“I’ve got a million stories where I’ve just cried in my walk-in robe [It’s] because I’m not allowed to preach … it hurts. I’ve had that pain, but I’m not walking away from my [church].”
This quote heads a paper featuring women unable to preach in conservative evangelical churches, authored by Nicola Lock. Her “The silencing of women’s voices in contemporary conservative evangelical churches” is a chapter in a scholarly book “Gender, feminist and queer studies : Power, privilege and inequality in a time of neoliberal conservatism.“published by Taylor and Francis in 2023. The chapter is available at https://www.academia.edu/115945681/The_silencing_of_womens_voices_in_contemporary_conservative_evangelical_churches_Crying_in_my_wardrobe_
Lock has over 25 years’ experience as a counsellor, therapist, supervisor and counselling educator.
The paper features graphic accounts of exclusion and experiences of pwerlessness. Here are some excerpts from the four case studies of women with “significant experiences of being silenced in their churches,” including Ms Lock, that feature in the paper.
Ellie’s experience in a Presbyterian church: “Once married, I started going to a Presbyterian Church and I discovered that women weren’t allowed to do this and that and couldn’t preach … I couldn’t quite believe it. I wanted to hang out with them, these clever, thoughtful, wonderful people and ever since I’ve been trying to reconcile it all, but I still can’t… It was most stark for me at this church. The elders, all men, all went to sit up the front in some chairs that were like thrones. ..
“I tried to dialogue with people, but nothing changed. I wasn’t considered an equal and they tried to teach me “better” as if I didn’t understand … So, it was abso- lutely traumatic, and I developed muscle tension dysphonia. So being voiceless in the church manifested for me physically. I was tight in my throat and couldn’t sing hymns and participate in worship … for about four and half years.”
J.Q’s Story: About this selective silencing – I’m not totally silenced because of my job at the [theological] college. So, I’ve got that one extreme to the other extreme – I’m in a church where they will never ask me to preach. I think if I didn’t have the teaching I would go nuts and I would be very, very angry, far angrier than I am now. Even last night at church I felt it. I do try to ignore my feel- ings a lot of the time. There was this guy leading the service, a young man who’s fairly incompetent, and I found myself crying. I know I will never get asked to preach here, there’s something crushing about it, sad about it, inva- lidating about it, you’re just a lesser human being.
Lois, a deacon in a Sydney Anglican church: “I am currently in a church that historically allowed women to preach, and I preached regularly. However, when a new rector came four years ago, he was of the conviction that women could not teach mixed congregations. My experience there for the last three years has been incredibly painful. We have had many hours of discussions, we both have been in tears, have a very good relationship yet on this issue I cannot do in my local church what I believe God gifted me to do. Ultimately, in our Anglican system, I am powerless to change that decision as it is his right to decide who preaches. For the time being I am staying. That is not an easy decision.”
Jeanne’s experience of Sydney Anglicans: “Knowing that men are holding beliefs that women are unfit to teach the word of God to men … and must submit to the “authentein” (authority) of men meant that in many relationships in the church I constantly felt demeaned. In this climate, I also worked out that I could not fully be myself … If I wanted to continue working within the church system, I would need to be silent on the matter of women’s status.
By this stage I was advising the church at a high level on matters of pro- fessional standards. At the age of sixty, when speaking at a conference to nearly 200 clergy, I made the decision I would no longer be silent on the issue of the inequality of women in the church and its contribution to domestic violence. I was warned by some supportive persons present that was a brave stand to take. I have never been invited to contribute again to any public teaching in the Anglican church in Sydney since that day. I have been silenced. Ironically… the one abuse that has not been dealt with is the silen- cing of women through the outworking of complementarian theology.”
Read the paper at https://www.academia.edu/115945681/The_silencing_of_womens_voices_in_contemporary_conservative_evangelical_churches_Crying_in_my_wardrobe_
Image Credit: Bernice Sheppard / Flickr