Belief Behind the Book: Lynn Horan’s Dismantled
Editor’s Note: The following is part of a series of twice-monthly articles from Angela Yarber of Tehom Center Publishing. Tehom specializes in creating spaces for feminist and queer authors, specializing in centering BIPOC voices.
Many progressive faith communities are quick to discuss the importance of women in ministry, gallantly clapping ourselves on the back for the equity we proclaim and promise. But what about the churches that hold fast to these values but subject clergywomen to toxic treatment?
If women are affirmed to minister, why are they leaving the church in droves? That question drives today’s Belief Behind the Book feature of Lynn Horan’s “Dismantled: Abusive Church Culture and the Clergywomen Who Leave.”
Belief Behind the Book gives readers a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the beliefs—or what I call “the WHY”—behind books written by progressive spiritual leaders. Inspired by the Ministry from the Margins Books program, Belief Behind the Books offers practical tips for readers to apply to their own belief systems.
Behind the walls of Protestant churches across America is a story that has not been told until now: the systemic derailment and disappearance of GenX-Millennial clergywomen.
Through careful theoretical analysis and in-depth interviews with clergy who have left abusive church systems, Horan applies a gender-critical approach to the phenomenon of “clergy killing.” With expert analysis of the social dynamics of feminized servanthood, gendered scapegoating, toxic masculinity and the mother-daughter wound within intergenerational parish life, this important body of research exposes the oppressive relational dynamics that are pushing clergywomen out of active ministry.
With a desire to validate and empower survivors of religious trauma, Horan centers the voices of clergywomen who are reconstituting their lives and vocational calling beyond toxic church culture.
Lynn M. Horan, PhD, is a gender and leadership scholar specializing in interpersonal boundaries and the psychological safety of empathetic women leaders. A contributing author to the “Leadership at the Spiritual Edge and the Transformative Women Leaders” series, Horan promotes decolonizing and embodied approaches to women’s leadership development.
A former Presbyterian pastor, domestic abuse counselor, and healthcare policy analyst, Lynn believes strongly in the restorative capacity of embodied awareness to cultivate healing and wholeness in individuals and communities.
When asked why she wrote this book, Lynn responded:
“I wrote ’Dismantled’ to share the systemically silenced experiences of Protestant clergywomen who are leaving active ministry due to chronic psychological abuse, targeting, and gendered scapegoating, even within more outwardly progressive denominations. As a former Presbyterian (PCUSA) clergy, I completed a PhD in gender and leadership sociology and was able to conduct in-depth qualitative research on the harmful expectations of feminized servanthood within Protestant church culture, which is the basis for this book.”
Horan’s book goes beyond research, offering applications for our everyday lives. One such practical takeaway is “understanding the shadow side of servant-leadership and how harmful narratives and theologies of the self-sacrificial woman can create abusive dynamics for empathetic women leaders.”
“Dismantled” is an invitation to consider this shadow side of servant leadership and the ways we promote it with our theology, preaching, worship, biblical analysis and pastoral care.
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Award-winning author of ten books, including The Authorpreneur Handbook. Founder and CEO of Tehom Center Publishing, a nonprofit press publishing feminist and queer authors, with a commitment to elevate BIPOC writers. Rev. Dr. Yarber’s work has been featured in Forbes, HuffPo, NPR, The Advocate, Ms. Magazine, the television show Tiny House Nation, and more. She travels the world speaking, preaching, publishing, and writing, but she can always be found at www.tehomcenter.org
