Seminary is Taking Over Our Lives!

Jess: So I'm in my third week of class. I haven't drowned in reading and writing yet, and I'm really enjoying all three of my classes so far. I don't think I can pick a favorite because the topics are so different and the professors have a lot of styles, but I'm enjoying each class. I think the most difficult three hour block to get through is Scriptures of the World, simply because it doesn't end until 10 p.m., and I'm pretty tired by then.

I’ve really enjoyed the topics we’re talking about in my Sex and Scripture class. The main focus of the class is women’s role in the Old Testament, New Testament, and today. My professor is a female ELCA pastor who was ordained in 1974—this was before women were generally ordained in the ELCA overall. I am continually appalled by the completely irrational and idiotic sexism she has faced throughout her life. At one point, a Presbyterian pastor said that women should not be allowed to be pastors until after menopause. She had no female role models in the church. She was the role model.

So here we are in the twenty-first century and we think that we’re past sexism. We see books like Man Down by Dan Abrams, saying that women are pretty much better at everything. We see women in positions of power: running for president, serving as CEOs of companies, juggling work and families, etc. Yet sexism is certainly not dead. Even though I haven’t been exposed to a lot of it, Wes pointed out that, on one of the two times I preached for him, people came up to me after the sermon to challenge what I said. They would never dream of approaching Wes in the same way, signifying that he has more authority to preach than I do.

My professor made one point about our continued difficulties with women in positions of power, especially within the church. When a man is in power, we can very easily separate the man’s vocation from his family life. How many times do you think of Obama as being a father first and the president second? More to the point, when the pastor’s wife is pregnant, do we automatically think about the pastor as a soon-to-be father or as the pastor? Yet if a woman were in this position, there would be no denying her sexual, maternal, and family life. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding.

In Old and New Testament times, women were the property of their fathers until they were “sold” to their husbands. Women had no place in society outside of their father’s or husband’s family. In fact, they were not even considered a part of their husband’s family, yet they were no longer a part of their father’s once they were married. This made their place childbearing, bringing the next heir into the world. They were useful for nothing else, and had no power except that which their husband was kind enough to grant them in the moment.

Although Jesus turned this system inside-out (see his teachings on divorce, inclusion of women, healing of women, acceptance of children, etc.), we see this tradition continue to play out today. Women who go to work and leave their children in the care of others are seen as terrible mothers. Yet mothers who stay at home with their children are told they don’t have a “real job.” There seems to be no way to be a mother and satisfy society. We must choose between motherhood and work, yet no choice is the right one.

I’ve rambled long enough. I think I’ve been privileged to not experience a lot of sexism, but I know that this is something I’m going to have to be prepared to attack head on as I go into the ministry. Women pastors are a minority in the ELCA, and I will have to be ready. Part of this preparation will come through the paper I plan to write on this topic in Sex and Scripture. More preparation will come in working with women pastors, building a community of mentors for my future in ministry. And, most importantly, I will pray for God’s guidance and care throughout this path…and thank God for revealing this reality to me early in my ministry education. Amen.

Wes: First off, which seminary looks more exciting/worth attending, Jess' or mine?


Jess'------->

(Weird pointy sign. Lose)

<-----Mine
(Marble Freaking Columns. Win)


That is all on that front.

So. I started my classes this week. It's going to be a busy year, but a good year. I am taking a class on Methodist Studies, a class on Preaching, and a class on Revelation in a Post-Holocaust and Post-9/11 World. I am very excited about all of them.

My United Methodist Studies class fulfills one of my candidacy requirements for becoming an elder in the United Methodist Church. Apparently, they want you to know a little bit about where the church has come from and what the church believes before they agree to let you become a leader of the church. What's up with that? But seriously, it should be very interesting. We are living in a time when every belief system is being questioned, and having a strong foundational understanding of my denomination will help me personally in owning up to my faith as believer in Christ and as a member of the United Methodist Church as well as help me professionally in better articulating to members of my church and visitors alike what it is that we stand for as Christians who worship in United Methodist Churches. I am excited to learn this and then to immediately apply it as I work to teach my first round of Confirmation at Crosswicks UMC. 

I must admit that, already, my Introduction to Preaching class is better than I thought that it would be. Now, I'm not trying to sound boastful or haughty, because I know that I still have a lot to learn and that I am nowhere near perfect at this, but I've been preaching twice a week every week for over a year now. I figure that I have the fundamentals of it down. I'd love to be in an advanced class where I can tweak what I'm already doing and fine-tune things that need to be adjusted, but I figured that this class would just be a redundant waste of time. Wow. I was wrong. My professor is amazing. He just finished his doctorate in homiletics (preaching) from Fuller Seminary, where he did his dissertation on Creative Preaching. I have a lot to learn from him, and I am excited about doing so. I also love that this is not going to be a straight-up lecture class, but is much more a forum and practicum. Even if I do have most of the basics down, he can help me fine-tune and perfect what I am doing so as to be better. 

My last class, Revelation in a Post-Holocaust and Post-9/11 World, is going to be especially interesting for me. A few years ago, after engaging in one of the infamous peat-repeats of the United Methodist Church--God is good all the time and all the time God is good--a friend of mine asked me if I really believed that. Then he asked me if I thought that the Jewish people in Europe after WWII would say that. It really made me think, and really made wonder not only how we as Christians can work to answer to the question of evil in the world, but how we can make such blanket statements like that without any regard for the way that afflicted people might interpret that. What does "God is good all the time" mean for the parent who is watching her children starve because she doesn't have the means to feed them? What does "God is good all the time" mean for the soldier coming back from war who is struggling to understand his experiences of death? How do we find and share God with the world today, in light of such horrors and atrocities? 

I have a lot of reading for my classes. Already in this first week, I've had the whole of three different books assigned to me, and I have about 750 pages more to read by the end of next week. Suffice it to say that the XBOX is going to go untouched for the majority of the semester. 

Well, that's all from us for now! Pray that we still have time to talk to each other in the midst of school, homework, and church! 

You stay classy, World Wide Web!

-wes and jess