Jann Aldredge-Clanton, a minister, theologian, author, loving wife, mother, and grandmother, and pioneering voice of progressive Christianity who touched thousands with her life and work, died of ovarian cancer on Sept. 20 in Dallas. She was 78.
Jann’s life was defined by tireless advocacy for gender equity, especially in the church, and a deep faith, uncommon kindness, and boundless optimism that never left her. In her work and writings, she stressed the importance of using feminine images and language for the Divine as a foundation for equality, justice, and peace.
“My vision is of a church where the Divine Feminine and women ministers don’t have to be defended or marginalized but are fully and equally included throughout every worship service and every activity of the church,” she wrote in the introduction to Changing Church: Stories of Liberating Ministers, her 2011 book profiling progressive women ministers.
She spent much of her adult life working to fulfill that vision, but the foundation for it was laid much earlier.
Jann was born in Abilene, Texas, and grew up in Minden, La., where her father, the Rev. Henry Truman Aldredge, pastored the First Baptist Church and her mother Eva pushed the bounds of what it meant to be a preacher’s wife in the 1950s.
In high school, Jann graduated as valedictorian and turned heads as a baton-twirling majorette before attending Louisiana Tech University. It was there that she met her future husband, David Clanton, a kind and funny Baptist kid from DeRidder, La., who kissed her on their first date and recognized her brilliance early, telling her she was “Ph.D. material.”
After marrying David in 1968 and moving to the Dallas-Forth Worth area, Jann acquired a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in English Literature from Texas Christian University and taught for several years at Dallas Baptist University. Then, like her father before her, she felt called to the ministry and began a Master’s of Divinity from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth.
It was still rare for women to pursue a theology degree in those days, and the coursework took several years to complete. Jann was a mother by then, raising her two sons, Chad and Brett. And a family move to Waco, Texas, had complicated things even further, with Jann having to commute back to Dallas to finish her degree. Nevertheless, she persisted. And in 1985, she became one of the first women to be ordained as a minister in the Baptist church in the South.
After finding professional doors closed to her in the church of her upbringing, she joined the staff of St. John’s Methodist Church in Waco as an associate minister, and later became a chaplain at Hillcrest Hospital. It was around this time that her true calling in ministry began to emerge.
While juggling family and work, she returned to scholarly research and to the original biblical texts in Hebrew and Greek that she had studied in seminary. The scripture, she discovered, was full of feminine references to God that she argued had been suppressed to maintain a patriarchal power structure over the church.
She decided to start writing about it — and she never stopped.
Over the years, she authored eleven books, six songbooks, a children’s musical, and a children’s songbook. She was working on her next collection of hymns, with collaborator Larry Schultz, the week before she died.
As a chaplain at Baylor Medical Center in Dallas, where she worked for 17 years until her retirement in 2009, Aldredge-Clanton counseled and supported cancer patients, especially women living with the same illness that later would take her life. She was also one the founders of New Wineskins, an inclusive worship community in Dallas, and was a regular attendee of The Gathering, a Womanist Church, which prioritizes racial equity, social justice, and LGBTQ+ equality.
But perhaps her greatest achievement — and joy — was her family.
Jann was married for 57 years to David who stood by her as she evolved from a pretty, small-town Baptist girl to feminist theologian and who faithfully cared for her over the last four years as she privately dealt with her illness. She called him “Angel David.”
She also loved being a mother and was deeply proud of her two sons. Before she died, she was able to tell each of them that, even after she went to heaven, her love would not end.
Jann is survived by David, her son Chad, his partner Maura Mullins, her son Brett, his wife Beth Lousteau and their three sons — Lyle, Emmett, and Paul — her sister Dr. Anne Morton and her brother-in-law Bill Funderburk.
A memorial service for Jann Aldredge-Clanton will be held at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 5, at Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas.
In lieu of flowers, please send donations to Equity for Women in the Church: https://equityforwomeninthechurch.org/