“Today I feel the grief around me. I feel the weight of disappointment and lost hopes.
I feel my own despair and wonder if things will ever change.”
These are words I wrote in February of this year after motions to introduce women’s ordination into the Lutheran Church of Australia (LCA) were once again defeated.
The LCA has been debating the ordination of women for almost all of my adult life. I grew up in the LCA. My father was a Lutheran minister. My maternal grandfather was a Lutheran minister. My ancestors came out to Australia so that they could practice their Lutheranism with integrity. You could say Australian Lutheranism flows in my blood.
And yet, for all my life I knew that I was not regarded as equal in this space. This was not because I only saw men preaching from the pulpit. In my formative years, I most often saw Dad in the pulpit and in that role I was not conscious of his gender.
Rather, I was aware I was not equal when boys (including my younger brother) were given opportunities that were not offered to me. I was aware that despite demonstrating physical strength equal to my male peers, I was not considered strong enough to do certain helping jobs. I was aware that my anger towards injustice was dismissed and belittled. I was aware that my voice was often silenced.
In the late 90’s, I was attending a Lutheran church. In the bulletin there was a vacancy advertised for the role of editor of the bi-monthly newsletter. The role included collecting, compiling and typesetting the newsletter, as well as writing an editorial. The advertisement was repeated for a number of weeks, without anyone expressing an interest in the role.
I knew I had the skills to fulfil the role. I didn’t, however, have the confidence that I would be taken seriously. It has been my practise that when I think I can do something, and when there is a clear need, I take a deep breath and jump in. So, I volunteered.
I don’t remember how many issues I oversaw. I think I held the role for about a year. And then the issue of women’s ordination arose. At that time, I had no formal theological training, although I had been immersed in theological conversations all my life. I felt the call to write something on the ordination issue, but I knew that I had to be careful, subtle, sensitive. I preceded writing the editorial with much trepidation.
I argued that we shouldn’t ordain women just because it was fashionable, and we shouldn’t not ordain women because of tradition. Rather, we should submit the issue to prayer. I thought this was a balanced suggestion in line with the Lutheran tradition in which I was raised.
I sent the newsletter file to the pastor, as was my usual practice. He was responsible for printing and compiling the newsletter. He said nothing to me but changed my words, printed it under my name, and I discovered this when I was sitting in the pew, ready to begin the next worship service. On that day I walked out of the Lutheran Church of Australia and I haven’t returned as a member since. (Since 2021 I have been employed by the training body of the LCA, a move I took with some trepidation.)
Today, I would name his actions as clericalism, misogyny and spiritual abuse. At the time, I simply named it as unethical.
This year I again witnessed clericalism, misogyny and spiritual abuse played out within the LCA at the General Synod meeting. I attended this meeting partly as a networking opportunity in my role at the LCA training college. However, I also attended to stand in solidarity with my sisters in the LCA who have heard the call to ministry but who continue to have their voices silenced.
In many ways, this time around I have no skin in the game. I have no desire to be ordained and I am a member of a denomination that has ordained women for many years. And yet, when the outcome of the vote was announced I was simply devastated. In the evening I attended a service with others who were disappointed at the outcome, but every instance of male God language in the service further grated on my nerves.
While singing songs that I have been singing since I was a child and so are written on my heart, I became aware just how male-centric this tradition is. The road to Emmaus was the reading and the preacher made an offhand comment about the two men on the road. The readings, the prayers, the benediction were all saturated with ‘He’ and no-one around me seemed to notice.
Perhaps this explains some of my reaction. Because even if the LCA does decide to ordain women in future, I am not sure I can ever return to a church that is so unconsciously male focussed. I don’t want to be the squeaky wheel, consistently pointing out the issues that lie just below the surface. I don’t want to sit in church bracing myself against every Lord, and King, and Master.
Lutheran teaching has shaped who I am. Lutheran theology is my theological mother-tongue. Lutheran identity is my heritage. But unless something drastic changes, Lutheranism in Australia will not be my future.
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