Defrocked

I’ll begin by saying that I have been a fan of Lillian Daniel’s writing for some time. Her earlier works, Tell It Like It Is: Reclaiming the Practice of Testimony and, especially, This Odd and Wondrous Calling: The Public and Private Lives of Two Ministers, coauthored with Martin Copenhaver, were beneficial to me and colleagues I know. Moreover, her father’s longtime girlfriend was a dear mentor of mine. Through that connection, years ago, she and I exchanged a few ordinary e-mails. In those brief exchanges, she was kind and attentive.

This background is worth sharing because my thoughts about her latest book are just that. I don’t claim to know her personally, and I haven’t held her in a negative light over the years, nor do I now. Certainly, facets of her progressive theology depart from the biblical canon, in my opinion, but that’s not new to me. So, as Nino Brown, brilliantly portrayed by Wesley Snipes, tells Mr. Washington, the NYC police detective who’s undercover (played by the rapper turned actor Ice-T), in the iconic film New Jack City: “It’s always business. Never personal.”

Defrocked: Good News from a Bad Pastor for a Better Church is not my favorite book from Daniel. While I suppose she hoped to make a different impression, it is overly whimsical and reads like one long, meandering journal entry. Beyond that, much of it comes across as the petulant complaining of privilege. She was 100% wrong, but then clumsily chose to monetize the circumstances by writing a book. In the aftermath of breaking both her marriage and ordination vows, she now invites people to, in a sense, reward her.

Emotionally scattered as the narrative sometimes is, making the chronology challenging to follow, Daniel takes readers on a walk through being suspended by her denomination, the United Church of Christ (UCC), following the allegation that she’d become unfit for ministry. Deeply dismayed by what she considers the vague, contradictory, and convoluted structure of the review process, she devotes considerable attention to explaining why it was unfair, ineffective, inconvenient, ugly, and ultimately ungodly. Her critique may very well have merit, but, frankly, I’m not particularly interested in it. Had she been innocent of misconduct, her grievances would’ve been easier to receive. But guilt changes things.

She doesn’t owe anyone a psychoanalytical report of every poor decision she made, or the why behind them nor did she necessarily need to write the book in the first place. Nevertheless, her misdeeds were a far greater issue than the denominational system she so vigorously criticized. 200 pages of humble contrition, accountability, and honest reflection would have landed quite differently than the 200 pages she assembled. And I say this as a fellow colleague who, like her, understands the markedly annoying, burdensome demands of vocational ministry.

Here was a pastor leading a prominent, well-heeled congregation in the Chicago suburbs who not only committed adultery, but did so with a member of her church staff. How could such circumstances not raise legitimate questions about any pastor’s fitness for ministry? Whether that pastor is believed to be a predator prowling around for another opportunity to misuse power and behave immorally is beside the point. The transgressions happened, and should not be dismissed with a slap on the wrist just because they didn’t involve something like child abuse, sexual assault, or stealing from the church.

Furthermore, if a male pastor made the same choices, I wonder whether Daniel would advocate for the same measure of leniency she seemingly expected for herself. In today’s cultural climate, particularly in the wake of the #MeToo movement, men and patriarchy are frequently grouped into all manner of negative categories. Would she extend the same grace-filled consideration to a male colleague who committed adultery with a subordinate, who was also a fellow church employee?

While jumping through denominational hoops that, at the time, were the bane of her existence, Daniel continued to receive compensation. And despite all the complaints, although her former congregation in time decided to move on without her, she was restored to ministry. She subsequently pastored another UCC congregation in Iowa before landing, in 2022, in her current role as Conference Minister of the UCC’s Michigan Conference. This involves guiding clergy through many of the very kinds of issues and processes she experienced firsthand.

I know clergy who have not made choices like Daniel did, and yet have not fared nearly as well. That, to me, is the real travesty and story to be told—not someone who held a comfortable, prestigious position, lost it for legitimate reasons, and went on to enjoy more professional comfort and influence. It was never my responsibility to decide whether she should be officially defrocked, as she frames it, for her actions. But throughout much of Defrocked, she comes across as spoiled or entitled, disenchanted that anyone would see sexual misconduct—namely, cheating on one’s spouse (regardless of how close they were to signing divorce papers) and doing so with a staff member—as constituting a serious violation, worthy of calling one’s Christian character and ecclesiastical competency into question.

None of us is entitled to another chance on our own terms. That’s not how it works—or, at least, that’s not how it should work. I’m not advising that when a pastor royally fouls up, they should automatically fade to black and into professional oblivion, never to be heard from again. But we have a problem with accepting the earthly consequences of our sin, consequences that may very well alter our career prospects, or ruin, or at least demonstratively curtail, the hopeful plans we once had for the future. It’s a misreading of both grace and holiness to suggest that when being held accountable for blatant wrongdoing—that violates the higher standard we’ve dedicated ourselves to—means we don’t get to say our goodbyes or end on our own terms, we are being mistreated.