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by For two days, leaving behind heretical speeches and unbiblical rewrites of Christian hymns at the Presbyterian Women’s Gathering I had the privilege of attending the National Network of Presbyterian College Women’s Leadership event, “Women Among Them Astounded Us! A Celebration of Women of all Generations.” Prior to the event, some Presbyterian women were invited to attend and dialogue with the college women. As it turned out all Presbyterian women were invited to attend the dialogue, a “culminating Intergenerational Conversation,” while those with special invitations were required to attend three workshops and the first plenary session in preparation. Around twelve Presbyterian Women received prior invitations. I believe I was probably the only evangelical among the group of older women and I must admit I did request an invitation if not as a participant then as a silent observer. And I thank the NNPCW leadership planners for allowing me to participate fully as a Presbyterian woman. The leadership planning team used consensus to agree to my coming, they either all had to accept me or all reject me. That’s a scary thought; it reminds me of some experiences in junior high! But they were kind enough to do so with some qualifications. Because the planning team knew I write for Voices of Orthodox Women I had to agree not to write about the event until it was over, an easy request for me since my days did not end until midnight and began very early. The other request was that I not use the names of any participant, only the names of those on the staff. This request was also very acceptable. The first plenary session included information and exercises on cultural proficiency. The definition of cultural proficiency given on the handout was “The ability to interact effectively across differences.” This session included sitting in circles and exchanging answers to various questions such as telling about some time in our childhood when we felt discriminated against. But it also included information given by the facilitator, Deborah Gilbert White who serves as the Associate for Cultural Proficiency with the Presbyterian Church USA. A lot of the cultural proficiency information was very helpful. For instance the definition of “cultural blindness” is that when you are aware of cultural differences you act like you are not aware of the differences. We talked about cultural blindness and considered the frustrations of people whose differences are ignored. However I was disturbed by some of the re-interpretations of words, simplified definitions and some of the philosophical assumptions offered by the cultural proficiency advocate. For instance the word privilege, which, note I have used in the first sentence of this article, was defined as “Unearned rights, rewards, benefits, opportunities, advantages and access based on group membership.” Yet while the Webster’s New Twentieth Century Dictionary: Unabridged does give a similar definition it also gives another “a basic civil right, guaranteed by a government; as the privilege of equality for all.” Power is defined, in the handout, as “The ability to define the ‘norm’ and diminish the reality of others.” While the dictionary offers many definitions this is truly a new definition and a troubling one at that. Power can be good or bad, it is really a neutral term when used in ethical discussions. God in scripture defines the ‘norms’ for believers. Doesn’t that mean he increases the reality of us all? And isn’t it really sin and selfishness wedded to power that diminishes the reality of others? In fact, are proponents of cultural proficiency grabbing power by defining words according to their own sense of what is normal? Are they diminishing the reality of us all? One of the philosophical assumptions I was bothered by was not written on the handout but offered by the facilitator. That is that those who were unwilling to adapt to change were unable to be culturally proficient. But is accepting the differences in other cultures the same as adapting to cultural change? And aren’t there times when, as believers, we must stand against the changes that arise in culture? Among the workshops I could choose from were three on feminism and of course because I write about feminism I chose those three. The first workshop was “F-Words (Faith and Feminism).” This workshop was an attempt to integrate women’s faith with feminism. The leaders had each participant give definitions for both of those words and we talked about how they intertwined. I became aware as we went through this process that not all of the young women felt comfortable with the terms. Some were having doubts about faith and some about feminism. I explained that I had begun to have qualms about calling Christian women who believed in equal rights feminists because of the problems accumulating around that term. I found this workshop helpful as a place to grapple with other points of view and understand how others understood the terms we were talking about. My greatest misgiving in the workshop was the booklist handed out by Heather Grantham one of the workshop leaders. As I was looking at some books she had placed on a table she came up and discussed some of them with me. She stated that she had second thoughts about the book The Politics of Women’s Spirituality: Essays on the Rise of Spiritual Power in the Feminist Movement edited by Charlene Spretnak. I got the impression she found it too radical but was surprised when I looked at the rest of her list. The list is one of the most radical lists of feminist books I have ever encountered. Many of the books including The Dance of the Dissident Daughter by Sue Monk Kidd to books blatantly focused on goddess religion such as Carol P. Christ’s Rebirth of the Goddess to Merlin Stone’s When God Was a Woman are listed as recommended books on a church web site Ebenezer Lutheran Church at http://www.herchurch.org/index.html. The church offers a goddess rosary. Interestingly, enough we watched a clip “Click here to view our video.” offered from this site during the workshop. The leaders expressed concern that this particular church was going to far and they, the college network leadership, were attempting to explain that God is neither gender. Still the recommended books open the option. The second workshop was “Herstory-Womyn’s Movement (2nd Wave) led by Vicki Abend. (And yes I did spell those words correctly that is a feminist attempt to not include the word man in the word woman.) Vicki Abend is “in her third year serving in campus ministry for the Presbyterian Church at the University of Cincinnati.” The surprising aspect of this class was that it was attended by only one college woman. All others who attended were older Presbyterian women including Mary Elva Smith, “associate director in the National Ministries Division with responsibility for Women’s Ministries.” After each woman talked about her journey as a woman the leader simply went through all of the rights gained by women from 1969-2000. The concern of women involved in this workshop was that many of the younger women did not understand the importance of the rights gained by the older generation of women nor did they have any desire to be a part of the feminist movement. At the end of the workshop Abend handed out two rather old articles, “After the Death of God the Father: Women’s Liberation and the transformation of Christian Consciousness,” by Mary Daly and a socialist piece “Who is the Enemy?” by Roxanne Dunbar. The third workshop was titled, “Herstory-Womyn’s Movement (3rd Wave)” led by a young woman from the University of San Francisco. This workshop was a great mix of issues that those in the newer wave of feminism tend to focus on. And in fact, one issue of third wave feminism seems to be that too many young women are not interested in feminism. Some of the more clear and prominent issues are various different ethnic kinds of feminism, such as Asian feminism and Womanist feminism as well as eco-feminism and global issues. The tension between the younger generation’s need for individualism and the older generation’s concern for community was also addressed. Concern about loss of rights gained and a backlash against feminism was one of the more prominent issues brought up by the older women in this workshop. And this was the one place I experienced some confrontation. One woman mentioned the two new people for the Advocacy Committee for Women’s Concerns who had been nominated from the floor of the General Assembly and had won. She suggested that they were nominated by those men’s organizations! I told her that I was a part of the renewal networks as were many women pastors and elders. She replied that she didn’t mean they were all men but they had a masculine spirit! Ah well, I have been accused of being Jewish by those neo-Nazi groups I write about and consider it a compliment and I imagine all renewal women can gladly receive this new description of who we are. The final event that was to include all Presbyterian Women who wished to come was very low-key and I thought helpful. There were many circles and each person was asked to answer the same question. After each question had been answered everyone got up and went to a new circle, hopefully, each to a different circle. The questions started with the usual easy and fun questions and then evolved to the more serious such as “Tell how your faith has changed over time.” I was happy to have some of my friends from the renewal groups be a part of this exercise and thank the planning team that they allowed this. I was also grateful to hear several of the answers to the faith questions given by some college women. Yet, in all of this I never heard any expressions from either leaders or participants of their commitment to and love for Jesus Christ. In reality the leadership event was about feminism, it was in fact a recruitment event for feminism. It was not a time of drawing close to Jesus Christ, and going deep into the word of God in order to be better disciples. Everything was an option: the invitation was thus: we hope you get involved with feminism; it could be a part of your faith if you have faith; goddess religion is a little much but still you might even consider the option. In the packet given to me among articles, newsletters and a name tag was a bumper sticker with the words, “Jesus Loves Feminists.” Yes! Jesus does and hopefully, these particular feminist and potential feminists will draw close to the Savior and make him the center of their lives. I will post this Jesus loves feminists sticker somewhere close to my desk in my study and remember to pray for all the wonderful college women I met at the National Network of Presbyterian College Woman.
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