Disrupting Religious Gender Injustice… by Doing
…
Most disruptors of the status quo are easy to spot. They tend to be loud, a little bit in-your-face, and are typically disliked by those they are trying to disrupt.
Valerie is none of those things.
She’s so freakin’ nice that even when she talks about righting the unjust gender rules of her religious community it’d be easy to miss how disruptive her vision actually is.
Val is a pastor, and her husband is too… but the global authority over their church’s denominational only recognizes and affirms her husband’s pastoral calling. As a woman, Valerie is not technically allowed to become an ordained minister—a rule that Val is trying to address. She wants women to be “given leadership positions within churches based on their qualifications, rather being than disqualified for leadership based on their gender.”
“By not allowing women to lead equally with men,” she tells me, “the church is omitting the message of the Imago Dei [Image of God] that clearly states men and women are meant to work together. And, by not including women in leadership, the church is shooting itself in the foot."
When you break it down, Val is accusing the global Christian church of misrepresenting the message of God and is suggesting that the church’s blatantly sexist policies are crippling its ability to accomplish its mission.
It’s really quite a bold, disruptive statement.
But Val smiles and delivers her statement so matter-of-factly—without a trace of aggression in her voice—that it’s impossible to write her off as an angry liberal feminist, the way many religious leaders have written off women before her. She couches one particularly bold statement of her vision for gender equality in the church with a jokey attempt to sound badass or “thug” but ends up laughing at herself. Traditional badassery is just not her style. But that doesn’t make her any less disruptive.
“As a woman of color, it’s easy to feel like I should sit back and be quiet. But if we do that, our voice and message and impact never reaches the world.”
This is no act, either. It’s authentic. Valerie is honestly this nice while directly challenging global systems of religious injustice.
Part of this chill, nonabrasive, non-argumentative vibe might be the fact that she’s not fighting for permission. She’s not embroiled in a claws-out, fight-to-the-death brawl with the church’s old guard demanding they let women lead. She’s just… leading. And creating spaces to let other women’s lead. Without permission.
And this isn’t some “better to ask for forgiveness than permission” strategy... because they aren't asking for forgiveness either.
Women in her denomination (and in many other Christian denominations) have literally been waiting to be granted equal leadership forever and it hasn’t happened. So they’re taking it. Not in a splashy, angry sort of way. Not in an underground sort of way. Not even to make a statement.
They’re just doing it because they believe it’s the right thing to do. Because they believe in the church, in God, and in their calling as Christians. They’re just being who they’re meant to be and doing what they feel called to do.
When I ask Valerie why she takes this approach to change-making, she explains that disruption and change-making in general is an uncomfortable space for her. Not because she doesn’t want to be doing it, but because she’s always been told that it’s not her place. Yes, because she’s a woman, but doubly so because she’s Latina.
“As a woman of color, it’s easy to feel like I should sit back and be quiet,” she explains.
That's just the general sense she gets from everywhere (American culture, church culture, history, unspoken social rules, messed up Biblical interpretations, etc)—that her place is in the background.
But she’s too committed to her beliefs—and to God—to give into the cultural pressure to sit down and shut up.
“By [sitting back and being quiet], our voice and message and impact never reaches the world.” Valerie wants more than that for herself and for other women, and she believes God does too.
So she’s using every tool at her disposal to make space for herself and other women to lead. Valerie is a photographer, writer, advocate, pastor, and pastor’s wife. She constantly has multiple projects going to explore all her options and see which ones stick. From showing up for young Native American women to help them see their full value and worth, to serving as student chaplain on her college campus, to creating online platforms for women to have their say, Valerie is carving out spaces where she can shape the world and equip other women to do the same.
The way Val talks about her projects cracks me up. She’s so chill about everything! More than once she casually mentions really big projects in passing. As if they’re nothing.
A recent post from Wild+Faith’s Instagram feed.
That’s how I found out about her blog (and future podcast). During a phone call about something else entirely, she made a passing reference to something called “Wild+Faith” and made it sound like someone else’s project. I googled it later just to see what she was talking about and there she was on the About page—”Founder and Director.”
I briefly wondered if she fully realized just how disruptive her work actually is, but she’s so unbelievably smart that I quickly dismissed that thought. She’s just so casual about her attempt to redefining the policies and values of an ancient, giant, well-oiled religious machine!
But as I heard more of her story, I began to see that women helping women accomplish both the necessary and the seemingly impossible is not only her normal… it’s her legacy.
Growing up as the only daughter of a single mother in Los Angeles taught Val the importance of women showing up for women. Before Val’s dad left, he was abusive to her mother and even in the midst of his violence Val remembers trying to cheer her mom on. Then when it was just the two of them, they leaned heavily on each other for support—women’s empowerment was their means of survival.
In addition, there were no men in her life to tell her she couldn’t or shouldn’t do exactly what she wanted. There were only women who had her back.
So when she started developing a passion to inspire, empower, and mobilize women in the church—especially disenfranchised women and women on the margins—becoming a pastor seemed like a no-brainer.
Val was shocked and confused when pastors pushed back on that decision, saying she should consider a smaller role in the church. Their feedback didn’t line up with who she feels meant to be. She didn’t need to fight about it, but she also wasn’t going to cave.
Since then, Val has been quietly and persistently doing her thing. Authentically, but without fanfare to avoid drawing attention and inevitable sexist commentary about “more appropriate” ways to use her gifts and abilities.
This has looked a lot of different ways over the last 5 years and will undoubtedly continue to evolve as Valerie explores what it will take to unmake the church’s structural gender inequality from the inside out.
But despite the haters and the sleep, time, and money it costs her to continue, Val is keeping on. Because that is who she is.
One of the last things she tells me during our interview is that pursuing the things she’s passionate about makes her feel brave.
It makes me laugh because really, that just means it makes her feel the truth of who she is.
Follow Valerie on Instagram.
Follow Wild+Faith on Instagram.
