Associate Editor about women's role in today's church. Mrs. Jenks is a Christian Science practitioner and teacher, and has served on The Christian Science Board of Directors and as President of The Mother Church.
Russ Gerber: Betty, what sparked your interest in becoming a Christian Science practitioner and eventually a teacher of Christian Science?
Betty Jenks: Well, there were a couple of things. First of all, I was raised in a family that were all Christian Scientists. My mother and father had taken Christian Science class instruction with someone who had lived in Mary Baker Eddy's home. So, my religion was very meaningful to me from a very early age. And someplace I got the idea that everybody grew up to be [a Christian Science] practitioner. So it was just like, "Well, that's what I'm going to be in life, a practitioner." It was always in the background. But I think more than anything else that inspired me to go into the practice has been the example of individuals. For instance, I had a mother who had many, many challenges while we were growing up. She was very firm and strong, courageous and successful. And I saw that. Also I had a sister who was very influential. Then, when I went to the university, I had the opportunity of living in the home of a Christian Science practitioner whose healing work inspired me.
I went to a very fine university and had many great professors—some who were Nobel Prize winners. It was a very stimulating experience. But you know, I would come home from classes, especially the philosophy courses, and think about how many centuries people had been mulling over the great philosophers. Now, there's nothing wrong with the quality of thinking that these philosophers expressed. But in thinking about Mrs. Eddy, I saw that here was a woman devoted entirely to the teachings of Christ Jesus. And each day she healed, encouraged, and uplifted people of all races. To me it seemed as if she was doing; others often seemed just to be talking. I couldn't see any tangible evidence that anything but true Christianity has made the real, vital changes in the world. It just seemed very natural to me. I knew then that I would go into the practice. I really expected that to come someday down the line.
Another thought I had when I was a child was that when you get old you become a practitioner. I was a little startled to find that when I had three little children the practice began to come to me. I reached a point of decision about the practice, because I had a couple of nursery schools that were very successful, and I was just starting the third one. My husband and I talked it over, and with total encouragement from him—he was another influence on my going into the practice— there was just no question. We thought it could mean a loss of income. That was a problem that had seemed to plague us for a long time. But the step of going into the public practice of Christian Science seemed very important. We both knew it was right.
I applied three different times to become a teacher of Christian Science over a period of nine years. During that time my children were growing, and my practice was growing. And then I was accepted as a teacher. Even if I hadn't been accepted, I think the process of self-examination involved in the application process was so important.
Gerber: What have you found most challenging as a woman serving in the ministry of your Church?
Jenks: I don't believe that I've ever felt a challenge specifically as a woman. And yet, as I think about it, I guess there were some challenges. For example, somebody asked me when I had the three little children and was obviously quite busy, "How do you pray?" And I said, "Usually on my knees. But to tell you the truth, I'm on my knees because I'm wiping up spilled milk or looking under the bed for a shoe." I discovered I had to live Christian Science every moment. Yet, for the most part, I don't believe that my being a woman has presented significant challenges that don't face men as well.
Gerber: Well, now, you spent several years serving on The Christian Science Board of Directors. When you were on the Board did you have an equal voice in decisionmaking?
Jenks: Oh, absolutely The way the Board of Directors operates, it is a body. It isn't five individuals, each coming with his or her own agenda. The agenda comes to us and each one prays. But the input of each one is absolutely essential and valued. I had no problem with that at all.
There was never a time that I felt overridden or dominated. I had tremendous respect for what each director was bringing, individually. You see, each one on the Board of Directors is a Christian Science practitioner and teacher. Each one has proved Christian Science for himself or herself, and there is tremendous respect for the contribution that each has made. It has nothing to do with whether one is masculine or feminine. It has to do with the quality of thought and the healing work.
Gerber: Do you think there are special qualities women do bring to church government?
Jenks: Yes. I think very naturally there are. Again, this goes back to my mother because she had wonderful qualities that helped in running our household. She was stereotypical housewife, homemaker, and gracious hostess for the first nine to ten years of my life. And then what was called the great Depression hit. She was suddenly thrust into having to go to work. It never occurred to her that she was in a man's world. Consequently she was one of the first women to do something that hadn't been done in the United States. She started adult education classes in our state. There were many things she was able to do. So I never felt those barriers often connected with being a woman. Her success just had to do with the fact that she knew her own identity.
And so the qualities that a woman brings to church responsibilities or business or politics or whatever, I believe include that "mother quality," which is not exclusive to a woman, but is a strong influence in her life. There's a tenderness, a patience, a tolerance, a willingness to listen. As a mother you have to listen many hours—or you should. And you soon learn that you might as well listen, because if you don't, you're going to lose communication with your children. I think women are excellent communicators from that standpoint. Although none of this excludes men. Mrs. Eddy felt strongly about the need for men in the movement, because of what they could bring to it. But it's also important to realize that the Founder of this movement was a woman, and she certainly brought the qualities that we normally consider attached to men, to the movement— qualities such as strength, creativity, and business acumen.
Although Mrs. Eddy said that "the male element is a strong supporting arm to religion as well as to politics, and we need in our ranks of divine energy, the strong, the faithful, the untiring spiritual armament," The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 355. that statement certainly doesn't exclude women from having those qualities. And with women there is also patience and a tender sense—motherhood.
Gerber: Betty, in recent times, we've seen some breakdown of resistance to women in higher-level positions within many churches. Why do you think this is taking place?
Jenks: The way I look at it, it's taking place because of what Mrs. Eddy has given the world through the Science of Christianity, through her discovery of the laws of God that govern each of us—the equality of the sexes, absolute equality of the sexes without losing the diversity of each individual's womanhood or manhood. I think the resistance is breaking down because we're breaking through the barriers of tradition. We're discovering greater freedom. And this goes back to one of the statements Christ Jesus made that was so meaningful to Mrs. Eddy: "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:31, 32. And what she saw in this truth is what Jesus' teaching brought to the surface—that there isn't anything that separates the individual from being what God has created each of us to be. His individualized expression expresses all of the Godlike qualities without limitation imposed by tradition or by sex or by economics or by race. Christian Science just breaks down all barriers across the board. Traditionally we've thought in terms of race. Traditionally we've thought in terms of class. But Mrs. Eddy discovered universal freedom, not based on human actions or limited by human tradition and opinion, but a freedom that fulfills Jesus' promise that if we "continue in his word," then we truly become his disciples, and we can know the truth, and the truth can free us from limitations. You know, the interesting thing is that when you get down to limitations, you'll find that limitations and lack are one. They may have different faces, but basically they rest on the same argument. When one is overcome, it's a lot easier to overcome the other. I think we're in a period when suddenly the world has realized that when a tradition is gone, people sometimes feel they don't have anything to hold to. Sometimes tradition has been a crutch, a security blanket for us.
Gerber: You've mentioned tradition and limitation. Do you see any other key problems for women?
Jenks: Stereotypes. The stereotyping of women seems to be a problem in many religions, certainly within various sects of Christianity. But we're finding it really throughout the world. Women are beginning to challenge why many times they've been cast in the role of second-class citizens. And I know of one woman—a minister from Kansas—who overcame this challenge. I read about her in a newspaper article someone sent to me. In it she said, "Well, once you understand God and your relation to God, then you're not challenged. You just go ahead. You do what you know you must do." And she said, "This is what women are coming to now—the realization that the restrictions and limitations have pretty much been self-imposed. We've accepted what has been pushed on women."
Mrs. Eddy over one hundred years ago, faced the "stereotype" challenge outright. And it didn't stop her from founding a worldwide religion. She embraced the concept of Father-Mother God. And for over one hundred years, people have been praying from that basis. Yet there are those who are feeling that the concept of a Father-Mother God is a brand-new discovery that no one has ever thought of—the idea that God could be a mother as well as a father. Christian Scientists all over the world, for over a hundred years, have recognized the fatherhood and motherhood of God, and consequently man in His image and likeness, as expressing the fatherhood and motherhood qualities in one individual, without sacrificing that person's identity.
Gerber: Do you think mankind is closer to accepting the concept of God as Father-Mother?
Jenks: Oh, I do. Because, as tradition falls away, the love of God as both Father and Mother becomes more obvious.
I feel that right now the world is in the midst of a monumental discovery: the discovery of man's identity through his understanding of a loving God—not perceiving God as a wrathful, vengeful potentate. This, of course, had been the concept of God for many centuries. Yet Jesus brought out the tenderness of God's love—the tenderness that we've come to recognize as the motherhood of God.
