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Equality grumble
Feb. 1st, 2015 01:17 pmSo okay, our church got to meet our new pastor today, and ... no, let me back up.
The church I go to has for a long time (well, as long as I've been there) had a female head pastor, first as a co-pastor and then as the only pastor (but head of staff still) and then as head pastor over an associate pastor, always as the highest "rank" even though her leadership style was more inclusive. Call her M. You are welcome to imagine Judi Dench in this role if you like.
The associate pastor B (who has been around for something like ten years now, and there was actually a second associate pastor that then we didn't have enough money for three pastors and there were lots of hurt feelings) is a younger white male. I should add that our congregation is overwhelmingly white; there are a handful of people of various sorts of Asian descent, a couple of Indian (Asian subcontinent type) people, some of Afro-Caribbean descent, but we are 5/6ths white, out of proportion to the racial distribution of our community.
Anyway. A couple years ago, M retired. We are a Presbyterian church, and so there are Rules about this sort of transition process, lots of stuff involving committees and voting and whatnot. B couldn't just "move up" to head pastor even if he wanted to, which he didn't, so we got an interim pastor for a while, while a Pastor Nominating Committee (PNC) did the process of finding and interviewing candidates and suchlike. Our interim pastor was a white male, which bugged me a bit, but it was temporary, and he turned out to be awesome.
The PNC looked in depth at about 125 candidates, narrowed that down to 8 that did (several hour long) Skype interviews, narrowed that down to 2 that got in person interviews, narrowed that down to 1 that they presented to the congregation. Over the last few weeks we have been getting some information about what sort of pastor the candidate was, without any identifying information including gender. Today, we got to meet said candidate, who aso preached, and then after church there was the official congregational meeting voting etc blah.
The candidate, C, is a white male.
Which, ok, is not unexpected. It's also not a deal-breaker in the same way that, say, attitude towards LGBT equality/leadership would be for me. But it's a little crankymaking, because it makes both pastors white males.
During the part of the congregational meeting where the PNC spokespeople were talking about the selection process and had opened the floor to questions, someone (a male PoC) pointed out the white-male-ness and asked how much consideration the PNC had given to gender or racial diversity.
The answer made me wish for a bingo card.
It was basically "The candidates were just pieces of paper at first; we were looking mainly at qualifications and theological fit". Which is a strategy that only works with a level playing field. It's like the "Oh the casting was colorblind, we were looking for the best person for the role" argument for why white people get cast (especially in whitewashing situations). The majority of candidates are going to be white males. That means you can't rely on equality within the playing field to get equality within the selections. You have to actively seek out the underrepresented to give them anything close to a fair chance. And there was no acknowledgment of that.
If I thought it would do any good, I would submit a (probably anonymous because I'm a coward) complaint to the PNC. But the candidate is now our pastor elect (and he seems awesome and seems like a good match; I am not as cranky at his selection as at the process they used), and the PNC will be dissolved after he is officially our new pastor (the presbytery still has to vote, but that's sort of a formality more than anything) and the people in the PNC most likely won't ever be on a PNC again.
So all I can do is grumble here.
The church I go to has for a long time (well, as long as I've been there) had a female head pastor, first as a co-pastor and then as the only pastor (but head of staff still) and then as head pastor over an associate pastor, always as the highest "rank" even though her leadership style was more inclusive. Call her M. You are welcome to imagine Judi Dench in this role if you like.
The associate pastor B (who has been around for something like ten years now, and there was actually a second associate pastor that then we didn't have enough money for three pastors and there were lots of hurt feelings) is a younger white male. I should add that our congregation is overwhelmingly white; there are a handful of people of various sorts of Asian descent, a couple of Indian (Asian subcontinent type) people, some of Afro-Caribbean descent, but we are 5/6ths white, out of proportion to the racial distribution of our community.
Anyway. A couple years ago, M retired. We are a Presbyterian church, and so there are Rules about this sort of transition process, lots of stuff involving committees and voting and whatnot. B couldn't just "move up" to head pastor even if he wanted to, which he didn't, so we got an interim pastor for a while, while a Pastor Nominating Committee (PNC) did the process of finding and interviewing candidates and suchlike. Our interim pastor was a white male, which bugged me a bit, but it was temporary, and he turned out to be awesome.
The PNC looked in depth at about 125 candidates, narrowed that down to 8 that did (several hour long) Skype interviews, narrowed that down to 2 that got in person interviews, narrowed that down to 1 that they presented to the congregation. Over the last few weeks we have been getting some information about what sort of pastor the candidate was, without any identifying information including gender. Today, we got to meet said candidate, who aso preached, and then after church there was the official congregational meeting voting etc blah.
The candidate, C, is a white male.
Which, ok, is not unexpected. It's also not a deal-breaker in the same way that, say, attitude towards LGBT equality/leadership would be for me. But it's a little crankymaking, because it makes both pastors white males.
During the part of the congregational meeting where the PNC spokespeople were talking about the selection process and had opened the floor to questions, someone (a male PoC) pointed out the white-male-ness and asked how much consideration the PNC had given to gender or racial diversity.
The answer made me wish for a bingo card.
It was basically "The candidates were just pieces of paper at first; we were looking mainly at qualifications and theological fit". Which is a strategy that only works with a level playing field. It's like the "Oh the casting was colorblind, we were looking for the best person for the role" argument for why white people get cast (especially in whitewashing situations). The majority of candidates are going to be white males. That means you can't rely on equality within the playing field to get equality within the selections. You have to actively seek out the underrepresented to give them anything close to a fair chance. And there was no acknowledgment of that.
If I thought it would do any good, I would submit a (probably anonymous because I'm a coward) complaint to the PNC. But the candidate is now our pastor elect (and he seems awesome and seems like a good match; I am not as cranky at his selection as at the process they used), and the PNC will be dissolved after he is officially our new pastor (the presbytery still has to vote, but that's sort of a formality more than anything) and the people in the PNC most likely won't ever be on a PNC again.
So all I can do is grumble here.