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                        OFFICE OF WOMEN'S ADVOCACY
                             IGNORES VOW's QUESTIONS

     In March, The Office of Women’s Advocacy placed a series of articles on their website in honor of Women's
     History Month.

     Viola Larson, a member of the VOW board, wrote immediately to Molly Casteel (Associate, Office of
     Women’s Advocacy) to contest some of the web-pages' content. In that correspondence, she posed a series of
     pertinent questions to which she was promised answers (click here).

     Unfortunately, Ms. Casteel's belated response (reproduced in in facsimile form below) provides none of the
     promised answers.

     Sylvia Dooling

June l, 2007

Ms. Viola Larson
c/o Voices of Orthodox Women
2409 Estrella Avenue
Loveland, Colorado 80538

Dear Ms. Larson,

Forgive me for the delay in responding; I've been traveling most of the time since your email was received. God is good. It is heartening to see that we share an acknowledged common interest in women's advocacy. Faithful women and men have been involved with the struggles for freedom and gender justice in church and society for a long time. I am glad to have you join us in expressing concern "about the needs of disadvantaged women as well as women of color, indeed, concern for all women" as you said in your cover email. Looking at the issues in their experienced complexity - race, gender and class - provides greater relevance.

The content, including the two segments you concentrate on in particular, was intended to stimulate discussion and to challenge the readers. Your response indicates that we were successful. The fourth installment on the website entitled, "Recognize the threat of `raunch culture'," was particularly intended to engage younger women in conversation with a troubling trend of American culture and to point to a thin place of church engagement. I am aware that Presbyterians have a rich heritage of disagreeing on particulars. It is a simple fact: faithful persons disagree. Advocacy is described in the Book of Order as an apt expression of worship (W-7.3004 which also cites G-3.0300). Having content appear on the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) web site, the context of the church sets a conversation and allows us to engage in that conversation.

We seek to be open to the whole church, which means that sometimes, we will be challenging to an alwayschanging small number much of the time. Just as the first witnesses that early dawn (the faithful women) sought to be witnesses of Christ Jesus, so do we. Rising up from the foot of an empty cross, we are emboldened to go and do the work we were asked to do. Those faithful women were not initially believed, and yet they were not deterred. That we know of Christ's resurrection shows that they were eventually heard. Praying that faithful women in our church will continue to be heard and continue to be witnesses to Jesus Christ.

Grace and Peace

Molly Casteel
Office of Women's Advocacy