Photo by Brenda Larson

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“Since I believe the whole fabric of human diversity – with all its splendor, mystery and edginess – is a reflection of our Creator, how could I be anything but a feminist? If you and I are both made in the image and likeness of God, how can I not honor the fullness of your humanity?”

Jim Melnyk and his wife, Lorraine Ljunggren, share pastoral duties at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Raleigh, a situation Jim says works for them and for their congregation.

“We believe we must love God with all our heart, soul and mind, and love our neighbor as ourselves,” Jim says. “It is foundational to me. It’s, in a way, humanist. My hope is to honor the integrity of all humanity.”

For priests Jim and Lorraine, a fundamental tenet of their relationship is that they are partners in life.

“That’s a choice,” Jim says. “We offered to bring it to St. Mark’s and the people valued it and embraced it. The people at St. Mark’s see that this honors both genders in the congregation.”

That’s why you won’t hear male or female pronouns for God in the sermons they preach. They talk about the fullness of God, the fullness of humanity.

“We try to ensure women hear about themselves in the stories of our faith. Whoever is sitting in that pew can recognize themselves in the stories of our faith,” Jim says.

He delights in telling a story about a little girl whose mother is an Episcopalian priest. The little girl was learning in school about how we look at roles in society. There were two columns on the blackboard, one for men’s roles and one for women’s roles. Under men’s roles, a little boy wrote, “priest.”

“She went home to her mom and said, ‘Mom, a man can be a priest? Really?’” Jim says. “In her world, where she grew up, moms were priests.”

When feminism is working, Jim says, it recognizes that those things that make us different are not intrinsic to our worth or indicative of our value. “Feminism looks like honoring the full humanity of my sisters, who are every bit as capable as the next person. It is honoring one another’s gifts. How I honor another ultimately acknowledges who I am as a man. If I diminish someone because of gender, I diminish myself. It’s the same thing with race, sexuality, age, religious faith. If I do not honor another, I’ve lost something of our common bond to each other as children of God.”

Jim says the previous administration in the federal government represents a decade of dismissing intellectual awareness, moving backward on issues of race, gender and sexuality. That’s when feminism may not be working.

“There has been a backlash to feminists,” he says. “It’s a paradigm that came into being in 2000. With the changes of November 2008, maybe we’ll see a toning down of the rhetoric. Can we disagree with each other without caricaturing each other or villainizing each other? When feminist doesn’t seem to be working is when it becomes adversarial – the point where the goal is lost and rhetoric takes over.

“It’s easy for me, as a straight, white male. I haven’t had to deal with that. But when you’re in the trenches and they’re lobbing mud at you, attacking you based on your gender, I don’t know how I would deal with that.”
Another time feminism doesn’t work, Jim says, is when a woman breaks through that glass ceiling and then doesn’t reach down and mentor other women. He tells the story of a female church leader who, after gaining, significant power and responsibility refused to join the call of her colleagues to ask one of their member churches to finally allow women to be priests for their congregation. 

“Seeing a woman refuse to continue the battle for other women is concerning,” he says.

There’s still much work to be done in society, he says.

“Until we really get the fact that men and women and children have been created in the likeness of God, that there is no hierarchy there, we’re always going to have this. As long as we see the rib story in Genesis 2 as factual, we are always going to have this hierarchical mindset. I see it as a story about the connection between God and humanity.”