All around the world, people are calling for change. The vagueness of such demands can be politically advantageous, but it can also become a burden, as UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, elected on a one-word promise, is discovering. Real change, as my 94-year-old father Noel has learned through a lifetime of advocating for women to become Lutheran pastors, takes time.
On Monday, he will receive an OAM in the King's birthday honours list for his services to the Lutheran and Uniting churches. Enduring social change requires patient explanation and persuasion, navigating processes and systems, and knowing when to hold back and when to push forward. The forces of the status quo fight fiercely to obstruct, delay, and undermine change, especially when it aims to improve human rights and equity. Change that generates profit arrives more swiftly.
Princeton historian Linda Colley concluded that, despite occasional exceptions, most lasting change takes three score years and ten—a lifetime. Consider the major transformations that shaped modern Australia: dismantling the White Australia policy took three score years and twelve; granting First Nations people the right to vote took three score years and two; making their voting compulsory, like for other citizens, and legislating women's equal rights took nearly four score years.
Eight years ago, my father said to me in despair, 'I am going to die before women are allowed to become pastors in the Lutheran church. I can't believe it.' The synod of the Lutheran Church of Australia had just voted again against allowing the ordination of women, even though women serve as spiritual and administrative leaders in the 70-million-strong Lutheran church in Europe and North America.
That the youngest of 13 children, who grew up poor in Queensland's South Burnett, became an advocate for women's rights was itself an unlikely change. He was the only family member to attend college, eventually training for the ministry by learning ancient Greek, Latin, German, and Hebrew to pursue rigorous theological studies. Like Catholics, Lutherans took pride in having at least one family member join the priesthood.
When he graduated from seminary 70 years ago in the mid-1950s, the head of the church issued a dictum citing scriptures that prohibited women from leadership. Noel and several other young ministers questioned this interpretation and requested a more rigorous examination by seminary scholars. Their request was ignored, but his questioning did not cease.
Over the following 25 years, he quietly implemented gender-neutral policies in his own congregations: allowing women to be leaders, not requiring unmarried pregnant women to apologise for their 'fall' to the men in the parish, and supporting my mother as she fought to fulfil her dreams of higher education and equality. Within a decade of free university, she earned a doctorate in psychology and built a real career.
In the late 1970s, a scholarship for postgraduate studies at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota gave Noel the opportunity to revisit the big theological question that had troubled him for decades. His resulting doctoral thesis challenged the established truth that had pronounced half of all Lutherans in Australia as second-class believers, but it was welcomed by other clergy members. The hierarchy, however, was not convinced.
When my mother accepted a university lecturing position in Melbourne, my father applied for a leave of absence to become director of pastoral care and community education at St Michael's Uniting Church. Despite his prominent role, he was refused permission and, with a heavy heart, left the Lutheran church. His theological advocacy for women's rights was clearly a step too far. He moved to the Uniting Church, where women held many leadership positions, and pursued a broad ministry.
In response to his distress over the 2018 Lutheran synod vote against female ordination, I suggested he update and publish his thesis. A few years later, Neither Male nor Female – the Bible, Women & the Ministry of the Church was published with ringing endorsements—a sweet 90th birthday present. I realised the impact it had made when addressing a large audience of Lutheran teachers. They cared little about me; Noel was the superstar. He autographed copies and heard how keen readers gathered in cafes to work through his book, debating theological points, sociological and legal contexts, and marshalling arguments for the next synod vote.
In 2024, the Lutheran synod finally voted to allow women to be ordained. As had been feared in a church always riven by factions, a small conservative group with strong ties to American Christian fundamentalism left the church, declaring there was no place for female pastors or leaders in their world. After nearly three score years and ten, it seemed unbelievable. Not many people get to see the change they have advocated all their lives become reality, but in 2025, Noel and Cynthia attended the ordination of the second woman to become a Lutheran pastor in Australia—Rev. Sue Westhorp at St Paul's Box Hill in Melbourne.
He was astonished when the governor general's office contacted him about the award. He protested, of course, that it should have been given to both himself and Cynthia. Theirs was a team effort over a lifetime.
