Storey, Susan L.

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Wilfrid Laurier University

ConsensusVolume 21Issue 1 Women and Men in Theological Education:Exploring the Present, Creating the FutureArticle 75-1-1995Response to Donna RunnallsSusan L. StoreyFollow this and additional works at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensusThis Articles is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Consensus by anauthorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.Recommended CitationStorey, Susan L. (1995) "Response to Donna Runnalls," Consensus: Vol. 21 : Iss. 1 , Article 7.Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus/vol21/iss1/7Response to Donna Runnalls(Susan L. StoreyAssociate Rector,Big Country Parish, Kindersley, SaskatchewanAt the beginning of her paper, Dr. Runnalls identifies threeissues as basic to assessing the present situation of inclusivenessin theological education: participation, authority, and power.Inclusive theological education depends on inclusiveness in thechurches, and specifically on inclusiveness in parish ministry.I In this response I will examine Dr. Runnalls’ three issues fromIthe perspective of a parish priest in The Anglican Church ofi Canada.ijMy own experience of participation has been, I believe, priv-I ileged and unusual for an Anglican clergywoman. In the Dio-jcese of Qu’Appelle where I serve, one-quarter of our activejclergy are women. One of three archdeacons is a woman and^women serve as regional deans and chair standing committees.I In other dioceses the picture is not as bright. In one Anglicandiocese this spring, for the first time, a woman was chosen asthe full-time incumbent of a parish. My own experience of be-ing welcomed, accepted, and encouraged to take a leadershiprole in the diocese has not been the experience of women clergyIuniversally.I Of course, total numbers of women clergy on active rostersdoes not tell the full story of women’s participation in the lead-ership of the church. Where women do participate, we need tolook for patterns in their ministries and in their personal liveswhich differ from patterns of men. There are two obvious pat-terns in our diocese which are dramatically different for womenand men. In the Diocese of Qu’Appelle, 50% of the womenclergy are full-time and sole incumbent of a parish, comparedwith 80% of the men; 43% of the women clergy are married,compared with 89% of the men. As it happens, only one of66 Consensusthe married women is a full-time incumbent. This one marriedwoman incumbent is the only woman priest in the diocese whohas children at home. Yet someone in her parish has admittedthat they probably would not hire a woman of childbearing ageagain due to the prospect of time-off for maternity leave!These figures cannot be taken as statistically significantas the 50 clergy in our diocese represent too small a sam-ple. A survey undertaken by sociologists Grace Anderson andJuanne Clarke, however, found that 47% of their respondents,all women, were presently employed as full-time incumbents58% of the women surveyed were married. 2 We need to ask:Are women clergy more likely than men to be unmarried? Ifso, does this have implications for theological education? Arewomen more likely to be working part-time, as assistant pas-tors or in specialized ministries? If they are, does this reflectwomen’s choices or does it reflect the lack of opportunities opento them? In any case, if such differences exist, they need to berecognized and perhaps challenged by those preparing womenfor participation in the leadership of the churches.At least in the Anglican Church, the role of the priest carriesauthority—legally, historically, and in terms of parishioners’expectations. Yet there are practical dilemmas for a clergy-woman in the authority of the clerical role. For example, anewly-ordained woman must decide whether, or when, to weara clerical collar. If she doesn’t wear a collar, will people assumethat the authority that goes with the collar is still properly thepurview of male clergy only? If she does wear a collar, will shebe betraying her own conviction that all ministries have au-thority and that ordained ministry should not be singled outfor special privileges or given elite status?There are other questions around how ordained authorityis to be used. As the parish priest, will I decide unilaterallythat all worship at which I preside will use a modern rite andwill be a eucharistic celebration? Alternatively, will I form andwork with a worship committee that, predictably, wants someuse of the Book of Common Prayer (with its non-inclusive lan-guage) and some services of morning prayer (liturgically dismalwithout a choir).As Runnalls points out (citing Barbara Brown Zikmund),historically in North America equality for women is not nor-mative. Even more certainly, other than in all-female enclavesResponse: S. Storey 67or in matters to do with children, having women equally rep-5 resented in positions of authority is not normative. Runnallsraises the question of whether the movement toward womenexercising authority could again, as in the early years of thechurch, be reversed or forgotten. I think not. This time themovement has two supporting pillars: social change in thewider society, with more inclusion of women in leadership roles;and the articulation by scholars of the theological insight ofgender-inclusiveness as a gospel imperative. Women’s equal-ity in authority is not yet a norm, but there are signs thatsome day it will be so. In June 1993, the first woman diocesanbishop in the Anglican Church in North America was electedin Vermont. The popular mistake now may be that equality inauthority for women and men has already been largely accom-plished!Turning to the issue of power^ I want to concentrate onI images and language as vehicles of, or barriers to, inclusiveness.I One of the most powerful images of inclusiveness is simply1 that of a woman functioning in ministerial, and especially inliturgical, leadership. For many of us in the past, a powerfulIimage of exclusion has been liturgies in which everyone having' a visible part was male.Another aspect of power comes into view when we ask, as:do Runnalls and Zikmund, whether religion in North AmericaIis increasingly being relegated to the private sphere of humaninterest and activity. If this is so, having women—those his-torically associated with the private sphere—as leaders willperhaps seem quite natural. Yet surely, as long as churchesprovide rites of passage such as baptisms, marriages, and espe-cially funerals, religion will remain a very public phenomenon.Reginald Bibby found that the majority of Canadians, whetheractive churchgoers or not, still expect the church to providesuch services for them.^ Yet rites of passage such as these arecommunity gathering occasions and, at least at funerals, thosein attendance seem attentive to what is being said and done.Rites of passage are powerful signs that can speak eloquentlyof the basics of human life, love, and death as ultimately beingmysteries grounded in God’s life and love. Women presiding atthese rites of passage are performing profoundly public acts.Finally, language is powerful. Yet my own experience echoesthat of one of Anderson and Clarke’s respondents: inclusive68 Consensuslanguage is still a non-issue in rural areas.^ Several parish-ioners have patiently explained to me that “men”,“brothers”,'and “sons” have always been understood as including women,sisters, and daughters. They, as women, feel included; andthey are irritated when I refuse to use hymns with what I callnon-inclusive language.The parish can be a frustrating place for women coming outof theological college with great expectations and idealism. Itcan also be an exciting place. Is people’s consciousness beingraised in our parish by experiencing a woman in ministerialleadership, and by consistent use of gender-inclusive language Ifor human persons? I am not sure, but I like to think thatsomething significant is happening, at least subliminally.There are opportunities and signs of hope. At a baptismon the Festival of Pentecost, by using John 3:1-8 as the Gospel(Jesus visited by Nicodemus), it was possible to preach aboutour rebirth at baptism by the Holy Spirit through water. Itis even possible in sermons to throw in a feminine pronounfor God now and then without panic in the pews (which may Isimply be an indication that no one is listening!) Images of Ipower and images of God can change. A favorite hymn in Iour parish is “Spirit of Gentleness”, with its images of windand water, the Spirit whispering in silence, coaxing up themountains, rising on her wings. The hymn is addressed to the,Spirit, and though there are no feminine pronouns used, the,images feel feminine... and people love it.The road to inclusiveness may be rocky and long, but flow-ers grow here and there along the way and there are days when ,the destination really does seem to be coming into focus on the|horizon.;,Notes iI1^ Grace M. Anderson and Juanne Nancarrow Clarke, God Calls: ManjChooses; A Study of Women in Ministry (Burlington, ON: Trinity^Press, 1990) 35.| ^^ Ibid. 25.I^ Fragmented Gods: The Poverty and Potential of Religion in Canada(Toronto: Irvin, 1987) 89, 94, 97, 108-109.^ Anderson and Clarke, 96.'

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