The goal of the new book On Holy Ground: Stories
By And About Women in Ministry in the Mennonite Brethren Church, is
to validate and promote the voices of Mennonite Brethren women in ministry.
As
I wrote in an article published in Anabaptist World, the book was
commissioned in 2020 by the Mennonite Brethren Historical Commission, a
ministry of the U.S. and Canadian Mennonite Brethren conferences.
It contains the personal stories of 15
women who served as pastors and leaders in American and Canadian Mennonite
Brethren churches.
Through the stories, the women share
about the challenges and joys of ministry along with the struggle to have their
gifts and voices recognized and affirmed by the denomination.
In mid-March, the Commission was
informed by the Executive Boards of the U.S. and Canadian Mennonite Brethren
conferences that three pages in a story by Mary Anne Isaak, pastor of the River
East Church in Winnipeg, could not be published.
The reason given was because Isaak
raised the question about whether the silencing and marginalization of women’s
voices by the denomination for generations might be similar to what is
happening today to members of the LGBTQ+ community. That was deemed unacceptable.
The denomination ordered the Commission not to distribute
the book. But about 30 copies from the 300-copy print run had already been sent
out.
The original copies were destroyed and the book was republished without those missing
pages. I was able to get copies of those pages from the original print run. Find
them below, printed with permission.
To set the stage for the missing pages, Mary Anne first talks about her time at River East, sharing a story about her height and high heel shoes. This section is in the published book.
"River East Church is also where I came to understand
part of the dynamic between pastoral voice and body size, or at least how it
affects me. I am tall for a female, basically six feet. In Fresno, height was
an issue shared by the pastoral team, as Bill had about another eight inches on
me. We responded by raising the pulpit six inches to a comfortable height for
the pastors and attaching a step on hinges. Shorter people simply swiveled that
step into position when they came to the pulpit. In that context of
taller-than-normal pastors, I didn’t pay much attention to comments about my
height.
"A couple of years into pastoral ministry at REC, it
was compassionately brought to my attention that my height was, perhaps,
intimidating to some. What if I didn’t wear heels anymore, out of
consideration?
"I never spent money on heels; nevertheless, I owned a
closet full of pumps given to me by the widower of a woman at whose funeral I
officiated. The widower explained that for weeks, facing her impending death,
he and his wife had carefully examined the feet of women in the worship
service, concluding that my long narrow arched foot was a match for hers.
Several weeks after the funeral, he invited me over for a sacred act of shared
grief. As I tried on pair after pair of her prized collection, he told me their
stories. When I wore those inherited shoes, they carried me firmly in the
footsteps of feisty Elda Plank.
"The proper response to others’ discomfort was to put
those shoes into hibernation. A pastor’s size should not be a barrier to
ministry, should it? In some ways, closeting those shoes was inconsequential;
it didn’t really change my life. And yet, it kept niggling at me, niggling
enough to debrief it, a year later, with the church’s new moderator for staff
relations. Trudy Schroeder, executive director of Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra,
responded with insight from her role as a leader on the secular stage. She
narrated for me how, at a workshop for female CEOs, the speaker asked how many
had been told in some way that they were too large—too large a voice, too large
a body, too large a personality. Every woman in the room raised her hand. Every
single one! Was it perhaps my subconscious participation in patriarchy and not
prudence that informed my decision to abstain from wearing heels? When are
efforts to make men feel comfortable in my presence a healthy pastoral impulse,
and when are they acquiescing to an unhealthy message that a woman should not
take up more space than a man? I’ve found a new freedom to take my high-heels
out of the closet."
The missing section begins below.
+++++++++
In the North American society, gay, transgender, and
queer folks are also finding a new freedom to come out of the closet. The
church, as we take the deep questions of a culture to the Scriptures, is also
wrestling with conventional answers of the past.
In my two-and-a-half decades of pastoral vocation, I
have pastored three congregations. Each of the three faced decisions regarding
homosexuality and church membership. Just as my response to women in church
leadership evolved from a received tradition to my own understanding rooted in
research, experience, and community discernment, so too my response to the
LGBTQ+ community is developing.
My time at Peace Mennonite Church was shaped by the
year-long Franconia Conference process to discern a response to the Germantown
Mennonite Church, which accepted a married gay couple into membership. Vermont
is a “peace and justice” state. Everyone in our tiny congregation was
intuitively in support of Germantown, everyone except me. However, since my
position as pastor was temporary and connected to the timelines of Jon’s
education at McGill, I understood my role was to lead congregational
conversation and to abstain from voting. The vote at Peace Mennonite was,
therefore, unanimous and I submitted our yes, to keep Germantown within the
Franconia fold.
Peace Mennonite represented the minority voice. Lament
marked the tone of worship at the annual convention where Franconia formally
removed Germantown from fellowship. Huge burnt logs resting on gunny sacks ran
the length of the communion table—sackcloth and ashes before us, a choir
keening with quiet hymns of protest circling the exit behind us.
By the time I began pastoring at College Community
Church Mennonite Brethren, I had heard repeatedly that female church leadership
was the beginning of the slippery slope to accepting gays in church. My resolve
to demonstrate that women can be fine and faithful MB pastors eventually took
on a secondary resolve, to resist the downward slide into secularism that I
represented for some. So, ironically, my traditional position against gay
marriage shored up my non-traditional position on inclusion of women in
leadership.
Lynne Welton, a college student who had recently
become a Christian and was leaning into active church participation came to me
with a request. Her parents’ marriage had had its ups and downs over the years.
Now, on a milestone anniversary, they wanted to renew their vows to each other.
Her parents believed the church hated them, and she wanted to demonstrate the
church’s loving character. Even though they weren’t churchgoers, would they be
able to use the church for their covenant renewal? The moderator and I looked
at the request from a variety of angles and, in the end, I told the college
student that no, it would not be appropriate for her mothers to renew their
vows in our sanctuary.
I count at least three consequences of that decision.
First, although not an immediate and direct consequence of that decision, the
college student and her husband eventually left the church and then the
Christian faith. The love we preached wasn’t something they could access for
their particular family systems. Second, when the church moderator’s son came
out of the closet as gay, I wasn’t in a place to be trusted with that
information for years. Third, I began to question my own understanding of God
who preferred divorce for a gay couple rather than celebration of decades of
hard-won growth in loving relationship.
On another occasion, visiting with a couple from our
congregation, I shared my discouragement over the congregational discernment
concerning a member who had quietly married someone of the same gender. Not
long after that, the child of that visiting couple also came out of the closet.
Again I realized I was helping to create a church environment that did not feel
safe for families among us.
College Community Church took two years to discern
what it might look like to authentically follow Jesus in the context of a gay
couple among us and in the context of our conservative MB Pacific District
Conference. During that process, Michelle Ferguson began church membership
classes. She quietly told me her story of coming to understand herself as gay,
realizing that celibacy was her life option and looking to the church as a
community of connection, accountability, and intimacy to replace what a
marriage could offer. She asked me whether CCCMB could be that kind of a church
for her. My answer consistently was that God is present; trust the process. My
respect for Michelle grew as I witnessed her wrestle to live out her faith in
so many ways.
The years ticked on; we moved to Canada. Michelle continued
her investigation of the Scriptures. Among other books, she read Bible, Gender,
Sexuality: Reframing the Church’s Debate on Same-Sex Relationships by an
ordained minister in the Reformed Church, Dr. James Brownson. When she married
another woman, I was genuinely joyful that she found the community of deep
connection, accountability, and intimacy that she had been diligently seeking
for so long. Although it was a much slower shift than for my understanding of
women in leadership, I found my perspective on gay marriage beginning to turn.
In a lunch conversation at the 2017 national
convention of Canadian MBs, a sincere young man asked me what it felt like to
be rebuked by the conference. Studying church leadership in a school directed
by an MB Church in British Columbia, he was learning when and how to rebuke
heresy. He wanted to understand the experience from the perspective of a
recipient.
He was referring to the 2015 MB study conference on
human sexuality where I was asked to respond to Bruxy Cavey’s presentation. In
the last minutes of my response, I used 1 Samuel 8 and following to show how
Scripture holds space open to validate two opposing visions of God’s dream for
the world. When the people ask Samuel to anoint a king, his response makes it
clear that a king is not part of God’s original plan for them. In fact, Samuel
equates choosing a king with rejecting God as their king. Samuel warns the
people of the consequences; they persist and God listens to the people saying,
“For I have seen the suffering of my people because their outcry has come to
me” (1 Samuel 9:15-16). Then, God goes a step further and actually leads Samuel
to the person they shall crown king. Is it possible the church’s response to
homosexuality can be compared to Israel’s adoption of monarchy?
The next day, I was called to the convention floor to
respond to questions. No, I wasn’t trying to change the confession of faith. I
was trying to open space for authentic conversation among people who hold Jesus
at the center of life and faith and yet differ in their understandings of the
Bible.
Six years after that study conference, River East
Church, led by moderator Reyn Redekopp, has adopted a statement of inclusivity.
River East Church is a Jesus community for the world.
We invite everyone to live out this mission as followers of Jesus in the
Anabaptist/Mennonite tradition.
This invitation is extended to all persons, whatever
their ability, age, ethnicity, family status, gender identity, income level,
race, sexual orientation, or other identity distinctives. All are welcome to
full participation in the journey of discipleship.
We strive to live as a community of love, even as we
acknowledge our different understandings of Scripture. In our diversity, we
gather around the Lord’s Table to celebrate our unity in Christ.
In the year-long process, I, along with my pastoral
colleagues and the congregation have read articles and books, discussed videos,
participated in deep dives into Scripture, listened and listened some more to
stories of families impacted by LGBTQ+ dynamics.
Across Canada, throughout the globe, our Mennonite
Brethren family of faith is wrestling with the deep questions of the culture by
taking them to the Scriptures. We are coming to different understandings. Can
that be okay? What if a queer person who follows Jesus is the new Esau begging
for a blessing from God and the family?
(End of missing portion from Mary Anne’s reflection.
The lines below are in the adjusted book.)
+++++++++++
"After 25 years, I look back and recognize that I, a
female pastor, have received a blessing from God and from my Mennonite Brethren family of
faith. Yes, it is a costly blessing, but I’m not so sure it is more costly than a man’s. Every
single pastor faces risks and costs. And yes, at some points my MB pastoral journey is
not-so-sweet-a-deal as the journey of a male MB pastor. But again, the challenges and blessings for
every pastor are unique, and at some point in the road, every single pastor faces a
tumultuous upheaval of one kind or another.
"And even as I look forward to more years of ministry,
I recognize that the future is unknown. This I do know, that I am deeply privileged
to have been shaped by theMennonite Brethren denomination and to have a voice
within this family of faith.
"As Emerson Cardosa, president of the Mennonite
Brethren Conference of Brazil said in his plenary address at the 2018 Canadian Conference,
Jesus is the center of our faith. Community is the center of our life. Reconciliation is
the center of our work. May it be so,"
Mary Anne Isaak
