Christian Women in Leadership

article I liked on Soma Review

I read an article I like on SomaReview. Here it is below. It is by Astrid Storm and is entitled "The Stepford Priests." I guess I can relate to it, going from Wheaton College to a church in Evanston.

Also, I liked what she wrote about seeing the gospel through the lenses of the two-thirds world.

We owe it to the 20th-century liberation theologians for showing us how much the communities we live and work in shape our view of the Gospels. Three years into my ministry as a priest, when I accepted a position in a town much like Stepford—that creepy, fictional idyll set in affluent Connecticut—I, too, found myself thinking about the Gospel stories in new and different ways. I began to wonder, for instance, whether Jesus’ boat was an 80-foot schooner or a 70-foot yacht. And what about the quality of the wine at the wedding feast at Cana? Did it measure up to Dom Perignon, or did the guests have to make do with a Korbel?
Similarly, the thought crossed my mind that Jesus might not have liked Martha, Lazarus’ busybody homemaker sister, because he knew how woefully inept she would seem compared with her future namesake, Martha Stewart. As my manicurist rubbed Yves Saint Laurent oil on my hands one afternoon (compliments of a parishioner), it struck me that I’d never considered what kind of oil that woman rubbed on Jesus’ feet. And did Jesus feel the same rush when he stood atop Mount Tabor that I did skiing down a double black diamond on my parishioner’s dime?
Suddenly, a whole world of Scriptural interpretation opened before me, and questions I’d never thought to ask raced through my mind: Were needles much bigger back then? Or camels much smaller? Is it possible that when Jesus said, “sell what you own and follow me,” he was really suggesting that the rich man should go into sales to inherit eternal life? And, far from the horrid affront to Jesus’ message that I had assumed it to be, was Laurie Beth Jones’ 90’s classic, Jesus CEO: Using Ancient Wisdom for Visionary Leadership, actually the best thing in Scriptural commentary since the dawn of Biblical criticism? Ah yes, the Gospel began to look much different inside the pearly gates of Stepford.
And so did material things. Surrounded by so many stiff Chanel tweeds and fussy Marc Jacobs prints, I realized that the sensible Ann Taylor wools I once eyed might, in Stepford, look too young at best, cheap at worst. I nearly convinced myself that my ministry was suffering because I didn’t have a $500 handbag like all the other women. After one Sunday service, I found myself wishing Louis Vuitton would consider designing a line of ready-to-wear clerical outfits. My standard-issue white robe made me look frumpy, and my collar had left me with an uneven tan.
My job description looked different, too. An average week included at least one tail party disguised as a pastoral visit. And I didn’t need a club membership as long as I kept getting asked to give blessings before events. I christened new boats at the yacht club, and I anointed geldings at the Stepford Horse & Hunt. I talked about the desert fathers at a well-lubricated garden party, and I discussed how the church could distinguish itself from the country club—at, of all places, the country club. All the while, I assured myself that the effectiveness of my ministry depended on my being able to meet my parishioners where they were. The problem was, I lost my own place doing so.
It was a strange coincidence that Frank Oz’s rendition of The Stepford Wives released shortly after I left my job. Safely nestled in an extra-large bucket seat in my Midwestern hometown theater, I relived some of my own experiences back in Stepford. I may not be half as attractive or urbane as Nicole Kidman, but I did have some surreal moments that weren’t unlike hers. During a church board meeting, for instance, I marveled that I was the only , and the only woman not wearing pink or lime green, in the entire room. A few days later, I spied an old picture of a co-worker, a real pillar of the church, and discovered that her hair had once been—gasp— brown!
But as disturbing as the transformation of my appearance and tastes was the Stepfordization of my role as a priest. When I spoke to the parish children, I made the mistake of addressing them in the same voice I use in conversation with s—in other words, normal, and not forcedly high-pitched and bubbly. One church leader found this unacceptable, and repeatedly criticized me for not displaying enough “passion” for our youth. This was ludicrous, because I absolutely love children—which is probably why I refuse to speak to them as if I’m a perky and they’re stuffed animals.
Then there was the business about the teenagers’ dress code, which forbade, among other things, spaghetti-strap dresses. I thought this was excessively strict, and I suggested to the parents that we might consider dropping that rule, for the kids’ sake. “No,” came the firm response, followed by an admonition that I wasn’t being “culturally sensitive”—to the values of Stepford parents.
But my favorite reproach was when I was told that I didn’t “look happy enough at the altar.” “Can’t you smile more up there?” the lay leader added. He and the other church leaders, especially the highly successful professionals, knew from personal experience how important a degree of freedom and autonomy is to a person’s job satisfaction. That’s why I astonished that they were so seldom willing to extend any to me.
Underprepared to negotiate the trials and temptations of Stepford, I did what any priest new to such a bizarre world might do: I sought the advice of other clergy who’d somehow learned to survive in similar communities.
This yielded some of my eeriest encounters of all. “Distance yourself, but stay connected,” I was counseled by finely tailored colleagues who were well-versed in the Dictionary of Priestly B.S. “You must not be too self-differentiated.” One church lay leader advised I take some time off and go on Prozac. At first, I was stunned by such a suggestion. But the longer I stayed in Stepford, oddly, the more it seemed to make sense.
My suspicions increased when I realized that none of these clergy was willing—or able—to reveal exactly how they’d achieved Self-Differentiation Enlightenment in Stepford. Was no one else brave (or stupid) enough to discuss his or her struggles with this issue openly? Did they fear that addressing them would risk offending big pledgers (another taboo topic among Stepford clergy)? I began to wonder whether the other priests really had mastered the paradoxical art of distancing oneself while staying connected, or whether—like the women in Ira Levin’s novel—they’d undergone some kind of dark and mysterious conversion.
Eventually I found the honesty I was seeking in fictional characters. Like Anthony Trollope’s Archdeacon Grantly, whose elegantly appointed breakfast parlor was decked with expensive wares selected precisely because they looked austere. Or Samuel Butler’s Rev. Dr. Skinner, a double-speaking epicurean for whom “bread and butter” really meant oyster patties and apple tart, and “water” referred to hot gin. These fictional clergy, with their all-too real hypocrisies laid bare, became more alive to me, and gave me more solace, than many of the living clergy I encountered.
Trollope and Butler understood how difficult it could be for priests to exist among the wealthy and remain true to themselves and their calling–so hard, in fact, that many of their imagined priests failed miserably at it. These authors also knew how easy it is to hide one’s inability to give up a lavish lifestyle behind the appearance of simplicity, and the tactics their characters used to accomplish this weren’t too unlike the pop-psychology jargon that my colleagues used to mask their lack of self-differentiation.
But then, to my surprise, honesty really did come by way of real, flesh and people. They just didn’t stand in a pulpit or behind an altar; they sat in the pews right in front of me each Sunday. Some were simply thoughtful parishioners who reminded me how unfair some of my assumptions about them had been. Others were people who excelled professionally but struggled with their success.
Several church members confided that they weren’t always comfortable with their social standing, and that they even resented the fineries they often felt enslaved them. I was deeply moved by the men who gave so much time and money (more money than I’d make in a lifetime) to those less fortunate, and by the women who fought hard to build brilliant careers in male-dominated industries. And I was touched by those who shared that they felt trapped by obligations they’d made at an earlier phase in life and were now just trying to make the best of it.
Most helpfully, a few offered chilling accounts of how hard it was to be in, but not of, that world. One woman told me that she moved to Stepford thinking she could resist its trappings and values, confident that the town wouldn’t swallow her up as it had everyone else. But years later, she said, she came to the shocking realization that, somewhere along the line, without her even noticing it, she’d become the person she vowed she’d never be. While I hardly felt deserving of these parishioners’ trust, their candor taught me more about the struggles of living and working in wealthy communities than the church leaders, some of my clergy colleagues, and even Anthony Trollope, ever could.
Liberation theologian Gustavo Gutierrez once said that we of the first world should learn to see the Gospel through the lens of what he called the two-thirds world—those who are far poorer and more numerous than us. During my brief time in Stepford, I viewed the Gospel through the lens of the upper one percent of the one-third world. I wore this lens like a contact, and if I’d stayed there much longer it may well have seared onto my retina, for I was well on my way to becoming a Stepford priest. But thankfully, the very denizens of Stepford forced me to see an expansive, less confining, and much more appealing world. And it was a world that I could even yet be part of—if I just left Stepford in time.
Astrid Storm is a writer and Episcopal priest living (frugally) in New York City.

posted by the princess @ 12/29/2004 07:00:00 AM