This month's review is by Carol Howard Merritt, pastor, writer and RevGal extraordinaire- known to many as the speaker from the Big Event 4.0 and the author of Tribal Church: Ministering to the Missing Generation and Reframing Hope: Vital Ministry in a New Generation.
Disrupted by Julie Anderson Love
This is, on one level, a very extraordinary story. In Disrupted: On Fighting Death and Keeping Faith, Julie Anderson Love battles a
brain tumor, something that most of us will not have to undergo, especially in
the third decade of life. Love moves us with medical accuracy, spiritual
awareness, and emotional depth through the painstaking decisions and healing.
On another level, however, Love’s story is an ordinary one.
She is an Associate Pastor, she clashes with the Interim Senior Pastor, and he
retaliates. Let me sound the spoiler alert here—if you have not read the book
and want all of it to be a mystery, you can stop reading.
The heart of our discussion resides in the fact that the
church fired Love while she was fighting for her life. Yes, you read that
correctly. They took away her insurance and her livelihood while she had a
brain tumor. When they should have been bringing her casseroles, flowers, and
cards crafted by Sunday school children, they brought her a pink slip.
When Love’s pastoral counselor recounted the devastation
that she had been through that year, he was pretty sure that the brain tumor
was less traumatic than the church letting her go in the midst of it all. I
kept turning the pages, thinking, She’s not supposed to be talking
about this.
As stark and traumatic as Love’s story is, what’s even more
difficult is that we hear about this stuff happening all of the time. Something
similar has probably happened to many of our dear readers. When it does, we are
told to be quiet, gloss over it, and move on as quickly as possible. Most of us
do. Then we try to negotiate a new job, entering another church, becoming a chaplain,
or dropping out of the clergy ranks altogether. Keeping quiet is usually the
wisest thing to do, but does all of this playing nice help in the long run?
I don’t think so. I mean, it helps in our particular
circumstance (and looking after yourself is the most important thing in these
devastating situations). The opportunities for secure employment increase when
we don’t make much of a fuss.
But how does it help clergywomen in general when we
constantly cover up the sins of our congregations in order for us to come out
less scathed?
We all know stories that make us shudder--women who have
been sexually harassed, fired without cause, or paid unfairly. How can we
communicate these narratives and still protect our careers? Can we find
creative ways to be able to break the silence that so often enshrouds our
positions?
Reading this book made me thankful that Julie Anderson Love
was able to break through that code of silence under which we work. She didn’t
try to make herself or her position more spiritual or perfect than she was. She
told her story, with courage and honesty. She did not shy away from all of
those secrets that we often have to keep. And for that, we all owe her.