Doubling Down

Another church convention closed in this season of church conventions, assemblies, general conferences, general synods, and annual meetings. The gatherings of these bodies include opportunities for worship, fellowship, education and awareness. The preached word is present. God is in the midst. And, as decisions are made, the political reality of the church is on display.

The word “politics” is flung as a dirty word in the church. The notion that the church is not or should not be political is a false one when politics permeates the life of the church and the church has sought to influence political will throughout its history. Add to that, the prophetic witness required of the church demands being able to read and comment on the signs of the times, calling truth to power and advocating for justice in the public square.

Advocacy for the poor and the hungry is justice. Speaking out on behalf of women and children who are often ignored is justice. As is the on-going advocacy for the civil rights and human rights of those who perpetually find themselves relegated to the margins of society. That is a longer list than the law or the church should allow. Inequities continue to permeate disenfranchised millions around the world.

Politics, by definition, is the process by which individuals and groups decide on rules, laws, and policies that affect everyone. At its best, the goal of politics is to organize our collective lives in a way that helps us live together peacefully and share access to goods and services we could not secure alone. It involves discussion, debate, compromise, and above all, cooperation.

Though hard to receive and harder to negotiate at time, politics is all about “who gets what, when, and how.” The church is involved and participates in the political realm in many ways, and the church is entrenched in its own politics as it determines access to power, authority, and resources.

The United Church of Christ through its 69-year history has attempted to be on the right side of justice, its strong commitments to a just world for all. The commitments of the church have been evidenced in the resolutions approved by the General Synod over the years. These have totaled over 900 actions speaking to a variety of issues in the church and in society since 1957. The list is long, the actions prophetic, and sometimes the decisions of the General Synod are challenging to the body, including the decision for marriage equality in 2005.

By now, many do not remember the 1971 pronouncement on “The Status of Women in Church and Society” which identified the injustices facing women and “called on the members, local

churches, Conferences, Instrumentalities, and other national agencies of the United

Church of Christ to: Insist on increasing opportunities for women in theological education, ordination, voluntary roles, and employment at all levels of the church’s life-as pastors, as

national and judicatory staff, with equal pay for equal work, and as members and officers of the policy-making boards and agencies of the denomination.”

Fifty-five years later, women are still disenfranchised in church and society. The fight for women’s rights is as political as any other conversation in the life of the church. Yet, the challenges facing women in the church are largely ignored. Low wages. The Inability to have a call with a living wage. Finding an ordain-able call. Being placed in positions yet denied the authority for the roles they have. Abilities questioned regardless of experience and education.

And, while the United Church of Christ can point to its historic first in the ordination of Antoinette Brown Blackwell on September 15, 1853, by the Congregational Church in South Butler, New York, women are still struggling to be ordained in the UCC and around the world. The voices of women are yet being muffled in the church. This too is a cry for justice, even as the objectification of women and the devaluing of women is heard from the highest political office in the United States. Church and society determining “who gets what, when, and how.”

The Southern Baptist Convention is one of many that continues to perpetuate the claim that women should not be ordained. They are not alone in that, their witness and claims are just more public and loud. And so it was that on June 10th in the year of our Lord, 2026, in Orlando, Florida, thousands of Southern Baptists overwhelmingly voted to advance a formal ban on women pastors in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, sending a clear message that men alone should preach to these conservative evangelical congregations.

That too is the greatness of the moment, the longing for yesterday, a hankering for a time when things were “different. “Women “in their place” using Biblical narratives and outdated social mores. Women taunted and teased. Women vilified because they dare to take their place in the pulpit, in government, in leadership, as heads of agencies and organizations, as professors, as anything they want to be in this world. Women’s bodies legislated by men. Women’s rights determined by men. Regardless of how far women have come in the home and in the workplace, there is yet more to be achieved. Patriarchy rules the day in determining who gets what, when and how.

The United Church of Christ may be well ahead of others in the ordination of women. Now, it needs to address equity and access. And, while working to address those issues, the commitment to seek the ordination of women across the church must continue. The quest for women’s rights is here and now.

In the 1971 resolution, the United Church of Christ General Synod “called on the United States Senate to ratify the United Nations Convention on Political Rights of Women” which was pending before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. A bold move in the struggle for women’s rights. The United States did not sign or ratify the United Nations Convention on the Political Rights of Women which was adopted in 1952. Nor has it ratified the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) which was adopted in 1979 by the United Nations General Assembly.

The church was bold then and must continue to be bold and courageous now, finding and addressing the prophetic witness. Speaking on issues as they emerge. Daring to be on the side of justice which is a part of our faith. Justice for women is political.

“We are not free until everyone is free” Fannie Lou Hamer.

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