11.25.2008

Does he play the piano,,,

"Somewhere out in this audience may even be someone who will one day follow in my footsteps, and preside over the White House as the President's spouse. I wish him well!"-Barbara Bush
The reason this is clever is because it surprises us. Of course, we expected Barbara to say "I wish her well." The assumption is that the president is a man. How often have we thought of the pastor as a man and the pastor's spouse as a wife? What behaviors, language and assumptions would we need to change to deal with the pastor's husband? We would begin to introduce the pastor and her husband. We would talk about the pastor's husband and children. I wonder, would the pastor's husband be expected to host the parsonage events? Do you think the pastoral search committees would ask "what does your husband do? Does he work outside the home? Does he play the piano?"

2 comments:

  1. When I was going to seminary, I used to jokingly try to convince my husband to go to the events for wives of seminarians. There were not any events for the husbands of seminarians :)

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  2. Yes, that is something that will need to be considered as more men enter the spouse-of-the-minister role. Their needs will certainly be different from (as well as similar to) those of the female spouse.

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