As a kid, I don’t remember my Dad being called Father Tom.

That doesn’t mean there weren’t quite a few people who did. Or used the more proper Fr. Downs. Sometimes it was Pastor, Preacher, or the grammatically inappropriate Reverend. Most of my life, as I try to recall it, my Dad went by his given name; or what we used to call his Christian name: Tom.

OK, for the sake of honesty, that isn’t really his given name, but a nickname. But that’s not really the point. It was the name by which everyone knew him.

Call me Katherine

A formative time came shortly after I graduated seminary myself. Our Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church, the Rt. Rev. Katherine Jefferts Schori was a guest at a Michigan clergy family retreat on Mackinaw Island. This was a few years after she became Presiding Bishop.

After her talk, the Presiding Bishop took questions from the group; one experienced clergy asked the appropriate and relevant question:

How should we address you?

Her response was perfect, and clearly rehearsed; she had no doubt given it many times in her life of ordained ministry.

I think my Christian name is sufficient. Call me Katherine.

Katherine displayed grace, decorum, and appropriate political acumen in her response.

I have since taken her lead and encouraged people to call me Drew.

Don’t Call Me Father

Going into their next annual convention, the Diocese of Connecticut will decide whether or not to discourage the use of the affectations “Father” and “Mother” from use. Having read the proposal, I find it well-written and properly researched. They haven’t thrown this against the wall as simple “political correctness run amok” as its detractors have suggested. It seems reasonable given our propensity to do nothing when all of the signs around us tell us to act decisively. That is the way my church operates.

Of course, you may disagree.

You might believe that it is the wrong proposal. Or the wrong method for changing our culture. Or the wrong fight altogether. Or you might be like the countless numbers who think we have “better things to argue about.”

Based on my brief forays onto the Episcopalians on Facebook page, those “better things” seem to involve just about anything. Like pews, hymnals, use of the Prayer Book, and the best way for priests to fulfill our vocations. You know, the constructive stuff.

And yet, this song keeps going through my head as I read quit reading the comments:

don’t call me daughter, not fit to
the picture kept will remind me

One of my favorite songs by Pearl Jam, “Daughter” is about abuse and survival. It is about relationship and claiming independence from the evil of mutated relationships. Really, this is the best territory that Pearl Jam mines: songs like “Alive” and “Betterman” are emotional pleas for better relationships. Their powerful track “Leaving Here” for the compilation Home Alive: The Art of Self-Defense, a benefit album to address domestic violence, is a poignant call to freedom and liberation.

In “Daughter”, Pearl Jam speak to that same sense of redefining relationship, more so than breaking it. When Eddie Vedder channels a girl abused, crooning “Don’t call me daughter,” s/he wrestles with living in a triangulated relationship with a father, a mother, and a daughter: or abuser, enabler, and victim.

she holds the hand that holds her down
she will… rise above…

That energy, of rising above, is rejection of not only the abuse, and the abuser, but the victimization. She cannot erase the fact that the one who protects is the one who hurts. The one who guides is the one who demeans. These are inseparable.

In our culture, it is far too easy to say that the abuser forfeits his rights. But to the victim, that is never true. Daughters always have Fathers. That is why the power of rejecting the name is so potent. You don’t get to call me “Daughter”. It doesn’t fit.

Daddy to Two

My daughter sometimes tests her Mom and I around our names; to see what she can get away with.

OK, Drew!

She’ll say to me. I say the same thing to her every time.

There are only two people in the whole world who get to call me “Daddy” and you are one of them. Everyone else is stuck with “Drew”.

It seems odd to me then, that there are two people who can call me Daddy, while thousands in my lifetime would call me Father. If we cut out all that bullshit about tradition and personal experience and what we grew up with (as if that trumps everything else?), can we just hear that idea for a second? I have 2 kids. That’s it. Not the current membership of the congregation I’m serving. They have their own Daddies. I am father to these two human beings. As GOD is “father” to humanity. I’m not a replacement God, an idol, a conduit.

Don’t call me father, not fit to

You get one father. A father that replaces the imperfect man who helped in your conception and may have been involved in your upbringing. You get GOD to replace him. Not me. Not another human. Not even Jesus. Don’t call him Dad either.

A New Kind of Authority

In practice I’ve been pretty loosey-goosey about what people call me. I let people call me Father or Pastor or Preacher. Even Rabbi and Padre. I’ve flaunted the grammar Nazis and taken to using Reverend Drew for those who need a title to define authority. It is more appropriate in the ways that matter most to me.

None of us has a terribly good replacement title for Father. That’s one of the reasons I liked Connecticut’s proposal: they didn’t dictate a replacement. They took a stand about what can’t fly around there any longer and encouraged the people to determine how to wrestle with that relationship.

This matters in a really important way:

We want the title to build a respect we don’t give other people easily.

We want a shortcut to get us to that spot quickly. I respect Father Drew. But Drew’s a jerk. We can’t insult the presbyter in the office, but we sure can belittle the human.

I have always struggled with this. From my field education work in the hospital in which I kept arguing that visiting the sick is way easier when you’ve got a collar on. Our instructors kept pushing back and telling us not to use that as a crutch. You aren’t your office. We want you to be present with them. 

Not fit to

The crux of the movement away from the title Father has been hastened by the fact that it doesn’t work very well with women. And our tradition’s use of Mother comes from a non-priestly context. But the gender piece helps to reveal how misapplied the term really is for us.

We aren’t your fathers. It stifles the relationship.

This is the true touch point with the Pearl Jam song. Abuse has broken relationship and destroyed our spirit. Abuse from leadership and toward our leadership. Abuse in our homes and in our congregations. Abuse that doesn’t only follow the gender lines, but is exacerbated by our engendered relationships.

Besides, fathers (as a group) are not all that respectable at the moment.

I used to cringe at the Homer Simpson character, but I have come to see him as the late-20th Century everyfather. A slob, emotionally abusive, and incredibly egocentric. Fitting most of our church conversations. Not fitting for the office.

Fathers have looked bad on TV for most of my life, going back to Cliff Huxtable as the example that proves the rule. But we don’t need TV dads to prove the problem with real life Dads. Just open the newspaper or walk around Wal-Mart. Our culture has stolen the title of parent from our fathers. Unless, of course, we’re talking about discipline. Then Dad gets involved in a big way.

Tell me again why I need to be seen as your Father?

Distrust

Father is both a crutch that helps us and the anchor (millstone?) that inhibits our movement. It allows us to differentiate our humanity from our office. It allows us to continue our abusive relationships with equals, while “respecting” those in authority. Think of how often clergy hear

I didn’t mean to swear

in front of you.

They did mean to swear. Just not so they could be heard by the clergyperson. It is the same as acting a different way in a church building (because its holy) than they would just about anywhere else.

I see this as the problem with “Father” and “Mother”. It directly impedes relationship, then erects permanent boundaries around the relationship that are themselves unhealthy and inappropriate.

I am not your Father. But maybe we should treat everyone as if they were.

 

Note

I have dear friends who are very connected to the affectation Father. Each one that comes to mind at the moment is a person who is deeply respectful of their neighbors, not just authority. I respect and encourage you in your continued learning. These friends, however, are the minority in my experience. I fear that many of those who insist on the affectation or are deeply committed to the use of titles have deep disconnects and imbalance in their use of authority and relationship. This larger group, draws my greater concern.