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Debate over women's programs continues as Presbyterian Women gather in Louisville

By LESLIE SCANLON, Outlook Louisville Reporter

Maybe it's a blessing, Jane Parker Huber mused, that she's seen as a grandmotherly sort, a hymn writer, a silver-haired woman who's given 50 years of service to the church rather than as a "radical feminist."

But Huber, interim director of the Women's Ministries program area, speaks her mind about what she sees as the future for a program that's been a public battleground for the tensions within the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) -- and which will, in the months to come, be at a particularly critical time of transition.

She started the job just three weeks before the 212th General Assembly gathered in California.

"I came into it knowing the last few General Assemblies had been really difficult for women" and that the staff of Women's Ministries felt under attack, she said in an interview in Long Beach.

The challenges come because "I think people still are worried about what women will do if they aren't controlled," Huber said. "It's going back 200 years to when some ministers didn't think women should pray, because they were concerned about what they'd pray about. It feels like that. It feels like tightening the leash, when women are 60 percent of the church."

For the Women's Ministries program area, this is a time of change, not of sure-footedness. It's also a time when advocates of Women's Ministries want to know what support they can expect from the broader church for work that won't always be cautious and safe.

"There is a real point of a program relating to women's concerns being on the cutting edge," on issues from domestic violence to gender-inclusive language, Huber said. "I think we should be criticized if we were not, because nobody else in the church would be."

And "if the church is affirming what the Women's Ministries program area is doing, then the church has to allow us to do what we're saying we want to do," said Jerri Rodewald of Corona del Mar, Calif., who has been active in Presbyterian Women and is one of this year's three "Women of Faith" award winners for her work with women trying to give up prostitution.

"It's one thing to give lip service" to such an effort, Rodewald said, but "is our leadership really in favor of it? I don't know."

Council review irks critics

The General Assembly Council, meeting just before the Assembly, completed a formal review of Women's Ministries -- concluding that it "affirmed" the program's work and found it to be operating within acceptable theological bounds.

But the review also cautioned Women's Ministries to be more inclusive of a broad range of views, and it expressed "disgust" with "the entrenched positions of opposed groups who seek to control the church" from both the liberal and conservative sides.

That comment rankled Sylvia Dooling, who is executive director of Voices of Orthodox Women and a leading critic of Women's Ministries.

"That was extremely unprofessional language for the General Assembly Council to use," Dooling said. "It was very vague. If you have something to say, it ought to be clear and it ought to be careful."

And Dooling said it's "absurd" for supporters of Women's Ministries to contend that critics "are people who are out to destroy women's rights in the Presbyterian Church . . . It's not women's rights. It is theology. That is our concern."

Dooling said she also views the GAC's call for "theological diversity" in Women's Ministries as significantly different from her own desire for "theological balance."

Balance presumes "there is an axis that's at the center" and "there are margins out there you can't go beyond and still be the church of Jesus Christ," she said.

"Theology begins with God, who God is and what he has revealed . . . God revealing himself about who we are as human beings. Radical feminism -- and I keep using the word 'radical,' because I'm not talking about equal rights" -- has a different approach, Dooling said.

Feminists "seek to reform the image of God in terms of who I see myself to be. That's a totally different starting place" than starting with God. "The church is broad, but it can't take that kind of breadth without neutralizing who we are as a church."

Key moment for women's organization, programs

While Women's Ministries was not one of this Assembly's hottest issues -- as happened in 1999 with criticism of the National Network of Presbyterian College Women, for example -- the tensions did periodically bubble to the surface, as did an awareness that the upcoming months will be particularly significant for Women's Ministries.

From July 15 to 19, Presbyterian Women will be holding its triennial gathering in Louisville, meeting to discuss work in congregations and around the world.

A formal search will proceed for a new director for Women's Ministries. Another key staff member in the department, Unzu Lee, has announced she is leaving as well -- one of a series of top-level departures in recent years.

And this Assembly passed a series of initiatives relating to Women's Ministries -- some of which speak directly to the criticism and urge the church not to be silent on the issue of whether feminism and the leadership of women is acceptable in the denomination.

For example, while the General Assembly decided not to criticize the Southern Baptists by name for refusing to allow women to be senior pastors, it did pass a resolution "expressing concern for women denied the exercise of their pastoral gifts."

And two commissioners submitted a resolution asking the denomination to review past Assembly actions relating to women, and to conduct a comprehensive review to determine how well those policies are being put into effect.

The Assembly declined to take a position either for or against the rationale those commissioners offered, stating that a review would be beneficial "without endorsing the rationale submitted or dismissing the perceptions of those who offer it."

But that rationale referred explicitly to the conflict over Women's Ministries, stating that "a highly organized and well-funded attack has been launched on women and women's ministries" and that "one symptom that should be an alarming flag to Presbyterians is the fact that nine women staff members in high-level positions of the denomination have either resigned or left under pressure since 1998."

What is happening to women ministers?

This Assembly also approved a new study, recommended by the Advocacy Committee for Women's Concerns, to find out where Presbyterian women ministers are ending up -- and if they're leaving, to find out why.

There is concern about "what appears to be a significant number of women pastors who leave after a short time in ministry," said Freda Gardner, who ended her tenure as moderator of the 211th General Assembly. "I don't think it is simply a matter of young women bearing children" and leaving because of family responsibilities.

Women pastors "tend to be in lower-paid appointments" and "in positions that are seen to be marginal by the church," said Scott Matheney, a member of the Advocacy Committee for Women's Concerns. Many feel "the church is just not willing to accept the voices of women at the senior levels."

Women's ministry is criticized because "we're challenging the system," said Judy Strausz-Clement, an Illinois pastor. "We're challenging the good old boys and the way it's always been done before. It's a threat to the power structure. It's a power and control issue."

And for many women, their views are shaped by personal experience.

"I think a lot of people would like women to step back and be the way they used to be," Strausz-Clement said. "But hey, I can't be. I was divorced when I had small children. I had to deal with this stuff. I had to get an education and support my family . . . I knew I had to be an independent woman."

The shadow of the Re-Imagining conference

It's also clear that scars still remain from the controversial Re-Imagining conference, which took place in 1993 in Minneapolis and which many Presbyterian wom en -- including some from the national staff -- attended.

It's been seven years since the first Re-Imagining event, which some contend went beyond theologically acceptable boundaries, and others say involved fresh ways of thinking about God. But it is still frequently raised in conversations about Women's Ministries and still can make people angry fast.

"I think this is a very important time" for Women's Ministries, said Leslie Day-Ebert, an elder from Trinity church, Santa Ana, Calif., a congregation she said has stopped paying dues to Presbyterian Women because "we don't feel like we're in the same family."

Since Re-Imagining, "I have not involved myself in Women's Ministries -- I have not felt welcome there," Day-Ebert said. "I'm pleased that the review called for more of a theological balance and recognized that some women feel excluded."

"Possibly the selection of a new director might have an impact," she said. "But I don't see much evangelical movement (at the denominational headquarters) in Louisville . . . Louisville is so out of touch."

But some who attended Re-Imagining say the conference and those who participated in it have been falsely portrayed -- that, since then, "feminist" often has been used as a pejorative and the church has been reluctant to discuss the role that theology shaped from women's perspectives ought to play.

Ann Hayman, of Reseda, Calif., felt so vilified by the critics after Re-Imagining that she filed a request for vindication from her presbytery -- and got one. "They just went berserk with this stuff, (saying) that we were worshipping pagan goddesses," Hayman said. "They were lying and saying I did things I did not do."

And at this Assembly, there were signs that supporters of Women's Ministries were fighting back.

For example, the Assembly passed a commissioners' resolution stating that PC(USA) employees should be able to maintain personal memberships in Presbyterian or ecumenical groups that aren't a part of the official church structure, and should be able to use denominational funds to travel to meetings sponsored by such groups, as long as the employee, in consultation with a supervisor, determines that the purpose of the meeting is relevant to the employee's work.

The rationale for the resolution states that "male staff have attended meetings of unofficial groups like the Presbyterian Coalition, while women staff are discouraged from participating in Presbyterian groups such as Voices of Sophia for fear of negative repercussions in their employment. Since 1994, some staff members have also been allowed to use their travel budgets to attend Promise Keepers conferences, while others are not allowed to use their travel funds for Re-Imagining events."

The instant reaction many people have to Re-Imagining is "too bad," Jane Parker Huber said, "because what a great idea that is -- to reimagine what the church would be like in the future. That word will be with us probably another 20 or 30 years as a terrible thing, just like Angela Davis -- we couldn't drop that. There's a sense that, 'What might women think to do or think to pray about' if they aren't being controlled."

(Davis, an African American Communist and university professor, received $10,000 from a Presbyterian agency for her legal defense against charges of murder, kidnapping and conspiracy. The grant caused much negative feeling, but the 1971 UPCUSA General Assembly only questioned the propriety of the gift and took no action. Black Presbyterians personally repaid the $10,000 to the church, but were angered by the furor raised by white Presbyterians. Davis was acquitted.)

The Assembly passed another commissioners' resolution calling for education and dialogue in the church "regarding the relationship between Reformed theology and contemporary theologies of women," with a report to be made to the 215th General Assembly in 2003.

Since the first Re-Imagining event in 1993, "contemporary theologies that are identified as feminist, womanist (African American) and mujerista (Latina) and Asian have been regarded with suspicion and outright contempt in some quarters of the church," the resolution's rationale stated.

Despite those strong reactions, "many Presbyterians have very little familiarity with contemporary women's theologies," the resolution stated. "The action by the General Assembly would provide important education, understanding and mutual encouragement about theological differences that are at the heart of some of the denomination's most contested disputes."

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