This article is republished from the media outlet “Tuvumā” (www.tuvuma.lv), where it was originally published on 21.07.2017.
Author: Aļesja Lavrinoviča
One of the most-read articles in the media outlet “TUVUMĀ” in its first year of operation was an article by Viktorija Slavinska-Kostigova titled “A husband who is a pastor — every Christian woman’s dream? The experiences of four pastors’ wives.” In a comment, one of our readers suggested also writing about the spouses of women pastors. Continuing the theme of full-time ministry, for an interview I approached Ivars Zušēvics, the husband of Lauma Zušēvica, Archbishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia Abroad (LELBāL); Jānis Grīnbergs, the husband of Jāna Jēruma-Grīnberga, a Lutheran bishop emerita who is currently an Anglican chaplain; Vilnis Ivanovs, the husband of the Methodist pastor Vera Titoviča; Edgars Kalniņš, the husband of the Methodist pastor Vivita Kalniņa; and Henrik Ohff, the husband of Zanda Ohff, a Lutheran pastor of Latvian origin in Germany.
Of the five men surveyed who are married to a woman pastor, one man is of German origin and two are diaspora Latvians. From the answers of these three men one could sense that they have lived in societies where a woman’s ministry as a pastor is not regarded as a problem, a “fruit of liberalism” or a Christian anomaly. These men’s answers reflect an inner, masculine strength and radiate a wisdom about life regarding how to respect a woman and how to live together skilfully in marriage, to care for the everyday life of the family and to raise children together.
The two Latvian husbands who have always lived in Latvia, Vilnis and Edgars, were less philosophical and more practical in their answers, yet they expressed the same essence and reflected the same masculine strength and self-assurance that leads them to speak of their married wife with respect, love, care and complete faith in their wife’s calling. The men emphasised that their wives are pastors in all seriousness, and that they can rely on their husbands’ support in any situation in life. The husbands of women pastors are united by the conviction that God created woman as equal to man.
The wife’s calling — a surprise
Before their weddings, four of the men I approached had not entertained the thought that their future wife might one day become a pastor. Only Edgars, when he met Vivita, knew that she was a pastor, but he himself did not suspect that his everyday life would be connected with the church, because at the time he met Vivita he was not yet a believer himself.
Jānis met and married his future wife, the first Lutheran woman bishop in Great Britain, Jāna, when they were both still studying at university. Jānis recalls that “Jāna was studying biochemistry, and the office of pastor was not in her thoughts. Her calling came many years later.”
Zanda’s husband Henrik, when he married Zanda, also did not think that his wife would become a pastor, but he supported this choice of Zanda’s from the very beginning.
Archbishop Lauma’s husband Ivars reveals that he did not think about his future wife’s profession, because “the most important thing was the relationship, getting along and our approach to life”.
Vilnis revealed how God miraculously intervened in the family’s life: when he and his wife had decided to join the Methodist congregation, God healed his wife of serious health ailments. Through this healing, Vera’s involvement in ministry began, which has grown into full-time work as a pastor.
Since the time when God touched and healed Vera, 17 or 18 years have already passed; she has no signs of this illness and actively ministers in two congregations. This June, Vera graduated from the Methodist Theological Seminary in Tallinn.
Everyday family life
The husbands acknowledge that a pastor’s work is not confined to the hours of 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.; it mainly also takes place at weekends. Such a work schedule for the wife requires a certain flexibility and careful planning from the whole family regarding shared days off. Edgars, despite such difficulties, views his wife’s ministry in the office of pastor very positively, because his wife has involved the whole family in ministry.
Henrik believes that if both spouses work full-time jobs, the household chores must be done by both. He says this is also the case in families where both partners work full-time in any other field.
Vilnis openly admits that the family never goes anywhere together outside the congregation. All the time it is church matters, seminars, meetings. Vilnis is also present everywhere and believes that everything that happens is devoted to God, because at every meeting he himself, to a greater or lesser degree, learns something new. Vilnis also helps to minister in the congregation. Vilnis told us about a special ministry that he and his wife have been carrying out for about 8 years now — a so-called after-school programme. Once his wife said that she had felt sorry to watch children and teenagers roaming around the neighbourhood and sometimes getting up to mischief. Vera had suggested setting up an after-school programme where children and teenagers can come after lessons, as early as around 2:00 p.m., and stay until 7:00 p.m. To bring the idea to life, the Methodist congregation was helped financially by friends from the USA, who provided funds to renovate premises in the former congregation building, as well as supplying the after-school programme with a few computers. Vilnis himself carried out the renovation with his son. The pupils arrive at 2:00 p.m. and check on the computers what homework has been set. The beneficiaries are children who do not have a computer of their own at home. Then all the children do their homework. After that there is a Bible lesson. The after-school programme also has a kitchen, and at around 5:00 p.m. the children and teenagers, who are often a group of about 20 people, are fed. At 7:00 p.m. the children head home. Vilnis adds that he and his wife also have a small garden plot where vegetables and fruit are grown, with which the children attending the after-school programme can be treated, since the money sent from abroad is not always enough. The after-school activities sometimes also take place beyond the walls. Vilnis, being a passionate angler and hunter, will take the children on a hike, teach them how to light a campfire or how to behave in the forest.
The wife ministers — does the husband raise the children?
I also asked the men surveyed to speak in particular about raising children. How do the two of them divide the care of the children?
Edgars says that when his wife ministers in the congregation, the whole family is present at the service. There are times when the children lose their patience to sit for a long time, and then he goes out with the children to take a walk in the park and to play.
Jānis believes that regardless of what work one or both parents have, “family life must be arranged so that what needs to be done gets done. Our ‘children’ are long since grown up, but when they were still small, what we could do, we did together.” Jānis recalls that even back then there were no such distinct moments of when one “ministered” and when one “did not minister”.
Ivars speaks similarly about involvement in raising children. He merely did “the same as any responsible father who loves his children does, while his wife is out of the house or at work”. For Vilnis, too, the need to look after the children was no hindrance to his wife’s ministry. Vilnis recalls that when his wife became a pastor, the younger son began going to Sunday school, and then to attend youth ministry. Now the children have already grown up.
Henrik allows that, if “children are growing up in the family, then of course the wife and mother will want to care for the children more. But in principle both partners can take on all the duties in the family equally.”
The husband — a support to his wife when there are problems in the congregation
How do the husbands support their wives when the pastors experience difficult situations in the congregation? I asked them to talk about such situations too.
Henrik: “We talk over the difficulties that have arisen. If the solution to a problem is time-consuming, I try to take on more of the household chores so that my wife has more time for work.”
Jānis: “I try to be available so that we can talk over practical alternative solutions, but in my view the most important thing is that Jāna has someone to whom she can tell anything at all, and that it will always stay between us! It is not even always important that I am able to suggest a solution — sometimes it is enough that I listen.” At times he discusses theological questions with his wife — from a practical point of view, on a philosophical plane.
Ivars, in turn, will discuss particular solutions to situations with his wife in everyday life, but adds: “my wife has never told me about the personal situations of congregation members.” Ivars: “A pastor’s work is to a large extent connected with the personal lives of congregation members and with the congregation as a social organisation. If advice is sought on the general work of the congregation and its everyday running, then I give it. For many years I have served on the congregation council. When matters are discussed at council meetings, I take part in the discussions. Sometimes the pastor and I hold different opinions. Questions connected with the general functioning of the congregation are decided in a democratic spirit.
I do not interfere in matters of the personal lives of congregation members, because I am not told about them, and I do not wish to know about them. Now and then the pastor asks me to carry out small tasks in connection with the content of a service, addresses to children, and so on.
I have learned to do them without asking ‘Why?’… that I got to find out during the service!”
Edgars and his wife often discuss her sermons and the order of service together, just the two of them, and debate interviews and topics being discussed online that are connected with the Christian environment.
Vilnis says that after the service the whole congregation discusses its problems together. There has been an occasion when Vilnis too had to speak with a congregation member and explain things.
Has anyone remarked that the division of roles is not “correct”?
I asked all the men surveyed whether there had been times when someone had pointed out that the “correct” division of roles did not prevail in their family, or had shown a lack of understanding about the wife’s calling.
Jānis: “No. In Great Britain, Jāna has served as a pastor for more than 20 years. There, just as here in Latvia in the 1990s, a woman pastor was nothing unusual.” Jānis asserts with conviction: “Husband and wife are fundamentally a partnership! What needs to be done has to be accomplished by both. In the 21st century, ‘the wife’s role’ and ‘the husband’s role’ are old-fashioned, conservative notions. At any given moment, we divide responsibilities so that they can be carried out in the most practical way. At times it is also not out of the question that the roles can change.”
Ivars: “No, never. As far as I know, I was the second husband of a woman pastor in the Latvian Lutheran church in the USA, so ‘the husband’s role’ had not been previously defined in the life of our church. I defined my own role.” Ivars, explaining his view of the role of woman and man, says: “Everyone has the right to decide their own role in the life of the church. A role is connected with personal talents, interests and the needs of the congregation. The question of gender plays no part in this choice. There are congregations in which the head of the ‘ladies’ committee’ is a man.”
Edgars has had to experience an unpleasant reaction from other people about his wife’s calling to serve in the church, yet Edgars regards such situations as people’s personal opinions. In his view, he and his wife have successfully divided the roles in the family and in the church: at home Edgars is the head, in the church it is Vivita.
Edgars: “In our family my dear wife has a very large role in the spiritual sphere; she is the one through whom God works in our family!”
Henrik says that so far he has encountered only a positive attitude from people towards his family model. As regards the husband’s role and roles in general, Henrik believes that “every person has different talents and interests, and so it is very difficult to assign them any predetermined roles. Each couple should find their own individual division of roles for themselves.”
Vilnis has not had to encounter incomprehension from those around him. He also sees no point in the stereotypes with which the roles of woman and man are wrapped up in society, especially in Christian circles. Vilnis: “The idea that a woman cannot be a pastor was invented by the Lutherans. It is not from God. If they read the Bible more, they would see that they made it up themselves. When Jesus rose again after his death, he appeared first of all to women and told them to go and tell the men the good news.” Vilnis describes his understanding of the division of roles in the family thus: “When my wife ministers in the congregation, I come home and cook. We do not divide the chores into the wife’s chores and the husband’s chores. I have no problem either tidying a room or washing the dishes. Dividing things into roles is in the spirit of city dwellers.
We live according to the Bible and live a humane life. We have no disagreements. If I myself had not become a Christian, it would be different. But I have experienced God’s presence much and powerfully. Together with my wife I lead Bible lessons. We complement one another.”
Vilnis is convinced that a pastor, whether male or female, should not set themselves apart. He has observed that pastors of other denominations tend to set themselves particularly apart. Vilnis believes that “a pastor should be just the same as the one who comes to him or her. Some pastors want to be like the priests in the Old Testament, who live by laws and are the correct and special ones. That was so up until the moment Jesus came. Now it is completely different. But there are people who still hold to the old way of thinking. We do not think that way.”
The biblical explanation of women’s ministry
As is known, some Christians believe that women may not carry out the duties of a pastor in the church. The most commonly cited justification for this refers to two passages of Scripture: Paul’s 1st Letter to Timothy 2:12, which mentions that a woman must not teach, and Paul’s 1st Letter to the Corinthians 14:34–35, which says that women should keep silent in the congregations. I considered it important to ask the husbands for their interpretation of these passages of Scripture as well. Every one of them answered that, in their view, individual phrases should not be singled out, but one must look at the broader context of the Bible and of Christianity.
Jānis: “I am not a theologian myself, and I do not intend either to repeat or to evaluate the arguments. I only wish to say: firstly, for a quotation to have any value, it must be applied in full — it must not be quoted out of context and given a different meaning. Secondly, if in the whole Bible only these two examples are to be found, it seems to me that the argument against a woman pastor is not particularly strong!”
Vilnis too draws attention to the fact that these are only two passages of Scripture that have been turned into an absolute, while in all the rest of the Bible there is no prohibition on women ministering. As another example of a similar extreme, Vilnis cites celibacy — the Catholic Church has decreed that priests may not marry, justifying it with particular verses [for example, the Gospel of Matthew 19:12], even though God gave Adam Eve and told them to live and multiply.
Henrik recalls that “at the time the biblical texts were written, a different conception of the roles of men and women prevailed, as well as different opportunities for women and men, for example to obtain an education. Moreover, there are also other passages of the Bible in which the role and activity of women are valued positively. For example, the example of Martha and Mary in the Gospel of Luke (10:38), or the example of Lydia in the Acts of the Apostles, and others.”
Ivars warns that “one must not pull a couple of sentences out of any source, without looking at the source as a whole, and arrive at an uncompromising conclusion.” Ivars is an architect by profession, and he compares: “if someone were to look at one small part of a building, for example a room without windows, and conclude that the building has no windows at all, that would most likely be a mistaken conclusion. Do not misunderstand me! I am not equating the Bible with the authority of other sources, yet the thought and the principle hold true.
I think the church can become stronger and more influential in society if only more people, men and women, take part in the life of the church with their counsel and their work, at all levels and in various roles.
If half of society is isolated from the work of the congregation, the church and its life are poorer and weaker. By pushing women aside, the church is weakened and society is divided.”
Edgars believes there is a difference between the notions of “to teach” and “to give counsel”. He explains a woman pastor’s work as “giving counsel”. Moreover, one must be careful with the interpretation of the notion of “keeping silent”. In his view, if women in the congregations were to keep silent, then half the congregations of the world would vanish, because the presence of men in many congregations is very critical.