Are Women Clergy Changing the Nature and Practice of Ministry?
© 1996
John R. Matthews, S.T.M.
The Midwest Ministry Development Service
1840 Westchester Blvd., P.O. Box 7249, Westchester, IL 60154-7249
The last 25 years have brought significant changes in the number of women accepted into the ordained ministry in Protestant denominations. The significance of excluding women for so many years is well illustrated by the following comments by Susan B. Nagle in a recent article in Lutheran Partners: "It took us more than 19 centuries to take the step that included me. We might say that in the whole history of the church and of the ordained ministry from Pentecost to the present, only slightly over 1% of that time has known the sustenance and encouragement of the ordination of women."
There are a limited number of empirical studies comparing the experiences of men and women in ministry during this twenty-five year period. Our impression at Midwest is that the experience of women in ministry has been different from that of men in one highly significant regard: there has been continuous resistance to their being there. That resistance has taken many forms: some subtle, some blatant; some institutionalized and some individualized and idiosyncratic; some rather easily addressed, some impervious to change; some apparent at the beginning stages and some not evident until the third or fourth career move. As a result, women are more inclined to report that their ministry goals are more open-ended, span a wider range of possibilities, and are less likely to focus on parish leadership.
In spite of, or perhaps even because of this resistance, we have found, based on candidates seen at the Center over the past five years, that women candidates overall score significantly stronger than men candidates on a number of recorded measures of professional promise and emotional/psychological strength. Summarizing those results, women candidates are looking significantly less prone to depression; less anxious, fearful, and tense; less subject to perfectionism, guilt and indecisiveness. Women candidates are looking more tolerant, reliable, able to cope with stresses, adventuresome, self-confident, and determined. Interpersonally, they are more self-assured and less likely to be intimidated.
All of this is background for the question: Are women clergy changing the nature and practice of ministry? From our vantage point at the career center, significant changes in the nature of ministry are taking place. There is also a logical connection between those changes and ways women candidates perceive their ministries that are different from how men in ministry view what they are doing.
Professions and the nature of the professionals that populate them change slowly. It takes momentous upheaval to change either the image or the heart of a profession. Nevertheless, our data and clinical impressions tell us that the heart, and possibly the image, of ministry is changing. Also, there are many strikingly positive benefits both for the church and for the life of clergy that accompany those changes.
It has been widely noted that there are major gender differences in the acculturation processes of our society. Little boys are taught to be competitive, aggressive, and acquisitive. They are reinforced for separating and standing apart, and for settling disputes by using power to fight and conquer. Little girls are taught to bond and be cooperative, to be gentle and caring and sympathetic, to deal with conflict by bringing sides closer together and encouraging mutuality. Because ministry has up until recently been a male-dominated profession, it would be expected that the practice of ministry would reflect the acculturation process experienced by males.
In many ways it has. As we go back twenty-five years to the typical clergy profile, we find a prevalent model of ministry that was characterized by emotional distance and invulnerability, by competitiveness and control, and by a lone-ranger mode of operating. Even then, male clergy showed less aggressiveness than men in general. But the point is that in looking at rating scales used to measure effectiveness and positive adjustment in ministry, the clergy who exhibited the most aggressiveness, self-sufficiency and control were those rated highest.
Today, a new model of ministry is emerging. It takes much of its shape from a growing interest in spirituality and inner spiritual development. The emerging model seeks to do much more of its work through interpersonal closeness, emotional openness and freedom of expression, and cooperative bonding. It also views ministry as collegial. In short, the new model reflects the acculturation experience of women in our society.
We are just beginning to attempt to record data that will reflect the extent of this change. About a year ago we began asking ministry candidates how they would divide thirty imaginary units of time and energy among six ministry roles in their ideal professional setting. The six roles include scholar, prophet, healer, designer of learning events, manager/director, and parson/priest. Unfortunately we did not ask this question earlier, so we cannot compare the present with the past. But we do have a clear impression that the current dominance of preference for the healer mode represents a radical change from a decade ago.
While women have been in ministry longer than just the past few years, it appears that the strong emergence of the healer role, which is so closely tied to the acculturation experience of women, has not occurred until fairly recently. The women who were the initial ice-breakers in ministry made their way by "beating" men at their own "game." To succeed they had to exhibit and excel in the ways of control, competitiveness and emotional invulnerability. From an overall historic perspective, their role was essential and their contribution major. Women in ministry now have, largely due to the efforts of their forerunners, the opportunity to "be themselves," and by virtue of being themselves, they may be changing the profession of ministry in a highly significant way.
It is important to make a significant distinction. The change in ministry is not just a statistical one (i.e., because there are now more women in ministry there are more ministers who sing soprano and alto!); it is a change that enters into how men as well as women are practicing ministry. This is borne out in our observation that the healer role is not only the preferred role among women candidates. It is also, though as yet to a somewhat lesser degree, the preferred role among males. The shape that ministry takes is not just determined by the individual practitioner. Ministry is dialogical. The individual professional has his or her own notions of the work, but brings those to a community that has its own (often varying) set of expectations. It would seem reasonable to believe that if women ministers are doing something that the laity experience as better, over time that "better" will become part of their expectation not just of women clergy, but of all their clergy. We contend that such adopted or adapted expectations may well serve powerfully in favor of male ministers not in the sense of their competing, but in terms of humanizing the role in a way that relieves it of major stressors they have brought into it.
Recent studies conducted by Janet Surrey and Stephen Bergman, researchers at the Stone Center for Developmental Services and Studies at Wellesley College, suggest that something occurs in the relationship of young sons to their mothers that is debilitating to the full growth of their emotional capabilities. Sons are pushed away emotionally in a way that daughters are not, out of a concern that they not over-identify with their mothers and thus fail to take on appropriate masculine identity. Surrey and Bergman have inferred from their data that the development of the notion of self is, as a result, a very different process for women than it is for men. The development of self for girls is the development of self-in-relation, with the primary teaching and learning between mother and daughter being related to the development of the skill of empathy. The implication is that learning empathy is a much more useful, adaptive thing to do from an emotional strength standpoint than learning how to separate, which is what boys do. Their study goes on to note that, because girls do not experience this break in relationship, they grow to become more resilient, psychologically healthier, less emotionally needy and more capable of coping with their emotions. Of considerable potential significance for this enquiry, it was also found that women are more flexible and effective problem-solvers. They are more effective problem-solvers especially in the arena of human relations because their sense of self (self-in relation) and their sense of self-esteem are based on the development of capacity for empathy.
One of the implications is that women may be inclined by their psychological make-up to approach working with conflict in a way that is very different from the approach taken by men. It might be anticipated that a male approach to conflict would entail viewing the conflict as a contest calling for competitive use of power, for dividing rather than joining, and for setting up a win-lose situation. The dictum that was popular in the 70's in seminars on dealing with conflict in the church, that conflict cannot be resolved, it can only be managed, reflects the viewpoint of the manager/director and not the healer. The implication is that conflict in the life of many congregations is here to stay, and at an unconscious level, perhaps, is kept alive in part by the male notion that conflict is truly an arena necessary to being masculine. It might then be anticipated that a feminine approach to working with conflict would involve drawing people closer to each other, opening up communication about feelings, and taking emotional responsibility.
At Midwest we have from time to time shared our findings that women candidates are scoring consistently and significantly higher on measures of emotional health. The response, mostly from denominational executives and committees and seminary personnel, has been polite, but hardly enthusiastic. The response has had the flavor of What’s wrong with this picture? and has led to a resolve, as expressed by one church leader, to see what we can do to attract high quality young men for ministry. The question could just as well be raised: What’s right with this picture? Could it not be that God is specifically calling women into ministry at this time because they have something to offer to lead the church where it needs to go today?
Consider for a moment looking at the implications of the above from a co-operative perspective rather than a competitive perspective. The implication is not that women should take over because they are better (which is likely to be a strong, unspoken fear), but that God is calling, possibly, for needed significant changes in ministry if the church is to be a redemptive and loving community in the world today. For those changes to take place, men in ministry will need to recognize that it will be important for them to become emotional learners. Then they are likely to be freed from being bound to self-imposed expectations that have caused them to separate, go it alone, deny their own emotions and hide their vulnerabilities.
John R. Matthews, S.T.M., is Associate Director for the Midwest office in Columbus and has been on the staff since 1970. He is an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church.