[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: Welcome back to the Collective Table Podcast. I'm Jason.
[00:00:13] Speaker C: Hey, Jason. I'm Janelle.
[00:00:14] Speaker B: Hi.
[00:00:15] Speaker C: And today we are diving into a really important conversation that is church leaders and church attendees. I think we need to be having.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Absolutely. Our theme this season, of course, for those who have been listening, is the 50.5%, which refers to the total population of women in the world, but especially the problem of patriarchy in American Christianity in reference to the fact that women make up more than half the population. And we've been super lucky this season to host womanist theologian Will Gaffney in episodes one and two. And then in episodes three and four, we had the incredibly creative children's book author Deneen Akers talk to us about the divine feminine voice in scripture. And today we're continuing this conversation about patriarchy and race and gender, but this time how it impacts leadership and especially the expectations placed on black women in religious spaces. And I'm super excited because we get to do that today through this fantastic conversation that you and I had recently with the Reverend Dr. Terry Hord Owens.
It's exciting. It was exciting because as for those who might not know, back in 2017, Reverend Hord Owens became the first black woman to lead a mainline denomination as the general minister and president of the Christian Church Disciples of Christ, which just happens to be the denomination we are a part of at the Oceanside Sanctuary.
[00:01:50] Speaker C: Just happens to be. I think what's really incredible about her story is that she doesn't just step into a role that has historically been held by white men and take on the mold.
She allows herself to lead as her full self as a black woman with her own experiences, her own history and cultural background, and it shapes the way she serves in ways that I think have been really profound for our denomination. So let's just listen to this first bit of this conversation that we had. I think it's gonna be really enlightening for many of us.
[00:02:28] Speaker B: All right, let's do.
[00:02:35] Speaker C: As the first black female leader of a mainline denomination, how do you feel your perspective brings something different and necessary to the role? Because I do really think that as women, we're going to do it differently. Oftentimes, as a black woman, I'm sure that you are going to do it differently. What has been beautiful about that? What's been hard? What's timely in this, in this time? Oh, wow.
[00:03:06] Speaker A: Those are three good sub questions.
[00:03:08] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:03:09] Speaker A: The beautiful thing about it has been really the. The really wide acceptance of the church. I can honestly say. My election, the experience of that back in 2017, and my election that night was met with such joy in the place. I was kind of taken aback by. By the joy in the hall that night. People posting on social media, they take a. Took a picture of their, you know, we. We still use paper ballots for that election, but they took pictures of their ballots. And we're so. I'm so proud of my church. I got lots of beautiful cards and notes from people all over Christendom from other denominations. So it was. It was a joyful thing. And still, when I travel in certain places, it's always a nice thing. When someone says, I was there the night you were elected. I'm so proud. You're our gmp.
[00:04:03] Speaker B: I was there the night you were elected, and I'm so proud.
[00:04:06] Speaker C: Yeah, no, seriously.
[00:04:08] Speaker A: But. But you may. I mean, I was taken aback by just the general energy in space, in the room and. And certainly a lot of love. So it's been beautiful in that sense. It's. It's been beautiful in the sense that. That once again, not only were we the first church to elect a woman to lead it, we were the first church to elect a woman of color to lead. That also is something that I was able to carry with me into spaces and people outside the disciples saying, wow, this is really great. The difficult part of it has been. I can't even imagine there were fewer women leading general ministries when Sharon was first elected. There were fewer women serving as regional ministers when she was elected. I've seen the difficult experiences of not only myself, but other women leading in the church. I think we have retired away. What I will call, and I say this with love, even though it's a critique. We have a perception out there of what I'll call the imperial model of regional ministers.
[00:05:13] Speaker C: Right?
[00:05:14] Speaker A: That the regional minister is, like, in charge of the region. And you don't come in my region without letting me know. And what I say, here goes. And nobody else is the boss of me. Because of our policy. We have this real you ain't the boss of me kind of spirit in our church. Some of that is softening the difficulty, as I said earlier, in terms of certain and certain men and mostly white, but there have been a few black men who've been guilty of this too, who want to, oh, well, let me help you with that. Or this is what we think you should do. Or assuming, and this is where the blackness comes in, assuming that my desire was simply to fit into the mold of what has been before. And I have told people that I'm not here to colorize a model of what has been before. If you just wanted a colorized version of yourself, that's not who you've elected. You elected a black woman. I grew up with a certain kind of cultural context, a certain kind of worldview. I have my own experiences in terms of my education, my own family. My grandfather was an activist Baptist minister here in Indiana from the 50s, 60s and 70s. Very active in desegregating public facilities, civil rights and lots of good community service. Had a partner sister church in Africa. His own congregation was like, why are we working with a church in Africa? My dad is a retired black studies professor. So I have a particular context that maybe even not all black people have. But for it to have been assumed that I would simply dawn and take on a mantle of perspective and conduct that was what the church had been, a predominantly white perspective. That has been the sort of the unspoken assumption and so be it vernacular that I use, maybe sometimes the way I dress or you know, a facial expression here and there even, or my lifting up history or even lifting up the fact that I'm the first black woman. I think it's important. Important because this is still a predominantly white church and the fact that I sit in this seat is not a foregone conclusion beyond me. Unless we examine really hard what we really mean by being an anti racist church, there might not be another Terry, right? Who knows? We've got to understand that we can't say, oh, check that box. And we can't just be looking for somebody who we think fits the mold. There was actually concern among black disciples, some of whom I was a second career minister. There were people who didn't know me in the church and there was concern among some black disciples about whether or not I would be a token, whether or not I would be simply the puppet of the white church. Would I be connected to the black church? I had a session with the national Convocation the night before my installation basically to kind of disabuse them of that particular notion. And I think they have have seen that I've. That's not what I came to do. I've not let anybody try to deny my blackness. I've never allowed people to tell me that I had to deny who I am in order to fit in elsewhere. I can't yet untie whether or not race is a bigger issue or gender. That's the question people always ask me what's harder and it's hard to say because I don't get to separate the two. They come Together, it's been a challenge, perhaps maybe even as. As. As a black woman, because of my own worldview, my sense of myself that maybe doesn't always cohere with a white male who may feel very paternal towards me and want to show me the ropes and explain how things are. And if I don't take kindly to the suggestion, then I'm not collaborative. Right. If I express my opinion or if I. I was told by one of our leaders that somebody was mad at me in a meeting because I yelled. It's like, no, I didn't yell. What I did was express concern and disappointment over basically disrespect had been shown in the meeting. And I'm one who will name those things as they happen. I won't sit and sulk in the corner. I'll let people know what I think about things. And I'm usually a pretty intense communicator. So what you may experience as intensity, I was like, is this that old black trope about the angry black woman that you're trying to throw at me? And the guy turned 10 shades of red. But I've been accused of being not uncollaborative simply because I've had the audacity to speak my mind and the audacity to insist that I not be disrespected. And, you know, there. There are still power machinations that happen beneath the service. I. I know it's hard to imagine that that could happen in any human organization, but there are people who don't agree with me and consider me to be uncooperative because I don't do what they think I should do. I can't help that I'm under no to do what you think I should do. I try to be subtle and tactful about it, but I'm generally not shy about it. And that. That has gotten me into, I won't say trouble, but it has ruffled some feathers here and there.
[00:10:25] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:10:25] Speaker A: All right.
[00:10:26] Speaker B: So. Wow. So one of the most important parts of that part of the conversation that we had for me, is how Dr. Horde Owens talks about the expectations that are placed on black women leaders and how that intersects with what she, of course, refers to as this history of the angry black woman trope.
[00:10:48] Speaker C: Yeah, I think we should talk about that. I think it's important that we have this conversation. So here's the deal. Historically black women who speak with conviction, who challenge authority, who simply assert themselves, they're often labeled as angry, as difficult, as uncooperative. And look, this isn't Just a church thing. It's everywhere. Even Michelle Obama, who is famous for saying, we go high when they go low.
[00:11:19] Speaker B: Right, right.
[00:11:21] Speaker C: Can you believe she was described even in that moment as an angry black woman? And I think in faith based settings, the labels can be really awful and difficult to contend with. Can really weather a person that is taking a stand in this role.
[00:11:40] Speaker B: Right. And I love too how Reverend Horde Owens shares an example of this about how she was in a meeting with other church leaders. And I think, if I remember right, this was an ecumenical setting, so it means there were lots of different leaders from different traditions. And she was accused of yelling in that meeting when what she was actually doing was just expressing her frustration with being disrespected. And that moment that she shared really stood out to me because it wasn't just about how she was feeling. It was about how others were perceiving her feelings. Right. They were policing the boundaries of what was appropriate for her to express as a black woman.
[00:12:25] Speaker C: Yeah. Well. And just what you're saying there ties back to a long history where black women's emotions and leadership styles are misinterpreted through a racialized and gendered lens.
[00:12:40] Speaker B: Right.
[00:12:41] Speaker C: If a white man raises his voice.
[00:12:45] Speaker B: He'S passionate or strong leader.
[00:12:47] Speaker C: He's a strong leader. We all want to follow him.
[00:12:49] Speaker B: Right.
[00:12:51] Speaker C: But if a woman, and then even greater a black woman does it, she's angry.
[00:12:56] Speaker B: Right.
[00:12:57] Speaker C: The double standard is so exhausting and it puts an unfair burden on black women to continually manage not just what they say, but how they say it. Really. They're responsible for managing everybody's perceptions.
[00:13:13] Speaker B: Right. And this change colors, even the way we view history. Right. So what comes to mind for me is the civil rights movement and how these strong women leaders like Coretta Scott King or Fannie Lou Hamer are sometimes historically framed as being nurturing. Right. Rather than say revolutionary when that is what they were.
[00:13:34] Speaker C: Yep. And I think that's really key. Black women were allowed to be strong and have been allowed to be strong in history. In fact, that's another trope. But only as long as they were also demure. Only as long as they backed off the minute that power dynamics were challenged. Because if they didn't and if they pushed back, then it was immediately. They're angry, they're difficult. We don't want to work with them.
[00:14:01] Speaker B: Right, Right. So then back to Reverend Horde Owens.
She makes it very clear, and I love this part, she makes it very clear that she's not here to fit into somebody else's mold. Of what it means to be a leader. And it really struck me when she said she's not just a colorized version of what came before. That was a very powerful moment. I thought, you know, she's saying that she is going to lead in her own way. She's going to bring her own history and her own experiences as a black woman. And she refuses to be a kind of colorized token or puppet in this role.
[00:14:41] Speaker C: Exactly. And she even says if she's not allowed to do that, there might not be another Terry.
[00:14:46] Speaker B: Right, right.
[00:14:47] Speaker C: And I thought that was so important, that if she's just expected to be a puppet to fit in a mold, then everyone will kind of say, check that off of our list. Now we can go back to the way things have always been done.
And so what she's doing is really showing that leadership doesn't have to be. To have to fit in to this white male framework. And I'm super thankful of that because I'm white, but I'm not a male. And so I can feel that, too. And I just love that this leadership role can be deeply rooted in identity, her identity as a black woman, her experiences. And honestly, I think that's what makes her leadership so vital right now at this time in history. It's not just. It can't just be a symbolic victory. It's a shift. I think it's a shift in how we think about power. It's how we think about faith and the voices that we're really willing to listen to in the church, how we read scripture when we can hear from other voices. It can't just be about the 49.5%, Jason.
[00:15:55] Speaker B: Right. And so if I could just also interject. I love what you said there just a moment ago about how even though you're not black, you're a woman, and so you feel. You didn't say it this way, but I'm hearing you say you feel the liberation that she has created because by forging a path where she can lead the way she leads, that means you as a woman, even a white woman, can lead the way you lead. And I will say that that's even to a much lesser extent, liberating for me as a white man, because it means that there should be so many ways that we can lead. And it reminds me, what you said, reminds me of what Dr. Will Gaffney said in our first two episodes when she said, if it isn't good for black women, it isn't good for anyone. Right. And this idea that all of our Liberation is bound up in the liberation of those who are being the most oppressed is a really important concept for us to grasp that by Reverend Dr. Terry Hord Owens getting to lead the way that she needs to lead. It creates space for everybody to lead differently.
[00:17:06] Speaker C: It lets people be people.
[00:17:08] Speaker B: Right.
[00:17:16] Speaker C: Well, so I want to set up this next clip. And I think, speaking of that. So I'm going to say, right. I'm Janelle. I'm a pastor at the Oceanside Sanctuary. But I am also deeply in love with fashion.
[00:17:30] Speaker B: Yes, you are.
[00:17:31] Speaker C: And one of the things and people have noticed and people notice, and sometimes I think it's all they noticed, but that's okay. One of the things I love is kind of the fashion in Scripture.
How fashion, how uniforms, the things that we wear really tell others who we are. It's like we have to cue others to like, we're a safe person. We're not a safe person. We're a person of authority. We're not a person of authority. And we had this really interesting bit of conversation with Dr. Reverend Horde Owens about vestments and the collar. And so I wanted to share this little bit with us. And let's listen into this and then have a little conversation about it.
[00:18:17] Speaker B: Okay, let's do it.
[00:18:23] Speaker A: I reject wearing priestly collars. The reason I do is because I see it as men's clothing. Ironically, robes are women. You know, men have been wearing robes and things throughout history. But, you know, men don the robe, which is really a big dress. Right.
But we have to wear these masculine things that are very uncomfortable and have only recently been made to reflect women's bodies. Right. I was surprised that there was actually, when I was measured for my first pulpit robe prior to my ordination, that they actually made them right for women's busts and with pockets and things like that. That's probably one of my biggest personal things, is that I really do not feel that I have to be draped or clothed like a man. I don't think I have to speak like a man in order to carry the authority that one has always given to a man. And I will wear a stole before I'll wear a collar. I just don't like the collar. I find it in that lots of women here yesterday, lots of women, you know, they're women who are bishops in Episcopal kinds of structures who wear them all the time. And I feel like they're being made to wear what the men wear. And it bothers the heck out of me.
[00:19:47] Speaker B: I'm not gonna say how old we are. But we've been around a minute, you.
[00:19:54] Speaker C: And I, just a minute.
[00:19:55] Speaker B: And listening to that bit made me think about the 1980s power suit.
[00:20:02] Speaker C: Oh, my gosh.
[00:20:03] Speaker B: Do you know what I mean by that?
[00:20:04] Speaker C: Oh, I know what you mean by this. It was, like, newsworthy that women in the workplace were bringing home the bacon and they were wearing these suits. They were skirts, but they. They had suit jackets with giant shoulder pads in them and were tailored, and they were meant to look like, I belong here. I'm going to try to fit in in a man's world, and I can do anything a man can do, but I have to dress exactly or as much exactly like a man without wearing pants as. As I can. And it was really literally all over the news.
[00:20:47] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. And it was exactly. It was such a cultural moment, Right. Because it symbolized women asserting themselves in spaces where they had often been excluded or. Or underestimated. If they were included in those spaces, then it was in these marginalized roles. And so, of course, that's good, right? I mean, it was good that we had this cultural moment where women were able to be included in positions of higher power and authority. But at the same time, it was a kind of capitulation to male power dynamics. Right. Like, in order for women to be accepted as powerful in these corporate spaces, they had to literally dress like men. Right. Is a way of saying that if a woman wants to be taken seriously, they have to wear a man's costume. Right. But here's Dr. Hort Owens refusing to be put into a white man's costume. Right. In the sense of the clergy collar. She talked all about how that's a man's dress, a man's garb, and that, like, gendered language. It would be really interesting to, like, sort of pull apart and investigate, but I think she makes an incredibly powerful point that she refuses to do that because then she's capitulating to those expectations.
[00:22:12] Speaker C: The power suit, the priestly collar, it really is about trying to make women visible in power. And she says she has nothing against the women that do choose to wear a collar. I get that. I feel the same.
But I do think that what Dr. Owens is doing is trying to make space for a leadership style that's not just about being visible, not just putting on the clothes and saying, you have to respect me because I have the collar on, because I'm willing to dress the way that everybody has dressed before me.
And I think what she's really trying to push is she's just trying to be an authentic Leader.
[00:22:55] Speaker B: Right.
[00:22:55] Speaker C: She's not just wearing the collar.
She's tailoring the role to fit who she is rather than the other way around.
[00:23:10] Speaker B: Okay, so what do we do with this? Right. We have this general minister and president, like the Pope of the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, who is challenging these roles, these expectations, as a black woman, as a pioneering leader.
So as two white Christian progressive leaders, a man and a woman, in our role. Right. We share this position of, like, lead pastor in a progressive Christian church.
What's our role in this? Like, what's our place in these dynamics?
[00:23:47] Speaker C: Such a big question. I mean, obviously, we just listen.
I have just taken on. I want to listen, and I want to believe the stories, and so I just really believe her story. I think these conversations are not about making people, white people specifically, feel comfortable.
[00:24:07] Speaker B: Right.
[00:24:07] Speaker C: I think it's really having us take a look at where we have believed these biases, where we have lived into and seen religion really tamp out the voices of black women and not allow for a leadership role.
And so I just think we have to sit with discomfort and really take a look at ourselves.
[00:24:33] Speaker B: Right.
That's good. I think that's exactly what we often don't want to do. We want to bypass the sort of discomfort of sitting with the idea that sometimes, maybe even in our best efforts to liberate women, we have required them to wear the wrong costume. Right. Required them to be inauthentic. And I think that that's hard to disentangle from our sort of good intentions. Right. However poorly informed they might be. So let's do that. Let's sit with that until the next episode.
[00:25:12] Speaker C: Right.
[00:25:13] Speaker B: So in the next episode, we're going to continue our conversation with Reverend Dr. Hord Owens. But this time, our conversation shifts a bit to a discussion about how the table of God, meaning, especially in our tradition, meaning the practice of communion, can be a place for everybody, how it can be a genuinely inclusive table. And she has some great things to teach us about being an inclusive church, which is important to us at the Oceanside Sanctuary. So that was an amazing conversation for us to have with her as well. And also it's perfect because this is the collective table podcast, after all. Right.
[00:25:50] Speaker C: I mean, you'd think we'd figured something out that way, right? Yes, it is pretty perfect.
[00:25:56] Speaker B: Right. But before we end today, we want to leave all of you listeners with a couple of questions to consider before our next episode.
[00:26:06] Speaker C: We do. And actually, before I give the first question, I want to say, hopefully, if you're a member of the Oceanside Sanctuary. Hopefully you're working to go to one of our groups so that you can actually talk about these things in community, in a small group, at a collective table, in person and meet some folks. But maybe you're listening and you don't live near Oceanside.
Have a couple of friends get together and listen to this podcast and then meet at the park and have a conversation. These are important conversations to have in the world of faith and religion and really how we see God.
[00:26:49] Speaker B: Maybe more important than ever, given the state of things in the world right now. Right. It seems more important than ever to stand for women's liberation, for the liberation of black and brown leaders and bodies in the church in spaces that have done so much harm.
[00:27:06] Speaker C: Agreed.
So our first question for you to consider is this. How have your perceptions of leadership in the church been shaped by race and gender?
[00:27:20] Speaker B: Our second question is, whatever your race or gender, can you think of a time when you felt pressured to wear a kind of costume, right, to pretend to be something you weren't in order to fit in at church or maybe in a different kind of space? If so, how did you deal with that?
[00:27:44] Speaker C: And then lastly, we'd like you to consider how your faith or moral commitment calls you to listen and learn from a more diverse set of voices and then maybe make a little commitment to yourself that if you agree with that, you're going to seek out people, books, podcasts to learn from those voices. Maybe make a promise to yourself after this podcast listen.
[00:28:14] Speaker B: That's good.
All right, until next time, Collective Table listeners, it's been a pleasure being with you, and we will see you in episode six.
[00:28:23] Speaker C: God bless you.
[00:28:35] Speaker D: Thank you so much for listening. The Collective Table is a progressive and affirming Christian platform and a production of the Oceanside Sanctuary Church, a church community committed to inclusive, inspiring, and impactful Christian spirituality. We are rooted in the love, peace, and justice of Christ. Check our show notes to find out more about our website and where you can follow us on social media.
And finally, we would love to hear from you. So send us an
[email protected] or leave us a voicemail at 760722, 8522 and you might be featured on a future episode. We can't wait to hear from you and we'll see you soon.
