- Coming up on "American Black Journal", our Black Church in Detroit Series is gonna examine the significant role of women in the church.

We're gonna talk about gender equality in the pulpit, the vital contributions of black women in the church, and the similar challenges that women face in the church and in society.

You don't wanna miss today's show.

"American Black Journal" starts right now.

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(upbeat music) - Welcome to "American Black Journal".

I'm Steven Henderson.

Today we are gonna continue our series on the Black Church in Detroit, which is produced in partnership with the Ecumenical Theological Seminary and the Charles H. Detroit Museum of African American History.

It is Women's History Month, and we wanna take a look at the role of women in the black church.

Although women have long been regarded as the backbone of the black church, they still really struggle to be accepted as pastors and in other positions of authority.

We talked with two black female pastors about all of the issues that impact women in the black church.

Here's my conversation with Reverend Dr. Constance Simon of Fellowship Chapel, and with Reverend Dr. Remonia Chapman from Hartford Memorial Baptist Church.

This is a really great conversation to have during Women's History Month, but it's a conversation we could have all year really about what I will say is the evolving role of women in the black church.

I know there's been a lot of change.

I know there's a lot more opportunity now than there used to be, but we still have lots of things that we should be thinking about and that we should be changing and ways we ought to be opening up more opportunity.

But I actually wanna start with each of you telling me a little bit about what brought you to the roles that you play now in black churches, kind of when you thought about joining the church and being a person of the cloth and then thinking about leadership.

What was it that put you in a position to say that this is what you wanted to do, how you wanted to express your faith?

Reverend Simon, I'll start with you.

- Oh, wow.

Okay.

Well, I've been in the church all my life.

I'm from a small town in Ohio.

I have a ton of siblings.

And every Sunday morning we were either driven to Sunday school or we were walking to Sunday school.

And once church started, we were not there alone 'cause our dad would come with us and my mother was busy getting things together.

And then we would all sit together in church.

We'd take up a whole pew.

I remember being called at the age of 17, well, actually I think it was before that, but I never was able to identify it.

But I have never backed up.

And in my teenage years, I was asked to be the Sunday school secretary.

And at 14, that was like being asked to be the female president of the United States.

It was just such an honor.

And we were from a relatively decent church, Second Baptist, but now as an adult, I have stayed with it.

I have been in Christian ministry, oh gosh, over 40 years in terms of leadership.

In terms of leadership.

And in fact, I was telling a group of women that when I moved to Detroit, I said, I'm not going to do this.

This is work.

People are so sometimes just so outrageous.

And the next thing I knew, Reverend Anthony's mother, Ida Patton, said, "Oh, you been teaching?

You worked Sunday school superintendent.

I have something for you to do."

So I started doing workshops and started just feeling like it was really good.

And then when Fellowship opened a new church, I decided I'd already had my doctorate.

I have master's degree in education, but I said, I need to go back.

I need to go back because I need to make sure whatever it is I'm going to do, I'm not missing something that God needs me to do, better than know it and not need it than to need it and not know it.

So now I'm at the seminary.

I'm over Christian Education and Fellowship Chapel, a pretty big ministry.

I'm actually at the seminary and I teach women this theology.

So that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

- No, it's a great story.

Reverend Chapman, what about you?

- Oh, I think I will concur with Dr. Simon.

As long as I can remember, I have been involved in the church.

I was born in Tuskegee, Alabama.

And at the time, I was a part of a Baptist Church, a Pentecostal Church, and a Methodist Church.

And I did not even realize that there was a separation.

And I went to a Catholic school.

So I just began my life in that particular way.

And then as I continued to grow and got in college, I was involved in the church and not really understanding that I had this affinity for ministry because it was not something that was really talked about, about with women being in ministry.

In fact, the church I was attending at the time did not sanction women in ministry.

I did not see that.

And then, so at one point in time, I left the church, I left organized religion because I felt as though I could not identify with the patriarchal isolation that I saw happening and that the double standards of women as opposed to men because of some life incidents that had occurred with people.

And I saw women being asked to give an account and men not being asked to give an account.

And so I left.

And so as a result of that, I began to visit churches and I ended up at Hartford Memorial Baptist Church.

And the Reverend Dr. Charles Gilchrist Adams preached a sermon, why serve the Lord?

And before I knew it, I had joined the church.

From that point on, my ministry just began to grow because I had never seen female deacons.

I went on, I was ordained as a female deacon at Hartford in 1995.

I served in that capacity for 18 years.

And in that particular capacity and serving in the hospitality with Dr. Adams, I was exposed to so many women in ministry that were not only proclaiming the gospel message, but they were also teachers and academicians.

And so therefore, I was really impressed.

And then I began to see a social justice aspect.

And so when I look at the persons that really mentored me in ministry, Dr. Charles Adams, Reverend Dr. Frederick G. Samson, and Reverend Dr. Jeremiah Wright, that was great.

And then these female influences began to come into my life.

And I began to hear the preaching of, I remember the first time I heard Dr. Carolyn Knight and Dr. Renita Weems preach.

I was like, I had never ever experienced that.

And so as I went on, it became obvious that I was to go to the next level of ministry.

I was still somewhat apprehensive because once again, I saw how sometimes in other circles, women were not being affirmed in ministry.

And so I would get speaking engagements, and I was asked to speak from the floor.

And I remember being told, it doesn't matter where you stand, you stand on the foundation.

- And so as a result of that, I went on prepared myself, went to Ecumenical Theological Seminary, and now the rest is history.

I serve as an a pulpit associate at Hartford Memorial Baptist Church under leadership of Reverend Charles Christian Adams.

And so I'm just excited about how my ministry is continuing to grow and expand.

- I wonder what you both kind of make of, I guess, the state of women in the church given the leadership roles that you both have.

You both recounted some difficulty or resistance or I guess pushing against the establishment to get there.

But in 2024, what does it look like for women who wanna be a part of the church, part of the church in every way?

From the most beginning role to a senior pastor, are we at a place where everything is possible, that should be possible, and where some of the resistance that you guys described maybe is less than what it used to be, or maybe gone all altogether?

Reverend Simon, I'll start with you again.

- I need to give some clarity.

I'm from a family of black women who have done fantastic things.

One of my aunts was the first black president, college president of a four year institution.

My mother, her sisters, everyone.

So I didn't really get a lot of pushback because I'd seen so many positives.

And then when I really was pushed into leadership, actually it was a Church of God in Christ, which everyone says what?

- I was gonna say.

- But it was in the AU Center.

I'd gotten my doctorate, I was finished.

And people might know Reverend Dr. Benny Good when he taught Old Testament.

And when he found out I was there, he must have talked to Reverend Davey, who was the dean.

And next thing I know, he said, "You're gonna do a workshop?"

And I'm thinking, nah, I wasn't really, other than secretary, I hadn't done any leadership.

And I'm like, "No, really, really?"

- And explain Church of God in Christ.

I mean, it's a pretty old school.

- Yes, it is.

It's a very large denomination.

They're very structured.

Very structured.

When I went to a Church of God in Christ in Mississippi, and of course I had on makeup, stylishly dressed, and I realized that, well, I realized that I was kind of at a place after a woman asked me to get up and give my life to Christ.

And another one said, "Why are you up here?"

And I said, "You need to ask her."

And she realized that because I was different.

And as I'm standing up there, I said, "Not a soul has on lipstick or anything."

I would say that was very liberating.

And it was interesting because most Church of God in Christ churches are not that open.

But we were in the AU Center.

So the professors were there.

The doctors, the lawyers.

So it was a different attitude.

They pushed me out of the corner.

What I will say after being a conference minister for a United Church of Christ in the Detroit area, it's the structure.

And actually my learning in seminary, it's the structure, the organizational structures.

A lot of them have boards that control, the women basically control what they're doing.

But within the black church, the structure is really hierarchical.

So whoever is at the top, that's what gets the vote.

And we might present that we're looking democratic, but in a lot of spaces, women are still being ostracized, being sent to the corner, having to ask permission to do a God has called them to do.

I think the mentoring piece for most black women is very important.

Because they see, just like the people that Dr. Chapman has mentioned, oh, when I heard Carolyn Knight, I was like, oh my goodness, this is awesome.

But it's also become a method of getting women to come out from behind the structures that seem to prohibit what they're doing.

I've had to tell some women, well, you didn't pre you didn't get to preach in the pulpit?

Black women preach wherever they are.

And it is not necessarily ministry, we do it everywhere we go.

Everywhere we go.

- So do you find Reverend Simon that those barriers still exist in the same way that they did before or are they better?

- I would say they still exist.

Maybe two or three people might be a little better or a little more learned.

I always wonder, how do you oppress someone when you had a mother?

So it just changes the whole dynamic.

And then after this last incident that happened with Reverend Dr. Gina Stewart at the Progressive Baptist Convention, I think a lot of people felt we were in a motion of change.

And then one of the largest denominations, one of a huge group, that's very influencing when they did that.

- So explain for our viewers what happened quickly, what happened with Reverend Stewart?

- She was the first woman to preach.

Number one, she was the first woman asked to preach in a legacy of over a hundred years.

She got up to preach.

And what was said in some of the comments is some of the men felt that they should not be there because she was preaching.

So I said, okay, you're still using antiquated mindsets.

But after it was over... And she's preached about Claudia, and Claudia was Pontius Pilate's wife who told him, "Do not crucify that man is innocent."

But guess what?

She's an example of what happens to a lot of black women when they speak up.

She was ignored.

She was basically relegated to the sidelines even though she knew what she was talking about.

And because of that, Dr. Stewart used her as an example for other women in terms of our power, our prophecy, how we need to speak up.

But after, because what they've done historically is put, well, when technology was around, they put the whole sermon out on technology.

Interestingly enough, hers did not stay.

- Hers didn't make it.

- Yes, didn't make it.

Now there are a ton of, oh, backpedaling that's been happening.

But I told her when I saw her last, I said, you know what?

I said that was a kairos moment.

And kairos moment is when God presents something that cracks open the universe for new learning.

And I think it was a shameful moment also.

- So Dr. Chapman, I mean that's a kind of bleak picture to think about in the black church now.

Do you see that same kind of lingering resistance, the things that used to happen still happening, the kind of power structure that kept women from fulfilling everything they could in the church, still holding them back?

- Yeah, I still think that there is still some resistance as Dr. Simon said.

Not only did Dr. Stewart preach, she preached before the four Major Baptist conventions.

And so it was a combination of all of them coming together.

And so you definitely still saw some resistance.

But I think that that was as Dr. Simon said, it was a kairos moment.

It opened up.

And not only did it open up to show that she was standing not just as a female preacher, she was standing as one of the greatest preachers that is out there, one of our greatest minds.

And she brought the whole combination of the liberation of Jesus Christ to the people that talk about the liberation of power of Jesus Christ.

And so I think that that is very important.

Yes, I still think that there is some resistance.

I think that there's still not a understanding of women being pastors of churches.

Definitely there are more because of the trailblazing women that have gone before and allowed their gifts to speak for themselves and the people to respond.

So I think that that is definitely one of the things that is still there.

I still think that there is still opportunities for some of our brothers to grow and to become more learned in certain things as far as not putting limitations on God's gifts.

Because once again, from the beginning of the Bible to the end, I just did something where I looked at women that were named in the Bible.

There are about 117 women that are named, but there are over 600 women that are unnamed.

And those 600 women that are unnamed are still a part of the theological imprint that we talk about and preach about each and every day.

And so I think that seminary and equipping ourselves with knowledge is going to be always important.

And once again, I think that our gifts will make room for us if we simply focus on the gifts.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

So I wanna have each of you talk just a little about what you say to young women coming up in the church now about what's possible for them, but also what they are likely to face if they decide they want a life of the church and a leadership position, a leadership role in the black church.

Dr. Chapman, talk about the kind of counsel that you give to young women.

- Well, I always give the council once again, that your gifts will prepare you, but you need to also equip yourself.

You need to make sure that you are putting in the work and that your witness is never compromised simply because you feel as though you're trying to climb and do something.

And I think being honest with yourself that once God calls you, you don't have to justify your call to anyone.

If that is what God has called and equipped you to do, then your job is to just make sure that you're doing those things that are necessary.

At the same time, I also tell them, don't get into the concept of bashing, that that does not help anything.

Simply because some brothers do not support, there are many that do.

And so find that allyship of those who do and work with them.

And what will happen is doors will open.

And also I think that it's a responsibility of other women who are in ministry and in leadership roles to provide opportunities to mentor and expand the width of what women are able to do.

And so I always show them women that are doing things, that are writing books, that are serving in the seminary, like Dr. Simon said, in presidential roles.

I also share them with women that are phenomenal pastors and speakers that are doing all kind of different things.

And really just reminding them that we've always had a place in history.

And our job is to tell her story in history.

And as we continue to do that, and then doors will open, we'll find ourselves in different platforms that will continue to do what we have been called to do.

And that is to proclaim the gospel and the good news, the liberation of Jesus Christ.

That is our mandate, that is our call.

And to be conscious in that, that it is just not inside of the church but it is also outside.

Using those platforms to make sure that we're calling of social justice, health justice, legal justice everywhere, I think is something that's important.

So I encourage them to let their little light shine.

- Yeah.

Dr. Simon, what do you tell young people.

- Ditto.

The young people that are around me and a lot of them are looking at ministry and to be called a lot of times, it's a shocker and sometimes people back up.

I find that talking to them about their confidence and their agency is very important.

If God gave you something to do, like Dr. Chapman is saying, go do it.

And do it to the best of your ability.

There are even women who are part of who drank the Kool-Aid or a part of the idea that women should not be in the pulpit.

And I told 'em, I said, there's never gonna be a perfect world, but you can have a perfect world within the storm.

I said, go forward.

Like you said, do what you're called to do.

Don't worry about the rest.

Now there are opposition and there are times when you get that side eye or a man feels like, "Well, she shouldn't be doing this."

But I have to agree, there are a lot of pulpits that are very welcoming to women and are open.

I think Dr. Chapman and I are blessed.

I mean, I'm blessed.

Anything I go to Reverend Anthony with for Christian ed, I've never gotten enough.

- He's open to it?

- Very.

And when I've done, 'cause I've done things on women's theology and next thing I knew he was, "Oh yeah, fine, go ahead."

And next thing I knew, the women from Howard University, the women from Atlanta, Georgia.

I'm getting feedback from all over.

But it has to start somewhere.

And it has to start with women helping other women.

The concept reaching back that Sankofa, reaching back as you climb is a must.

I have relationship with them to the extent that when things start to happen that they're not sure about or get shaky, come to me, come to me, let's talk about it.

Don't back up from it.

So for us to give that confidence, and then they see sisters like Remonia Chapman on a commercial about what she does with the Kidney Foundation.

And they see Gina Stewart, and they see Carolyn Knight, and they see, oh, just so many.

And see I'm a Jeremiah Rice scholar, and Reverend Dr. Charles Adams was my preaching teacher.

So my professor.

When God surrounds you 'cause I wouldn't say it was even my doing, it was my acceptance.

But when God surrounds you with people who are not stagnant, who believe in change.

And I guess coming up in a family of five girls, we were always told, never let anyone diminish your own personal agency.

Your own value for yourself.

- That's great advice.

- So talking to the young ladies, that's why I tell 'em, look, hey, you have something that God wants you to put out to the world and no one can do it but you.

- That's it for us this week.

You can find out more about our guests at americanblackjournal.org.

You can connect with us anytime on social media.

Take care.

And we'll see you next time.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer 1] From Delta Faucets to Behr Paint, Masco Corporation is proud to deliver products that enhance the way consumers all over the world experience and enjoy their living spaces.

Masco, serving Michigan communities since 1929.

Support also provided by the Cynthia & Edsel Ford Fund for Journalism at Detroit Public TV.

- [Announcer 2] The DTE Foundation proudly supports 50 years of "American Black Journal" in covering African-American history, culture, and politics.

The DTE Foundation and "American Black Journal" partners in presenting African-American perspectives about our communities and in our world.

- [Announcer 3] Also brought to you by Nissan Foundation and viewers like you.

Thank you.

(upbeat music)