31 year-old Pippa White has written a rich and honest account of modern clergy life — and it’s well worth your time, says our reviewer
In an ideal world, a young woman priest who plays rugby, enjoys going to gigs and has a TikTok following should be quite normal. Priests should be representative of their people; it’s part of the job description. As it is, having those interests (and being an ex-barmaid to boot) has led to White making an impact across national press and radio. Hence this book.
You might expect a few flippant tales of no consequence, given that her age could lead to a shortage of tales worth telling. You’d be very wrong.
White has written an engaging, impassioned and thoughtful collection of chapters, which come at you from a variety of directions.
Her TikTok experience could be the driver of her concise, chatty style, where she breaks the fourth wall every other page. There’s no post-Victorian churchy primness. For example: “I’m about to sound like an old lady here, so excuse me as I get my cardigan, emergency-fall-button and low-hanging breasts on… But phones have really changed gigs. Like – really, really.” This is all in the context of complaining about pointlessly intrusive phones, but it leads into an engrossing detective story about how the man beside her is apparently two-timing his girlfriend and how to let her know?
She writes: “It is at this point in the night that I curse being a priest. Someone with a looser ethical code might be able to say to themselves, ‘This is none of my business’ or ‘She’ll find out eventually’, shrug and turn back to the band. I, however, have promised to ‘daily follow the rule and teaching of our Lord and grow into his likeness’. I don’t think Jesus would just shrug and turn back to the band.”
In a hairpin-turn change of mood, that chapter leads straight to one describing a visit to a home for the elderly, where she takes a communion service. She notes that: “reality within a care home is not reality outside a care home” and “the walls that supported conversational structure have disintegrated. Or outright collapsed.”
Both these chapters are vividly visual. White’s descriptive ability is remarkably powerful. And while she’s talking to you like you’re her best mate, she is throwing in plenty of astute observations.
Content varies enormously in the areas she covers, which is a true reflection of clergy life. She discusses the place of ritual in church, dating as a priest, loneliness, appropriate clothing, PCCs, Church unity, exorcisms and AI. Death, she notes, is treated symmetrically opposite to the way Victorians approached the topic. They loved it, but never spoke of sex, whereas we are now sex-obsessed, but growing ever more reluctant to face the prospect of death.
When dealing with having to prepare a school assembly about hope, she does so by means of a conversation with her parents. Similarly, her chapter on Church of England faculties (the nightmare administrative procedure for making physical changes in a church, even an urgent matter like adding an accessible loo) is written purely in dialogue, which massively reinforces the sense of impotent frustration that hits clergy in the face of snail-paced bureaucracy. To answer the perennial question, “What do priests actually do?” she uses an R. L. Stine-influenced flow chart approach.
White writes very personally, opening her heart about the sexism she faces – and then turns it to an honest question – are some comments she faces really sexist, or simply the curiosity of people ignorant about church? And by likening her experiences to those of newbies going to the gym or walking into a tattoo parlour, she raises important points for church readers to think about.
The drawbacks are only small ones. This book doesn’t fit neatly into any genre – although this is also a strength. There are a few F-words that may put off some readers, and sometimes the self-conscious chatty asides can get a bit distracting and break the flow, as if you’re reading a draft awaiting comments. But it still drew me in and I reached page 90 in one sitting.
Is it essential? No. Is it well-written, entertaining and informative? Certainly. And it is one that you can enjoy equally whether you are a Christian or merely curious about what a priest does. Whichever you are, you may leave struck by her sensitivity, love for her people and the determined resilience needed when working for an institution. Gifted as she is in communication, she may be on Thought for the Day before you know it.
Not a Priestess: Tales from Beyond the Pulpit (Canterbury Press) by Pippa White is out now
Hear our interview with Pippa White coming soon to The Profile podcast
No comments yet