Ministry in an ‘Untenable Situation’: The RCA Conscience Clauses – by the Rev. Stacey Midge

When I gave my first report as the moderator of the Commission for Women at the Reformed Church in America’s denominational assembly (which is called General Synod), the first person to speak waved a Bible at me from the floor.

“I’m sorry, but I just don’t see women in leadership in here,” he proclaimed.

The comment was out of order, as it was unrelated to the recommendation our commission had proposed, but that also meant that I was unable to respond, and his declaration hung in the air, wafting through our discussion of whether to require gender dynamics training for denominational staff.  Not coincidentally, this occurred in the same year as our celebration of thirty years of women’s ordination in the Reformed Church in America (RCA).  The man who spoke was not the only one in the room who didn’t believe that to be an occasion for celebration.  We had, as we have always had, tension around the appropriate roles of women in the church.  Multiple times during that assembly, I heard people say, “At least we still have the conscience clauses.”

The conscience clauses, which were quoted in full in the prior post by Angie Mabry-Nauta, have been our compromise, our way of keeping unity in the RCA.  In theory, they protect people on both sides.  No one may impede a candidate for ordination because of gender, nor may anyone be forced to participate in the ordination of a woman if it goes against his conscience (I use the word “his” advisedly, as women opposed to women’s ordination would by nature not be included in the governing assemblies of the church).  No one may be disciplined either for favoring or opposing women’s ordination.  In some ways it has worked, especially at the beginning, when it enabled women to be ordained in areas of the RCA which were largely opposed.  It continues to work for those who are opposed, many of whom claim that they would be unable to be part of the RCA if the conscience clauses were removed from the Book of Church Order.

Unfortunately, in my time with the Commission for Women, most of what I have heard are stories of the conscience clauses being used (or misused, as it were) as an excuse to routinely demean and exclude women.  In some areas, female candidates for ministry are examined more harshly than their male peers.  Churches refuse to review profiles of female ministers or to recommend their female students to be considered as candidates for ordination (the first step in the ordination process in the RCA, which is not strictly addressed by the conscience clauses).  Men refuse to participate on committees that include ordained women.  Ordained women are regularly asked to defend their calls to ministry in ways that men would never be, often on the floors of our assemblies.  Supposed colleagues make their point by referring to female ministers as “Ms.” rather than “Rev.”

It can be disconcerting, to say the least, to be a woman minister in the RCA, to receive the mixed messages of a denomination that claims it is happy to have you ordained and serving God and the church, while the delegate next to you preaches and publishes that your ordination is unbiblical and has no authority.

This year at General Synod, we will again vote on the removal of the conscience clauses.  Despite having written that recommendation myself, I admit that my own feelings on the matter are complex.  Some of those who most vehemently defend the clauses, those who say they will be forced to leave the RCA if they are removed, are my dear friends as well as brothers in Christ.  We have often come to our friendships not despite but because of struggling through our differences in biblical interpretation.  I don’t want to lose them to these differences, especially not after we have fought so hard to stay together.  In a wider scope, I strongly believe that the further fracturing of the Church narrows our vision and presents a detrimental witness to the world of the unifying power of the Gospel.

At the same time, we have created for ourselves what I believe to be an untenable situation.  It feels dishonest to invite women into ministry in a system that is likely to abuse them, or at the very least make it extremely difficult for them to find a call.  The removal of the conscience clauses won’t immediately change churches’ willingness to call women, of course, and it will never force them to call anyone against their will, but it will begin to change a culture in which it is acceptable to dismiss female applicants out of hand.  It will not force elders or ministers to believe that women should be ordained, but it will decrease their ability to treat their female peers as second-class citizens.

This lies at the core of the movement to remove the conscience clauses from our Book of Church Order.  The thing that is most valued about the clauses by those who oppose women’s ordination is the very thing that makes the clauses internally flawed.  As much as they were created in part to protect women, by their very existence they undermine the authority of ordained women, and therefore of the ordained offices themselves.

If the conscience clauses are removed, and if some of our members decide that they must seek fellowship elsewhere because of it, I will grieve their departure.  I sense that their leaving will be over more than this issue anyway, but that is a topic for another essay.  What I will not grieve is being able to encourage women to seek ordination in the RCA wholeheartedly.  What I will not grieve is not being told one more time that my ordination is invalid and my ministry less valuable because I am a woman.  What I will not grieve is a witness to the wider church and world that proclaims that in Christ there is no male nor female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus.  You see, this struggle is bigger than just us in the RCA, a rather small and arguably insignificant denomination.

We exist within the larger Church.  We watch as a growing movement would strictly define appropriate roles and traits for men and women, limiting service to God and the Church by gender in accordance with what they deem to be biblical – never mind the parts of the Bible that tell us of women called by God to service in a broad range of capacities.  We watch as Roman Catholic women religious are attacked by the Vatican for caring too much for the poor and hungry, for seeing the feminine aspects of God, for suggesting that women might be more broadly included in the leadership of the church.

We exist within a wider world.  We watch while women are repressed, mutilated, and sold into slavery for the pleasure of men, simply because of their gender.  We watch while political debates rage on about whether a woman is fit to be in our highest elected offices, or even fit to make her own health care decisions.

There is so much we could speak into the injustices of the world, but we cannot even decide whether to fully include women in the offices of our own denomination.  The consequences of doing so may have great impact on us, may shrink us at a time when no church can afford to shrink, may further divide what is already fractured.  But it may also free us to have a greater impact much needed in this broken world so loved by God.

The Rev. Stacey Midge is an Associate Minister at the First Reformed Church of Schenectady, NY.  She has spent six years on the RCA’s Commission for Women and will end her term in June, and is looking forward to serving in other capacities in the future.