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{"id":364,"date":"2014-10-14T12:41:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-14T12:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/10\/a-warm-embrace-for-riverside-churchs-first-female-leader.html"},"modified":"2014-10-14T12:41:00","modified_gmt":"2014-10-14T12:41:00","slug":"a-warm-embrace-for-riverside-churchs-first-female-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/10\/a-warm-embrace-for-riverside-churchs-first-female-leader.html","title":{"rendered":"A Warm Embrace for Riverside Church\u2019s First Female Leader"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Two days after she officially assumed the mantle as the senior minister of Riverside Church<\/a>, the Rev. Dr. Amy K. Butler<\/a>, the first woman to hold the job, was chuckling on the couch of her 19th-floor office in the church\u2019s Gothic tower in Morningside Heights.<\/span><\/p>\n

War stories? Does she have any war stories? Well \u2026<\/p>\n

There was the man in New Orleans who, after hearing Ms. Butler\u2019s first sermon, announced that watching a woman preach was akin to watching a dog walk on its hind legs. There was the hospital security guard in Washington who insisted several years ago that she must be a sickly congregant\u2019s girlfriend, not his pastor, until she directed him to her photo on the church\u2019s website.<\/p>\n

Then there was the day in June when Ms. Butler arrived at a funeral home in Maryland, ready to lead the worship service for a grieving family. She\u00a0 tweeted about it<\/a> afterward: \u201cTrying to convince the funeral director that you really are the minister #nevergetsold.\u201d<\/p>\n

That might be one reason the installation at Riverside Church last week felt so special. In that ceremony, Ms. Butler formally took on the role of leader of one of the nation\u2019s most prominent liberal Protestant churches. And there were no wide-eyed stares, she said, no raised eyebrows, no gasps of disbelief.<\/p>\n

Instead, there were hugs and handshakes from congregants and an outpouring of emails and phones calls from female ministers and seminarians, all applauding the rise of Ms. Butler, a 44-year-old single mother, to one of the most venerable pulpits in the country.<\/p>\n

Read the rest here<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"