Great women who’ll never be famous

More of a testimony and book talk than a sermon: Me @ Church of the Redeemer in 2009.

I must apologize for not posting anything for so long. Moving to Alaska took a lot out of me and my blog took a hit! I wanted to do one more post on how subtle put-downs of women in the Christian world are one factor in inhibiting such women from wanting to adopt. The big news on this front that came out during the interim was the release of a study – the Gender Parity Project about the place of women in evangelical Christian organizations. One in four of all organizations surveyed had no women on their boards and more than half had no women in their top paid positions (judging by their 990s, which list the top highest salary earners in a non-profit). Put together, women held 21 percent of all board positions, 21 percent of all paid leadership positions and 16 percent of CEO positions in the 425 organizations surveyed. Wow. Which is one reason why I sought my fortune in the secular media. I didn’t have a prayer of getting anywhere in the Christian world. The other day, I was thinking about the fact that I have a seminary degree – and am about to get a second MA in a few months – but that no church I’ve been a part of has ever asked me to teach or speak. The one exception was at Church of the Redeemer in 2009 when I spoke at a Friday night gathering about my new book. But that’s it. Now I’ve spoken at singles conferences, presented papers

My speech on the future of journalism at the University of Alaska/Fairbanks Murie auditorium on Oct. 1.

at academic conferences and just gave a speech here at the University of Alaska/Fairbanks that was advertised in the local paper and heavily promoted by the journalism department. It was the capstone speech of my fellowship here. But even though (in the churches I’ve been in recently) I have more theological education than just about anyone else other than the pastor, I’ve never spoken or taught, much less preached. Let me repeat: I occupy an endowed chair at a good-sized university, yet my chances of ever speaking at a church are nil. I’ve seen non-ordained men put in teaching and speaking roles. But women? Unless they’re married to the pastor, fat chance.

Robin Mazyck

A few years ago, I was chatting with Robin Mazyck, CBN’s Washington bureau chief. She had a very nice resume before coming to CBN (Christian Broadcasting Network) and she was clearly management material. She had been an executive producer; she’d working for secular stations in Lansing, Mich., Raleigh, N.C. and for CNN. She’d been appointed bureau chief in February 2010 (according to her LinkedIn profile) and I expected CBN to shout this from the house tops. Not only was she CBN’s first female bureau chief, she was CBN’s first black female bureau chief. Yet, on the day we met (Nov. 11, 2011), her title on CBN’s web site was still that of executive producer. (They did change it right away once I brought this to her attention).

There are so many amazing women out there. Lately I’ve seen some Christian publications spotlight the up-and-coming under-40 set of women which unfortunately leaves out some wonderful 40+ women who’ve made their mark without the help of a famous husband.

Susan Bauer

First, there is Susan Wise Bauer, the maven of classical education who has a web site (welltrainedmind.com) with an amazing amount of hits (for a single entrepreneur like herself) and who occasionally whips out books chronicling world history. Her The History of the Medieval World: From the Conversion of Constantine to the First Crusade (2010) is the second in a four-volume series providing a narrative world history and she’s come out with a subsequent volume on the Renaissance world since I interviewed her for this Washington Post piece. She’s also branched out into  The Art of the Public Grovel: Sexual Sin and Confession in America (2008), published by Princeton University Press, and her bestselling book The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home; originally published in 1999, was revised and updated in 2004 and again in 2009. She also is a pastor’s wife, has 4 kids and runs a farm.

2. 

   Sarah Davis

   Sarah Zacharias Davis, daughter of apologist Ravi Zacharias, who found herself trapped in a bad marriage but managed to write two books about how tough the Christian life can be. “Confessions of an Honest Wife” was the first one I read – made me want to never marry! It was great cuz it was so honest. Instead of falling into a morass, she moved out of the Deep South (which she told me she hated), became a senior advancement officer at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., but has returned to the Atlanta area in recent years to be the executive director of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. I’ve interviewed both her and her dad and he was the most unpretentious evangelist I’ve ever met. No airs, no aides buzzing around him, no attitude of self importance that so many people in his position often have. About Sarah, I *think* she’s over 40.

3. Dale Hanson Bourke, who has an MBA, is the former editor of Today’s Christian Woman magazine. She
   

   Dale Bourke

   started her own magazine publishing company and operated it for 13 years. She has been a marketing consultant and publisher of Religion News Service and is still a contributing editor there. She has served on the boards of International Justice Mission, World Vision US and International, Opportunity International, the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, and TheHighCalling.org. She is president of PDI, a marketing and strategy consulting firm specializing in work with nonprofit organizations. She spends much of her time writing and speaking about AIDS although she also published (in 2010) a book Embracing Your Second Calling, on what post-50 women should be doing with their lives. I too had a very similar idea for such a book around 2008-2009 but the man I was hoping to collaborate with turned me down and I never got far enough on a proposal before her book came out.

4. Miriam Adeney, daughter-in-law of the famous missionary-to-China David Adeney. I believe she grew up – or spent significant time in – the Philippines.  I met her through her association with Christianity Today. She used to teach at Seattle Pacific College and Regent College in Vancouver and when I got to know her, she was commuting between the two places. These days, her calling is to help overseas Christians (in poor countries) publish books in their own languages and hold writing workshops to help such people put together outlines, a proposal and so on.
   

   Miriam Adeney

5. 

   Nancy Pearcey

   Nancy Pearcey, who co-authored How Now Shall We Live? with Charles Colson, only to have a very public spat with him over ghostwriting. Basically she got shut out of much of the evangelical world (Colson had a long arm’s reach), so she had to reinvent herself and come up with her own brand. She is the spiritual descendent to Francis Schaeffer if you read her two most recent books: “Total Truth” and “Saving Leonardo.” She moved to Houston Baptist University in 2012 to teach and apparently she’s fabulously successful there. These are all really accomplished women – and I just realized I’ve picked all authors (except for Robin and she’s a journalist). None of them, except for Sarah, had a famous name to bank on and even Sarah had to work hard to get where she is. These are women who’ve deserved far more acclaim than they’ve gotten and had they been men, might have been on the cover of Christianity Today, World or Charisma. I guess that will have to wait for the next generation.