woman.
Today, the liberal religious point of view seems to be largely missing from public debates. Human rights debates over equality of race, gender, and sexuality as covered in the newspapers are skewed towards coverage of conservative biblical interpretations. We should look towards our Unitarian and Universalist foremothers for inspiration on how to hone our modern day theological conversations. This is the prophetic role of the liberal church and this has the power to redeem society. Redeem in the sense of creating a whole and holy world of love, justice and mercy rather than a world divided by the evil of hoarding power.
I would like to put forth the notion that this is a spiritual practice to fight for one's own rights, and it is also a spiritual practice to relinquish and share power. Many men and white people have discovered this over the last century with a new awareness of their privilege. It's about relinquishing attachment and about learning to cooperate and collaborate for the common good of all. Unitarian Universalism has much to offer the current debates by accepting this prophetic call, which is a portion of our heritage.
I hope that in years to come some other young, gay preacher will be able to share the history of the fight for gay marriage, and that it, like women's right to vote, will seem a problem of yesterday. Perhaps he or she will share a similar story about how his or her perspective adds to the truth that I can share as a straight woman. As I mentioned in the beginning, I find it helpful to view big concepts like truth, love, justice and God from different angles and in different ways.
I have a keen awareness that all of us gathered here stand on the shoulders of men and women, some in this room, who have made this day possible. The new day will be ours to create. Personally, I have been inspired by my great, great, aunt Florence Fenwick Miller who had that same deep sense of call within. She became a doctor when there were no women doctors and fought alongside Brown, Blackwell and Shaw for women's suffrage. She would undoubtedly be disappointed to hear politicians, like Schwarzenegger, continue to hurl insults such as "girly man" at one another reinforcing the idea of a second sex. Yet, she would be thrilled to know how many women are working in previously male only professions. In fact, in this community we are very proud that half of Unitarian Universalist clergy are women. But as James Luther Adams would caution us, "The church is not yet wholly free." May all of us continue to be inspired to include new sources and voices of truth throughout our lives. For as the Unitarian Universalist have always preached, the truth is still unfolding. I can only hope you glimpse my little corner of the truth, and I can't wait to hear what you have to add. Amen.
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