Photos of New York's female pastors -

“I was always looked at with some kind of disdain. They called me a troublemaker when I questioned the way women were treated in the Church. But I’ve never been able to sit back and just let things go.” — Rev. Vicki Moss

Photographer Corrie Aune’s project, “For Such a Time as This” comes at a particularly relevant time. It’s subjects are women pastors in New York City who, as Aune says, “confronting the historic exclusion of women from Church leadership.” The role of women in the church, and just about everywhere else, has historically been one of submission, rarely of taking the reins.

As Aune told In Sight, “In recent decades, the number of women in positions of leadership in the Protestant Church has rapidly increased. The women in these images are groundbreaking, social justice-minded participants in this massive cultural shift. By honoring their experience and ongoing work, this project offers a new, more inclusive path forward for the American Church and other faith communities”

I have probably mentioned it before, but I grew up the son of Southern Baptist missionaries. Growing up, I remember women playing mostly supportive roles in the church, Sunday school teachers, babysitters, etc. But all the important leadership roles — pastor, deacon, minister of music — were almost exclusively male, so Aune’s project really rings true to me.

And Aune’s project is timely. We seem to be at a time in our history as a country where some people want to lead us back to “traditional” values, erasing progress that came for women, people of color and the LGBTQ+ community.

All you have to do is look to the Supreme Court’s recent decision on Roe v. Wade or the widespread demonization of transgender people. In fact, the Southern Baptist Convention in June reaffirmed its rejection of women pastors, following the expulsion of Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church “for ordaining women in assistant pastoral roles.” The convention then made “it explicit in their constitution that women can’t be pastors at any level.”

Corrie Aune graduated with a journalism degree from Baylor University in Waco, Tex., in 2019 and from the Internationl Center of Photography in May. She now calls New York City home. You can find out more about Aune, and her work, on her website.

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