For Elders Who Are Facilitating Gender Inclusion, Don’t Be Surprised by the Anger

Over the last 10 years, I’ve found it fairly isolating to be a female minister in the Church of Christ, so I’ve joined a few online communities for support from fellow ministers, connection, and sometimes to vent. The ever-increasing anger I’ve found there used to surprise me and I’m seeing it more and more.

I don’t want it to surprise you.

When I see a particularly angry post within a private, primarily female group, my first response is to send cyber-support of various kinds. However, if the post is angry and public, I find myself very uncomfortable with the anger. When we are facing so many challenges with gender inclusion, and with church at large in our culture, I balk at the damage that public anger might do to the credibility of the individual, Christianity, or the movement at large. I fear that when elders are exposed to this anger, they often close whatever door is slightly open to gender inclusion. I’m worried that people who don’t know Jesus will have more reasons to be turned off.

However, I can’t and won’t ignore the legitimate, deep, anger-producing frustration of my sisters, and if you want to lead your church through gender inclusion, you won’t be able to either. Too many of our family members and friends are hurt, bruised, and suffer the bleeding of the rejected. If you don’t see it, it’s likely those women either go to church somewhere else or are silencing themselves – whether around church leaders or altogether.

Is every woman angry and hurt? No. But there is a great deal more anger and damage than you might think. So let me share a glimpse of it with you. My observations reveal there are countless layers of variables that affect the anger level, with a couple of the major players being age and the level of rejection experienced.

As I look back over my own life, I question why I wasn’t angrier. In my younger years I choked back the restrictions with a decent amount of defensiveness and just found other spiritual outlets. In my older years, and in light of the current anger-o-meter of my younger ministers, I regret not being more outspoken about this issue. I regret not acting sooner on their behalf. I suppose the truth is that gender inclusion was so outside my realm of possibility as a young woman, that I didn’t have enough information to be angry. Plus, I wasn’t exactly encouraged to be more outspoken, and anger was certainly not very Proverbs 31. I was invited into ministry at age 41, long after my professional and personal identities had been solidified elsewhere. I hadn’t been fighting for years to find a ministry job in a church that really just wanted me to go away, which is what so many of my younger ministers know to be the truth.

For you as a church leader, gender inclusion may be an issue oriented around translations, hermeneutics, and Sunday practices. But it’s far deeper than that to women who have been silenced their entire lives by the church they love due to their XX chromosomes.

I’m confident no one intended to inflict damage, but the wounds are there, as is the anger.

So when you come face-to-face with the anger, don’t be surprised. As I’m sure you know, your best response is to listen, affirm, and appreciate the honesty. I would say hugs are good too, but we aren’t allowed to hug right now.

With this great appreciation for you, I use this Scripture (Prov. 1:1-7) to pray for wisdom and guidance for you as church leaders.

The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel:

To know wisdom and instruction,
to understand words of insight,
to receive instruction in wise dealing,
in righteousness, justice, and equity;
to give prudence to the simple,
knowledge and discretion to the youth—
Let the wise hear and increase in learning,
and the one who understands obtain guidance,
to understand a proverb and a saying,
the words of the wise and their riddles.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;
fools despise wisdom and instruction.

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This article is part of an ongoing series for elders who are leading their churches through gender inclusion processes. Find the rest of the series here.