by M. Garlinda Burton

I was at a recent workshop on gender justice in the church, where I met a nice guy. I know he was a nice guy because he kept me in stitches with witty side comments. Those comments, I knew from experience, were a side-effect of the self-consciousness he admitted feeling in a room where most of the presenters and attenders were women.

Between jokes, my new pal told me repeatedly how nice he was and how he wasn’t sexist like other men he knew. He explained that he had been reared the only son in a houseful of sisters, he had strong and loving parents who modeled partnership in their marriage. He respected women, and his lifelong experience as a man of faith reinforced that sense of respect.

Although he seemed to protest a little too much, I found him indeed to be a good man. (In fact, if he calls, I’d love to go out with him!)

Unfortunately, his view of sexism and its impact was skewed. As with most of us who sit in a position of privilege—whether because of race, class, income, education, language, or gender—he is focused too much on his reactive “goodness,” while ignoring the privileges and rights he enjoys (even unwittingly and unconsciously) just because he’s a guy.

More than 30 years ago, activist and educator Peggy McIntosh wrote an unprecedented article on the intersection between White racism and White privilege. In “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” McIntosh explained that she has been taught to view racism as “something which puts others at a disadvantage,” but that she had also “been carefully taught” to ignore not the advantages she enjoys as a White woman.

She describes White privilege as “an invisible knapsack of unearned assets…special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks.”

She further lists some examples of “White privilege,” using “I” statements and drawing on her experiences as a White, formally educated, middle-class, U.S. woman. Two favorites from McIntosh.

• “I am never asked to speak for all the people of my race.” (Amen, Peggy! I can’t tell you how many times people ask me how “Blacks feel” about a particular topic; I usually reply, “I don’t know, since the Black People of America” meetings are no longer held at my house.”)
• “I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having coworkers on the job suspect that I got it because of race.”

Racism, McIntosh asserts, is a systemic construct so insidious that it negatively impacts persons of color and privileges Whites, even without their active participation or awareness. Part of the insidiousness is that people of color are conditioned to see themselves as “other” and White people are conditioned to ignore the privileges that come with even unintentional racism.

In a similar vein, institutional sexism is not as simple as something that “bad” guys “do to” women. Instead, it often manifests itself as a massive, comprehensive invisible box of privileges and free passes afforded to men because of their maleness.

So, I’m issuing an invitation to my new friend, the “good guy”:  if you’re really serious about joining me in battling sexism, you need to be aware of some of the ways in which male privilege manifests itself, particularly in the church.

Here are 15 descriptions from other “good guy” pals of mine, with their examples of the male privilege they enjoy:

1. When I get married, no one automatically assumes that I have to—or should—change my last name and take my wife’s surname.
2. I can run for political office and speak passionately on issues without fear of being pegged as “overly emotional.”
3. When people enter my place of business and see me with a woman colleague they assume that I’m the pastor, the doctor, the dentist, the supervisor or the boss (even if she’s wearing a suit and I’m in jeans).
4. I can sit at a bar or in a park alone and be pretty sure that I will not attract unwanted advances or comments from a person of the opposite sex.
5. Work colleagues never attempt to hug me or touch me or call me “honey” when I’m trying to discuss an area of conflict with them.
6. I’m allowed to lose my temper or reactive negatively at work or church without being dismissed as “being on the rag” or having someone assume it is my “time of the month.”
7. As a candidate for ordination as a pastor or for promotion on my job, no one asks me how I’ll juggle my work and my family, or suggests that I am abandoning my children as I am advancing my career.
8. My physical appearance (including my weight, hairstyle, general attractiveness and style of dress) is a non-issue most of the time, particularly when colleagues are evaluating my public/professional persona.
9. I am not considered an “old maid” or an object of pity because I’m over 35 and unmarried.
10. When my spouse and I walk into an auto showroom to buy a car, I can be pretty sure the salesperson will approach and “pitch to” me first.
11. Strangers don’t ask to rub my belly because I’m expecting a new baby.
12. Police officers and lawyers handling my legal complaint about an assault don’t ask me “what was I wearing?” that may have provoked my attacker.
13. I’m sure I am created in the image of God, because all the hymns and references refer to God as male.
14. My teachers and coaches encourage me that playing, running or jumping “like a boy” is always a good thing.
15. In most TV shows and movies I see, most of the folks doing the rescuing, the saving, the fighting and the moral authority are people of my gender.

In doing justice work–whether around race, gender, sexual orientation, age, class, ability of status—it is important to remember that being a “good person” isn’t enough. The flip side of systemic discrimination, bias, prejudice and marginalization is that some groups enjoy privileges, free passes and acceptance that “others” do not. To be truly engaged as a partner in challenging sexism, men must understand not only how women are affected, but what privileges men enjoy (even unwittingly) at women’s expense.

I’m a committed Christian woman who believes that youth age 12, 13 or 17 are too young to be engaged in sexual intercourse of any kind.

 I’m a committed Christian who knows from experience that good pastoring, mentoring and parenting cannot insure that all young people will eschew too-early sexual experiences, nor will many of them avoid the heavy consequences of their behavior, namely sexually transmitted disease or pregnancy.

I am a committed Christian who believes in public funding for Planned Parenthood and other responsible sources of reproductive health, sexual education and birth control.

 The current attack on government funding for Planned Parenthood is yet another attempt by the one of the wealthiest, most privileged, most over-funded, most overly male group in this nation to take away the rights of lower-income and young women in the name of so-called morality. These are the same people who oppose health care reform, while their high-cost health care is being subsidized by the working poor and middle class. And these are the same folks who, when faced with unplanned pregnancies in their own families, have the resources—thanks to my tax dollars paying their salaries—to pay away their troubles.

 Planned Parenthood and other responsible entities actually save taxpayer money, from medical costs of poor prenatal care to special education costs for children born at low birth weights and suffering malnutrition. Birth control from Planned Parenthood saves taxpayers from paying public assistance for teen moms who are less likely to get child support or find employment that pays a living wage. It saves legal costs of pursuing deadbeat dads who had no intention of marrying or making a moral and financial commitment to the mothers or their children. And it saves the moral, physical and financial costs of abortions, which, contrary to current rhetoric, causes life-changing trauma for the women forced to choose them.

 The current assault on Planned Parenthood comes from a society and, sadly, some people of faith, who have abdicated our responsibility to advance honest, confessional dialogue about sexuality and sexism. We don’t want to own that most of us these days are not virgins when we marry, that many teen moms are impregnated by adult men (who should be prosecuted for statutory rape), that we’d rather our children “don’t ask, don’t tell, or don’t get caught,” rather than talking to them about our own sexual histories and offering realistic advice.

 Rather, it is easier for us to continue believing that women who seek birth control or who have abortions are provocative, godless sluts; that “good people” don’t need contraceptives or sexual education, because they have sex only while married and want all the children they can have; that wealthy men in Washington know better than a third-generation teen mom what can break the cycle of poverty and too-early pregnancy for her child.

We, even people of faith, find it more palatable to keep sex talk out of our sanctuaries than to offer our sanctuaries as safe, open place where teens can ask questions about sex and get honest answers from responsible adults. We decry street-corner sexual education, but blanch at the very idea that the pastor or Sunday school teacher might openly ask God to bless and anoint our sexual intercourse so that we deem it precious, pleasurable and responsible.

 I am a committed Christian who knows that the wealthy, formally educated and well-resourced people already have access to the contraception and reproductive health care. As a committed Christian, I want poor women—and men—to have the same rights. And I am willing to commit at my tax dollars to that. People of faith, speak out! Contact your Congressional representatives today!

in a Christ-focused global United Methodist Church

By M. Garlinda Burton**

From the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 7, beginning with verse 24

A woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged Jesus to chase the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” But she answered Jesus, saying, “Lord, even the dogs under the children’s table eat the children’s crumbs” Then he said to her, “Daughter, for saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” So she went home, found the children lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

This is a familiar story of healing and miracles so familiar perhaps that we miss how transformational this story was and is, not just for the woman, but for Jesus, his future ministry and the ministry of the Church universal.

The Syrophoenician woman was “off limits” to Jesus because of her cultural, gender, race and physical disability. It was literally a violation of the cultural norms of his nation for Jesus to interact with her. She was considered unclean because of her mixed-race and her religious practices.

Additionally, the fact that this unnamed Syrophoenician women’s daughter was possessed by a demon was likely considered a just punishment for a mixed-raced, non-Jewish, foreign woman. Because, remember, to have a disability in Jesus’ culture was believed to be a punishment by God for your sins or your parents’ sins.

As a product of his culture, too, Jesus of Nazareth was not expected to have a theological discourse with any woman. At this point, as a teacher and rabbi among many of his followers, he was in fact expected to make pronouncements about the lives of women, to impose a patriarchal religiosity upon her, and she would just have to deal with it. Women, up to this point, were not so much partners in the ministry of bringing God’s reign on earth: They were simply there to serve, stand aside and shut up.

So when this presumptuous, unclean Syrophoenician woman asked for healing for her unclean Syrophoenician daughter, Jesus the man of his culture dismisses her and insults her, calling her a “dog.” And yet, she persists in challenging his cultural biases and the institutional and historic sexism under which he has operated, saying to Jesus, “If you are the Messiah, the bringer of Good News, the fulfillment of prophecy, the Son of the Living God who made both you and me, then act like it. Heal me, touch me, claim me as a sister and a daughter of OUR God.”

And in that moment, Jesus is convicted, his true calling is claimed, and he is transformed. He goes from acting like just another prophet to being the Son of God, anointed Messiah, change-agent, Redeeming Prince of Peace, bringer of new heaven and new earth. And this woman, now a follower of the Living God in Christ, is no longer “dog,” but “daughter.”

The General Commission on the Status and Role of Women was created in 1972, by a process begun by the United Methodist Women’s Division. The Women’s Division had challenged the institutional church to examine where women were—and were not—present as clergy, as superintendents, as lay leaders, as delegates to General Conference, as agency executives, and as bishops. And what the church discovered about itself was that we were not living as people of a transforming Christ when it came to including women at all levels of church life.

The General Commission on the Status and Role of Women was created in response to a study by the Women’s Division/United Methodist Women. That study found that while women were and still are the most prolific givers to the church and the most likely to volunteer—and while we as the United Methodist Church claim the ministry and Gospel of Jesus Christ as our central value—that women were and still are under-valued as equal partners in the ministry, mission, administration, and proclamation work of this denomination. The Commission was created to challenge our institutional church to insure the presence of women, the voices of women, the leadership of women at all levels of church life, and to ensure that in our bottom line ministries, our four areas of focus, our missional priorities, and our primary tasks, that the perspective, theological understanding, needs, and gifts of God’s women matter and have impact on how we ARE the United Methodist Church.

In 1972, women were 54% of worldwide UMC membership, yet:

• • There were no women bishops
  • Women were less than 1 percent of all United Methodist clergy.
  • Less than 13 percent of General Conference delegates were women.
  • Less than 22 percent of voting members of general church and annual conference board members were women.

Glory be to God in Christ, though, we have come a mighty, mighty long way:

• • Women are 57 percent of church members around the world.
  • Women are more than 25% of pastors serving United Methodist congregations in the United States.
  • Women are more than one-third of annual conference and district lay leaders.
  • Women are 16 of the nearly 70 active United Methodist bishops currently serving around the world

And as we stand on the threshold of claiming all that it means to be a worldwide United Methodist movement for Jesus Christ, we dare not turn back on our ministry of empowering and raising up women disciples, preachers, teachers, healers, bishops, lay leaders, and treasurers. Because we still have a ways to go.

And the General Commission on the Status and Role of Women wants to ensure that we, as the United Methodist worldwide witness to the transforming, saving power of Jesus Christ, do not abandon our forward movement in the name of culture, of “getting along,” of not offending one race or one clan. We believe in order to be the church God would have us to be that we need to stay true to the declaration of Galatians 3:28 that “there is no longer male and female, for all of you are on in Christ Jesus.”

In other words, the church—national, global, or intergalactic—will not be the church of Jesus Christ unless and until we declare unequivocally that discrimination, abuse and marginalization of women in any church agency, structure, function, policy or perceived practices is antithetical to the Gospel and to our call as the Body of Christ called United Methodist.

Let me make it plainer. The General Commission on the Status and Role of Women, as an agency not only of the United Methodist Church, but as one called to do God’s will, is saying that we must agree as a global church:

• • That women, just like men, are called and are qualified to be ordained ministers, preachers, superintendents, and bishops all around the world wherever a United Methodist cross-and-flame is seen. At least one annual conference in Europe has not one ordained woman. Elsewhere in the world—including the U.S.—the number of women in clergy leadership is much less than the number of laywomen filling the pews, paying the freight, and serving the world through the church. If we want to reach women, and minister with women, and walk with poor women, young women, new-to-church-women, wounded women, and seeking women, then we need leadership that loves, respects, understands, values—and are—women.
  • We must agree that a married woman, a woman with children, just like a married man or a man with children can, if called by God, lead a congregation, complete the requirements for ordained ministry, be appointed, grow a church, count money, superintend, be a lay leader. She should not be precluded in the name of region, tradition, or culture. Sexism is not a cultural right in the Church of the Living, Transforming Christ.
  • We must agree that women, no less than men, should have the right to marry or not marry, to leave an abusive marriage, and to have a pastor and a religious community that will speak against domestic violence as sin and be a witness for healing and justice.
  • We must agree that clergymen and clergywomen should be held to the highest standard of moral and ethical behavior, and this includes the understanding that clergy do not have the God-ordained power to sexually abuse people in their parish and violate their marital vows by engaging in sexual behavior with others, be they male or female. Recently, women from the Philippines who are members of GCSRW’s board of directors reported on challenges stemming from sexual misconduct by clergy males in their country. The women claimed the complaints and allegations by Filipino women and girls are often ignored. If this is true, I contend that a global Body of Christ must say and live the Gospel message that all people are valuable, precious children of God who should not be victimized by anyone, especially not in the church.

I do not mean that culture is not relevant in our work as a church. Walking with Christ in the context of our own languages, histories, colors and cultures is a witness to the universal love and power of our God. I am a product of a people who and a culture who have helped define Liberation Theology for the world. That is a cultural reality that has deepened my personal relationship with Christ and the way I do Christ’s work in the world.

But, again, as we seek to understand the various cultures that define and enrich our global church, we should make sure that we are hearing from women in the global culture.

A lot of what we’re deciding in the Western church with regard to engaging global Christians is being informed by men only. Women are also products of their cultures, and they have something to say about what a global church and a church that is attuned to their cultures should look like. I heard a lot of talk at the 2008 General Conference from men saying things like, “We don’t do this in Africa,” and “This is the Filipino way.” And we heard many White people from the U.S. church presume to interpret a Central Conference ethos based on their interaction solely with Central Conference men in church leadership. But African and Filipino and European United Methodist laywomen and clergywomen, tell me, “There is more than one voice and perspective, and not everyone who is speaking for Africa is speaking for me.”

In an article about United Methodist Women’s cutting-edge mission work in the refugee camps in Sudan in the April 2009 issues of Response magazine, a United Methodist clergyman is quoted as saying that women shouldn’t be allowed to be pastors because, “they are not even-tempered.” He says this even as United Methodist Sudanese women are building grass-roots peace-keeping ministries and agricultural endeavors that are saving the Sudan from death after years of brutal war.

I say we should not be ordaining pastors who do not believe in the Gospel of the Jesus Christ who preached and performed miracles among women at wells and weddings, and gave the first sermon of Good News to Mary Magadala, Mary and Joanna at the tomb. That Jesus who rose from the grave is THE message; and the message was first given to and proclaimed by women.  That we still have some annual conferences that have no women preachers or ordained pastors is not something to be celebrated as being faithful to culture, but is to be lamented as unfaithfulness to the God in Jesus who gives the gifts of preaching, teaching, exhorting, prophecy and healing to women and men. We all are products of our cultures. Although there is much to be celebrated and much that defines each of us from our respective cultures (and we ALL have culture from which we draw strength, definition, values, and love of heritage), culture cannot be accepted as an excuse for sexism, racism or classism in any part of the United Methodist Church in the Body of Christ. That must be non-negotiable.

When our Book of Resolutions, which is voted on by delegates from Africa, the Philippines, Europe, and the United States, alike, is available only in English and not widely distributed beyond the U.S., the voice of General Conference, which unites us as a worldwide denomination, is silenced. Resolutions such as “Every Barrier Down: Toward Full Embrace of All Women in Church and Society” (BOR2008, page 517) and “Eradication of Sexism in the Church” (BOR2008, page 525) must be heard across the globe and must apply to all conferences and cultures in which the United Methodist Church claims presence.

Nowhere in any corner of the global United Methodist Church of Jesus Christ should it be acceptable to reject a woman pastor or bishop, keep a woman from being a lay leader or church finance chairperson, or for the church to remain silent in the face of sexual and domestic violence against women and girls in the name of culture.

The General Commission on the Status and Role of Women—an agency of our denomination and an international body of United Methodist laity and clergy—are excited about the conversations and energy around our “global nature” as the United Methodist Church. And we will be watching to ensure that, in our zeal to be “united,” we do not sacrifice what has been hard won among faith-filled Christ-focused women in this denomination. Our vision for God’s church is one where all cultural, political, and traditional barriers to full participation of women are trampled under the feet of those who are in love and charity with all our neighbors, and who are so moved by the Holy Spirit residing in our own hearts and our own sanctuaries, that we become a wave of love and redemption sweeping the sin of exclusion off the face of this earth. Our global nature, we believe, is to be centered in our repentance, redemption, and reclamation of all those we have excluded whenever we have put culture and clan above the name of Christ.

**M. Garlinda Burton, a United Methodist laywoman and member of Hobson United Methodist Church in Nashville, Tenn., is the general secretary of the General Commission on the Status and Role of Women in The United Methodist Church. This paper was presented to the Worldwide Nature of the Church Task Force, Nov. 9, 2009, at Lake Junaluska, N.C.

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Kumalo, The Rev. Simangaliso R., Turning Deserts Into Forests Through Mission: A Model of Ministry and Community Development. Pretoria, South Africa: C.B. Powell Bible Centre, 2003. ISBN 1-86888-282-9.

Myers, Bryant L., Walking With The Poor. Principles and Practices of

Transformational Development. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books and World Vision,

2005.  ISBN 1-57075-275-3.

Ng, David, People on the Way. Asian North Americans Discovering Christ, Culture, and Community, Valley Forge, Pa.: Judson Press, 1996. ISBN 0817012427.

“Women In Southern Sudan: Claiming A Peace Dividend,” by Paul Jeffrey, pp. 21-25, in Response magazine, April 2009, Vol. 41, No. 4. Copyright 2009 by the Women’s Division, General Board of Global Ministries, United Methodist Church.

Six months after the 2008 General Conference, the Council of Bishops and the General Secretaries (heads of churchwide agencies) are organized around the four areas of focus that delegates affirmed last spring. The four are:

Developing principled, Christian leaders;

Creating new places for new people (and renewing existing churches)

Eliminating poverty

Attacking killer diseases, such as HIV/AIDS and malaria

When these “four foci” were first proposed to the GCSRW board of directors, there was excitement but also questions, mainly about what wasn’t named: the role of women and people of color in setting priorities and making decisions; the relevance for our international and highly diverse denomination; the theological framework for our common tasks (would feminist/liberation theologies be embraced and respected?).

And two overriding concerns:  “Where does GCSRW plug into these four focus areas?” and “What about the works already mandated to GCSRW by The Book of Discipline?”

For me, these are exciting questions that inform the denomination’s life around “the four foci.” In fact, the primary task of our church—making disciples of Christ to transform the world—is the task of GCSRW.  And we will continue to sprinkle our unique flavor over every one of the foci, starting in the next two years.

Leadership: GCSRW has addressed the issue of principled leaders for most of our history. By challenging the denomination to embrace and include women laity and clergy as equal partners in ministry, we have been clear that the church of Jesus Christ is not whole in its witness and mission if women are not at the leadership tables at all levels.  And we have also led the way in inviting a diversity of women’s voices, leadership styles, points of view and theological perspectives into the conversations about how we live out our corporate faith in congregations, annual conferences and connectional structures. Beyond that, however, has been our work in the area of preventing and addressing ministerial misconduct of a sexual nature. GCSRW will continue to create education resources and offer training for clergy and laity to foster healthy living and healthy boundaries for clergy and to say to the church that the integrity of our Christian witness is maintained only when ministerial leaders are clear about the sacred trust of their office conduct themselves accordingly.  Starting 2009, for example, we will develop a seminary class on “sex, money and power,” to address ethical behavior of clergy.

Church growth and renewal:  GCSRW has declared—and will continue to declare—that a congregation that fosters sexism or racism is not an authentically Christ-focused congregation, and that a church that balks at women pastors, ushers, trustees, etc., is not yet ready for God’s hand of renewal. GCSRW plans to identify 25 “women-positive churches,” that is, congregations in which women are nurtured into leadership and are helped to explore a call to professional ministry, and where the worship and mission undergird women’s discipleship, spiritual growth and intersection of faith and social action. We will feature these 25 churches on our website and share their “best practices” with denominational leaders, including those who are focused on new church development.

Eliminating poverty.  In 1999, GCSRW sponsored an unprecedented “Women’s Congress,” which brought together 175 lay and clergy women from across the United States for a week of worship, hands-on mission work, spiritual nurture and a crash course in United Methodism. The purpose was to bring new-to-church women into a fuller understanding of the resources, support and opportunities for ministry beyond their congregations that the denomination offers. Many of the women had never traveled alone before and many were from low-income households. GCSRW paid all expenses, so that finances would not keep some women from attending. The goal was to bring a new group of women into church leadership and life. In 2011, we will again host a “Women’s Congress,” this time in partnership with the Women’s Division/United Methodist Women. We plan to invite young women and women from low-income communities, and at least one-fourth of the women will come from United Methodist congregations beyond the United States.

(We’re still seeking ways to be involved in attacking killer diseases. One idea I’ve discussed with the General Commission on Religion and Race is getting African-American clergywomen together to address the epidemic of HIV/AIDS among African-American women. However, we’re still discussing this idea.)

GCSRW’s primary mandate is to bring women into full and equal participation in the life of the church and to help the church confront and undo institutional sexism. We do this to help open the door for Jesus Christ to come into the lives of women and men in a way that transforms the church, transforms homes and transforms society.  The “four foci” are not beyond our mandate; rather, they offer specific handles for our work as a change-agent within the denomination.

I encourage annual conference CSRWs to consider how your work informs the way the “foci” will be lived out and expressed in your area. We have something important to offer the church at all levels. Let’s make sure our voices are heard.–Garlinda