Dear Eboni-
After reading your story, I was moved to share my thoughts on your pastoral selection process at Abyssinian and not with just a superficial like or a canned response containing formulaic expressions of “me too” and sympathy. I would also like to take this opportunity and extend an invitation for you to join me on a special podcast episode about your experience in the near future.
I too am going through a pastoral selection process. But my journey has been somewhat different than yours, virtual to an extent, and under the radar due to unforeseen external factors that complicated the process. However, I remain fully interested in serving there officially as a pastor in a manner that God fully approves as worthy of this calling. I have served the church faithfully now for nearly 12 years.
It is deeply concerning and very disheartening what is happening to you at Abyssinian, such a great and storied church. Dr. Butts’ legacy is legendary. He still ranks at the top of the list of New York’s spiritual leaders. Many sought his wise counsel, fundraising and political savvy when he was alive. He put so much into the church and his surrounding community. He was well revered and honored for his remarkable work not only as a religious leader but as a community leader as well. For God’s sake, he was a Union alum. So are you. So am I for that matter. You,too,are a product of spiritual nurture and development you received for many years in Abyssinian’s church environment. Butts was a distinguished alum and his input in the Union community was highly regarded at Union a revered seminary that has distinguished itself globally for decades as a beacon of progressive spiritual leadership, thinking and social change.
I would like to say I’m shocked. But, unfortunately I can not because how I have witnessed similar scenarios play out in other churches in the past. Pastors are not always in a position to block or mold the consequential unchristian behavior of their members, or veer the politics of church leaders such as the Diaconate, trustees or auxiliary leaders into the shape they would rather it be without sometimes risking their positions. It is often a tightrope they have to walk and do so very carefully. Because they may lose support or even on a more drastic level, get voted out. It is unfortunate but a reality that is sometimes the case in many of our churches,manifesting in the “brick and mortar” buildings that are the physical symbols and structures that physically contain of our faith practices.
Christian values must also be spread among us, nurtured and grown within the non-physical or spiritual aspect of our faith as the “body of Christ”, among Christian believers, our church community. The pastors biggest challenge is to serve as a model, a leader, inspirer and nurturer of Christ love, compassion, benevolence and social justice during good times as well as during periods in the church when all hell breaks loose. His spiritual influence will reflect in the congregation as he consistently,prayerfully and faithfully goes through the process of making sure all of the flock is treated fairly and justly within the precepts of Christianity, applying the written, living and spoken word of God.
The anointing God may have placed on you along with your call to be installed as pastor may be profoundly tested. But prayerfully will remain even if you are faced with a very sensitive scenario where your candidacy poses a threat, either subconsciously or consciously to the power drive or power agenda of church leadership. You may even have to contend with other more popular or favored applicants who have been members of the church for a long while and strongly feel,they should based on their seniority or years of service,be selected over you, regardless of your impeccable credentials and life experience. There may be other hidden factors that could throw a monkey wrench in the process as well. Politics,politics, politics…
But, God. God can turn it around in your favor,though, through prayer and supplication, as well as a supportive and motivated congregation vying for you as its choice, inspired and guided by the manifestation of God’s favor and glory. In most Baptist church constitutions, the documents which sets forth the rules of conduct and procedure, the Congregation is regarded as the head of the church and has the final say on who is elected and installed as Pastor with independent input of the personnel committee.
However, of course, whatever is God’s will shall ultimately prevail. God can disperse those demons and underhanded tactics and set his children free!Thus sayeth the Lord! (Ezekiel 11:5) I believe that. You must believe that. Besides, I feel that often the drive to obtain high positions in the church have more to do with satisfying ego desires and obtaining superficialities of prestige and humanly perceived power than with truly being called, sincerely serving the church and worshipping God in spirit and in truth. What would Jesus do? There were no big fancy church buildings in his day. No boards, personnel committees, only his disciples and followers. He did most of his preaching outdoors, traveling barefoot on dirt roads teaching, healing and raising the dead. I’m sure what he wore, his fashion sense was of little concern either.
I experienced a similar kind of bias situation that you are presently facing. My challenge involved ordination at a church I had been a member of for nearly 12 years. But I did not challenge it in the way I think I maybe should have at the time. I feel this even more strongly now that I have read your very powerfully informative post. Truth is it has served as a catalyst for finalizing the healing or, if you will , cauterizing of hidden wounds. I pray it has done the same for other women as well who may have been silenced from openly speaking their truth. I think I lost a lot of credibility as a result of not speaking out. Other women, as well as the pastor, could have benefitted from my reveal. Some members of the congregation were upset about what happened and I think some of my stalwart supporters were traumatized as well. But I did not want to cloud the churches reputation or seek revenge.
It was a very sensitive situation requiring much prayer and counsel. I put it in God’s hands, the wonderful and mighty counselor. God’s vengeance is the best. Because it is not revenge. It is true and fair justice based on godly principles. God has worked it out while we are often trying to figure it out. Besides, my healing process was completed and godly justice obtained when I was eventually ordained by Dr. Charles G. Adams distinguished Pastor Emeritus at Hartford Memorial Baptist Church and Rev. Christian Adams his son, currently serving as Senior Pastor.
Despite how others were urging me on to be more visible and go public about what had happened at my previous church, Calvary Baptist, I remained in prayer. Often quietly and privately, deeply wounded from the rejection. Some thought I was being too laid back. Sometimes I agreed and thought I should save face by taking a more aggressive stance. But I ultimately dropped pursuit of ordination there after constant prayer and weighing everything. After all, Calvary’s pastor was the first in the history of the church to install women deacons and even train female members to become assistant ministers or ministerial licentiates. I was in the first all female minister’s training class at the church. So, he had a pretty good track record of elevating women to leadership positions in the church. I had even been appointed by Rev. Lawrence Foster to co-lead a number of very successful church projects with his support and guidance including Chair of the Trustee Board, President of the Calvary Development Fund, Co-Chair of Rosa Parks Interfaith Services Imani Day and Co-Chair and co-producer of the Living Stones Program where we honored local icons including Rosa Parks, Dr. Charles Wright, Don Barden, Erma Henderson and Sunnie Wilson.
Sometimes and maybe most times in certain situations, depending upon how progressive in their thinking they are, the men and even the women of the church who feel that women are not capable of pastoring or becoming spiritual leaders of the church-have to be reminded of who Jesus is. They need to have their recollections refreshed about what Christ stood for, what he actually did, what he does, how his spirit the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, he sent with the promise to never leave us alone. That spirit continues to abide within us and God provides the Holy Spirit to answer our prayers when we call on him to intercede when we are faced with daily challenges of life or going through severe trials and tribulations. They need to know the kind of people Jesus surrounded himself with during his ministry when he was living here physically on Earth. Women such as Mary Magdalene, Martha and others played an important role in the early church. His most faithful followers were women. Women were also the first to reach his tomb and prepare his body for burial with the application of herbs and other rituals customary during that time. So, where is all this sexism and gender bias coming from?
I am sure you already know, even before Jesus’ time women have played significant roles and have contributed profoundly to religious history. Women like Sarah, Rahab, Tamar, Rebekah,Esther, Ruth,Naomi,etc., Even though they have been historically minimized as far as the volume of writings about them in the Bible, both women and men preachers are including them in their sermons more today. So the true question in reality as far as these men and maybe even women, murmuring in the background, who don’t want a female Pastor is “Do they really aspire to be true Christians and upholders of the faith?”Or do they choose to be preoccupied with the perpetuation of sexual stereotypes designed intentionally or often by way of impact, to keep women in their so-called place, encaged and contained by falsehoods and untruths concerning their abilities. While men who perceive them as threats, remain engaged in lower level debate, often under the radar and deep in their psyches, about which sex is the better one, the greatest, baddest and mightiest to serve our churches?” And, in some instances—while this has never happened to me in the church—women may be reduced to the role of mere sex objects, perceived only as persons to fulfill sexual desires and fantasies. Yes. I know, hypocritical, disgraceful—cold, cruel, but from time to time, we hear of it, and it is has in some cases been proven as true. Worshipping God, Jesus and prayer is sadly low on the misguided actor’s priority list.
Getting back to my experience , I did think often about the years that went by that I could not successfully apply to a Pastor position because I was not ordained. And, how to some degree the delay or unexplained forestalling of my ordination might have played some part in my unemployment and failure to be timely installed as a Pastor. But I had to think beyond that and know that if I am doing the work of God, I already have a job. But it is hard to justify that as a practical matter to people who may rely on you for financial support. Even though I received my degree from Union in 2006 but was not ordained until 2012, 6 years after I officially received my degree, a degree I was told I had to achieve before I could be ordained.
I went off to seminary with that expectation fully in mind I.e., to receive my ordination ceremony when I returned from school, as promised. I needed the ordination to even be considered a qualified applicant. That is the first question any hiring denomination will ask you. Even if you are not Baptist. I came across this issue while I was working in the Presbyterian church as well as the Baptist. I still continued to work in the church and other churches helping out, preaching and otherwise what I could, to be in alignment with God’s purpose for my life.
I preached regularly as a pulpit supply minister and had engagements preaching during Sunday morning worship services as well as on special occasions such as Women’s Day. I applied for pastor positions at some of these Presbyterian churches but the fact that I was not ordained was an issue.
I had my heart set on being ordained at my beloved home church at the time. Faced with this challenge, I turned to God for prayer, asking God to show me what he was trying to tell me in that denial, and where he truly wanted me to be placed. I harbored no resentment, sticking to the mantras “when one door closes another one opens”, “if God is for you, who can be against you?” I remained in contact with my pastor and my church friends, attended worship services on occasion and special church events. I remained in prayer about this for years and finally god opened up a door at Hartford Memorial Baptist. The Pastor there, Dr. Charles G. Adams, who had also been my pastor’s pastor had been responsible for opening up the doors of local churches to female pastors for years and his son, presiding pastor Rev. Christian Adams, also a Union alum, facilitated the process and participated in my full ordination as a Baptist minister without any further delay.
Eboni, you set forth and summed up your grievance in what is obviously at first blush “black church culture” gender bias. I think Dr. James Cone Black Liberation Theologian would have a field day on this issue. Black on Black Oppression in the Black Church. Renowned Womanist theologian and Social Ethicist, Dr. Emile Townes is sure to have something very significant to say about this as well from the standpoint of both gender bias and social ethics.
But, quite honestly, I think in some cases it has very little to do with “gender bias” per se.
I know it may seem a bit far and off of the path. However, the key to understanding human behavior can sometimes be explained in the oddest aspects of psychoanalysis and psychology. There are a lot of psychologically wounded people in and outside of the church that need psychiatric treatment and counseling along with prayer and worship. A good deal of it goes unaddressed and left to foment under the radar. Healing of the psyche, what often drives hurtful,aberrant and disturbing behavior can be worked through and understood there. We need more access to mental health services like psychotherapy and behavioral services in the church. Especially where healing deep emotional trauma is concerned.
Those sitting on the personnel committee men and women leaders of the church seemingly unfairly ganged up on you behind the scenes in an effort to block you from reaching your goal in what appears to be outside of the knowledge and authority of the congregation or fair evaluation of your qualifications by the entire personnel committee I.e., attempting to make back room deals, power plays, despite your calling, anointing and educational qualifications. That is not only unbecoming Christian behavior, but also the kind that is not acceptable in the regular workplace. It is discrimination, whether based on sex, race, sexual orientation or age. It should not be tolerated, neither in the corporate business community nor in a church that should have a transparent personnel selection and pastoral search process in place.The church should be guided by the scripture, “…where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty”, (2 Corinthians 3:17) that includes fundamental Christian tenets of fairness and decency as well as legal requirements of procedural and substantive due process guaranteed under the US Constitution.
In summary, quite frankly I just presumed when I first heard about the search that you would be favored and ultimately granted the Senior Pastor position at Abyssinian. I did not give it a second thought. It seemed to me like you were heir apparent—a no brainer. Based upon your outstanding educational qualifications, your professorship at Duke and now Yale, in addition to being a daughter of historic and legendary Abyssinian Baptist church of Harlem, that you would be installed as pastor there to succeed the late great Dr. Calvin Butts without any deliberate delays forestalling a fair and open process. To use an often coined phrase, I thought you were a definite “shoe-in”.
By the way, while I am obviously sympathetic to your situation, I think you will definitely land on your feet with stiletto red bottoms in tow. (😉 I couldn’t resist after seeing that mean collection of shoes you had lined up hanging from your closet door a few years ago on an IG post.)
Even if this does not work out for you, and I’m using this phrase in a positive sense, any further delays or denial here, may indeed be a blessing in disguise. God’s delay is not necessarily God’s denial. In other words, the world appears still to be your oyster. Yeah, I know, it is very prestigious. After all we are talking about the historic Abyssinian Baptist church of Harlem…quite a feather in one’s cap. No doubt. No denying that at all.
I hope you get the job. You are definitely well qualified to serve as Senior Pastor and from my observations remarkably well suited for the challenge.
Very truly yours,
Rev. Cynthia Wilson,
Pastoral Candidate
P.S. This letter in view of its length, will also be available as a podcast episode and a pamphlet. A percentage of proceeds from the sale of these materials, audio CDs of podcasts and printed pamphlets will be divided proportionately between Cynthia Wilson Art, Media & Graphics, designated ministries and participating churches’ social justice/gender bias/ free speech, etc. educational programs and teachers.
Link to my podcast Cynthia Wilson Speaks here.
