(Image: June Freeman is ordained to the office of elder on November 17, 1985 in the Owosso, Michigan RLDS congregation. Photo courtesy of Community of Christ Archives.)
This episode features the stories of when women knew they were called to serve in the priesthood; the actual ordination process; and the challenges our interviewees faced in this process.
Featured Interviewees: Jane Gardner, Marge Troeh, Linda Booth, Becky Savage, Gwendolyn Hawks-Blue, Carolyn Brock, and Charmaine Chvala-Smith
Written and produced by: Becca Angstadt, C’20; Payton Armstrong, C’20
Duration: 19:44
Transcript
Podcast Intro:
Music…. [“Bird Therapist”]
Becca:“This is ‘Women’s Rites: A Podcast about Women’s Ordination,’ written and produced by students at Smith College!”
Music….
Common script intro:
Payton:“Hi, I’m Payton
Becca: And I’m Becca.
Payton: We’re your hosts for this episode of ‘Women’s Rites.’ This season, we are exploring the story of women’s ordination in Community of Christ, a church with a quarter million members and formerly named the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. This denomination began ordaining women in 1985, and, on the 35th anniversary of these first ordinations, we’re taking this season to look back on the journey towards women’s ordination in Community of Christ. To do so, we’ve interviewed women ordained in the first decade after the 1985 policy change, women who went on to be leaders in Community of Christ.
Becca:Each episode in this series investigates a different topic, and today, we’re going to look at The Call to the priesthood. We asked these women about the actual moment of their calling, what it means to be called, and why they chose to accept their calling. We also asked about the challenges of being called, and received some incredible stories in response.
Payton: For our first question, we asked: What does it mean to be called to the priesthood and why did you personally choose to accept the call?
Charmain Chvala-Smith: In our denomination, it starts in a different place, really. The individual may be open to the idea that there may be a call, whether it’s an ordained call or not, that’s part of what our discipleship is, is being open to what God might be calling us to. But for ordination, the call has to be originated from the pastor. Part of the pastor’s role—the elder in charge of the congregation, the pastor—is to discern those people in the congregation that God may be calling to specific roles—those ordained roles. The pastor discerns where there might be a call for someone, and then sends that call up the chain, as far as the administrative chain, and then sends it to the mission center president, or to world church, to make sure, first of all, that there aren’t any concerns about this person……
Becca:This description comes from Charmaine Chvala-Smith, who was among the first wave of women who were ordained in 1985. Chvala-Smith went on to describe her own call.
Charmaine: It turns out the person that processed my call, the pastor who processed that, actually even submitted it before they were supposed to submit them, because he felt very strongly about that. And because you had to wait for the pastor to come and tell you that you had a call, it was seen as bad form to tell anybody that you might be feeling like you were going to be called to some ordained office, because it would look like you’re wanting it, you’re wanting this power, this recognition, or whatever.”
Payton: Another description of the meaning behind being called to the priesthood comes from Jane Gardner, who has held several roles, and most recently serves as Presiding Evangelist, offering spiritual council to the church as a whole.
Jane Gardner: So for us in, in light of the phrase that I said to you: “All are called according to their gifts,” so it’s important in our denomination that not only—it’s kind of a three-legged stool—not only does the person feel a call within themselves but their jurisdictional leaders would sense a call and then the congregation itself always votes to support a call, so there’s like three parts to that so that’s kind of the process.
Becca:On a more intimate note, Marge Troeh, who served as the Director of Women’s Ministry for the RLDS Church in the 1970s and early 80s, describes the events that surrounded her own calling.
Marge Troeh: My call was very unique. I was not among the first called. And that was important because of the role that I had played at the world Church. It definitely, it was not about me, and trying to get me ordained and so forth. It was about broadening the ministry that occurred in the church….I served for the church on the national board of Church Women United, when we became a participating denomination nationally, I represented the church there, and so, I attended many meetings of the board and executive committee and so forth. I had different roles there, and I… They walked the walk with me. They heard the stories of our struggles, there were women from all different denominations, they had all different stances on ordination and so forth. Many of them had been ordaining women for a long time, but many of them, it seemed, was very token. We worked to that broader definition of ministry. So when women were ordained, y’know, when that revelation came that was in 1984. I had served until 1982 on the world church level and then it became very obvious to me that I did need to resign, that things would not move forward as long as I was there, because I was perceived by some as too pushy or as a stumbling block, I don’t know, and it became with some that they couldn’t even hear what I was saying on any subject without focus, focusing it back into for women.
And so I resigned in ‘1982. ‘1984, when the revelation came I was amazed. I knew it would come some time, but I did not expect it to be that soon. And so, I was amazed, I was thrilled. They shared it at World Conference. I got home that afternoon, and the phone started ringing off the wall, with calls from my ecumenical friends from all over the country, from all different faiths.
Payton:Building on this last question, the next section that we’re moving into deals with personal reactions to being called to the priesthood. Many of the women described the experience as “Emotional” and “Humbling”, but some gave detailed stories about the moment that they first realized they were called to the priesthood.
Payton: Can you describe the moment when you first realized you were called to the priesthood? How did you feel?
Marge Troeh: I knew some time my call would come. Well, I said I was on the national board of church women United, I was on their ecumenical development team, and we were having a team meeting- tried to have it in New York and it did not work out for travel, for accommodations for various things. I suggest that they come to Independence, Missouri they could be housed in the Local unit, members’ homes. They could meet at my house, so that was arranged. they were going to be there on Thursday through Sunday. on Wednesday, the day before, I got a phone call from my pastor and as soon as I heard his voice, I went “Oh no, no, not now!” I have floors to mop and beds to make and things set up, and you that…All right, I can pray while I’m mopping floors. ’cause he and the fellow with him wanted to- one of his counselors wanted to come over that night and talk to Dick and me, and I knew then that it was to present a call. He came in and he saw there in the dining room, the easel set up and the big table and everything, and he said, “What is going on?”
And I told him about the meeting of women from all these faiths that were going to be at my house and he said “that’s wonderful. Do you think they could come to church and worship with us on Sunday morning? Because I’d like to present your call in and have you respond to it.”
Becca:That story, again, was from Marge Troeh, who served on the national board of Church Women United and resigned just two years before being called. Another story comes from Linda Booth, who has served in several different roles since the calling that she describes here.
Linda Booth: And so the pastor of our congregation called me and asked me to have lunch with him at a place called Tippins that served this delicious homemade pie. And I remember thinking, this pastor had never asked me to do anything- I’d always been asked by other people to participate in services- and he reminded me of my grandfather. And so I had this kind of strange sense of wonder about this man so when he invited me to have lunch with him I thought, “My goodness. Maybe he’s gonna call me to the priesthood.” So we sat there during lunch and instead of calling me to the priesthood he said, “Linda, I believe you’ve been running for priesthood and as a result of that I’m not calling you.”
And I just sat there and I cried. And I said, “I’m sorry if there’s been anything I’ve done to disturb you, that has never been my intent.”
And when I came home, I told my husband, Doug, and he was furious, and he said, “You can’t give a non-priesthood call, that’s just not right!”
Well, first of all I need to tell you that the man who gave me the non priesthood call eventually gave me my priesthood call. And he met in our living room and he said, I, I know that God has a call to you to serve as an elder. He said, I know you know that I’ve struggled with your call. He said, You’ve always been on the forefront of women’s ministry and he said to me that has always made me very uncomfortable. I had led a congregational retreat. And during that retreat. They had a guest minister, a minister from the international church. He came and he told my pastor. He said, “Linda has a call. I hope you recognize that,” and so my pastor said he began to pray about it and realize that I did have a call. So when he shared the call with me, I immediately said yes, because of the experiences that I had had in the past, knowing that God had called me and that I was to be prepared to accept that call.
Now, that was my first call to elder. Then about a year and a half later, I was called to serve as a counselor in the high priest quorum was called as a high priest in Community of Christ, which has different priests to roll and that call. I was able to answer quickly and say yes to and felt that call my call to apostle was a very different experience and in 1994
I had gone to the International Conference in Independence, Missouri where they were dedicating the temple. And at that dedication service. There were so many people, there are some watched it in the temple and others of us watched it in the auditorium via the TV screen.
And as I was walking in the corridor of that place with lots of people packed together from all over the world, speaking different languages. I had this idea that came into my mind. I can’t really describe it. I say it was a voice, but it wasn’t a voice. But it was a knowledge that came to me and it was you need to begin to prepare to serve as my apostle.
Becca: Unlike the last two stories, Charmain Chvala-Smith gave a personal anecdote that will likely resonate with many listeners. In this section, Charmaine struggled to reconcile her ideas of what ordained ministry looks like with her own calling.
Charmain Chvala-Smith: I’m seeing men in dark suits and white shirts and a tie, you know, which is like—I can’t do that! And so it was like, I really had to come face to face with some of my own inherited and imbedded ideas about what ordained ministry looked like, and I’m just thankful for that, but it was both, on the one hand, well I can’t be that, and on the other hand, well why would I think that’s what I need to be, to be an ordained minister? But it was kind of embarrassing on the one hand to realize that was still there. These images of maleness as being normative for ordination.
Payton: Her story offers a great transition into the third question that we asked our interviewees. As she came to terms with her internal struggle to support her own calling, many of the newly ordained women faced both support and opposition from their communities. For our third and final question, we asked: How did people around you react to your call and subsequent ordination? Where did you find support and where did you find opposition? Here are two stories, from Becky Savage and Gwendolyn Hawks-Blue.
Becky Savage: I had support from my mom who was ordained early, I think 1986, and who was of course a female pastor, so I had support from there. There were two women in my congregation who were ordained early in the 1985-1986ish time period, so we had strong women leaders in our stake, so there were good leadership mentors that way.
Gwendolyn Hawks-Blue: When the call came, I only shared it with my then-husband. I didn’t take it outside of our immediate family. He…he was opposed. As I watched the process, because I would have been a part of that first wave had I accepted at the moment, but it was a year later before, within a year because you only had a certain amount of time and then you had to let them know something. So, just short of a year I had watched the trauma that affected the Church overall, with people leaving, people refusing to be ministered to by women. But none of that occurred within the congregation I attended. In fact, I had a woman who was a convert to the Church who, unaware, of course, that I had been called and said, you know, you are going to be called. And I felt that was an affirmation of the call, and certainly took it as support.
Becca: For our final quote, we have a story of interfaith and inter-family support from Carolyn Brock, who served with her husband in Kenya at the time of this story. Both of them had completed course work at Notre Dame University before going to serve in Kenya.
Carolyn Brock: My husband was very supportive. Our. . . and it was interesting how our Catholic friends. Several of the Catholic priests and brothers who were really close to out of our Notre Dame course lived in Nairobi and came and honored that process for me and very excited for me. And I found that interesting because women still in their tradition are not allowed to have to serve as priests. I think that some of them personally disagree with that. And that, that they didn’t directly say that very much a very often, but I found a lot of support from them.
Payton:Today we’ve heard from several of the first women in the world to be ordained to the priesthood in the Community of Christ. We heard the differing ways women in Community of Chist received their call, and some of the challenges they faced from within their congregations and beyond. We thank these women for sharing their stories with us, and shedding light on what it means to be called to the priesthood and how it shaped their lives. In our next episode, we’ll hear from women reflecting upon the first sacraments they administered and further address the challenges they faced once ordained.
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Payton: That concludes our podcast for today. Special thanks to [name people who you quoted]. Also, thanks to Dan Bennett, Travis Grandy and Yasmin Eisenhauer of the Smith Learning, Research, and Technology Team. Thanks to Rachel Killebrew of Community of Christ Library Archives. And thanks to the Andrew Mellon Foundation that supports public-facing student writing at Smith College. Tune in next time on Women’s Rites!”
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