“Becky is going through a hell of a time with some of her church folks. She hasn’t done anything wrong, except for being a woman.” Our regional minister spoke frankly to my colleagues on my behalf. Later that day, when we were both back in our respective studies in our respective cities, I called him on the phone.
“Jim,” I said, “I appreciated your clear assessment of my situation and your words of support in front of my colleagues today. I wonder, have you been so frank and clear with the leaders of my congregation who’ve contacted you about the situation?” Jim was silent on his end of the call. Finally, he ventured,
“No. I guess I haven’t been.”
Now I was silent. “Hmm.” I ventured. “You realize that sticking up for me in front of the other ministers makes you look supportive, makes you look good in front of them, but unless you stick up for me in my congregation where you have some authority and power, you haven’t been any help.” Jim allowed for that being true. He said,
“I don’t know why I haven’t been as clear with your congregation.”
I said, “Oh, I think I know why. Because if you risk being that clear with my church folks, you risk angering someone who pulls the purse strings, and my congregation gives a lot of money to support the region’s budget. You know that the men who are harassing me are the very kind of men who would happily withdraw monetary support from the region to prove their point.”
“You may be right,” said Jim.
One of the men told the search committee that called me, “our church won’t have a woman Senior Minister as long as I’m a member here.” The search committee didn’t take him seriously and didn’t tell me about him, either. When they called me as Senior Minister, he was livid. He gathered his church poker club cronies, and their posse set out to make my life hell. The harassment escalated to the point one of our members, a former military police officer to whom I could confide, warned me not to be alone in the church building, not to stay after the administrative assistant went home.
“They’re dangerous!” he emphasized.
The remedy for me was to seek a new call. I got away, and the harassers got their way. And the regional church’s budget wasn’t harmed in the process—at least not in the short term.
But my three sons, who were teenagers at the time? One of them calls the church “my abuser.” None of them have any interest in being part of a church now they are adults. And that doesn’t bode well for the long-term health of Christ’s Body. When the harassers have their way, Christ’s Body loses.
I wonder, when will men and women in positions like Jim’s begin to value the church’s clergy over the church’s coffers?