Category Archives: TBKB Podcast

025 I Dr. Rob Dixon on Challenging God’s People to Embrace Gender Equality

Posted on September 2, 2026 by | Leave a comment
Dr. Rob Dixon has written Allies in Ministry, Together in Ministry, and Penny Preaches. Click the links to add them to your library!

I was so delighted to meet my old friend, Dr. Rob Dixon, for a face-to-face conversation after being internet friends for close to fifteen years! In this insightful interview, we talked about Dr. Dixon’s new book, Allies in Ministry, and he shared his journey of advocating for women in ministry, biblical perspectives on gender equality, and practical steps for developing allies within the church. Listen to our conversation to discover how his research and personal experiences challenge traditional views and promote justice and mission expansion, through the full inclusion of women in ministry.

You can learn more about Dr. Rob Dixon on his website, drrobdixon.com, and find contact information there if you would like him to coach, train or speak with your organization.
You can also follow him on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Substack. 

Please enjoy this episode of The Beautiful Kingdom Builders podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Substack, and more! 

TRANSCRIPT:

Ruth Perry (00:15)
My guest today is Rob Dixon. He’s a writer, trainer, and consultant with over three decades of ministry experience, known for his work promoting equal partnership between men and women in ministry. And he is a distinguished scholar at Fuller Theological Seminary who teaches at Fresno Pacific University. And you’ve served on the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship staff for nearly 30 years. I feel like the way that I know you best is from your writing. I started reading your blog, Challenging Tertullian, many, many years ago. And

Rob Dixon (00:45)
Yeah, yeah.

Ruth Perry (00:47)
I also feel like I know you personally, but this is the first time that we’ve spoken. So I’m delighted to have you, Rob, and I’m delighted to talk about your work today. Thank you so much for being here.

Rob Dixon (00:57)
Thanks for having me. And boy, that’s a callback. The Challenging Tertullian blog of like, I don’t know, twenty fifteen, something like that, earlier maybe. So yeah, wow. Great to meet you in person, Ruth.

Ruth Perry (01:08)
I probably started following you right when you started doing that because I was devouring anything I could find about women in ministry at the time. I had been called by God to be in ministry, but I was in circumstances where I wasn’t getting that support. I didn’t have allies at the time. And so I was finding them online and I’m just really grateful that I found you and many other men who have been great allies and great sources of encouragement and information and scholarship. And one of the books that I have by you, I know you’ve written multiple books. Penny Preaches a great children’s book by Amy Dixon and Rob Dixon. It’s delightful. Highly recommend it. Get that for your kids, sons and daughters.

Rob Dixon (01:53)
Yeah, yeah, thank you. That’s a definitely a cherished you know, process writing that book with Amy, my wife. she’s a full-time picture book writer. And so if listeners like the storyline, that would be me. If they like anything else about the book, the characters, the dialogue, you know, that would be all Amy. So we had a great time working on that together. So yeah, it’s what’s been fun for me is to watch women who have been in ministry and have fought the battles, like I’m sure that you fought Ruth and have been through the the struggle to read that book and feel like you know, boy, I wish I’d had this when I was younger and coming up in ministry, but what a gift to the church. And so I hope so. I hope it pushes the conversation down to when we’re raising kids and we can talk about things that matter, like women in ministry. So yeah, thanks for thanks for the shout out for Penny.

Ruth Perry (02:44)
Well, I’m always really curious to know people’s faith journeys and their stories. Do you mind going back and telling us when you came to faith and how your faith has grown and have you always been an ally for women in ministry?

Rob Dixon (02:56)
Yeah, happy to happy to share about that. So yeah, I grew up in the church. I grew up in a church down in LA with my family. I mean, it was like what we did. It was it was the thing that marked or one of the things that marked the Dixon family was we were really involved in our church. In fact, when I joined the church, became a Christian, was baptized, joined the church, like my dad, my uncle, and my grandfather, I think were all on the session, the leadership team of the church and greeted me. So that was what we did as a family.

Interestingly for me, where I am now, hoping to be an ally to women in ministry, that did have its sort of sovereign foundations, I think would be a good word for it in my childhood experience. So as part of a church that endorsed the Ministry of Women, they weren’t perfect about it, but women were on the pastoral staff, women would preach from time to time. And then on top of that, in my family I’m not saying the men in my family were spiritual weaklings or something, but definitely the women in my family were the spiritual drivers in a lot of ways. So my grandma, both grandmas, super involved in in issues of faith. My grandma on my dad’s side was a prayer warrior. on my mom’s side, she had become a Christian later in life and her faith was vibrant. and then my mom as well. So I always identify with is it Timothy in 2 Timothy, who and when Paul reminds Timothy of his faith heritage that flowed through his mom and his grandma, Lois and Eunice, I think. And so I always think of that too for me. So yeah, I think I had a really good foundation to be where I am now based on some of those life experiences early on.

Ruth Perry (04:28)
So when was it that you realized this was an issue that you really cared about passionately enough that you would devote your life’s work to it?

Rob Dixon (04:36)
Yeah, great question. I I think coming out of that sovereign foundation phase, I carried a value for women in ministry and I would have said if you’d asked me, Should women be in ministry, absolutely, of course, why not? Let’s do it. but I think there’s a difference between and I see this in a lot of guys that I work with, there’s a difference between holding a value and then holding it as a conviction. and I think for men and for women too probably, we need to make that pivot from yeah, I endorse this, I have a value for it, but I’m I’m I’m actually now convicted of this because conviction, and this came out of my research for my doctoral work, conviction carries with it this value with an intent to act. There’s a the it’s a deeper thing.

And so for me that process of shifting from, yeah, sure, women should lead to, women should lead. That that shift happened when I first started in ministry, so I came on staff with Intervarsity in the what was this way back, Ruth, in the in the mid 90s, late 90s, I came on staff, and early on, I was ministering in a University’s college ministry, and I was ministering in a part of California that’s more conservative. The churches tend to be more conservative, and so this would flare up as an issue every year, sometimes more than once a year.

And I could tell a lot of stories, but at one point I had a pastor sit me down and tell me I was being a false teacher. And he just went deep. I mean he was on and on about being a false teacher and I was like, Why? And he goes, Well partly because you are allowing women to preach.

And at that point in my journey, I hadn’t done a ton of the theological study, the biblical work. but boy, after that experience of being called a false teacher, for about an hour, I mean it was really awkward. I just launched into this season of study and preparation. And I think that would be one moment of of several where I was really galvanized from, yeah, this is something we should care about too. we’re gonna care about this now.

And I actually emerged from that season kind of militant about things. Like if you weren’t an egalitarian, if you weren’t pro-women ministry, I was on the war path a little bit. And a mentor of mine finally at one point sat me down and said, Look, you need to learn how to hold your conviction with humility. And that’s been a good word for me then and it’s a good word for me now. Yeah.

Ruth Perry (06:48)
I was curious about if you like I knew that you had experienced the cost of your conviction because I experience it in a lot of microaggressions and in people outright telling me I don’t believe in women in ministry just as I meet people and go about my life and I’m a woman in ministry and people make sure that they let me know that they’re not okay with that. But

Rob Dixon (07:08)
So sad. Yep.

Ruth Perry (07:10)
I know that even for you being a man in ministry, having that view, I knew that there was a cost that you had.

Rob Dixon (07:17)
Yeah.

Ruth Perry (07:17)
Have you experienced that cost in other ways besides that one conversation?

Rob Dixon (07:22)
Sure, yeah. Yeah, so in my latest book, Allies in Ministry, I lay out a pathway for developing men into more effective allies to women in ministry and one of the steps is called The Pushback Step. And I I think in a lot of ways, as a guy I don’t think you can fully think of yourself as an ally until you’ve experienced some degree of pushback because of your convictions and because of your advocacy, your allyship. And so I think that comes with the territory a little bit. Sometimes when I’m talking with a guy who w would aspire to be an ally and I ask about pushback, no, I haven’t really done that yet. And then my question is, well, maybe you should be doing more to advocate or to be an ally to women in ministry.

I mean, there’s a lot of stories I could tell you. I mean, another one kind of in that same era where I had the false teacher conversation was I was working with a student who the year prior had been mentored by my wife Amy. This is what we did back then. We had up and coming leaders and we assigned them to Amy’s leadership and mentoring because she was so good at leading a Bible study and she could develop them and then after nine months they’d be prepared to lead their own small group.

And so at the end of that year prior, he had told Amy the thing that maybe all ministers want to hear. Like, I’ve thank you so much. I’ve grown so much under your leadership this year, more than ever in my life with God. I’m so grateful. It was like the thing that you put on the bulletin board, like for really tough ministry days, right?

And fast forward a few months, and he has been through this process with his church of discerning his theology on women and leadership, and he had emerged from that process in a more restrictive position, complementarian would be the term that gets used sometimes in theological circles. Anyway, he’s telling me about his journey, and he’s arrived in this place of conviction that women should not lead and develop men. And and at the end, I’m asking all these questions, and at the end of about an hour, Ruth, I ask him the question I’ve been waiting to ask him since the beginning, which is: hey, I know what you told Amy last year, that you grew more last year under her leadership than in any year prior in your life with God, and I want to know how you’re holding that in light of what you’re telling me now and he pauses for a second, he thinks about it, he looks at me and he says, That was God using Amy in spite of her disobedience.

And a lot of feelings went through me in that moment, right? I mean, you’re talking about my wife here, buddy, you know, and I think I had a lot of hostility in that initial response, but I think that story has, I mean, that was a story of sort of this became personal for me, right? Like this was again not some sort of theological conversation that’s happening in the abstract. Now your theology, I’m talking to the student, has forced you to conclude that my wife’s sacrificial, laying down her life kind of service was in some way sin. And so I think I mean it’s maybe not a story of personal pushback, but definitely a story of like I’m invested in this thing in a way that I wasn’t before. and that really was another galvanizing kind of moment for me as a young ally.

Ruth Perry (10:08)
Can you tell us how you would defend your view of women being in full equality in the church and the home from a biblical basis?

Rob Dixon (10:16)
Yeah. Yeah, sure. I mean I should clarify I’m not a theologian, right? So there are there are great books out there and I’m sure you’ve had people on your podcast over the years that have written great theological books. My my book, my first book, Together in Ministry, has a chapter on the theology of it all and it makes appearances at other points. But where I would start, I think, is actually to ask the question, Are you open to exploring the whole of the scriptures?

And what all of the scriptures have to say on the topic of women in ministry. I think so much of the conversation starts and sometimes ends with First Timothy two. That’s an important passage. it’s deserving of its place in the discussion. But if I can get someone, if I could convince someone to start in Genesis and work our way all the way through the old testament, look at Jesus and how Jesus interacts with women, and then get to the epistles and the praxis of the first church.

And the effects of the cross. I mean, if we can cover that whole gamut, I’m pretty confident that at least it will challenge someone’s perspective and it might even change it. Because I think someone sometimes we take a verse often out of context and we say, Well, this must be true. That verse, again, it’s important, but let’s look at it in the whole of the scriptures. Sometimes I use the metaphor, you know, scripture’s like a symphony, and every piece of scripture is playing on the same sheet music with the same beat and the same melody and all of that. I mean I have older kids now, but I remember when they were in orchestra and it didn’t sound so good, right? And the scripture shouldn’t sound bad. It should sound excellent. It should sound perfect. It should be integrated, right? And so I think let’s look at the whole piece of sheet music and not just one kind of measure, to use the metaphor.

Ruth Perry (11:55)
Especially when you’re talking about student orchestra which I was definitely in back in the day. We sounded better by our performance date, but yeah. You gotta work it out, right?

Rob Dixon (12:04)
Yes. Yes. You do. And I think just to say, I meet a lot of Christians that have a theology on women in ministry, but it’s something they picked up from their church, this the vibes in their church maybe, or a sermon a pastor preached once upon a time, or an article they read, or the family of origin.

But they haven’t done the actual work themselves in the text. And so one of the things I always try to encourage folks is to actually roll up your sleeves. Ideally with other people under the leadership of the spirit, get into the passages yourself and do your own work on this, right? Again, I think we breathe the air of whatever theological air we’re around. that’s not bad, but I think it’s better to do work in the scriptures on this yourself.

Ruth Perry (12:46)
And you really have to learn to recognize the power that the gatekeepers hold because I grew up in a complementarian tradition and I was always warned. I mean, it was specifically a warning to not read outside of your tradition and not listen to people outside of your tradition. And so I do think that that piece of learning the humility of listening to people who think differently than you is really impactful and powerful, but scary.

Rob Dixon (13:12)
Yeah. Yeah, I mean there’s Yeah, yeah. There’s your theology and then there’s how you hold your theology, which I think it’s almost as important, if not more important sometimes, is actually how you hold your theology, right? And I think I always want to be the kind of person, Lord may it be so, that is able to dialogue with people who think differently than I do, and learn. I mean, I think the point at which you think you’re fully arrived theologically is the point where you need to be careful.

Because there’s a group of guys in the New Testament that thought they were fully arrived and when Jesus came on the scene, and we talked about the Pharisees, right? When Jesus came on the scene, it was the wineskins passage. They burst. They couldn’t handle the new thing because they thought they had it all figured out. So just a a word to listeners, be careful, right, about that.

Ruth Perry (13:56)
Yeah, absolutely. I’m taking that word to heart too. It’s a constant reminder where we have to be humble. And there’s all those one another commands in the New Testament where we’re supposed to consider others before ourselves. And how often do we just hold our own views so tightly that we’re not able to do that?

Rob Dixon (14:12)
Yeah, that’s right. Yep. Amen.

Ruth Perry (14:14)
I really loved your language about allyship because that’s something that I’ve learned over the process of my own faith journey is to listen better to other people and listen about their experiences and then interrogate my views especially how my Christian tradition has played a part in a lot of harmful oppression of different groups of people.

And that word ally that you use in your book, it’s really beautiful, but it’s a trigger word, people get triggered by it like they do critical race theory or all these other hot topics. Can you describe why you chose the word ally for your framing of your book?

Rob Dixon (14:51)
Yeah. Yeah, it’s I mean language is interesting, isn’t it? Because over time it accrues baggage, I guess you’d say, or connotations, maybe. So you gotta it’s always important, I think, to define terms. I mean, I think even of the conversation in the women in ministry, like egalitarian, complementary I mean y maybe the place to start even before you get into the scriptures is like, Well, what are we talking about here? Like what what’s your definition of all of these things? So same thing with ally. I chose the word and first of all, I’d say I read there’s a lot of books written about allyship, mostly in the secular space. So I think a book about male allyship in the Christian arena is a gap. Which I was trying to fill a gap in the literary, you know, picture.

And I read a lot of books in the secular space and it’s really helpful to sort of point out different pieces of what it means to be an ally. What so empathy or the idea that allies function interpersonally but also systemically. Or the idea that an ally an ally involves wrestling with their privilege, or the idea that allies listen well to the marginalized community so that they’re not sort of acting in a way that’s actually contrary to what the marginalized community needs. There’s all these sort of themes about allyship that come out in the literature, and you can s you can read all about that in my book. The other thing I like about the term ally is I view it as an umbrella term. There’s not one way to be an ally.

And underneath the umbrella, there’s, I mean, her name’s Karen Catlin. She wrote a book called Better Allies, and she lists off seven different tools, I guess, or expressions of allyship. And I use them in my book. There’s a whole chapter on each of those seven tools, which I think are pretty crucial. And and they run the gamut from quieter expressions of allyship to louder expressions of allyship, right? I mean we think maybe of some of the louder ones like being an upstander, so intervening when there’s injustice, or advocacy, which is a know, I think oftentimes people see it as a synonym to ally, but it’s not, it’s it’s a form of allyship.

And then the quieter expressions would be more like a scholar. I mean, Catlin talks about you’re expressing allyship when you’re learning, or another one would be confidant. So when I’m working with a woman quietly, no one knows about it, but I’m supporting her, I’m giving her resources, I’m encouraging her, that’s being an ally, right? So I love that range because I think some of us as guys are wired to make a splash, maybe the louder end of the spectrum, but others of us we maybe need to start out more on the quieter end of the spectrum and I like the flexibility within that larger term of being an ally.

Ruth Perry (17:19)
Yeah, I think that is really beautiful. I appreciated that in your book because it’s true. No matter who you are, you’ve been given a different set of gifts and personality and experiences and it doesn’t help to compare yourself to others and play that game of am I doing enough? Like if you’re doing something, God sees that and it’s valuable. Yeah. Can you explain in your book you talked about three biblical examples of allies: Jesus, Paul and Boaz, could you talk us through those examples?

Rob Dixon (17:49)
Yeah. Sure, sure can. Yeah. I mean well it’s funny, the Sunday school answer, right? The classic when I was growing up in Sunday school, right, the answer if you answer Jesus, you were right almost all the time, right? With whatever question. I think that’s true with an ally. And if you look at Jesus, he’s I like a quote from Walter Wink, who’s a theologian. He says that in every encounter recorded with with women in the gospels, Jesus is doing something culturally wrong. I’m paraphrasing the quote, but he’s doing s he’s transgressing the culture in some way.

And I think that’s a really cool way to think about Jesus. He is a game changer for women, and he’s doing things. So you could look at all kinds of passages in the book. I talk about like the the hemorrhaging woman from Mark 5. I prefer to think of her as the faith-filled woman, right? She’s it’s that amazing story, right? He’s advocating for her, he’s healing her. you could talk about, you know, the John 4, the woman at the well, and Jesus empowers her for service. So, Jesus is a great example, but I also like to point out Paul and Peter in the New Testament, I think follow Jesus’ example. And Paul gets a lot of what’s the right way to put this?

Well if you Google Paul and Misogyny, there’s a lot of answers that come up, right? Based largely on Timothy two, but if you look more deeply at Paul’s practice, he is faithful to empower women, he’s faithful to commission women, he’s got women that he counts as dear friends and coworkers and in a lot of ways women are a natural part of the narrative for Paul as co-workers. And then Peter’s kind of the same way. Peter talks there’s a couple of passages where Peter really does step into a role as his role as an ally. I mean, I think of how he engages with in the after the crucifixion, I think of the speech he gives in is it Acts two? The Pentecost speech where he talks about women prophesying. So there’s a way in which Peter also fulfills that allyship.

But the original ally in the scriptures is Boaz, like you said, and Boaz, I mean you’re talking about a culture that is I mean what’s the right adjective for this? It’s flagrantly patriarchal. I mean there’s a way in which all power, all cultural power was held by men, and in that context, Boaz does an amazing job as an ally to Ruth and Naomi actually. So for one thing, two levels of that, for one thing, he follows the biblical command to allow widows to glean from his field, and he creates space for Ruth to do that. But he goes a step further and says to his men, be careful with her, like treat her well. Like he goes a step beyond what’s actually written in the Old Testament law.

And then of course the second way he expresses allyship is as the kinsman redeemer to Ruth and Naomi and ultimately he has his place in the genealogy of Jesus because of that, right? So yeah, I think of Boaz is kind of the original the original ally in the scriptures.

Ruth Perry (20:28)
It’s beautiful. Can you talk us through how you did your research for your book and then what the framework is of your book, Allies in Ministry?

Rob Dixon (20:37)
Yeah. So I’m a learner. I love learning new things. And so doing research is kind of my like I mean I I’m trained and d for my doctoral program how to do research, but that’s my natural inclination anyway. So when I have curiosity about something, I’m gathering people that I think have some degree of expertise in that and learning, asking questions. and so I did that with with Allyship. I don’t know how many men, I can’t remember off the top of my head how many men I actually sat with, but a number of one-on-one interviews and then I did focus groups, which are more enjoyable actually as a researcher, because you’re in a room full of people and you’re dialoguing together and people are bouncing off of each other with ideas and it’s just a joy to to do that.

So yeah I learned from a bunch of people and then I sifted all that data, which is the hard work of research I think, is to sit with everything you’ve received and discern what’s you know looking for themes and trends and things like that. And so what emerged from that was this seven-step pathway. The pathway is the language I use for it to get a guy from the starting position through what I call a disruptive encounter, something that shakes their kind of worldview, challenges their paradigms for how the world works, specifically around male privilege. So there’s an encounter that happens a disruptive encounter.

Then the third step is there’s a response to that disruption. So Whoa, what just happened? Let me synthesize that, let me process that. It’s one of the places on the pathway where men can opt out if they’re if they’re unwilling or unable to process that well. The fourth step would be trying stuff out. So initial attempts at allyship. That’s where men use those seven different tools I referenced earlier. Step five is pushback. Because of your allyship you receive pushback. Step six would be continued investment. So the allies’ work is never done. There’s ways to keep growing.

I think for example, I think men may start being familiar with one of the seven tools, but I think in step six you want to start becoming fluent in more of them. And ultimately in step seven, habitual allyship, it’s where you’re a you never want to say you’re a finished product, Ruth. Like I feel like people are always going to be growing. I’m always going to be learning and growing. But step seven would be this sort of place where you’re fluent in all s all seven of the skills. You’ve thought through things, you’re content. I think allies and this is hard for guys sometimes. I think we need to be content not being at the center of things. You know?

I mean Catlin makes this great comparison in her book. She talks about the contrast between being an ally and then being a knight in shining armor that swoops in to save the day and all the glory goes to the ally, right? Like like in step seven, you’re comfortable not being in that place. You’d actually prefer to not be in that place. And I think that’s a pivot for guys in a lot of ways. so anyway, those are my seven seven steps. And I I think the the beauty of the pathway is it my hope anyway is that it gives the church, Big C church, a roadmap. So if you want to be intentional about developing met developing men into more effective allies to women, there’s your here. There’s your roadmap to work with, right? to g to get men there and so I hope people use it that way.

Ruth Perry (23:38)
Yeah, I thought it was spectacular and brilliant the way you did that. It reminded me of like the Critical Journey book about spiritual maturity and that process of going from stages in your faith. And I think that it’s really important and powerful way to look at our maturity process to recognize where we are, first of all.

Rob Dixon (23:58)
Yeah, yeah.

Ruth Perry (24:00)
And where we need to go. I remember when I was in seminary, I’d read the book, Stages of Faith by James Fowler. And at the time I had never doubted anything about my faith. And so the whole book was kind of a puzzle to me. Like, I don’t understand this process at all. But then when I did have a period of time where I had gone through a lot of loss and grief and conflict and my faith was really shaken. Just having that framework from having read that book, I was like, my gosh, this is what’s happening to me. And so I would highly recommend people read your book even if

Rob Dixon (24:34)
Thank you.

Ruth Perry (24:34)
they haven’t really considered where they are on the path. I mean, it’s gonna illuminate things for them in ways that are really helpful. What is the problem with excluding women from ministry, do you think, Rob?

Rob Dixon (24:48)
What is the problem? I mean, where do you want me to start? I mean well, I think first of all, it probably needs to be said it’s contrary to scripture. I mean, if you look in Genesis 1, right, when God has the possibility of setting it all up free of sin, there’s no sin in the world, it’s God’s creation intent.

And you know, there’s these twin affirmations in Genesis one, right, where women and men share the image of God. It’s not like Adam has more of the image of God. You know. And then the second thing is the command to rule over the world and by extension God’s mission is given to women and men together. There’s no hierarchy, there’s no like, you know, Adam, why don’t you lead this process and Eve, give them the support he needs. It’s not like that. It’s this you together go and rule.

And I I think the rest of the scripture sits atop that foundation in Genesis one and confirms it repeatedly. Even when sin comes into the world, God’s intent still remains that women and men would share leadership. So I think the first problem with excluding women is it’s contrary to the scripture and to God’s heart. I mean, I could go on. A another problem for me anyway, as I think about things, I think a lot about mission. I want God’s mission to expand.

And the reality is the church has spent 2,000 plus years now with half the team on the bench, you know, relegated to the bench. And look, we’ve gotten so far with male leadership. Let’s try something different. And my personal conviction is that as women are empowered, released into service, able to use their callings and use their gifts, God’s mission will expand exponentially. And I’m invested in that project. I want that to happen, right?

Maybe a third thing, I’ll stop after this one, although I could keep going probably, but I think there’s a justice element here to me. Right? Women have been marginalized or worse, in the hands of the church for two thousand years. It’s unjust what has happened to women. Every time a woman is prohibited from using her gift, expressing her calling, that’s unjust. it just is. And so I think we have a God who is in the business of making unjust things just again.

And so I would love to see the church I mean, frankly, repent of how we’ve treated women for two thousand years and move in a different direction, which is what repentance entails, right? And so there’s a justice issue too. I again I could go on, but those would be three things. The scriptures, there’s the missional aspect of it, and then there’s the justice piece. Yeah. Thanks for coming to my TedTalk.

Ruth Perry (27:07)
Amen. I agree. Yeah. Was there anything that surprised you while you’re researching and writing your book?

Rob Dixon (27:18)
that’s a great question. I love that question. Yeah, I think what surprised me was the disruptive encounter. I mentioned that earlier. So that second step in the pathway. There’s your starting position and then there’s something that shakes the worldview or challenges the assumptions or paradigms. And I don’t know what I was expecting, but people told me stories that were pretty like intense. I mean back to where I started, I mean my own disruptive encounter was being called a false teacher for an hour. That’s one of many. The other one was having someone judge my wife’s sacrificial good leadership to be sinful.

I mean, those are those are moments that really shake men up in the in the context of male allyship. And I think that was surprising to me to hear some of those stories. Like you can reason with someone and try to convince them. I think that works for some men, but some men like me maybe need that experiential, emotional, earth shattering kind of experience, right? And I think that was surprising to hear that. The good news is I think sometimes disruptive encounters just happen, but I actually think in the church we can engineer them. So we can create disruptive encounters with a lot of pastoral work on the back end, right, to walk men through that disruptive encounter. And I think we should be thinking about that more proactively as a church.

Ruth Perry (28:32)
Something that I’ve learned because I’ve come a long way through my own pathway and I got really passionate like you describe in your book once you learned that this is an injustice, I got really passionate and I got really loud in my advocacy for women in ministry as a woman and I kind of believed I could make change because I changed. So I was really excited about helping other people see the light. Change their evil ways and turn back to God and yeah.

Rob Dixon (28:56)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Ruth Perry (29:00)
But something that I’ve learned is that, you know, as a woman who’s had these experiences of not having my voice valued or listened to and realizing too that because I had grown up in a complementarian culture that I didn’t know my own voice either and I had to find my voice. And just the process of that and never being centered and then realizing, we’re centering men and having these realizations. And for a little while I was at a church where I was really passionate about this, really loud about this, and they changed the pastor’s wife’s title from director of children’s ministries to pastor of children’s ministries. And I was so excited and so thrilled, like I’m making a big change.

But as I’ve moved into other situations, I’ve come to recognize that the people who are most impacted by a problem are the best ones to articulate and explain what’s happening. But they have the least power to make any change. And you have to have proximity to the people who have the power to make change.

Rob Dixon (30:02)
Right.

Ruth Perry (30:03)
And so I think that’s why your book is so important. Where more men need to realize that this is a dynamic and that this is impacting women negatively and it’s impacting all of us negatively, that we all do better when we’re using our gifts for the kingdom and for the common good. and so I just I’m really grateful to you for writing the book and what do you hope will come of the book?

Rob Dixon (30:27)
Yeah. appreciate you saying that. And amen to all of that too. I mean I tell a story in the book, but there’s a guy that I know who I was interviewing and he started to think he knew best. And there was this moment where he advocated for a woman and basically usurped her agency. And there was this sort of like, wait a second, I messed that up. I got too far out ahead, I thought I knew what was best.

So I appreciate that emphasis on learning from and being with sitting with the marginalized community. I think that’s a good word there. I I mean in terms of what I hope, again, I wanna see God’s mission move forward. I wanna see more people love Jesus, follow Jesus. I wanna see I mean that is my big picture hope. And I think releasing women to lead and serve is a step toward that larger end and a crucial step for the church in this season. And so, my hope would be that this book, that the other book, that Penny preaches, that all those books just help that, Challenging Tertullian even, that that that pushes us towards that larger end, right? To to release women, to empower women to lead so that more people will know Jesus, because I really believe that’s gonna happen.

So, yeah, I mean that’s my hope, is let’s move the conversation down the field. Let’s move the church in a helpful way. I’m very aware as I say all of this, right, that the patriarchy is strong. It’s it’s remains strong. I’m starting to think more and more of patriarchy less as a cultural condition and more as like a power principality to use some sort of spiritual warfare kinds of language and so I think we should expect pushback. We should expect the patriarchy to lash back. I mean as we’re talking the Southern Baptists are doing their thing and the patriarchy feels alive and well from the things I read on social media about that. So I think we should expect that and all the more reason to be praying. And all the more reason to be pushing as hard as we can to bring change. So I hope Allies and Ministry helps us with that process process.

Ruth Perry (32:22)
This is a great book to do with a small group and with other people. One like if you just do it with one other person, there’s questions for reflection. where else can people find your work, Rob? And how can they is this something that you come and you teach on if people wanted to engage you that way?

Rob Dixon (32:39)
Yeah, yeah. I love to I always use three words for it to coach. So like an individual leader that wants to be better about empowering women, I can help with that. Consult would be in a second one. So, you know, what’s going on in your organization? Let me help you try to pick places where you could change, be better around this. And then train would be the third one. So always happy to do that on Zoom or in person. People can go to my website.

Let me issue a disclaimer, Ruth. This website is perpetually in process. If you’re expecting like slick graphics you’re in the wrong place. So Rob is not a web designer, but I do dabble and so drrobdixon.com, D R R O B D I X O N dot com.

That’s where you can find me, there’s contact information there as well if you wanna reach out to me to involve me in something that you’re doing. I I always say this, wherever people are talking about the dynamics of women and men working together or allies or any of these things, I wanna be in that conversation. So if there’s a way for listeners to involve me in that, I’m happy to think about that. Yeah.

Ruth Perry (33:37)
I think something that a lot of people assume from me just because I advocate for women in ministry and for women’s equality that I don’t like men. But I have to say I love men, I love my husband, my sons, I love all the allies in ministry that I’ve encountered, I love your work and I’m just so grateful for you and for the many male friendships that I have. And I love men that disagree with me about this too. I want us all, I want the best for all of us. And so I’m just really grateful that you would come on the Beautiful Kingdom Builders today to share about your work. And I’m gonna link to your website in the show notes and to your books. And I hope people check those out. And I’m gonna give you the last word, Rob. Thank you for being here today.

Rob Dixon (34:25)
Yeah, well thanks for having me. You know, listeners obviously know the value of your work, Ruth, and what you do with the Beautiful Kingdom Builders podcast and the other stuff you do on social media. And I just would say blessings to you and may your tribe increase, right? We need more voices advocating for the full inclusion of women in the church. So thanks for all you do.

Ruth Perry (34:45)
Thank you so much. God bless.

Rob Dixon (34:47)
Yeah, you too.

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024 I Dorothy Littell Greco: For the Love of Women, Uprooting and Healing Misogyny in America

Posted on August 26, 2026 by | Leave a comment

Welcome back to The Beautiful Kingdom Builders Podcast for Season Two!!! I have incredible conversations in store for The Beautiful Kingdom Builders audience, and cannot wait to share each episode with you this fall.

In this season opener, I am thrilled to share my conversation with Dorothy Littell Greco about her book ‘For the Love of Women,’ exploring misogyny’s systemic presence in society and the church. She shares personal stories, biblical perspectives, and practical steps towards healing and empowering women within Christian communities.

As Christians, we are called to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Misogyny is ultimately a failure to love women. Addressing Christian misogyny is essential for faith communities.

You can learn more about Greco and her work on her website,
and follow her on Facebook and Instagram and Substack. Her book is essential reading
for anyone who purports to love women.

Please enjoy this episode of The Beautiful Kingdom Builders podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Substack, and more! 

TRANSCRIPT:

Ruth Perry (00:15)
My guest today is Dorothy Littell Greco, who wrote the amazing book, For the Love of Women, Uprooting and Healing Misogyny in America, which I devoured. My copy looks like it’s been through the wringer because I was twisting it all sorts of ways so that I could write and take notes and I just loved

Dorothy Greco (00:32)
That’s great.

Ruth Perry (00:32)
it so much. It really spoke to me. I know that women who read it will really speak to them because we know this and I hope that men will take the time to read it as well and really engage with the subject matter because it really matters that Christians love our women and girls and care for them really well. And so just to start off, what compelled you to write this book and how has your own spiritual journey shaped the tone and vision of this book, Dorothy?

Dorothy Greco (00:58)
It does. Yeah, so I have, since the time that I can remember as a three to four year old little girl have not been sort of the typical feminine little girl. Like I wasn’t into Barbies. I wasn’t really into dress ups. I really loved to be off in the woods, exploring, investigating. I love sports. I started competitive sports when I was five, if you can believe that, and played Division 1 college field hockey all the way through all four years.

And then after graduation, I found myself in a very male-dominated field. I worked as a photojournalist primarily doing professional sports. So it was often me and maybe two or three other women sitting around the court of Boston Celtics while there were 20 or 30 men, or at football games or baseball games. So I had to figure out what does it mean to be a woman?

I was never sad or grieved that I was a woman, but…What does it mean to be a woman and to exist as a woman in a world that is dominated by so many men and often led poorly by those men? When I became a Christian in college, I think it was really disorienting to me because my initial time in church or parachurch organizations, they were more complementarian, meaning that there were very defined gender roles for men and for women.

And so here I was someone who felt a great deal of agency and autonomy and then was being told like actually you have to really get smaller and submit yourself to the men in your life. I, you know, there weren’t any men in my life at that time as a single woman. So I had to work out like how does the gospel really, what does it mean to me? What does it mean to be a woman? What does it mean to walk in my gifts?

So there was all that personal stuff. And then coming into the last probably 10 years in American culture, it just feels like there’s a misogyny epidemic. There’s so many examples of the ways that misogyny is playing out. Everything from the abuse of the American gymnasts by Dr. Larry Nasser to the women who have been abused within the Southern Baptist denomination. The ways that the current president is maligning women publicly, calling reporters piggies and I won’t say the word because I don’t know whether that’ll get us in trouble, but witches with a different first letter.

And I thought this can’t be what it’s supposed to be like. This can’t be what it’s supposed to be like, particularly for those of us who are following Jesus. So I felt like there was an invitation in a sense from God. It wasn’t like an audible invite with a here’s an RSVP, but there was a sense of the Lord drawing me in and saying, I think that you have something to say here and would you like to partner with me in writing this book because I think you could do it. So it really was just saying yes to that inspiration and that invitation and wanting to speak into the ways that I think that women are devalued and not loved, in the ways that I think that the Lord would have them be valued in love.

Ruth Perry (03:50)
Can you share what your definition of misogyny is that you start your book out with?

Dorothy Greco (03:55)
Yeah, I felt like I needed to stretch out the book definition and the definition that, you know, we can find in the dictionary is simply the hatred of women. And that feels way too narrow because it’s easy for men to say, well, I love my wife or I love my daughters. I love my mom. I love my sisters. Therefore, misogyny, this conversation about misogyny doesn’t apply to me and then just move on. And that just feels way too easy.

So I wanted to be able to define it in a way that stretches it out and makes us more aware of the systemic nature of misogyny because it’s not just an individual thing. There are systems that keep it in place. So this is how I define it in the book. Misogyny is a persistent, insidious belief that men’s ideas, wants, needs, and experiences are more important than women’s, and that legal, religious, and social systems, as well as intimate relationships, should uphold this principle. This belief system subsequently influences the laws, policies, practices, and ethos of a given culture.

Ruth Perry (04:50)
Yeah, that’s so good. And you emphasize that this isn’t just a women’s issue. That misogyny is also a men’s issue. Why should men care deeply about this?

Dorothy Greco (05:00)
Yeah, I think that they should care about it on several fronts. One is misogyny harms them too. You know, I’m the mom of three sons and there were so many times when we’re in a public setting or in a church religious setting and all of our kids were very emotionally attuned. Both my husband and I think of a pretty high emotional intelligence. So obviously that was important that we teach that to our kids. And there were situations where you know, our son would be crying about something that was legitimate. And somebody would say, stop crying, boys don’t cry.

So that kind of constraining of male emotions, in particular, vulnerable emotions, emotions that are around hurt or pain or sadness, really makes their emotional palette quite narrow. And oftentimes then the feelings come out as anger, like because that’s the only acceptable emotion in American culture for men, they can be angry and they can be really angry, but they can’t cry. So we think that there’s that component which really harms men. But also being in relationships where there’s equality rather than hierarchy is just better for everybody because if it’s a hierarchical relationship then the one on top always has to be exerting energy to control the person underneath of him.

While that clearly has some payoff, some benefits to it, in the long run, it’s exhausting. And there’s a lack of true intimacy that happens in those kind of relationships. So I think for those very personal reasons, men need to care about misogyny. And for those men for whom they would say that they are followers of Jesus, it’s pretty clear in scripture that they are called to love women and that they’re called to serve, they’re called to treat others with kindness and with dignity and with compassion. So there’s that, larger, I think, ask that scripture makes of us.

Ruth Perry (06:47)
Yeah, and I also think what happened at the fall was that we became disconnected from that intimate relationship that we had with God and with each other, and that we all do better when we all do better. I think our culture is so independent and individualistic that we can think that we can be an island of one. But we really do depend on each other and need each other and when we care for each other and we are all doing well, we all do better.

Dorothy Greco (07:15)
Yeah, the goal should be mutual flourishing, like organizing our lives, organizing the world, organizing our churches so that we’re paying attention and helping everyone to flourish rather than just the people at the top.

Ruth Perry (07:27)
How does misogyny intersect with power and nationalism and then the fear that we see in public discourse today?

Dorothy Greco (07:33)
Yeah, that’s a big topic and we could spend an entire hour just talking about that. Lots of people have written about that. I haven’t written a whole lot about it, but I do talk some of it, about some of it in the book. think in David Fitch has a great book, Reckoning with Power, and he talks about two kinds of power, worldly power and godly power. And the former, worldly power, is finite. It’s very prone to abuse. It’s exerted over top of others.

And godly power is infinite and it is never used to force or to coerce or to manipulate anyone. So if men are relying on worldly power, and it is mostly men, not only, but mostly men, are relying on worldly power to get what they want, to influence, to coerce, to control, to manipulate, to be in charge, there is a limited amount of that kind of power and they fear losing it.

And I think that’s why we see the fear flare up like what happened in Washington on January 6th. Those folks were afraid that they were going to lose their power, their connection to power. So they abused their power in an attempt to protect their status. In my opinion, nationalism is a lot about fear, fear and pride, like the sense that we are better than other people. White folks are better than other people.

So there’s a fear of losing the majority, a fear of not having the kind of privileges that they’ve had. And that obviously plays out within the church, it plays out within marriages, it plays out through misogynistic systems where one person is afraid that they will lose control and so then they double down to try to make sure that they can get what they want.

Ruth Perry (09:08)
Yeah, that really resonated with me when you talked about worldly power versus Godly power. So then you systematically break down and with great research show how misogyny is present in so many aspects of our life from healthcare to the workplace to government, media and entertainment, sexual relationships and in the church.

As I was reading that first chapter about healthcare, I mean, I could spend an hour just telling you different ways that I’ve experienced misogyny in healthcare. And most recently, in October, I was bit by a black widow spider three times. And I felt it bite me. I had red welts where it happened. And I went to my local doctor’s office and showed the bites and said, I was bitten by something. I didn’t see the spider, so I didn’t know what it was and she told me I was having a panic attack. It took my body nine days to get all that venom out and I was in excruciating pain. But she just saw a woman, and I told her I’m in excruciating pain, and she told me I was having a panic attack.

Dorothy Greco (10:06)
Wow, wow, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry to say that that is not uncommon. That kind of treatment is not uncommon.

Ruth Perry (10:10)
But I thought it was particularly important that we talk about how misogyny in healthcare especially affects women of color and poor women and marginalized women. Could you share some of that?

Dorothy Greco (10:21)
Yeah, the word that’s often used here is intersectionality. both misogyny and racism sort of overlap each other in this space. Women of color are often seen in our culture as less than, as not credible witnesses, even to their own lives and their own experiences. So when they come into the ER, for instance, they’re more likely to be ignored or mistreated.

And I could share multiple stories that friends have shared with me, women of color, but it’s not simply anecdotal. Like there are stats that back this up. And I’ll just share a couple: that the US has one of the highest maternal mortality rates among all industrialized wealthy nations. Three women die every day of causes that could be avoided just here in the US. That’s not worldwide, that’s just here. And the rate for black women is three times higher than for white women.

Black women are more likely to be refused pain medication when they need it because there’s this appalling myth that somehow they should be able to endure more pain than white women. Black women over the age of 55 are twice as likely as white women to develop diabetes and that’s a complicated issue, right? There’s genetics, there’s the ways that poverty factors in and there’s not as much good food oftentimes for folks of color.

But then there’s often the reality that they’ll go in with symptoms, just like you did when you had your spider bite, and say, this happened to me, this is a real thing, this is an experience that I’m having. And then the response is to dismiss them, to ignore them, to tell them they’re lying even. And as a result, if you don’t treat diabetes early on, the consequences are horrifying. Loss of limbs, and even loss of life.

So yeah, there’s just so many examples of how women of color within the healthcare system in the United States get even worse treatment than other women.

Ruth Perry (12:11)
I also thought it was pretty shocking how many more studies they do and research they do into erectile dysfunction versus PMS, which affects 90 % of women and just the horrible experiences of women with endometriosis. I know a lot of my personal friends have that and how painful that is.

Dorothy Greco (12:29)
Yes, and the fact that they haven’t prioritized funding to research that. Apparently it can take between eight to 10 years to get a proper diagnosis, and then there’s no protocol for how to treat it. How is that even possible that there are so many women who suffer from this, and yet it’s not bumped up high on the list as something that needs to be studied? Yeah, it’s tragic.

Ruth Perry (12:50)
One of the more vulnerable sections of the book was about sexuality and relationships. How has misogyny distorted the way that many Christians understand intimacy and consent and mutuality? And then what would a healthy mutual honoring relationship between a man and a woman look like in a Christian perspective that would differ from that experience?

Dorothy Greco (13:09)
I opened that chapter, which I think is chapter six, with a very vulnerable verbatim story from a young couple. And he, the husband, entered the marriage still struggling with pornography. Had made progress, but it was still an issue for him. And perhaps more significantly, having been taught that once he got married and was able to have sex with his wife, that he wouldn’t have a pornography addiction anymore.

And this led to a tremendous amount of pain for his wife in particular, and ultimately for him once he began to realize the cost of his entitlement, the cost of demanding sex whenever he had the anxiety that would promote him or that would push him towards pornography use, right? Because the woman is not the answer to the problem of a pornography or any addiction. Like that goes way deeper than being able to have a sexual release.

So the entitlement that’s often part of marriages where there is misogyny is so toxic. It’s that sense that the man is more important, that his needs are more important, that he has the right to expect sex, he has the right to expect his wife to do whatever it is that he feels like he needs in that moment. That includes a lack of consent.

This goes way back to ancient English law. think it was in the 1600s that there was something called coverture that was established and then it became part of the American legal system whereby when a woman said, do, she was giving up all her rights to say no to her husband’s sexual advances. And that’s part of why it wasn’t until I think the end of the 20th century, beginning of the 21st where intramarital rape was actually a crime in all 50 states. So it’s shocking to me that that took so long for the legal system to realize that no, wives can be raped by their husbands as well.

And all of that contradicts so clearly what the gospel is all about, right? Which is not to elevate men and to diminish women, but that we are all equal before the Lord, right? That’s what Galatians 3 is talking about.

And so in a marriage where both the wife and the husband are seeking to follow Jesus, they’re gonna endeavor to create a mutual relationship. Yes, sexually, but in all facets. They’ll be asking questions like, there anything I can do to help you to flourish? Is there anything else that you need from me so that you can really thrive as opposed to the husband being the only one who matters, like his dreams, his desires are elevated over the wife.

In a marriage where there is mutuality, there is a lack of hierarchy and a lack of control, which is just so much better for everybody involved, particularly the children. When they can see that kind of equality and that kind of respect that’s going back and forth between their mothers and their fathers, then they begin to have a healthy understanding of what a marriage looks like that is a place where people flourish and where they love each other deeply.

Ruth Perry (16:01)
Your chapter on the church may be especially painful for many readers. Why do you think can become deeply entrenched in Christian spaces?

Dorothy Greco (16:09)
Yeah, and I’ll just add that that chapter was the most painful chapter for me to write. I was alternating between tears and anger as I did research for that. There is a very long, I don’t even remember how many parts it was, five, six parts, the Houston Chronicle did on the abuse that happened within the Southern Baptists. And to read through that whole series was infuriating. Just the level and the depth of abuse and the cover-ups that happened were appalling. So it was a very, very difficult chapter for me to write.

And you know, it’s very complicated, it’s multifaceted, and if we’re honest, we can say that men and women working together to lead, to pastor, serving alongside someone who sees the world very differently than you do is more work, right? That requires more compromises, more listening, more slowing down, more empathy, more kindness.

And like one of the things that I was considering, think about parenting a two to three year old. I don’t know if you have any kids, but in that timeframe, I can remember we lived in New England, that there were times when we were getting ready to go outside in the snow. And it was excruciating for me, who tends to move quickly, to wait for them to put their own boots and coats and mittens and hat on. Like I wanted to just do it. I wanted to force them into it so that we could get outside more quickly.

And I think that that’s just like a picture of how we often look at the American church. Like we’re so driven by particular metrics and the metrics. are all connected to the size, how many people are sitting in the church, what is the collection, what’s happening with the collection, how many people raised their hand to get saved.

And those sort of things, I’m not saying that they’re unimportant, but if we rush into what it means to be a Christian, if we imagine that the only thing that matters is how many people come to church or how much money is being given, then we’re not necessarily focusing on what does it mean to mature? What does it mean to become Christ-like? What does it mean to really love each other like Paul wrote about in 1 Corinthians 13?

Like all those things should be every bit as important, if not more important than how big the church is getting. So there’s that. And then there’s also the church systems, denominations, individual pastors who function as if what the Bible is saying is that men are supposed to be the leaders and women are supposed to submit. And it’s all flattened out into that, you know, sort of sound bite.

Then, you know, the Mark Driscoll’s, the Joel Webbins, the Doug Wilsons, et cetera, who believe that women, their primary goal is to support their men and to have babies. Then that really reduces and shrinks what women’s lives are to be all about. And what about the single women?

You know, what about the women who are divorced or the women who have lost their husbands? Like there’s not even an option of how they’re supposed to live their life. And then layer on top of that, the fact that scripture does talk about dying to self and being sacrificial. So if you have a, if you have men who were entitled and then a system that’s both patriarchal and misogynistic, and then teaching that elevates being sacrificial and dying to yourself, I think it’s just a fertile environment for the abuse of women and children. And so women who don’t have confidence in their own understanding of scripture, women who were raised in a high authoritarian church culture and believe that it is their role to submit, then wow, I mean, that is just a total setup for an abusive system. And that’s what we’ve seen again and again and again.

Ruth Perry (19:46)
I’m reminded, I was just recently having coffee with a friend who’s a woman evangelist and someone that she knew sat down next to us but they didn’t know each other in church relationship and so my friend said she was an evangelist but she wasn’t a feminist. She wanted to clarify that she wasn’t a feminist. She felt like God called her to that but that’s not the kind of woman she was.

And then the woman that she was speaking with started talking about how much damage militant feminists have done, really turning off men towards wanting have equal rights with women. And she was saying, that’s why men were further behind. And I just interjected, but it is a problem that the most dangerous place for a woman is in her home.

Dorothy Greco (20:29)
Yeah.

Ruth Perry (20:29)
And she was like, well, I can’t even talk about that because I have personal experience, so don’t mention that, please. And I was like, where’s the disconnect where we’d be more angry about feminists than we would be about the abuse that occurs?

Dorothy Greco (20:41)
Right, right. And that is exactly how things played out like in the Southern Baptists, where when the women started to come forward and to say, this is what happened to us, they were vilified. I mean, the people who were the men who were the head of the Southern Baptists, the things that they said about those women, they called them demonic, they called them satanic, as opposed to being horrified about what happened to them, as opposed to saying, my gosh, I’m so terribly grieved that you had that experience in our church denomination. Like that wasn’t happening. And to me, that is really telling because that’s about entitlement, that’s about worldly power, that’s about men somehow believing that their sexual needs are greater than a woman’s autonomy and a woman’s right to an existence. Like it’s so warped from what the scripture really says.

Ruth Perry (21:33)
Yeah, it seems like once you see it, it’s hard to not see it, but it’s really hard to your brain around not seeing it. Although I was there myself, so I get it. What are some misogyny waste messages that women absorb when they’re in Christian spaces?

Dorothy Greco (21:47)
Mmm, there’s a lot. So where to start?

That you don’t belong here. I think that gets communicated both verbally and non-verbally. When it’s all male-led and there’s no seats at the table for any women, that’s a pretty clear communication. That your needs don’t matter, that your gifts don’t matter, that you don’t belong here, that in God’s created order, you’re not as important, you’re secondary, and that if you want to lead or if you have an opinion that’s different from your husband or from the male pastor that you’re in sin, like all of those kind of things are so wrong, but also they so mess with women, particularly those who have callings where they should be teaching and they should be preaching and they should be leading. Yeah, it’s very damaging.

Ruth Perry (22:39)
How have patriarchal church structures impacted not just women but men and then the broader body of Christ as well?

Dorothy Greco (22:46)
Well, I think the sense that when there’s so much control and there’s so much hierarchy and there is the message that women are less than, I think that that gives men a buy for growing up. It somehow allows them to feel like, I don’t have to do the hard work of maturing and the hard work of figuring out what does it mean to be a co-equal? How do I really listen to my wife or to my daughter or to my co-leader?

And pay attention to the experiences she’s had and the things that she wants to bring to the table. It’s much easier to just try to control someone, though in the end you will be exhausted and you won’t have the kind of intimacy that I think we were created for. Like I really believe that God wants us to be known. He wants us to be fully known by the people who are trustworthy in our lives. And so if men institute the system where they’re the ones who can call the shots and the women are less than,

And if that carries over into their marriage relationships, they’re going to lose out on what true intimacy really means. You know, the men who feel like they should have the right to be able to have sex whenever they want. I can pretty much guarantee you that at least most of those wives are not enjoying their sexual relationship with their husbands. And if they were willing to give up control and if they were willing to give up entitlement, and they cared about women’s experiences.

I think women would probably enjoy their sexual relationships more, which would benefit the man, but they’re not doing that work to get that far.

Ruth Perry (24:15)
I was also curious if you could distinguish the difference between honoring scripture and weaponizing scripture. Can you talk about how that happens on this issue?

Dorothy Greco (24:24)
Yeah, and I feel like I have to be really careful of this too. You know, anytime I have the opportunity to speak or to teach, I don’t want to use that platform as a bully pulpit. I don’t want to, you know, pluck out certain sections of scripture that support my argument or my beliefs and not pay attention to the other ones.

So for me, if we look at like the full arc of scripture from the beginning in Genesis all the way to the end in Revelation, what it’s talking about is redemption. What it’s talking about is reconciliation. What it’s talking about is us really being able to love again in the way that Paul wrote about in 1 Corinthians 13. That’s what it’s all about. That’s what we’re being called to. We’re not being called to hierarchies. We’re not being called to racism. We’re not being called to Christian nationalism. We’re being called to love passionately, sacrificially in a way that is actually quite difficult.

So whenever I have conflicts with somebody about what scripture is saying, it feels really important to me to be able to be mindful of the whole. Like not just this one particular passage, but what is the whole, what is the redemptive hermeneutic of the entire scripture? And how can I apply that to whatever conversation happening? So when I consider the words of Joel Webbon or Mark Driscoll, those sort of men who I do believe weaponized scripture. I do believe that the folks in the 1800s, the American Christians who were using the scripture to defend racism, I think they were weaponizing scripture. They were taking it out of context. We know that slave owners cut sections of the scripture out so that their slaves would not have any understanding of the ways that the Bible really does speak of freedom.

It speaks of not of slavery, but of freedom and of equality. So I really don’t think that if somebody is serious about their faith, that they can use the Bible to say women are less than, women are not equal to men, or people of color are less than white folks. Like that is weaponizing scripture. And I think they’re gonna have to answer to the Lord for those choices that they’ve made.

Ruth Perry (26:30)
Amen, absolutely. If the church truly embraced the gifts and leadership and wisdom and voices of women, how do you think that it would change our witness in the world?

Dorothy Greco (26:39)
I think we’d be a lot more believable. Yeah, so my husband and I happen to be in relationship with a fair number of people who would not consider themselves to be Christians. And when we’ve had conversations about why my husband and I are, their main complaint is like, if Christianity was real, then more people would act like Christians, to which we would say, yeah, we feel the same way. So I think it’s when people take the scripture seriously, take Jesus’ call seriously, take it seriously to really be changed people, to be transformed people, to be transformed into the image of Christ. That’s when the gospel gains traction in the world.

It’s not simply the talk, it’s not simply what kind of worship you have on Sunday morning, it’s how radically are you loving people. Our little church is very connected to the local government’s foster care system. So we have an unusually high number of families who foster in our church. And to me, I don’t think I could ever do that. I don’t. I have too many control issues and not enough empathy at this point in my life. Cause it is hard.

Like we have walked with these folks and to say that is really hard work, but that’s just one of the ways that they’re seeing. I have this capacity. We have space in our house. I have space in my heart. I see that the Lord cares about these children, so what can we do? And those kind of witnesses to the truth of the gospel, to me, are very impactful.

Ruth Perry (28:09)
Well, what I really appreciate about your book is that you don’t stop at just naming the problem. You also talk about healing. What does healing from misogyny actually look like for individuals and for communities?

Dorothy Greco (28:21)
Yeah, first I think it is individual in terms of what we as women have to deal with, have to walk through if we have been harmed by misogyny. And most of us have, and there’s a spectrum from those who have been raped or repeatedly faced abuse within the context of their marriage versus other women who maybe have just had a boss who was verbally abusive or have been catcalled as they’re walking down the street.

But I think first we have to name it. We have to be willing to say this happened and then to call it for what it is rather than dismissing it or rather than simply saying, you know, that happened a long time ago, so it’s not a factor for me. As they do research, you know, we’re learning how much our bodies carry the traumas in them. It may have happened a long time ago, but our bodies still remember and our bodies know what happened to us and they carry it until we’re able to process it and it’s not move beyond it, but move through it, I guess is the best way to talk about it.

So first is reckoning with what happened, talking about what happened with trusted people, whether that’s a professional therapist or friends who have been through the similar situations who can really listen and who can be empathetic witnesses. It’s grieving. There’s a lot of grief involved. When I was writing this book, I did a lot of grieving both for myself and the ways that I’ve suffered from misogyny, but corporately as a whole, the way women have been so deeply, deeply wounded by misogyny. Paying attention to our anger.

For women in the church settings in particular, people don’t like it when we get angry. We are silenced and shushed and criticize when we express anger, but anger is really important to this process. We have to really understand what is the anger trying to teach us. So I think that that’s an important component for healing and then being willing to move towards forgiveness and that is a very organic process for each one of us.

And I don’t think it’s ever one and done. I really believe that the seven times 70 that Jesus talked about is true for all of us, that we forgive, we make the conscious choice to forgive, but then there are so many different layers that come up as we’re triggered or as we remember things that happened. And we have to then just revisit and say, okay, I guess that I have more work to do here.

And then for men, for those of us have perpetuated misogyny, it’s different for them. I think it’s really important that they acknowledge the ways that they have harmed women. And I think that that acknowledgement should be both to the woman, if it’s an individual woman, and also corporate. I really would like to see more pastors from the front saying, I have been thinking about the ways that we as a church have been maybe a little bit misogynistic and here I’m gonna name them and I want to take responsibility for that. That would really go a long way, I think, for women to feel seen and heard and for the experiences that they’ve had to be named because so often it’s denied and we then have to just think like, did that really happen? Is that what happened in that situation? But when somebody can name it and own it, I think that that really is very useful to us.

And then men being willing to say, I am going to do whatever it takes to make sure that the women in my congregation are thriving. And I want to have a conversation. I’m going to invite you women to come and have lunch with me after church for the next four weeks. And I want to hear what you have to say about the ways that you have been shut down or the ways that you have not been invited in. I’ve been going to church for 45 years and nobody has ever done that, ever, and I would love to see it. All you pastors out there, I’d love to see that.

Ruth Perry (31:59)
I think it was 12 years ago my husband and I went through a church planting assessment with Converge. And I was the only female candidate. Everyone else there was just the male was going to be the pastor and then the wife was there to support. And
Converge at the time was, you know, women could be pastors too, but they were partnering with Acts 29. And so the experience of that weekend was like, I’m the odd duck around here.

And I remember them asking me if women using their gifts in ministry was a hill that I wanted to die on. And I said no at the time. It wasn’t. That was 12 years ago. But as I’ve experienced these obstacles in me fulfilling my calling, I’ve come to realize that it absolutely is abuse when you don’t let women use their gifts, and be who they are and who God made them to be. If you’re trying to stuff them into boxes that fit your norms for your community and that’s all they can be, that is abuse as well, I believe.

Dorothy Greco (32:55)
Yes, and it can lead to religious trauma.

Ruth Perry (32:58)
Yeah, yeah. I did get some EMDR therapy recently and I realized I have religious trauma. It hadn’t occurred to me, but it was really helpful to go through that therapy.

Dorothy Greco (33:08)
Yeah, yeah, I did some EMDR last summer too as I was writing the book because there were so many things coming up for me.

Ruth Perry (33:15)
For women who have experienced harm and trauma in the church because of misogyny, what would you want them to hear the most?

Dorothy Greco (33:21)
Hmm. I think that healing is possible. It’s totally a journey and it’s gonna take work, but healing is possible and Maybe more importantly that God loves women like I believe that with all of my heart that the Lord loves women I think when we look at the ways that Jesus treated women the ways he listened to women the way he respected women the way he invited women in. The ways that he healed women. I can’t come to any other conclusion other than the fact that you know he was portraying God’s heart to women. And I really believe that if the church and if the culture treated women in those ways, that there would be just an incredible amount of healing and an incredible amount of joy that we could experience as a culture if that was in fact how we were treating women.

Ruth Perry (34:10)
How can women begin reclaiming their voices and gifts after years of being told to stay small?

Dorothy Greco (34:15)
Yeah, that’s hard work, isn’t it?

Ruth Perry (34:17)
Yeah.

Dorothy Greco (34:17)
I think that that is part of the healing journey and then being willing to start to take risks, you know, to start to push back. I think a number of years ago when our senior pastor was preaching a sermon about David and the way he phrased it was that David and Bathsheba’s affair. And I remember just in that moment thinking like, whoa, that was not an affair. An affair is consensual, an affair is mutual. And so rather than just sit on those feelings, you know, I had a conversation with him. Didn’t do it right after the sermon, because I understand how vulnerable people are when they preach, but waited a couple days and then just wrote a very thoughtful email to say, here’s some research, here’s some things that I’ve learned over the years, and I don’t think it’s really fair to call it an affair. I think that it was rape. It seems pretty clear to me that it was rape.

So taking, like finding the courage in those moments, to do just little pushbacks I think makes a difference. It gives us a sense of empowerment and voice, which is not to say that all of those conversations will go well or will be heard. But then really I think reckoning with am I in a space that is going to allow me to thrive and to flourish? And if not, is it time to think about finding a different church? Obviously that’s a much more complicated question when it’s marriage, right?

But for some women that is the story that if their partner is unwilling to listen, he’s unwilling to hear, if he’s unwilling to value, if there’s ongoing abuse, then I think that that is a question that’s worth asking is do I need to leave in order to be able to speak and in order to be able to find my voice. think Tia Leving’s book, The Well-Trained Wife and her new book as well, which is I Belong to Me, I haven’t finished that one yet, but she talks a lot about what what it’s like as a woman who is clearly super smart, very articulate, to be in a system that routinely shut her down, that routinely said she had no right to speak. And so both of her books talk about what it’s been like for her to find her voice and to journey out of those oppressive systems.

Ruth Perry (36:20)
Let me just ask a couple more questions before we close. What does the phrase, For the love of women, mean to you now, after writing and discussing this book with readers?

Dorothy Greco (36:28)
Yeah, originally the title was Love the Women. And then as we were working on both title and subtitle, was about a year and a half ago now, my main editor, Kyle, said, you know, I think that a more invitational title is for the love of women.

And I agreed with them. I thought yes, you’re right. I think that that that is a better title So I think when we consider what are the things that need to happen in order for women to feel valued respected loved in order to thrive I think it it really is about for the love of women like what can we do for the love of women? How can we change systems and cultures and churches for the love of women? So it is an invitation and I think that

This is only going to change if a lot of people are willing to come alongside of those who have these feelings and who have the level of conviction so that we can move forward. When you think back to the ways that racism had one of its falls, certainly it’s still there and we’re seeing that a lot within the Christian nationalist movement.

There was some real clear movement that happened in the 1960s. And I think that there was just like a groundswell of people who said enough, like I am just so tired of seeing this, of experiencing this. And then that collaborative effort, and there was a lot of prayer. I mean, there was a lot of prayer that happened during that time. So it has to come through a desire for transformation, both personally and corporately and there has to be a sense of it’s time. It’s time for us as a culture to stop oppressing women and to figure out what it looks like to really love them so that they can thrive and flourish.

Ruth Perry (38:13)
Yeah, I just think that’s such a profound and simple thing. But as Christians, we’re called to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves. And are you truly loving someone if you’re controlling them and dominating them and having expectations for them? Yeah. And then I think of all the one another commands throughout the New Testament. If we applied that to our relationships with women in the church, would we treat them the way that we’re treating them now?

Dorothy Greco (38:37)
Right? Right?

Ruth Perry (38:38)
If readers walk away remembering only one thing from this book, what do you hope that it is?

Dorothy Greco (38:43)
I think it just goes back to that last question is that God loves them and they are worthy of being loved. There is nothing faulty about them because they’re women. We have gotten that message again and again and again that we’re less than, that we should be smaller, that we should be quiet, that we shouldn’t get in the way. And I don’t think that that’s truthful. think honestly, if I’m really being honest, I would say that’s a lie from the pit of hell.

That’s exactly what the enemy would want. The enemy would want us to make women subservient, to make them less than, to keep them down because if women are fully themselves and fully thriving, watch out.

Ruth Perry (39:20)
Well, thank you so much. Your book is For the Love of Women by Dorothy Littell Greco. Your website is DorothyGreco.com, and where else can people find you?

Dorothy Greco (39:29)
Yeah, so Substack is a great place and I’m under What’s Faith Got to do With It. I don’t post a ton, like maybe twice a month, but really solid articles in there, sometimes excerpts, and then I’m also on Instagram.

Ruth Perry (39:43)
You have two marriage books as well, right?

Dorothy Greco (39:45)
Yeah. The first one is Making Marriage Beautiful and that was published in 2017 by David C. Cook and then Marriage in the Middle, which is really about marriage in the years of between like 40 to 70 in terms of our age, not the number of years married. And that one, I really love that book. There’s nothing like it out there. It really talks very honestly about the challenges that we face in midlife as we’re married.

Ruth Perry (40:09)
Well, I’m 45 so I’m gonna pick it up. Thank you so much for being here today talking with me, Dorothy. Let me give you the last word before we sign off.

Dorothy Greco (40:18)
Yeah, just am appreciative that you care about this and my hope is that more and more people will read the book and will share it with other folks and the conversations will snowball so that we can really make some progress on figuring out what it looks like to love women.

Ruth Perry (40:33)
It’s a really amazing book. I highly recommend it. Thank you so much. God bless.

Dorothy Greco (40:37)
Thank you.

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018 I Rev. Dr. Marg Kutz on Stories that Propel Us Forward

Posted on April 8, 2026 by | Leave a comment

I was delighted to talk with my Virginia United Methodist Church candidacy mentor, Rev. Dr. Marg Kutz, about her book “Nevertheless, She Preached“, which tells the story of the two first Virginia Methodist clergywomen and all of the obstacles and barriers they smashed in their ministry, paving the way for women to come after them. Marg herself was in the next generation of clergywomen and broke many barriers in her 39 years of pastoral ministry.

Marg’s process of researching and writing the book alone was fascinating to hear about. The Virginia UMC historical records say very little about the contributions and milestones of Rev. Lillian Russell and Rev. Mildred Long in their years of ministry, so it was really important for Marg to take her insider knowledge and experience to fully flesh out their contributions and the impact they had on their denomination.

Our conversation is saturated with stories that will amaze you. If you would like to have Marg speak with your church or book group, please contact her through her website, Nevertheless She Preached. She just released a brand new book about a Western Pennsylvania clergywoman, Clarie Settlemire. You can purchase her books here.

Here’s a snapshot of us at the 2025
VA UMC Annual Conference–

Please enjoy this episode of The Beautiful Kingdom Builders podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Substack, and more! 

TRANSCRIPT:

Ruth Perry (00:16)
My guest today is Reverend Dr. Margaret Kutz, a retired elder in the Virginia Conference of the United Methodist Church and my mentor for the VAUMC candidacy process. Welcome, Marg.

Marg (00:27)
Thank you. Thanks for having me this morning, Ruth.

Ruth Perry (00:30)
I’m delighted to have you. And I am so honored that they gave you as a mentor to me. In our conversation today, we’re going to talk about the book you wrote, “Nevertheless, She Preached” about the two earliest clergy women in the Virginia Conference their story and all of the barriers that they overcame in ministry. But one thing that really stood out to me as I was reading it and as I’ve known you just for a little bit and I’m new to United Methodist Church, I feel coming from the Baptist Church, which is so far behind even where the Methodist Church is, it’s been so amazing to me to just feel the lack of barriers. So I’m just really grateful reading this story, how far the UMC has come since not that many decades ago.

Marg (01:11)
Yes. Right? Yeah, it is good.

Ruth Perry (01:15)
Before we talk about your book, I don’t want you to jump to the parts of your story in your book, but can you take me back through your story, your faith journey as a child and into when you were called to ministry.

Marg (01:30)
I come from a large family. I have four brothers and two sisters, so there were seven of us. And my mother wanted us to grow up in the church, so she made sure we got to Sunday school when we were little. And then as we got older, that we also went to worship. So I had that early upbringing in the church. And I always liked church. I liked being there. There was a time in about sixth grade that I wanted to go to Sunday school, but I didn’t want to go to worship. So I went through that period about six months, but by and large, I enjoyed going.

And my earliest memory is really of, I was about three and I just remember having a conversation with God. So I guess, at the time I didn’t really know what I was doing. So I think that’s pretty significant if your earliest memory is of God. There must be some kind of path for you.

And then I was set on being a missionary. I felt called to be a teaching missionary in Africa and that didn’t happen because I met and fell in love with a man that wasn’t going to work with. So instead, I went to seminary and then became a pastor and did that for 39 years. And I eventually did become a teaching missionary in Africa, but it took me till 65 to do that. That’s another story for another day.

My ministry really comes through that call to missionary work, because then when it looked like it wasn’t going to work, then what was I called to, to sort of clarify that. And so the local church pastor felt like a fit. And I began to meet on campus some other women who were pastors. And that became more of a reality. In addition, in my own home church, there was one other person who came out of that congregation who went to seminary and went on to be ordained. And that was a woman named Clarie Settlemire. And I just finished a book about her. So I had that model as well. Somebody that was about a generation older than me, 17 years older than me, who had gone into the ministry, finished college and seminary and out of this little rural place that we both were from. And so that was a strong emphasis and for me as well.

Ruth Perry (03:27)
Can you tell my audience a little bit about struggle you had deciding between to the mission field and marriage to your husband?

Marg (03:36)
I can do that. We dated for some time and then we were engaged had the wedding, the date planned all of reconcile the two. So I just postponed the wedding and felt that was unfair. So then I gave the ring back. So it broke the engagement. And then I was a school teacher at the time. I finished college and was teaching school, because both the Peace Corps and the Mission Board said, get some experience in United States first teaching and then come back to us and apply again. So I was in the process of doing that.

I remember it was a morning and it was a snowy day, which it is in Western Pennsylvania. And I was driving to school and I heard an audible voice that said, “Marry Bob.” And I thought for sure it was coming from the back seats. Of course there was nobody there. And that’s the only time I’ve heard an audible voice from God. I felt nudgings and had calls in my sleep and such, but that was the first time in the daytime I heard that. So I waited two weeks, did the pros and the cons, and it just felt like, this is stupid. It just doesn’t make any difference. So I called Bob and said, you know, I had this, he said, well, I’ve been trying to tell you that for two years. So that was in February. We were married April 1st that year.

You know, once we got that sorted out, because we knew we cared about each other and wanted to spend the rest of our lives together, but I just couldn’t reconcile the other. So then I still had to figure out, so I did this, God, now what happens? And like I say, it was really in seminary that that became clearer to me that that’s what I was to do. And so did that. We’re married and still married, we’re coming up on 54 years. And we have two kids and four grandchildren.

Ruth Perry (05:14)
I love that story so much. And I thought as I was reading your book, Nevertheless She Preached, both and Mildred Long were unmarried. And it’s kind of sad that that was necessary for them to fulfill God’s call in their lives. And then I think there are a lot of challenges now for women to manage both a call from God and a family, we don’t have to regret that we didn’t have that opportunity either.

Marg (05:38)
It’s interesting to me, Ruth, that for a male clergy, it’s an asset to be married and In fact, a lot of churches don’t want to take a man who’s never been married. That just seems rather strange to them. So that’s an asset for them. But for women, it’s better to never married, no children. That worked better. And I would say it’s probably still very similar to that actually. Churches still prefer a man’s coming to be married with children and a woman not to have so many with family. So many commitments gets in a way.

Ruth Perry (06:09)
Can you introduce us to Reverend Lillian Russell and where she came from and how she came be a minister?

Marg (06:16)
Okay. Lillian was from Richmond and her family was really active in the church. I mean, that they sort of lived and breathed their church. So she grew up in that and, after she preached one time, a minister in the area said he had seen her do things with the youth. So a lot of youth would come and she would speak to them. And so he said, would you speak at my church? And she did. And then she was asked to speak at a revival. And that was going to be, you know, four or five sermons in a row to do that. And she did that at age 17 and people loved it because here was this teenage girl, petite little thing. I don’t know that Lily never weighed more than 120 pounds and she had this voice and this presentation, something to say.

So then she started being invited a lot and she became a full-time evangelist. Well, she wasn’t officially that, but she really was an evangelist in the Methodist church. And had preached for 17 years all over Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and she never drove. So her family had to support her in all of this and take her places and such. And I don’t know that she ever felt like she was going to pastor a local church, but there was a shortage of ministers with the war and she got a call from her district superintendent to go to a little church in Petersburg and to be the pastor there. She learned later that she sent there because they thought the church was going to close and they didn’t really want to waste that on a man.

So they gave it to this little petite evangelist, Lillian, to do it. Well, she stayed and she stayed and she stayed. She did her whole career there and the church grew and it became a really a vital church. Now they grew in numbers and in ministry and in passion for Christ. It was quite a ministry that she had there. And they came to absolutely love her.

Ruth Perry (08:03)
And then what is Mildred Long’s story?

Marg (08:07)
Mildred, came from a large family as did Lillian, but I think that wasn’t terribly unusual back then for people to have larger families before birth control and such. But Mildred came out of North Carolina and was looking for work and found a job at the mills in Dan River. And so she went to work there and they had it all set up for women to come in and have special places for them to live. And it was really interesting to learn more about that. I could have done three chapters on that, just the life there. And I think that really shaped her a lot. She was there for several years. And then somebody there spotted in her potential and they actually paid for her to go to college. So she dropped out of work with the Dan River mills and, and went back to college and she never quite finished. I couldn’t get all of the story on that, but my guess it had something to do with the war and things that were going on in her family, some deaths and that sort of thing. Anyways, so she came back to work at the mills and while she was there, she was real involved in the local church there and did a whole variety of things. Pastors there seemed to be really open to her knowing lots of things. she did that and she was noticed by her pastor, I think, not the district superintendent.

So he started a new church and then he asked Mildred to help him with that. And so he said, you know, as I move into another church, a logical person to appoint to this church plant, they didn’t call it that back then, but this church plant would be Mildred Long. So she got an appointment there. It was there about two years and then she got an appointment to another church. You know, people just began to see her ability. Now they were very different from each other, Ruth. They were both strong and Lillian could be fierce, but Mildred was fierce. And she ruffled some feathers. Lillian tended to sort of calm things, but Mildred was more likely to confront things. And their friendship meant a lot to them because they were the same age, born the same year, but Lillian was about 10 years in experience ahead of Mildred. So Mildred leaned on Lillian’s experience and they became friends through all of that. they were the only two.

Ruth Perry (10:12)
Do you feel you have anything in common with Lillian or Mildred, Marg?

Marg (10:16)
You know, I connected more with Mildred. There was a, I don’t know, there was a spiritual, both innocence and powerhouse in Lillian that I really admired, but I don’t see in myself. There was fierceness and a determination in both of them, but the way it got acted out in Mildred, I think, was more like how I acted out. A little more upfront.

Ruth Perry (10:37)
So you knew of them when you were coming into ministry and you had contacted them, which you write about, they actually retired the year that you were ordained, is that correct?

Marg (10:48)
They retired a couple years after I was ordained. I think in 79 and I was ordained in 77. So yes, two years. But I had never met them. And I wanted to get together of the clergy at conference for lunch. So I looked to see who all the clergy women were. I think there were five of us. so I asked, this was all written, know, and typed. And it was when we had carbon paper behind it. So it wasn’t, I shot an email out to them, but actually, you know, typed up a letter and sent it out to women to invite them. And it was Mildred that responded back to me and said that she had talked to Lillian and they decided not to come, that they really hoped that our experience would be different from theirs. And they didn’t want their experience to color or influence our own experience.

So I was sorry about that. Because at the time I was sort of peeved. then as I look back, particularly as I researched for this book, I was really sorry that I didn’t know them. And I think it really would have made a difference for all of the clergy women at that time to have known them, even if we had to hear their stories and all the things that happened to them. Once they retired, they sort of set it aside. They were interviewed by a woman, Kathy Morgan, who wrote the history of the United Methodist Women’s Society in Virginia. It was just a little booklet. So it’s maybe 50 pages, if it’s even that. And she had two pages on Mildred and Lillian. And how she did that was she interviewed them by mail. So she wrote them a letter with some questions and then they wrote back with their And they talked as if nothing of any consequence, there wasn’t wasn’t any blowback or pushback on them of any consequence. And I think that by that time they had gotten to the point was like, just letting this go. I don’t need to carry this banner anymore about the prejudice. But it was there. It was clearly there when you read their history. They may not have said it, but they lived it.

Ruth Perry (12:43)
You wrote your book in the genre of historical fiction, which was so beautiful because it really captured not just the facts of what happened, but the emotion and the impact in a really powerful way, I think, and really beautifully captured the culture of their age. Just the little particular things about their own personalities that I think wouldn’t have been conveyed as well, as So I really appreciated your approach to writing the book. And you said in the introduction, that God led you to write this through a dream. Can you tell me about that?

Marg (13:16)
This time I was retired and I had been thinking about writing my own story. People had encouraged me to do that. And so I was sort of thinking about that. Well, I have time now that I’m retired, maybe I could do this. I had a dream and the dream was to tell the story of Lillian Russell and Mildred Long. I mean, it was just plain and I knew even when I was having it that this was from God and that I was going to do this.

And I knew nothing about writing. I did learn that I’m not a good writer. But critique groups helped me tremendously. They were very patient with me. I was definitely the worst writer in the group. And they just sort of brought me in. The first chapter became the first three chapters. And then the first of those chapters, I took to the group three times. And the third time I said, now, when I say make these edits, you want me to bring it back to you again? And they said, no, they were tired of it. Move on. And I had started it as sort of a biography and then I didn’t like it. So then I made it biography combined with historical fiction. And the group said, you got to make up your mind. You can’t write a book that’s both. It’s got to be one or the other. And like you said, as I got to know the women, I wanted people to know them as people and not just the facts of their life. So that’s the reason I made it fiction so I could tell the conversations.

And oftentimes it would be either something I read or something that somebody told me in interview about them, either something that happened or a trait they had in their personality. And then I would create a scene or a story that would help convey that rather than just to write it in a paragraph or in a sentence. And that was fun to think about that. OK, so I know this about them. Like I know that Lillian Russell had to appear before the committee. So what must that have been like? What did people wear? Where would they have been? How would she be feeling? What was going on? And I could sort of refer back to my own experience as part of it, because even though I was a generation behind them, my experience, particularly early on in those first five to 10 years, was almost identical to theirs. Things had not changed much at all in that time period. And then they changed rapidly in the 70s and 80s with the women’s movement.

But up until then, really my experience was very similar to theirs. So I could fall back on my own experience and think about how I felt and what happened and what I saw in the men, either obvious or subtle.

Ruth Perry (15:35)
You clearly worked very hard, and I think you wrote excellently. I was just talking college minister in a previous episode and she quoted GK Chesterton, “Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.” But I don’t think you did it poorly at all. I think it’s amazing and I really enjoyed reading it.

Marg (15:39)
Thank you. Yeah. I hear what you’re saying though. Yeah.

Ruth Perry (15:55)
I mean, their story is so important.

Marg (15:57)
It is, it is. And I think what makes the book interesting is them. It’s not the way I told it. It’s them. They were amazing people. And I came to what I felt sort of know them, you know, through all of this. And there were times, I remember one night my critique group met about 45 minutes from where I live. And on the north side of Richmond, and I live in the south side.

And so as I was coming back home, I was thinking about this because one of the men in the group said, as he was critiquing, they would read 10 pages and tell you what they thought. And he sort of pushed the paper back. He said, look, you don’t have a lot to work with here. So if this is going to be good, it’s got to be written really well. And it’s not. He said, I was like…

Ruth Perry (16:40)
Brutal!

Marg (16:44)
It was brutal. So when I went home that night, I was driving home talking to God saying, you know, these people deserve a really good book. So either I need to get out of the way for somebody else to write it, or I need to get out of the way for you to help me write it. So help me with this, God, if you really want me to do this, help me, because I want this to be a good book for them, because, you know, they really do deserve this. So it’s just a sort of a conversation, you know, if you I don’t know how people pray and listen to God, but I felt like God was trying to tell me how she was informing me and was sort of, listen harder and wait longer. Because I’d be like, why don’t I just do that and then to go forward with it. And she was saying to me, wait a little longer and listen a little harder. And then as I thought about it, I thought, that is true.

Because sometimes what the critique people tell me is exactly what I was thinking when I was writing it but I didn’t stop writing long enough to stop and listen and then to write as I was directed. So I thought God really is directing me in this. I’m just moving forward too fast and not listening enough. I don’t pretend that this is the Bible, but but it did cause me to think, I wonder what it’s like for the Bible writers, particularly like Paul or even the gospel writers telling a story. And we think about them being directed by God. And I just wondered if they had critique groups, you other disciples, you know, sort of this is what I remember how it happened. And maybe you should add this so the reader will see this. And so anyways, just thinking about how God has led people to write all kinds of things over the years from the heights, you know, the Bible to historical fiction and how that works. So I think God still words that are inspired by God, whether they be sermons or books or poems or hymns.

Ruth Perry (18:27)
Absolutely. Part of my own experience now in the United Methodist Church is that I came in completely blind. I knew nothing about polity. I knew some Wesleyan theology because I had already been licensed in another Wesleyan denomination. But I was brand new to all of the language of the Methodist Church, the structure, the politics of it, and it was very overwhelming coming in. So was grateful that they gave me mentors to help. But can you give a little bit of a crash course on the process of becoming a clergy person in the Methodist Church?

Marg (19:01)
So it starts with the local church. And if the person feels a nudging or a call, he or she talks to the pastor. And there’s some resources they can use, some books and such, to sort of walk through it. And if the pastor feels person has thought it through adequately, and it might take a week, it might take two years, and working through some of the resources.

Then has the person go before what’s called the Staff Parish Relations Committee. It’s sort of the personnel committee at the local church. And then they recommend or not recommend for the next step. And if they do recommend, then it goes to the church’s charge conference, which is sort of a group of their leaders. And if they recommend, then the next level, so now it’s done by the local church, the person who knows that person best.

And then it goes on to the district level, which is what the district superintendent overseas. And if they are approved for that, and there’s a lot of papers to write and interviews, and so it’s a long process for that, then they can recommend them for ordination. I guess it’s consecration and becoming a provisional member. When I came in, was ordination as a deacon and probationary membership. And now it’s provisional, but what’s the other? not a deacon anymore.

Ruth Perry (20:12)
Associate.

Marg (20:14)
Yes, associate. And when they’re brought into provisional membership, then they still cared for by the district, but then they’re eligible to be recommended to the annual conference. And then ultimately they’re on by a clergy session. So all the ministers in the conference vote on who gets to come in. And if they’re voted in, then they’re ordained and brought into full membership.

It’s quite a process, as you know. So there’s that polity side, but then there’s a whole education piece, know, with college and seminary or lay licensing school and all those in addition to this approval process through the ranks.

Ruth Perry (20:40)
So it’s good, they definitely equip their ministers, which is great. So and very affirmed in their local church their gifts were obvious had opportunities to local pastors that supported them. But what were some of the barriers that they started to encounter as wanted go through the steps of increasing their status in the United Methodist Church.

Marg (21:14)
Along with that, I found out through reading newspaper articles and Mildred was more likely to tell some of her story and as she was being interviewed, Lillian a little less so, but you could tell from they came through. For instance, when Lillian was appointed to the first church, it was because they thought she was going to close it.

And then when she went to seek some kind of status, because then she was just lay supply, which means at any moment that she could be out of there. There was no guarantee or security really in that position. So as she sought to have some level of status beyond lay supply, she needed to appear before the district committee. And what I read was that she was in the Richmond district and she was approved in a Rappahannock district. Now that didn’t make any sense because you would always be approved by your home district. And then they have the pastors listed for each of the districts, she was listed in the Richmond district. But the newspaper said that she was approved in the Rappahannock. So this is just one case that I did some investigation. And without the newspaper article, I wouldn’t have known any of this had happened.

But with that, then I went to a retired minister named Raymond Wren, who had been around then and knew Lillian Mildred. And at this point, he was over a hundred years old, but he had a really, really good memory. And so he talked to me about that. He didn’t know so much the particular stories of Lillian Mildred, although he knew of them and had met them. But he said, tell me who two district superintendents were. And I told him, and he said, yes.

So she had to leave her district to go to another district in order to find a district superintendent who would even allow her to appear before his committee. So she did, she was approved. And I remember going through those ropes young woman. And so again, I was able to sort of describe her experiences based on my own, how the men were, how their behavior was, what her response was, or trying to read the room. When I first came in, they wanted the minister’s wives to come with them for the interview. Now that just seems archaic now.

But that was standard then and my husband did go with me when I was first interviewed on the district for a deacon So when Lillian went she would have taken her father And her father was a big deal on the district, but now they’re on a different district. They’re not on the home district So he didn’t carry quite as much weight there as he had But just trying to navigate all of that as a young woman.

It was quite remarkable what she did and quite disappointing how the church was, just how much more it had to grow. I also found out, Ruth, that even though it was in the Discipline, it was not enforced. It was sort of like, well, you know, not all of us are on board with you girls, so you can go to this district because this DS thinks it’s okay to have a girl in ministry.

So there were some of that and that was happening in Mildred when she wanted to be brought into full connection, ordained an elder and brought into full connection. She was on one district. I think she was still in Danville then I’m not sure. But anyways but then she had to move and this was something she had written had shared in an interview for a newspaper article. That’s where I read that. The bishop moved her to a different district.

And my take on it was when she couldn’t get the DS to allow her to come and appear before the district committee, that Mildred probably called the bishop. That would be my guess, knowing what I know about Mildred. And the bishop said, let me move you this year. So she moved to a different district where the bishop knew there would be a district superintendent with who more amenable. So they didn’t enforce the rules. They just sort of worked around them because it was a boys club.

They didn’t want to come at each other. They wanted to do the right thing, but they didn’t want to hurt each other. So they just found other ways to do it. It was really hard for Lillian and Mildred and other women in the days that I came in to feel supported by the hierarchy. It just wasn’t there. The very first appointment I had when superintendent called me to tell me where I was going.

It was Round Hill and I said, well, where is that? He said, get a map and look it up. huh. So then he talked a little bit about it and then not much. And, cause I had been out of town and he said, I’ve been trying to call you. And this is, know, before voicemail and all that long time ago. and, and I said, well, I was in California. You shouldn’t travel during appointment season.

And I thought to myself, I didn’t even know there was an appointment season. But see, these were things that the men knew because they mentored each other. the women were totally kept out of those kinds of things. So I was scolded for that. And then he said, glad I’m going off the cabinet this year because I don’t ever want to have to appoint another woman again.

Yeah. So there were district superintendents, even though we were in there as, when I came in being eligible for Deacon, Elder and full connection, just all the rights and privileges the men had the district superintendents for not kept in line with the, with the same book that we all shared and they made a commitment to when they were ordained that they would support and uphold that Book of Discipline. And they, didn’t, and they weren’t held accountable to it. And the people that suffered were a lot of people, but

I was aware of the clergy women as separate as a result of that. The first district I went on was the Winchester district and Lee Schaefer was the district superintendent there. And he was brand new in that position. And I found out that really he made my appointment. He was invited as the new district superintendent to come in and sit on some of the appointment things. And, this is a story. They thought they were all done.

Now they use laptops, but then they had books, their appointment books. And so everybody had closed it up and Bishop Goodson said, well, I guess that’s it. Because it was long, know, our long arduous project process. And the district superintendent, the outgoing retiring district superintendent from that district raised his hand said, Bishop, I still have one church without a pastor. So they don’t open up their books. And so at that point, they’re thinking about appointing somebody that’s retired because it looks like everybody’s taken. And it was Lee Schaefer that says, Bishop, where’s Margaret Kutz gone? And he said, well, she’s going to go to Graham Road part time. And I was going to be part time there because they didn’t want me working after dark. It was just one of those things that’s like when the streetlights come on, all the kids and the associate pastor have to come inside because they’re not allowed out.

Anyways, so I was going to be part-time at a church because I couldn’t be out night and was going to my senior pastor told me a nice guy, but he told me said I don’t know really what I think about women in ministry, but my wife thinks it’s a good idea. So I thought I’d give it a chance. Anyways, so I knew there wasn’t going to be a lot of support there. So when Lee Schaefer found out where I was appointed part-time, he said, well, what about her? No, they would never take a woman. He said, well, let’s ask them.

So they called and they gave him a choice, apparently. I figured one was dead and the other one was nearly dead, or me. I don’t know if that really was true, but anyways, probably two retired people or me. And they said, well, we’ll take that woman. It was the president of the local bank that was chairing the committee, Mr. Cooley. As I came to know him, I thought I can see him being open to that. So that’s how I got that appointment. My district superintendent who supposedly made the appointment. I was the only woman he’d ever appointed and he didn’t want to have to do it again. Hard to believe, isn’t it?

Ruth Perry (28:21)
It really is. So at the end, the last few chapters of this book, you share pieces of your own journey you talk about a minister and pregnant and some of the terrible things that people thought about that, that they didn’t want to see someone behind the pulpit and know that they had done it.

Marg (28:32)
Yeah. Yeah. Yes, you can just tell she did it. And there’s teenagers in the congregation and they’ll know she did it. You know, that and women are naughty.

Ruth Perry (28:38)
and just archaic ideas. So I was thinking about Lillian being posted at a church that they thought only had about two years before it would close. And the idea of the glass cliff that oftentimes when an organization is sinking, that’s when they give a woman an opportunity. And it’s not just an opportunity to lead, but it’s also kind of like putting the woman in a scapegoat position where they can criticize her and blame her. Yeah.

Marg (29:07)
See, we told you. Yes, yeah, we told you. I remember one time I went to a district superintendent saying, I’d like to be considered as a church planter, know, a pastor who would be particularly trained to start new churches. I always thought that a lot of work, but I thought it would be a lot of fun. And he said, I don’t know. He said, you know, we had a woman try it and it didn’t go well. When I knew who she was, I’d went on to seminary with her and a fine minister, really gifted. Anyways, and I said, So if you ever have a male minister try to start a church and fail and he said, yes. And I said, well, what are you going to do if you can’t ask men and you can’t ask women? He was like, Because he’d do such a broad brush for women and a little tiny hair brush for the man. So there was all of that, what you’re talking about send her to the place that is almost impossible. And then say, see, we told you not only that she can’t do it, any of her kind can’t do it. The whole broad brush thing.

Ruth Perry (30:04)
So can you tell me a little bit about the 1979 annual conference how that was a pivotal of mantle passing between Lillian and Mildred and future generations?

Marg (30:13)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Lillian Mildred born the same year, but they didn’t come into ministry the same year because Lillian was the head of Mildred. But they retired the same year, 1979. They were both 65 and retired in 1979. And so when I went back and looked The Advocates of the historical records, the magazine for the annual conference, I looked at what was going on that year. And it really was a pretty big year for several levels, but the year that they retired should have been noted that the two earliest clergy women are retiring and there was of course nothing. But then it listed the people that were ordained that year. And that was also the year that they elected delegates to general and jurisdictional conference.

So it tends to be a really heated session, very competitive and the way it works and you have caucuses that, you know, supporting different people and And the clergy women were just trying to figure out how to influence that vote. We hadn’t quite figured it all out yet, but we did eventually. And truly we changed the face of General Conference from the Virginia side totally. And did it for some years, which really puzzled and frustrated other people who thought they knew how to do this. But anyways, we came up with a different strategy and overcame the biases.

So that year people were contesting for General Conference and they needed one more delegate from Virginia for General Conference. You had to have a majority, but there were three that were elected on the last vote. Usually they reduced how many were needed to elect as they went on. They were trying to wrap up annual conference. They would say, okay, now you only have to have so many to be elected.

So these were these three people. One of them was Jim Turner, the guy that told me, you know, I’m glad I don’t have to point another woman. But anyways, he was elected to General Conference. But the person that really stood out for me was Leigh and Teen Kelly. She was an African American woman, a whole generation older than me. She was just a year younger than my mother. And Leigh and Teen, and she was ordained the same night I was, you know, in order, Kelly and then Kutz.

But anyways, Leontine Kelly, then she went on not only to represent Virginia at General Conference, but she went on and was elected a bishop. She was not elected from the Southeast. They would not elect her. So she got on a plane out of, out of North Carolina and, flew to a place out West. can’t remember now the name of the city where they were having their own. jurisdictional conferences they were all held at the same time. And she was elected there. These people didn’t even know her.

But they knew of her and she went from group to group, you know, and introduced herself, talked about they asked her questions. And so when it was time to vote, they voted for this woman who had just showed up at their jurisdictional conference. It was it was truly an act of God, truly an act of God. So so there was that with Lillian teen Kelly and they probably didn’t even know her. And then Cynthia Corley was ordained that night and she was the first

female district superintendent appointed in Virginia and in the whole Southeast. There were three of them appointed the same year. So she was one of the three first. And none of us knew that this was how it was going to play itself out. But you know, Elisha asked for a double portion of Elijah’s. And I think that was what it was. It was two of them and they both gave a double portion. And here we had two history making things happening as they passed that mantle. So you think about the power that they carried in their mantle. And when they passed it on, the power that then was spread and shared with the, what do you call your blog, the peaceful kingdom kind of thing.

Ruth Perry (33:47)
Yeah, the beautiful kingdom.

Marg (33:48)
Beautiful kingdom. and they they became part of that. So lots of times we are part of what the Spirit’s doing and have no idea Have no idea that what I’ve what we done and they didn’t know they were retiring. They didn’t know they were doing anything, but they did. And the spirit took that and wrapped it up, their mantle up, parted the waters, and through they came.

Ruth Perry (34:11)
Praise God. And then you were the first woman that served on the Board of Ordination. Can you describe what that experience was like, Marg?

Marg (34:20)
It was really hard. It was really hard. The only time in my life that I actually had allergic reaction to anxiety was there. Something had happened in one of the interviews that was totally wrong and it happened to a friend of mine and as a result of that she wasn’t approved and they had there was.

confidential information that wasn’t true, confidential information that wasn’t true that they went and intentionally told each of the committees before she got there. So each time that she went into one of the interview committees, they confronted her with something that was none of their business. It was confidential and wasn’t true. And then they wondered why she came across as sort of angry and she wasn’t approved. And

I wanted so much, because she was a friend in particular, but it was awful that I couldn’t help her. And I didn’t know how to do it. It was so much bigger than me. I remember leaving, going back to my room, they had a birthday party for one of the guys and they wanted me to bring in a cake and they one of Dolly Parton’s songs. And it was the whole thing was just, you know, the men are hooting and.

with this old guy that I don’t know, he’s celebrating his 70th birthday or something. Anyways, because I was young, so everybody seemed old to me then. So there was all this guy stuff going on, and I was just carrying this burden for my friend. And I remember going up to my room and crying and calling her after I knew that she had been informed to apologize to her that I didn’t know how to make it right. And then I went directly from there to a clergywoman’s retreat.

And every time I tried to tell the story, I couldn’t breathe. I had to stop talking. Like I said, was the first time I’ve had an allergic reaction like that. I was just closed up and I couldn’t talk. I was made mute.

So that was the worst thing that happened, but it was difficult. We didn’t require inclusive language then. In fact, most of the guys didn’t know what it was. But if somebody came through, a candidate came through and they had used inclusive language in their paper, I just thanked them for it. I said, I noticed you did that and just want to let you know I appreciate that. And some of the other guys on my interview team would apologize for me.

And I said, you don’t have to apologize for me. If they used it, clearly they appreciate it. So you don’t have to say anything, you know? But by the time I left, I had made a motion to require inclusive language in all papers. So I thought, OK, this is a test to how well I did here, see if this passes. And the chair said, Margo, I really want this to pass. I think you need to make it recommend rather than require. I said, mm-mm. I’m going with require.

Let’s just see what happens. And it was approved, not unanimously, but it was approved to require inclusive language on all papers. And I thought, okay, I have come and I found a place for myself and I’ve made a difference and now I’m leaving. I’ve been here seven years and I’m going to leave. But that was an affirmation that I’ve done a few things right anyways. Had earned some crud on the board.

Ruth Perry (37:11)
Where do you see that Virginia needs to continue advancing in their inclusion and treatment of women and minorities? And where do you think we need to improve?

Marg (37:21)
Mm-hmm. I do think that ethnic women in particular really need some attention. There was a time when we had very few Korean pastors, male or female, in the conference. And then just a whole lot came to the board of ordained ministry. And my thinking was that we needed to look to see what God was doing to say, you know, why are all these Koreans coming out? Why is God sending them to the Virginia conference?

And is there supposed to be a specialized ministry that we’re supposed to be doing? Because also a lot of Koreans were moving to Virginia. But instead of doing that, they tried to find a way for them to fit into what we already have. You know, how do we how do we appoint them? Well, let’s just point them with no bias, just as if they’re Anglo. Let’s just move forward with that. So there was no preparation for the pastors nor for the congregations because I think they thought the best way to avoid bias is to pretend there isn’t any. And so it was really difficult. And the women really struggled because in their own Korean culture, they were a step behind the women, I would say, in the United States in terms of recognition. So they had their own bias coming out of their own culture. And then coming into the church and being both female and Korean, they were really hurting and felt really invisible. So that one, and I also think Hispanic and African-American.

The race issue becomes secondary every time another one comes up. So when it women and, you know, race came second and then other things happen. Now it’s LGBTQ and then race is second. And so we’ve made great strides and with women and some ethnic groups and certainly great strides with LGBTQ plus, but we still have a ways to go, I think, with our ethnic groups. the women’s movement has notoriously been about white women. And we need to change that. And I think the women need to come together and the white women need to sort of shut up and do more listening to our sisters who are Black, Latino, Asian, and listen to what they have to say and see if there’s some way that we can back them up and help.

Ruth Perry (39:31)
So on Wednesday, I was participating in a Zoom talk about your book that you were invited to do at the conference. And it was striking that no men signed up to participate and hear from you. Have you experienced a lot of feeling ignored or accepted by your male colleagues or has that mostly been a marginal experience for you?

Marg (39:52)
I think, no, there have been some that have read the book and most of them are acquaintances. So I think they read it as much because a friend of theirs wrote it. But I’ve been invited to a lot of groups to speak about the book, know, women’s circles are, but it’s all always either been the whole church, the whole congregation, like on a Sunday morning, or it’s been just a women’s group. have yet to be invited to a men’s group.

I was invited to one clergy group and I asked, it was Drew Colby that did this and I asked Drew if he would do it. I wanted to see what happened. And so he brought them together. had not read the book, but anyways, it was a good discussion. That’s the only one I’ve had, but that was because I asked somebody to do it.

Somehow history, just history, which is really history that the white men write. And I don’t mean anything against white men, but that’s just sort of the reality that we live in. That that’s for everybody. But then if you have Black history, that’s only for Blacks to hear about. And if you have women’s history, that’s just for women to hear about it. But we need to hear the whole history.

I don’t know what you do with that, Ruth.

Ruth Perry (40:52)
Absolutely. Well, I think calling it out is a place to start and just bringing awareness that we need to listen to each other.

Marg (41:00)
Mm-hmm.

Ruth Perry (41:00)
I was kind of sad towards the end of the book reading about Lillian and Mildred’s retirement years. Lillian especially seemed very lost without her ministry. And just the contrast between their retirement and your own retirement, you’ve never stopped. You’re still going, going, going, and you’ve had amazing opportunities. Can you tell us about the school in Africa that you, and you finally made it to your missionary dream.

Marg (41:25)
Yeah. I heard the call at 18 and finally at 65 was there. So when I was at a church in Williamsburg, Wellspring in the 1990s, we sponsored two of the Lost Boys of Sudan. It was actually the year 2000. And then when I moved from Williamsburg over to another appointment near Richmond in 03, kept my relationship with them, but particularly with one of them named Angelo. And it was amazing what he did with his life. He got his GED and his associate’s degree and his bachelor’s degree and eventually his master’s degree. He got married and he and Stephanie have three children. And so there was all these things that he had accomplished, but one of the things he always wanted to do was to reach back. He always wanted to go back home and help the people there.

And he knew that he was saved. He would say this, I would say for a purpose bigger than myself. And he knew that it was about helping the people in South Sudan. So we organized a team and then it became a committee and then it became a nonprofit. And for a while it was part of the conference and now it’s not, it’s a separate nonprofit. And the idea was to start a school. And so we hired somebody over there to do it it just wasn’t getting done. wasn’t getting done. And I just knew that I needed to go and I know nothing about this. So I don’t know why I thought I was the person that needed to go there, but I did and went with a good friend. Well, she wasn’t a good friend at the time. I barely knew her, Bev Neeland. We’re good friends now, but she and I went together with Angelo. He stayed two weeks and then we stayed almost three months while we were there. And we went back to his home community called Roombaek and the director was there. His name was Philip.

And what’s amazing, Ruth, is that we were in Roombaek for a week and the Monday of the second week we were in a classroom teaching. Now, no human being can do that. That’s the thing of God, because people would say, well, how did you do that? I said, I have no idea. We just showed up and God did the rest. So there I was teaching in Africa, finally.

And I’ve had people say, wasn’t that like sort of a glorious angel singing, moment, you know, with that happening. And I said, no, was so freaking hot. The sweat was just dripping off my chin. I didn’t feel any angels at all. It was fun, you know, but it was really hot. Yeah, too hot to know the angels. It felt more like, I think angels like air-dishing. I think it’s the other end that likes the heat. But anyways, but it was, to me, I guess the phrase that kept coming back to me was, God remembered. Well, it’s sort of like, of course God remembered, but to me it was like, God remembered that word to me. Anyways, it was powerful for me in that sense, that all those years that God honored that, all I had to do was show up and that God gave me an opportunity to teach.

We taught for awhile and then we hired some teachers and they were way better than us, partly because they could understand them and teachers could understand the students. And then we set about setting up a school, you know, doing what we needed to do. Set that up and then we came back home so we could raise money to pay the teachers that we had just hired. And now this school is called Bukloi, which in the native language of Dinka, it means yes, we can. We started with about 35 students and now we have over 700. And it’s considered one of the best schools in South Sudan and one of the largest.

Ruth Perry (44:46)
Wow.

Marg (44:48)
Yeah, pretty amazing. And I’m totally out of it now. I mean, I, you know, continue to support it, but I’m on on the border. I don’t go anymore. I made my last trip when they celebrated their 10th anniversary when they began. But there were many years where we had enough to pay people for a month if we spent everything we have. So we did. We just spent it all and just hope the next month somehow more money would come in to pay the teachers again for another.

Ruth Perry (44:49)
Congratulations, that’s amazing.

Marg (45:15)
We had months that we didn’t have enough and we paid the teachers what we could and told them we probably will never make this up because we’re running really tight. But they hung in there and they stayed with us. And we still have, I think, one teacher from that very beginning time. Maybe two, I think it’s just one now. Pretty amazing.

Ruth Perry (45:33)
Marg, can you put your mentor hat on and speak to young women like myself who are starting out in ministry and give us some of your best from your decades in ministry ahead of us?

Marg (45:44)
If this is what you’re called to do, there is no greater life than you can live to do this. I mean, there’s times that it’s just frustrating and demoralizing and makes you angry. But in the end, it’s amazing what God lets us do. I think about that we get to proclaim the good news of Jesus to people who are sitting there and listening. And we get to do that.

And then when we visit people, they open up their lives to us and tell us things that we get to enter into people’s stories and to walk with people through all of that. It’s to me, it’s just such a wonderful privilege. Certainly it comes with all the challenges and but but to never lose sight of the beauty of what we do and a power of it. Not just political power, but spiritual power and the life power. That’s what I would say, Ruth

Ruth Perry (46:32)
Where can people find information about your fiction?

Marg (46:38)
Okay, I have a website called neverthelessshepreached.net .com and dot org were taken. I got dot net. Nevertheless, she preached dot net and you can get a hold of me through that and I’d be glad to speak with your group. If you want me to do it in person, I can do that or I could do it via zoom or whatever. I have had some book clubs read the book and then I would come in. I’m in a book club and I think it’s wonderful to be able to have the author come in and be able to ask questions and share stories and such with that person. So anyways, I’d be glad to do that or speak to a group of those like me to do that.

Ruth Perry (47:14)
Thank you so much for all the time that you’ve spent with me. I think you were to be my mentor for a year and a half, and we spoke monthly. And you were just always so generous and encouraging and uplifting. And always felt affirmed in my calling by you. And I can’t tell you how and impactful that was for me. And so thank you for that.

And I just want to give you the last word before we sign off.

Marg (47:38)
Praise be to God, we worship an amazing God.

Ruth Perry (47:42)
Amen. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today Reverend Marg.

Marg (47:47)
Okay, thank you Ruth. And you are an amazing pastor, very gifted, and you have much to contribute to the the reign of God.

Ruth Perry (47:55)
Aw, thank you. Blessings to you.

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