The overturning of Roe reminded me that just 6-years ago I put together a team that conducted a diversity audit for one of the largest white evangelical religious organizations in the country that I will call Organization X. It has over 300,000 church members, nearly 1,400 pastors, and has churches and programs in every state and in many foreign countries.
We logged over 20,000 miles going coast to coast interviewing, surveying, and hosting focus groups to assess how these pastors and churches felt about diversity issues around race and gender. Organization X as a body was very conservative with many fervent Trump supporters and many expressing hostile views about diversity, gender equality, and gay rights.
For example, several pastors told me in one district that the Bible prohibited women from holding leadership roles in the church. Another pastor claimed that women can’t have as many rights as men, because Christ wasn’t a woman.
I reminded them of what Sojourner Truth said in 1851 in her Ain’t I a Woman speech. She said: “Where did your Christ come from?” She repeated it for emphasis: “Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with him,” Sojourner said. She went on to say: “If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back and get it right side up again!”
I don’t presume to speak for women but as someone who’s faced discrimination, I support their struggle and know it’s way past time that women have full rights, which means at a minimum that they must have total control of their bodies. The roles that men and women play in society are not biologically determined. They are socially imposed. If men won’t stand with women, what hope is there for change, healing, and restoration?
I warned Org X that if women walked out of their churches tomorrow and established their own, most of X’s churches would have to close their doors. When women are empowered, whole families are empowered, and these benefits have a ripple effect on future generations.
I told Org X that I don’t think religion should be used to justify discrimination and asked them when did Jesus become anti-woman, anti-Black and anti-gay? I encouraged Org X to engage in extra prayer, extra reflection and to seek grace in order to move their members’ hearts towards gender and racial reconciliation. But I also told them that prayer alone is not enough to disrupt injustice. It must be accompanied by action.
