One day, after years of increasing consternation about the ongoing unequal treatment of women within the Church, a woman by the name of Pam Hogeweide stood up and publicly declared:

“The issue of how women are politely oppressed in church is not an issue of theology –  but is indeed – an issue of justice….We need a movement of women (and men) to teach us how to resist these messages of inequality and to occupy our space of full personhood together. The church needs transformation in how half its members are esteemed and treated. If not now, then when? If not us, then who?” (Hogeweide – Unladylike – 2012 – Civitas Press).

Unladylike! Heretic! Traitor! Shouted many of those deeply entrenched in maintaining and defending the status quo throughout the Church and the Kingdom of Christendom.

Unbeknownst to the vast majority within the Church – Hogeweide had come upon the realization “that there was an invisible, secret society of free thinkers roaming the church without hall passes.” For several years, she and a number of women had been gathering surreptitiously in what they refer to as listening parties – where they discussed the injustice of inequality embodied in the laws of Justus and how adherence to these laws continued to negatively impact their personhood, worth, calling, exercise of God-equipped giftedness – potential contribution to their Church, the Kingdom of Christendom – even their relationship with their own daughters – sons and husbands.

A week later, after a long illness, the emperor Justus died.

Imagine…

The above might seem cute or funny if it wasn’t true. Unfortunately, it’s a reality… except that “Justus” is alive and well. For this reviewer, there’s nothing cute or humorous about Hogeweide’s work – and the labor that lies ahead of us to infect the heart of the nation of Christendom with the merits of her profoundly persuasive and comprehensive arguments – and life experience.

Hogeweide’s work is neither a figment of the imagination nor wishful thinking. It’s about the immorality, the injustice of inequality in the Church…and imagining a better way. Unladylike confronts us with a challenge – to begin to ask ourselves and our respective Church community questions –  as – “the hard questions begin when we ask what people are due, and why?”[2]

Benedict Anderson has said that nations are “imagined” communities: essentially they are ideas – that can be re-imagined.[3] Throughout the Bible, the essential truths that a prophetic, spirit of discontentment might provide are aptly represented. “This is the heart of discontentment – we imagine something better and hold that up against reality.”[4] Sociologist Daniel Levinson describes the process as “de-illusionment – a recognition that long held assumptions and beliefs about self and world are not true.[5] Is Hogeweide delusional? Not hardly.

In his most recent book, Nobel Prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman points out “two important facts about our minds: we can be blind to the obvious, and we are also blind to our blindness.”[6] Hogeweide’s work rips the veil of vagueness from the face of this disgrace. Christendom can no longer rationalize the injustice of the ongoing, willful, obvious blindness she so aptly characterizes.

What Sylvia Nasar, New York Times bestselling author of A Beautiful Mind has to say is pertinent to Hogeweide’s work in Unladylike. Nasar writes (in another context); “being spectacularly wrong is often the most powerful stimulus to fresh thinking.”[7] Unladylike is just the powerful stimulus the Church needs at this time, as recent research has characterized women as the backbone of the Church…as well as a dying breed.[8]

Imagine the future of the nations of Christendom – after having discarded the injustice of the present inequality within. Pam Hogeweide does. I applaud her. It took incredible backbone to write a book about the heart of this matter. As we have seen throughout the history of civilization, it takes the heart and beautiful mind of a wise, courageous and creative woman to propel us toward imagining a better way… Dying breed? Not – if Hogeweide and her ilk have anything to do with it.

Finally, a song from my childhood kept throbbing through my head as I read this book. It’s entitled “The Buses Are A Comin.”

Hogeweide’s authorship of this book finally…formally.. introduces a voice that is long overdue a legitimate place on the platform this work places her on. Pam Hogeweide… a freedom writer.”

Imagine that…

NOTES:

[2] Sandel, Michael J. Justice – What’s The Right Thing To Do? Farrar,Straus and Giroux New York, NY Copyright 2009 by Michael J. Sandel, p. 19. Note: A fine source for the comprehensive treatment of the concept of justice (and the challenge of practical decision-making) can be found at http://www.justiceharvard.org/.

[3] Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Copyright © 1983, 1991 & 2006 by Benedict Anderson, Revised Edition ed. 2006 London and New York: Verso, pp. 5-7.

[4] Manayon, Bong The Spirituality of Discontentment – Reflections on The Sermon on the Mount, Ekklesia Press Omaha, NebraskaCopyright © 2012 by Bong Manayon, p. 137.

[5] Levinson, Daniel J., The Seasons Of A Man’s Life, New York: Ballantine Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, Copyright © 1978 by Daniel J. Levinson, p.192.

[6] Kahneman, Daniel Thinking, Fast and Slow, Farrar, Straus & Giroux New York, NY Copyright © 2011 by DanielKahneman, p.24.

[7] Nasar, Sylvia Grand Pursuit – The Story of Economic Genius, Simon & Schuster, Inc. New York, NY Copyright © 2011 by Sylvia Nasar, p. 320.

[8] SEE Henderson, Jim The Resignation of Eve – What If Adam’s Rib Is No Longer Willing To Be The Church’s Backbone, Copyright © 2012 by Jim Henderson, BARNA – An Imprint of TYNDALE House Publishers, Inc.