By Laura Rector
“Integrity is who you are when no one’s looking,” I was told as a college student. As an ethicist earning her Ph.D. at Fuller Seminary, I agree only in part.
Choices made in private do matter. In recent weeks, private decisions of Fuller alumnus Scott Adam mattered when he and his companions were caught by Somali pirates. The media wondered why Christians would risk everything to take Bibles to the ends of the earth, even though the sailors likely never dreamed the whole world would learn about their decision.
Most of our private choices don’t have attention brought by pirates. Yet those choices still matter. If a minister has a public face that people commend but spends his private time looking at Internet pornography, that choice reflects his true character. It does matter what we do when no one’s looking.
It matters just as much, however, what we do when we know the whole world is looking.
In the past few weeks we have seen that it matters what governments do in the Middle East as the whole world looks at the public demonstrations of their citizens. It matters that some Wisconsin lawmakers are hiding away in a very public way to block legislation.
Our public character matters as much as our private integrity. As a woman in ministry, I feel this every day. I’ve discovered that it matters just as much how male colleagues treat in me in public as how they treat me in private.
Some male ministers, for example, say privately, “I support women pastors,” but they fail to acknowledge female colleagues like me in public. Or they act embarrassed by us in front of their conservative “ministry is for men only” colleagues and friends. Or they treat us in disrespectful ways they would never use with a male colleague, like failing to introduce us or include women in public events. When they do these things, their private face becomes meaningless when compared with their much more hurtful public one.
Sometimes character is who we are when everyone is looking. Will we speak up for the person being marginalized or hide our thoughts because our community might disagree? Will we completely reverse our position on women in ministry, because we’re worried about the opinion of people we respect?
Will we sign the Baptist Faith and Message and hurt women pastors, despite our private beliefs, because community pressures put our reputation, job and retirement funds on the line?
Will we stay silent about women’s leadership at small Baptist colleges, because the trustees or our dean might be unhappy with us?
For women in ministry, what people do when they know others are watching, when reputations and community stakes are on the line, matters daily.
That’s why it was especially encouraging last month to watch Baptist Women in Ministry sponsor the Martha Stearns Marshall Month of Preaching. According to the BWIM Facebook site, close to 200 churches participated.
These churches didn’t just say, “Between you and me, I think it’s OK for women to preach, but I can’t do anything about it.” Rather, they made their beliefs a public witness by allowing women to preach at least one Sunday during February.
When it comes to women in ministry, our public face matters as much as our private beliefs, and it should continue to matter as long as there’s even one church being publicly ousted for having a woman pastor or one female pastor daily discouraged by male colleagues. It matters as long as faith statements against women in ministry are still supported by the largest Protestant denomination in the United States and as long as there are jobs closed to women merely on the basis of gender.
As long as these things still happen, we must have churches that put their character on public record. Close to 200 churches allowing women to preach this month was a good start, but only a start.