TMI: A Cautionary Tale

I am slack-jawed in amazement, and not in a good way.

The latest issue of xxxxx magazine contains an interview granted by [young, female pastor].

In the article, xxxxx reveals the following to reporter xxxx.

That she makes out in her car with dates. [Okay, not so bad..]

She has had sex in the past but now has a commitment to abstain from sex until marriage. Oral sex counts as “sex” for her. [At this point I was thinking, “Oh boy. Way too much information here.”]

She was “itching for sex day and night” about a year and a half ago, and didn’t know that she was suffering from polycystic ovarian disease (one of whose symptoms is a hormonal imbalance that creates an out-of-wack libido). [I’m sorry. At the ripe old age of 45 I may have become a prude, but was there no more elegant way to express this struggle than by using the term “itching for sex day and night?”]

She was reading the Twilight series at the time and “constantly fantasized about Edward Cullen.” [This may be the most humiliating detail in the article. Seriously.]

She is not comfortable touching herself and has not had an orgasm in seven years. [And now I just want to refer her to a therapist. I hope against hope that she perhaps talked too freely to this reporter and had no idea that she would be quoted this thoroughly. Maybe?? Has she had any media training? ]

One of her parishioners tried to set her up with her son, a “drug addict who recently served time for dealing meth.” Xxxx is quoted as saying (with obvious sarcasm), “He sounded like a catch.” [This is simply not done. We do not give this sort of quote to the press.]

In this article, Xxxx refers to ministry as her “career” and her “job.” That may shed some light on what I think I might have to consider the worst judgment call around self-disclosure by any pastor I have seen in my fourteen years in this work. And I’ve seen some doozies.

This article is not just a case of unfathomable TMI. It treats deeply personal, profoundly intimate subjects in a cavalier way that I think shows a staggering lack of judgment. It insults one of her parishioners and breaches trust and confidentiality in that pastoral relationship.

I have nothing further to say, but await your illuminating remarks.
I find that I am actually quite sad.
This is not how young women empower themselves. Do you hear me, young ‘uns? Learn this fast and learn it well: over-sharing to this extent is not the way to achieve our shared goal of humanizing the clergy. What you are doing by providing salacious details on your sex life to the media is not empowering yourself or making clergy or Christian life more hip and relevant. More on this later.

62 Replies to “TMI: A Cautionary Tale”

  1. Let’s hope the District Superintendent and the Committee on Ordained Leadership has intervened. I agree,PB, this is the most outrageous and inappropriate disclosure I’ve heard from a clergy person in my 28 years of ministry!
    I know of jr. high young women who have far more maturity than this 27 year old girl.

  2. Oh my word, i pray that a compassionate pastor takes her under wing immediately.

    and that she NEVER speaks to another reporter. I am wondering if she was imbibing…hard to fathom sharing quite so much otherwise.

  3. I was checking if I could find the article on the web. I had no success but, yikes, instead my quick google search found that she is “Communications Director” with responsibility for “Communications and Visioning leadership, publications, web design, signage” at her church. If she has a specialization in this area I guess this article needs to be chalked up to a lapse in judgement. Once again, YIKES!!!

  4. I found myself wondering about how this article came about. I’m sure that most clergy in largish denominations have received the round robin emails in the past. You know the kind of thing – ‘Marie Claire/ the BBC/ some other media outlet are looking for a female/ black/ young/ old/ welsh speaking/ sex-starved member of the clergy for a realityTV series/ serious documentary/ salacious article. Interested? contact…..” I’ve always avoided the temptation, but I guess I can understand how this young woman may have been drawn in by a desire to tell her story.
    Of course, the journalist in question may have then ensured that the story that emerged met her editor’s requirements rather than those of the clergywoman.
    However it came to be written, it feels like a huge mistake and I’m really sorry for this minister and her congregation.

    I was also struck by the missed opportunity. If an article on being single in the ministry is what was needed, your previous post offers the basis for a really interesting discussion. Balancing life and ministry in the absence of the fabled ‘vicar’s wife’ to cook and fold the towels. It’s a real issue for many people, single and married, male and female, ordained or not and a good article might well be of interest to Marie Claire’s readership, who probably themselves spend more time thinking about balancing work with housekeeping and life and time management than they do about sex.

    Just a missed opportunity all around, I’m afraid

  5. Wow. Doesn’t this young woman have a mentor? I checked her out on her church’s webpage, and she is a new grad (Yale Divinity 2009). Among her ‘ministerial areas’ are comunications and publications. Yikes.

  6. Wow. Just wow. Totally confirms MY policy that the only thing I say to to press is “Yes, our chicken dinner is at 4 pm Sunday.” and “Please call my bishop if you want an opinion from our church on that issue”

  7. It is totally inappropriate to share intimate details like these in general. No matter if you are an old/young/male/female… clergy or any other person.

    And as media consumer I’m not interested in knowing such details too.

    Keep it private.

  8. While I certainly don’t know the ins and outs of this story, Marie Claire has been on my bad list for several months now. They recently published a slanderous, extremely fictitious article accusing several healthy living bloggers of having eating disorders. Then one of the blogs on their site talked about how the writer was disgusted watching overweight people be affectionate with one another. So, Marie Claire has a history of completely twisting things. Though the pastor may have said things that were not entirely appropriate, I have a feeling that MC twisted it way more than we might think. I feel very bad for this woman. I doubt that the article is how she thought it would turn out at all.

  9. An over-earnest question, perhaps, but here goes:
    PB, have you (or has any blog reader who’s in Wren’s denomination) contacted her to offer concern?
    Her email address is right there on the church website. It seems to me that in addition to the UMC Higher Ups needing to speak up, Wren needs to hear directly from her colleagues.

  10. My 21 year old has more maturity and I think would never go delve into her sexlife with a reporter I’m glad I’m not her mother. . . she’ probably heard from hers already.

    I don’t know much about their articles I know that MC is mostly a fashion mag but many reporters can and will twist words to get a better story. Many are freelancers and will spice something up to sell it. As Kira mentions above, her words may have been twisted around but still she needs a mentor to advise her as to how to deal with reporters & what to say/not say to them.

  11. Bless her, that is a terrible article–but I remember seeing that plea for a pastor to interview, and the criteria for being the subject were that you were a young single straight clergywoman (1) with an interesting sex life (2) that you’d be willing to share in detail/for publication and (3) with your real name. I remember laughing at the thought of anyone meeting all three criteria… I was sure they’d have to nix the article. I’m sorry to see a colleague took the bait.

  12. I expect Ms. Miller will hear from her mother shortly who will chastise her in ways PB never could.
    After that I hope she hears from a mentor in her denomination as to what to say & not say to reporters. That said, I think the odds are high that MC’s (probably freelance) reporter mis quoted her.

  13. I got horribly misquoted (thankfully, in a benign article about of all things making baby food) ten years ago and that cured me of talking to the press forever. After that I take almost nothing I read in the newspaper or magazines as very accurate Perhaps she mistook this reporter as a friend. I hope she has friends and mentors to support her in this.

  14. I don’t know what happened, but I agree with all of you who suspect that she was led into revealing confidences with a reporter who then wrote an article that cherry-picked all the most intimate bits.

    I hope her nearest and dearest are helping her get through this, because I can’t begin to imagine that the outcome has been positive. The article isn’t available on-line, so thank God for that. It won’t have an eternal life on the interwebs.

  15. Having had a bad experience with getting misquoted in the local paper many years ago, I have to wonder if the young woman said ANY of that. Reporters are frequently sent out to “dig up some stuff”, and have been suspected more than once of heavy embroidery when the truth wasn’t sexy or scandalous enough.

  16. What is the issue here? Is everyone upset that Rev. Miller is both a pastor and a sexual being or that she was honest about it publicly? If she’d written a book, would that be better or worse? If she’d blogged about this stuff, would that be better or worse? There are ministers out there blogging about family, travel, health, grief, addiction, weight, depression, and much much more. Why is sex off-limits? As a young, single woman, I actually found the article refreshing and humorous. To me, she sounds human and kinda fun, and I would feel more comfortable going to her for pastoral care than I would a stuffy 50-something man.

    And it seems quite unfair to call her a “girl” or suggest she was drunk while giving the interview, as some commenters did. I like Rev. E’s suggestion about a Peacebang–Rev. Miller phone call. They both seem like brassy, no-holds-barred minister chicks. I imagine they’d like each other and laugh a lot. PB would be all, “Um, pigeon, what were you thinking???” and Rev. M would be all, “I know! Here’s what I was trying to get across…”

  17. OMG! I truly hope she said none of those things the way they are in print and that the reporter just screwed her which may be even worse but only in the short-term. Makes me question whether or not I should give that interview to the local paper about my therapy dog and her cancer battle. God knows it could end up being “crazy female priest screws homeless children out of meals to pay for doggie chemo.”

  18. My brother is a professional musician with several famous friends, and I can’t tell you how many times they and he have complained about being misquoted or had things taken out of context in the press. This minister probably did overshare to some extent but it’s almost certain that MC twisted it into something more salacious to sell magazines. I feel bad for her.

  19. Is uncomfortable touching herself and hasn’t had an orgasm in seven years.

    I…. didn’t think we actually needed to teach masturbation in theology school.

  20. “I…. didn’t think we actually needed to teach masturbation in theology school.”

    Thanks for that. I now have a potential joke cohering around charismatics versus AngloCatholics, if you go past a closed seminar room and hear noises etc etc. I’ll try and keep a lid on it. (As it were).

    At first I found the story astonishing – then others’ suggestions that she may have been led into dodgy territory after a drink or two or otherwise falsely matey all-girls-together sharing behaviour made sense to me. As my cynical side would say, “There’s no such thing as strangers. Just enemies you haven’t classified yet.”

  21. I feel for this woman, I really do. I’ve had one negative experience with the national press in this country. I was naive and was asked for a comment by phone and I didn’t realise I was being interviewed.It came as a huge shock to see what was written – it was no way as near as mortifying as this poor, poor womans article – but I can understand how easily it is done.

    I would not dream of speaking like that about people in the congregation to a stranger – so I wonder if there is more than this than meets the eye? I wonder,(and perhaps this is me being naive again) if she knew the journalist already?

    This is a girly conversation that was printed, it is so sad!

    I’ve been ordained for 10 years – and can remember very little, if any, media training in ordination training or after.

    I feel for her. She must be feeling awful at the moment.

  22. Like all of you, I wonder what happened. This article would be embarrassing and it is even more so because she serves a Methodist church in the Deep South. In my experience, the churches there are even more prudish than elsewhere. They usually expect their minister to take the pledge not to drink alcohol or at least behave as if they had. This article would be difficult to come back from anywhere but in Huntsville, Alabama it is certainly painful. I wonder how I could look at my minister if I knew or wondered about such intimate details of her sex life.

  23. I’ve been thinking and thinking about this. As we say in the south, bless her heart–in the good way, not the snide one. Having on occasion said something stupid that went beyond the intended hearer (haven’t we all, no matter how careful we are) I really do feel her pain. She needs love, prayers, and support, not condemnation. I visualize Jesus gathering her up in his arms and blessing her. And I pray that her bishop will be kind.

  24. As a 26 year old aspiring seminarian (applications in!), her age is absolutely no excuse. I wouldn’t talk about this sort of stuff with a gossip magazine if I were in ANY profession, or even with an anonymity clause! There are some things that are meant to be private.

    Everyone’s comments have been great. I have no doubt that her words were manipulated to Marie Claire‘s greatest advantage, I wonder at the context in which she was willing to divulge such information (that I would barely share with the CLOSEST of friends), and I sincerely hope a mentor has reached out to her to give her advice, support, and the number of a good therapist.

    Anne, this is indeed a missed opportunity!! When I saw “Confessions of a Single Female Pastor”, I was excited for a good article, and then horrified by the reality. It could have been a great article.

  25. The Rev. Wren Miller is beautiful inside and out and she is a wonderful pastor. Those of you who have been willing to give her the benefit of the doubt are correct- the magazine took all sorts of liberties with her words, and in some cases, just made stuff up. All the “career” and “job” language was not her own–the magazine wrote the article in first person and then wrote “as told to” the reporter in tiny print. She was NOT drunk (she hardly drinks at all) and it is unkind to suggest that she was. I promise that she is not some silly, immature girl. She really needs the support of her clergy colleagues right now.

    And since it pertains to the topic of this blog, I’ll add that she ALWAYS looks put together and professional on her wardrobe of almost entirely thrifted clothing. In sum, she’s awesome and anyone who meets her knows it immediately.

  26. When you use the term “orgasm” in any conversation, a red light on the dashboard should flash—unless you’re talking to a lover, therapist, closest friend, or doctor.
    I occasionally hear clergy whine about how their profession limits their love lives—yet teachers, public officials, and others have the same issues.

  27. It annoys me a bit that ‘the media’ is so obsessed with the idea that sex is the be-all and end-all of life! Christians who are celibate are facinating to ‘the media’ but they must be made out to be really missing something and very weird/ messed up.

    The very fact that Maria Claire were looking for “a young single straight clergywoman (1) with an interesting sex life” sucks, I think.

  28. As a communications professional, I can’t believe she works in communications. Seriously?

    I understand that the media can take words out of context and twist things around: Some words should just not ever be shared with a representative of the media. Period.

  29. If she was indeed misquoted and/or had quotes wrongly attributed to her – which seems easily as plausible as someone giving the alleged interview with all the TMI details – I hope she sues the pants off of Marie Claire. IIRC Jane magazine had to issue an apology to Elizabeth Hurley a long while back for misquoting her in an interview – so she might have some recourse.

  30. I personally know Wren Miller. I have not read the article. I know she is a very trusting person and I am betting this has been blown waaay out of proportion. Pray for Wren, can’t imagine how she must be feeling right now (if she’s seen the article yet)

  31. I have a suggestion. This blog belongs to the fabulous Peacebang, not to me, so I sincerely apologize if this suggestion is out of line, but I have to risk it for the sake of my friend.

    We have now all had an opportunity to demonstrate how disgusted/outraged/sympathetic/pastoral we are. Perhaps the charitable (even Christian?) thing to do is to now remove the post altogether so that it does not resurface every time future churches google Rev. Miller (as we know they will). Because the article is not available in its entirety online and this post shows only the most salacious bits and our opinions of them, it might unfairly hurt her 5, 10, 15 years down the road. I think she has learned her lesson and I think we all have been reminded of how careful we must be when dealing with the media. To remove the post would be to show Rev. Miller an ounce of the grace we know God shows us all…what a gift! If she were truly unfit for ministry, I wouldn’t press the point, but anyone who knows her will tell you that she is truly, truly called to this work. Let’s help her continue it.

    -Longtime BTFM fan

  32. I agree. It’s not my blog, yet I’d like to join the voices who believe that this post should be removed. Though that does not mean that it has not already been archived by a search engine, I still believe it would be a good thing to do.

  33. Wouldn’t the same be achieved by simply removing the Minister’s name from the post? I think that the themes of the post and discussion are probably worth preserving (IMHO of course)
    anne

  34. I think you need to take down the entire post. I also think we need to be very careful about using names or any identifying characteristics. Let’s put ourselves in her place. [We are in her place, which is why it’s worthwhile to discuss this. – PB]

  35. Actions have consequences. If she didn’t want her name and sex life in the media, she should not have taken part in the article. Taking it off one site is not going to protect her from the professional damage she has done to herself. The article is available online in many places. It’s out there and can not be taken back.

    I wonder what is going on in her life that she would sabotage herself in this manner? How will she lead with these details so widely known, especially that she will reveal personal details about her members to the national media. Unacceptable. If she were on my staff, she would be taking a very long personal leave of absence to discern her future.

  36. I also would fully support taking down this post, or altering it to make it un-identifiable. Recognizing that PB can do what she wants to on her own blog–that goes without saying. But it does seem like it would be a great gift of support to Wren, our fellow clergy-woman, to remove it.

  37. Many people have already made comments similar to mine. What this article raises for me is the question: if young clergy are expected to keep their sexuality under wraps, when/ where is the appropriate time to talk about it, and with whom? Well, not with a magazine reporter, for heavens sake!

    And why do we keep condemning young people for lapses in judgment and TMI? Older women do this too. Don’t think I didn’t hear that comment about your toddler’s diaper blow-out in church! I am trying to have my coffee and biscuit, thank you, and now I’ve lost my appetite because I had to listen to your account of toddler diarrhea! What about clergy Facebook statuses about getting morning sickness in between services? Do women pastors talk with their parishioners about morning sickness? Sure! Do they talk about how long it has been since their last orgasm? NO. It’s about discernment.- PB

    Let’s not forget that older women have sex drives too! When/ where do they talk about it? I think in general there needs to be discussion, not only about appropriate conversations, but also what it means to live as embodied ministers.

  38. That seems fair enough. My point is always to point out our mistakes in understanding and being intentional about creating a public image, not in adding to any particular clergy person’s stress level. The post can stand as it is – a testament to mismanagement of one’s public image – without being about someone in particular.

  39. I wrote to her to support her. Certainly, the way the article comes across is unfortunate. However, none of us can know what she really said or didn’t say but I can’t imagine she got through this process and through Yale and is truly irresponsible. Who knows, her church may grow exponentially in the numbers of young women, single and married, because they know she can relate to them as a human being. I find there are so many parishioners who think that I don’t have a human instinct that they won’t come to me for pastoral care because they are afraid of judgement whether the issue is sexual or mental health or anything else “personal.” This comes from long and bad traditions in the church and I work hard to open them up as much as possible. Then, on the other hand, they want to put us up on a pedestal and judge us the moment we show any humanity. I never would have done this article but her willingness to be vulnerable might just turn lives of some others around.

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