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My Journey into the Woman
Officer’s Struggle
by Loreen Petzing
USA West, Seattle Temple soldier
My
Journey into the Woman Officer’s Struggle for Equality
I am a young Salvationist – both in years (I am 21 years old)
and also in experience. I did not grow up in the Army; rather,
I came through Camp Arnold in Eatonville, Washington only 2 ½
years ago. I was recruited on the annual “Camp Recruitment
Day” at Seattle Pacific University to be a counselor. After
the summer was over, Kyle Reardon made it his personal goal to
convince me that Seattle Temple was the place to be – for
various odd, random, and somewhat valid reasons. I stammered
that I didn’t have a way to get there when I heard his mother
in the back ground saying, “Is she saying she doesn’t have a
ride? I want to see her at the corps tomorrow. Even if I have
to go pick her up myself! Give me the phone…” And so my
journey began.
I grew up in the Southern Baptist Convention and, although
there were bumps on the road, I grew up knowing who God was in
my life and was baptized as a believer at a young age.
However, if you know anything about Southern Baptists, you
will know that they do not ordain women, allow them to be
deacons, or take positions of leadership over men. Women did
not collect offering, dispense communion, teach Adult Sunday
School classes (unless they were teaching with their
husbands), and they definitely did not preach on a Sunday
morning – or any other time for that matter. I continually
said throughout high school, “I don’t know that I have a
problem with a woman being a pastor, but I don’t think I would
ever attend a church where a woman was a pastor and allowed to
preach.”
The first time I attended The Salvation Army, four women rose
and collected the offering. My jaw dropped. When Captain Stacy
Birks rose to preach I was shocked. When I was blessed by her
message, I was confused. My first year in the Army passed
quickly and the things that had once been so foreign became
the norm for me. I made friends with the young adults in my
corps and realized that God has truly blessed this Army.
However, my first year was also spent thinking the Army was
perfect and that there were no problems. I became a soldier
that February and if you had told me that there were debates
surrounding the uniform, sacraments, or women in ministry, I
would have thought you were crazy. I thought the international
Salvation Army was united on every issue. I later found out
that I was grossly mistaken.
I didn’t engage in the conversation of women equality in the
universal church until this past academic year. I was
privileged to have a married woman officer step up and take me
under her wing and she became my mentor. She encouraged me to
become educated on this issue so that I would know and
understand why I believed what I did. So, I took a class
specifically on Women in Christianity last fall and became
educated on why women are allowed to be ordained in some
denominations and not in others. I learned the theology
beneath the issue and saw the oppression of women simply
because they are not men – both in the church and in the world
as a whole. My heart broke at the injustice that I now saw in
the churches I had grown up in. I couldn’t believe that I had
thought that women were inferior to men, just because they
were women. I decided that I would not play a part in that
injustice ever again. Rather, I would be one who would fight
for women who didn’t necessarily have the freedom that we did
in The Salvation Army to become ordained. Just a couple months
later, I learned something though. This was not a battle that
was separate from the Army.
Over Christmas break, I was speaking with some officers and
the topic of injustice towards women officers arose.
Interesting topic, I thought, since women in The Salvation
Army had full rights as ordained ministers. However, as I
listened to what they were saying, I realized their true
frustration. I learned that it is extremely difficult for a
woman officer to become a leader in the organization over her
husband or any other male officer. It seems that women have to
work exponentially harder than men in order to reach any place
of influence in the organization. This was a side of the Army
I did not know existed.
The next quarter I was enrolled in “Women in Global Politics.”
True to its name, we spoke about women and their role (or lack
thereof) in global politics and international organizations.
As a “Writing” course, the major requirement was that we wrote
a 12 page, research intensive paper. I was nervous about this
but our professor set us loose with three simple instructions
– it had to deal with a women’s issue, it had to deal with an
international issue or organization, and it had to be between
12-20 pages of Senior level writing. “Perfect,” I thought, in
beautiful naiveté. “Maybe I can tease this small Army issue
and come up with something worth writing this paper on.” What
I didn’t know was that this issue was not small enough to
contain in a simple 12 page research paper. Instead, I
discovered an issue that continually hurts women officers to
their core and that has the ability to shake this organization
to its very foundation.
My mentor referred me to an officer in the Eastern Territory,
Major JoAnn Shade, who flooded me with amazing research
material outlining all sorts of issues facing women in The
Salvation Army. I quickly learned that the issues of married
women and of single women are similar in a few respects, but
also very different. I chose to follow the path of the married
woman officer and learn of the issues they faced. I read
books, articles from Army publications, briefs from councils
formed specifically about married women in the Army ranks, and
conducted personal interviews over email, phone, and in
person. I read so much and discussed the issue so extensively
in those 10 weeks that I thought there would be nothing more
to learn; but the information continued to land on my
doorstep. And what I found through my research appalled me.
As I began peeling back the layers, I discovered problems that
have simply been walked past through the decades, and I just
knew that this problem could not stay quiet for much longer.
Something must to be done about it. The women in God’s Army
deserve better than this. These women have given their lives
as fully to their calling as the men; the leaders and soldiers
of the Army should be encouraging them to reach their full
potential, not holding them back. As a new Salvationist, the
issues that many long time Salvationists think are null and
void, are those that I believe need to be brought back up from
the ashes. I have been told that this is an issue that rises
and falls. My mentor told me, “It goes through cycles. A lot
will be published on it, the discussion will be stimulating
and good, and then it falls away again… but nothing changes.”
The next time it falls should be when it is no longer a
problem. The next time this discussion falls should be when a
married woman officer is considered for her own gifts,
talents, abilities, and passions for appointment without
exception.
This is my future. I felt the call to officership strongly
about a month before I was enrolled as a soldier. I heard
God’s voice so clearly that I immediately said yes and later
thought, “What have I gotten myself into now?” I have been
caught up into the Army world and I have been thrilled at
where God has led me and what He has in store for me. I have
had the chance to enter into this dialogue about women’s roles
in The Salvation Army and I pray that I will have the chance
to help make necessary change because of my contribution.
However, I have to be honest that I fear what will happen to
me when I become an officer. Will my college education impact
their decision on my appointment? Will the passions I have be
used by the Army? Or, if I am married, will I simply follow my
husband?
I don’t believe the Army is lost forever in this issue. The
fact that I am sitting here writing testifies to that.
However, I strongly urge you – don’t be ignorant about this
issue. It affects countless officers in our ranks including
your Corps Officers, DHQ officers and THQ officers – as well
as our soldiers and future officers. It has the potential to
change The Salvation Army. It has the power to encourage
officers or the power to discourage them from their calling.
It has the power to further our mission or the power to hold
us back because we refuse to go against the status quo that we
have grown so accustomed to. I truly believe that “until the
sky is the limit for women as it is for men, men as well as
women will suffer, because all society is affected when half
of it is denied equal opportunity for full development”
(Gilson, 290). I pray that the leadership, officers, and
soldiers of The Salvation Army follow God on this journey to
complete officer equality.
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