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Posted by: Denelle

Always a hot topic around 90&9 and in the Christian world in general is the legitimacy, viability, appropriateness of female clergy/women pastors.


It is an interesting debate. When the UPCI was formed by the merger of two other existing organizations there were a high number of license-holding female clergy. If you can find an old timer from that generation they will probably tell you how anointed and powerful those women were. But in the years that followed their numbers dwindled until they are few and far between in our organization today.


The UPCI is not the only organization to struggle with this issue and in fact, it clearly spills over into all facets of Christian living, as made evident by the recent debate among Christian publishers regarding publishing books where the main character is a female member of the clergy.

WaterBrook Press has published two novels featuring a female minister, RITA award-winning Heavens to Betsy (2005) and Earth to Betsy (2006), both by Beth Patillo. Patillo's charming novels have the elements of sassy chick lit, but they've had to overcome a few sales hurdles. Some Christian chains, like Lifeway, balked. Ultimately, Lifeway's top fiction-selling stores stocked the novels, but returns were heavy.

I'm shocked that people would actually return a book because there was a female pastor. Then again, I happen to believe that when Jesus said, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28) that he meant it.





Even though popular t.v. series 7th Heaven, tackled the issue by having the Camden's daughter Lucy attend the seminary and then join her father in pastoring his church and by having family friend Sandy follow in her footsteps, the publishing world is still gun shy. It seems that publishers are also concerned that women will find female ministers unrelatable or not flawed enough to appeal to readers. Or on the flip side that they will expect female ministers to be flawless and will not be interested in reading about their struggles and the proof that they're not.

Novelists writing about women clergy may address the issue of women's ordination head-on: to be true to life, said Hill, novels need to acknowledge that even congregations that hire women clergy are sometimes divided about it. Indeed, the "stained glass ceiling" is central to the plot of Heavens to Betsy. That very issue may increase the novel's appeal, because many women, not just clergy, face challenges to advancement in the workplace.

It will be interesting to see if any of these books gain the popularity needed to further the genre and to keep the debate about female clergy in the mainstream.