Spirit Restoration Exclusive:

 

A Heart-to-Heart Chat
with Frederica Mathewes-Green

By Lisa Baker

Go to Archive of Frederica Mathewes-Green articles

I leaped at the chance to interview Frederica Mathewes-Green. After reviewing her book Real Choices, I wanted to know more about the author, who impressed me as being something of a contradiction, being a feminist/pro-life, and feminist/Orthodox. Or so I thought. Besides, I was going to talk to a real live author, a thrill any other fledgling writer can surely identify with! I found Frederica to be warm, gracious, and very easy to talk to.

Lisa: As far as feminism goes, the label "feminism," where do you consider yourself now?

Frederica: I went through rather a shift on that. You may have noticed on the web-site that I was an officer, vice president, of Feminists for Life for a while. That was the only pro-life organization I was associated with, the only place I felt comfortable, as on old, ex-hippie! So there was a time...[laughter] My viewpoint then about a feminist was Gloria Steinem’s definition, of anybody who believes in the full equality in value of men and women. But as time went by, I began to feel that is not really the popular definition of a feminist. The popular definition included a whole package, from political opinions on different things down to questions of style. It was a much more elaborate definition than the very simple Steinem definition. And so when I used it, I was not representing what people would think feminist meant. So I began to think that it wasn’t quite honest to use a term and have a private definition. It wasn’t that I changed my mind about Steinem’s definition, but it was as a writer that I thought it was important we use words that people can understand. And if I call myself a feminist, and I am pro-life, people aren’t going to understand that. So I resigned actually from my vice-presidency, and it was of course something my fellow officers didn’t understand because they weren’t writers. But had more to do with my sense of the importance of using words carefully. It was never a question of whether I disagreed with the definition.

As I moved away from the label, I guess my thinking began to shift, and I was increasingly sympathetic to the work of Betty Freidan, who wrote about the "Second Stage" of feminism. She explained that in her view feminism had gone wrong in continuing to postulate men as the enemy. And that we would reach a point where it was necessary to reunite with men for the progress of both men and women. And that we were wasting energy and hurting ourselves by continuing to say that women and men have separate and antagonistic needs, that the pie is only so big and if women are going to advance we are going to have to take pie away from the men. It was a very controversial book and many feminists were very displeased with it. But it really clicked for me. I began to think about the injustices and divisions in our culture, and it seemed to me to have much more to do with class and race than with gender. A wealthy white woman and an impoverished woman of color have much less in common with each other than they have with their spouses or their children. There was something that was not only not helpful--- actually not true--- in continuing to insist that the primary problem is male/female. I think rather it is class divisions, and usually race divisions are a subdivision or reflection of class division---as opposed to gender divisions. I have really come to agree with the thesis of this book; the time for the antagonism of men has passed and we really need to reunite to form a better culture for all of us together. So at that point-- and I am giving such long answers!---my separation from feminism became one of philosophy and not merely one of name. But it started with rejecting the label.

Lisa: I find your explanations helpful. I think injustice and divisions are very much where we are as people today, and particularly in light of the week’s events. Now, if you don’t mind, let’s spend a little bit of time on another change in your life, your conversion from Episcopalianism to Orthodoxy. I was intrigued by something you had written, about singing "happy songs about a Jesus who loved much and demanded little. I would appreciate hearing something about that sense of Jesus in your prior denomination, that he demanded too little. Can we talk about that?

Frederica: I would say that even more I am not talking about Episcopalianism, which is a very diverse denomination, but more specifically Evangelicalism. Very emotional, heartfelt, very sincere, but a very emotion-based kind of approach to faith. I think that is probably diffused throughout Western Christianity. But Evangelicalism was the kind of niche I was in. The problem is that we live in a consumer society, and in a consumer society everything is about pleasing the consumer. And when people who love Jesus want to present Jesus to the society, or to the members of their churches, the only language they have to do this with is to say that "Jesus will make you happy. Jesus will meet your needs. Jesus loves you." It’s not like that isn’t true, but that is the only piece of the story they emphasize. Just like when you go to buy a new car, the dealer emphasizes how it looks and how it smells, and they don’ t emphasize that you have to change the oil every three thousand miles. In American Christianity, I think pretty universally there is an assumption that the important thing about faith is that it will put your life in order and give your life meaning, and keeps that image of God as someone who is doting on you and is there to comfort you and make you feel better.

Lisa: So your objection, if I understand you correctly, is to this feel-good, fast-food version of the gospel, what Chuck Colson referred to as the "McChurch?"

Frederica: Yes. Now I have not read that, but I can refer to C. S. Lewis, who said we don’t really want a father in heaven, we want a grandfather in heaven, "somebody who likes to see the young people enjoying themselves." And that is human nature. We don’t want someone who is going to chastise us as a loving father does, as it says in Proverbs. We don’t want to repent, although that is the single most consistent and frequent message that Jesus has.

We don’t want to face the fact that we are broken and out of order and in rebellion against God. Like the woman who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears, we need to admit our own sinfulness and receive forgiveness at the very depths of our being. We don’t want to do that. We just want God to be just nuts about us, to build our self-esteem. Our self-esteem is such a red herring. You know our self-esteem is low and we try to fix it through self-indulgence, and that backfires because you can’t have very much respect for somebody who is so self-indulgent. But all we know to do is go buy more stuff and eat more stuff, you know, pamper ourselves more.

Lisa: Oh don’t I know! [more laughter]

Frederica: Our self-esteem keeps sinking because we don’t have any self-respect. And the real way to healing is to go the opposite direction---to say, "I have lied," "I have not been faithful," "I have not loved my neighbor as I should"---to repent. And when you see how much God has forgiven, you are then filled with joy, and then you want to repent more. You want to change more. And your joy gets bigger and bigger because you start seeing how safe it is in the arms of God, and how enormous his love is for us. Until you begin to test that, and until you begin to see that, how deep your sins are, [God is] just the Granddaddy who’s kind of foolish and just fond of and amused by everything. To bring that back to your question the real division for me for leaving Western Christianity, to make it broader than Episcopal, for Eastern Christianity, ancient Christianity, was to see the liberation and joy in repentance, and how that enables me to see how great God’s love is.

Lisa: I confess to not being real up-to-speed on Orthodoxy. But I have tried to do a little homework before speaking with you, and one of the things that pops up again is that, well, something that doesn’t sound quite right, like the feminist who is pro-life. Orthodoxy seems to me, and please correct me if I am mistaken, to be restrictive of women’s roles, particularly in leadership in the church. Can you address that for me, either correct me, or tell me how you reconcile that?

Frederica: Sure. In some places Orthodoxy is in nations where the ethnic culture is restrictive of women’s roles. That is not true in America, and that is not part of Orthodox theology. At my parish, for example, women do everything that men do, except altar service. Women are not ordained to liturgical roles. Now let me come back to that. Let me tell you what women do. I think that when we think about this in Western Christianity, the question has always been, "can women be ordained, should we have women’s ordination, and what is ordination?" It means becoming a pastor. Primarily that’s what people think. And being a pastor means being a counselor, being able to run a meeting, being able to teach and to preach. And of course a woman can do all those things as well as men. Why should women be restricted from that? In Orthodoxy, women can do all those things. I have preached from the pulpit of Orthodox churches over and over. If we look at the history of our church, we don’t have a magisterium like Rome. There [is] a lot of ethnic orthodoxy that nobody has ever written down, what the rules are or why we do it this way. But we believe that the Holy Spirit is active in the history of the church. And we try as much as possible to do things the way they did in the first, second and third centuries. If something has remained a constant pattern until now, then we believe that is evidence of the Holy Spirit. If we looked at it in that way, what have we honored women for? We have honored women who were evangelists, like St. Nina of Georgia, who went into Georgia all alone and evangelized that nation. There are women who have been preachers, teachers, counselors, all the things you think of pastor as doing. There are women who have ruled over entire nations who are saints, so there is not a question can women lead men. Of course they can. Look at the Empress Irene. Women have done all these things we traditionally think of as being the pastor’s role in Western Christianity. The one thing that they haven’t done is ordination to the priesthood and the episcopacy. There is some evidence of ordination to the diaconate, and some evidence suggesting it is something different---that is unresolved right now. But altar service seems to have always been restricted to men. Now this is something, like I have said, in Orthodoxy there are times that we have never spelled it out. And there is not a clear theology of why this is so. We can just look at it and say " this is the way it’s been."

Lisa: So are you going back to the Old Testament, that it was a man who entered the Holy of Holies? Is that what you are saying?

Frederica: No, I don’t think so. I think it really goes back to Jesus. When he chose his twelve apostles he chose only men. And with his holy foresight, he knew that this would be a basis for decision-making for the church for century after century after century, that it was a pattern that had meaning. There were many other things that women did. I mean, immediately there were women martyrs, and preachers and teachers and counselors, all those things; but they were not set apart for liturgical service. It is a question that has been raised again recently, books written, asking ‘should we open ordination to women?" It is something worth talking about. But our basis of decision-making---maybe for a Baptist we just "look it up in the Bible;" for Orthodoxy we "look it up in history." And if it’s not there in history, then we say the Holy Spirit is guiding us as Jesus said he would. And whatever meaning there is, this is the right thing.

Now I have a feeling about it that I wrote in my book At the Corner of East and Now---

Lisa: Which I confess, I have not read yet!

Frederica: It is only my theory, but I have always thought that the idea that we could only have males ordained because Jesus was male was not very logical, because if the incarnation is our kind of window or typology for ordination, then wouldn’t it also have to be a man who was exactly Jesus’ height and had his hair and eye color? I mean, why stop at just gender? But I think the thing that is distinctive about the priesthood at least in Orthodoxy and the liturgical faiths, is the sacraments. What the priest does. He mediates the sacraments, the holy gifts, what we call the holy mysteries in Orthodoxy. I think that the ordained person represents not so much Jesus as he does the Father, from whom every good gift comes, as it says in James. And that there are typological meanings to things like fatherhood and motherhood that are valuable and beautiful.

I think it’s appropriate that the person who stands at the altar representing the Father be male. If a woman stood there she would represent mother, and that would be a different thing. Because of this, in ordination in Orthodoxy, it is preferred that people who are ordained should be married. We have a married priesthood, and a married priesthood is better for parishes because then you do have a mother. The wife of the priest gets a title. He is called Father, and she is called Mother; depending on the culture, of course, if it is Greek she is "presbytera" and he is "presbyter." So the wife of the priest has a role that is non-liturgical, but in any non-liturgical, Protestant church it would be the role the pastor has. The role of leadership, counseling, teaching and preaching, guiding people. She is the Mother of the parish.

Lisa: So I want to make sure I understand this. The Orthodox view in that sense completes the picture of God as having the qualities of both parents, parents of both genders? A whole picture of God?

Frederica: Well---I don’t know if it’s a picture of God. Let me think about that. I think it would be necessary that there be both male and female at the front, and in fact to be a little more specific, a Mother and Father, helping to guide the parish family.

Lisa: I suppose I am relating this to my own context at seminary, where we are having it drilled into our heads to use inclusive language and to avoid consistently using male dominant language, even when we refer to God and the qualities of God.

Frederica: That would not be the view of the early church. Now there are two ways of looking at faith. One is that it progresses or evolves, that we today have more insight than the Christians in the seventh, or twelfth, or second centuries. So we are kind of getting better and better. In that case you could say how misguided they were to use male-dominated language; we have to be careful to be inclusive. The other strain would be that we are no smarter than anybody else. We are probably infected by our culture, enculturated in ways that prevent us from seeing with clear vision. We look out through the lens of today’s newspaper and today’s entertainment, and what’s in fashion. And how can we really see the truth? We try to see truth by looking at what has been held in common for all two thousand years of church history, what has remained, what has emerged. Actually, instead of looking from now backwards, it is better to look from then forwards. Because some things will fall away, but look at what remains. The full equality of men and women before God. That women are sinners just as men are. Women need forgiveness as much as men do. But language for God, seeing God as Father, has never been questioned until maybe a hundred years ago. So as an Orthodox person, somebody whose basis in looking for truth is what has been the wisdom of the ages, [the question is] what is their heritage, their treasure, through all cultures, Eastern and Western cultures, cultures that are oppressed and cultures that are in power, the Christians throughout all time---what have they said? There has never been any problem about using strictly male language for God. So that is what I do. I am saying that there is a good function having both men and women in the church, and that’s a provision of God. But it’ s not a true reflection of God himself.

Lisa: Okay, I can appreciate the things that you have said---

Frederica: Can I add one more thing? You started out asking me about going from the Episcopal church to one that is more restrictive of women’s roles. When I became Orthodox, I was suddenly given many, many more opportunities for ministry than I had ever had as an Episcopal woman. I found that suddenly I was being given all these invitations to come do speaking engagements, to lead retreats, to write for Orthodox magazines, being consulted all the time, being flown all around the country. That never happened to me when I was an Episcopalian. And in my experience, being Orthodox has been much more affirming of my gifts in ministry as a woman than I ever experienced in the Episcopal church. I don’t say that to put down the Episcopal church; you find many women of great skills there. But I say it to show by shocking contrast, that’s not what anybody expects of Orthodoxy. I think it’s a reflection really, of what I often felt as an Episcopalian, that although there was a lot of lip service being given to being "pro-woman," it was actually being in favor of a certain theology about what women should do and be. And if you agreed with that, it didn’t matter if you were male or female, you were given power. And if you disagreed, it didn’t matter if you were male or female; you would be deprived of power. You would not be allowed to speak; you would be stifled. That was certainly my experience. The surprise is, when I came to Orthodoxy, I was not presumed that, because I was a woman, I had nothing worthwhile to say. Suddenly I had this great scope that just hadn’t existed for me before. So worries that Orthodoxy doesn’t know what the gifts of women are, or how to honor the gifts of women, that turns out to be a fallacy. Just as soon as I converted to Orthodoxy, six months after I converted, I was being invited to give speeches. I thought, "What do I know?"

Lisa: That is really quite remarkable. I would not have expected that at all.

Frederica: So it has been quite a shock. And it’s partly because of the long history of women saints. There is just an expectation that women are competent and can do wonderful things, and so they give women room to work.

We chatted for a while longer; this time it was her turn to ask the questions. What seminary did I attend, how have my studies and work been impacted by the destruction of the World Trade Center (three days before this interview took place)? There was something comforting in the dialogue of two women, one not an ordained person in a liturgical church, the other studying to be ordained in a non-liturgical church, yet both doing the same roles. I could share my concerns about what it means to represent one of the historic peace churches in the face of this kind of horror. We shared common concerns over the flavor of the national attitude, that " God will bless what we have already decided to do," the absence of repentance over our own culpabilities, and the absence of anyone asking "Lord, how have we forgotten you?" For two seemingly very different women if all you looked at were the labels, the hearts within were remarkably similar.

Lisa Baker iattended Bethany Theological Seminary and a very valued contributor to Spirit Restoration Ministry.

Go to Archive of Frederica Mathewes-Green articles