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Diversity?  Take A Closer Look!
by
Sylvia Dooling

The theme for the Saturday plenary of the 2006 Presbyterian Women’s Churchwide Gathering was God’s Word -- The Challenge of Diversity in Community.  Diversity is clearly a good idea, but as the day unfolded, the word began to stick in my craw.  As I read my program book, I discovered that not all kinds of diversity were celebrated. One diverse voice seemed to have been systematically silenced. 

From July 7 to July 11, three thousand Presbyterian Women gathered in Louisville, Kentucky. The statistical probability is that a majority of them were from congregations that espouse and celebrate the historic faith of the church.  It is likely that most of them believe with our confessions that Jesus is exclusively “the Way” through whom women, men, boys and girls are brought into relationship with God.  And, to a greater or lesser degree, I think that it is safe to assume that the attendees were aware that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has constitutional standards for the ordination of church officers. But the faith and practice of these particular women was not among the “diversities” that were celebrated.

Let me be more specific:

1. When scripture was read, they did so in a way that subtly, but significantly, changed its meaning.  For example, each time they read from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, they arrogated to themselves the right to substitute the impersonal, but genderless word, “God,” for the text’s personal, but (in their opinion, unfortunate) masculine word, “him.”  Then, on three different occasions, they read from the Inclusive Language Lectionary that purposefully and systematically eliminates any reference to Jesus as a man.  Further, they rarely used the name, Jesus.  Evidently, to refer to Jesus by name implies that he was a man, and that isn’t politically correct in a feminist context.

    So, my question is this, where was the diversity that includes those of 
    us who read from versions of the Bible that simply translate the 
    scriptures from the Greek and Hebrew without first filtering them
    through the cheesecloth of feminist tastes and biases?

2.   Second, the reading of scripture was uniformly introduced with the directive, “Listen for God’s Word for you.”  This, of course, suggests that scripture becomes authoritative only as it speaks to us as individuals. It does not stand over against us as the Word of God even when we don’t particularly want to hear it.  Moreover, it also suggests that God’s Word may speak a different (even contradictory) word to you than it does to me – making truth subjective and relative.

So, where was the diversity that at least once could be heard to thunder with authority, “Hear the Word of God?”

3.   Real diversity was also absent when it came to the Gathering’s selection of speakers. That is to say, there was not one presenter who was a legitimate exponent of the historic, orthodox faith of the church.

a.       Susan Andrews is a past Board Member of the Covenant Network – an affinity group within the PC(USA) whose main purpose is to change our ordination standards to allow for the ordination of self-affirming, practicing homosexual persons.

b.      Laura Mariko Cheifetz serves on the Central Team of Voices of Sophia – another affinity group whose purpose is to “re-imagine” a faith that is free of God’s self-revelation in scripture.

c.      Helen Locklear holds the staff position of Deputy Executive Director of General Assembly Council.  As a staff person, one would assume that she would be careful to acknowledge our constitutional boundaries.  But, Ms. Locklear used Native American spirituality as authority for her assertion that we human beings are “all one family,” and that “all creation is holy.”  Not only does this wander perilously close to pantheism, it clearly denies that Jesus is the unique and sole savior of the world.  Taking Ms. Locklear’s message to its logical conclusion suggests that Jesus may be the way for Christians, but not necessarily for anyone else. Thus, there is no need to take the Gospel into the world.

d.       Dale Lindsay Morgan is a dramatic Bible storyteller, and a member of the Covenant Network.  In one of her stories, she asserted that as Christian women, Jews and Moslems are our “sisters in faith.”  Apparently, Abrahamic lineage trumps the need to hear and respond to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This, by the way, was an idea that was specifically rejected by the 217^th General Assembly.

e.        Kikanza Nuri Robins is the author of the 2008-09 Horizons Bible study.  In the course of sharing “her story,” she said, “I … have no internal conflict with being a Christian by birth, a Baha’i by reason, a Taoist in spirit, and a pastor in faith and vocation.”  Moreover, she encouraged her listeners to “value diverse spiritualities,” suggesting at the same time that this might be difficult for some people “because it requires that you accept that someone else’s path is as valid for them as yours is for you,” and would need “to assume that God did not reveal all that there is to reveal to Christians.” (Ms. Nuri Robin’s statements are quoted from The Presbyterian Outlook.)

f.       Ann Weems, used the platform to promote the ordination of self avowed practicing homosexuals.

g.       Lorraine Hartin-Gelardi, a self-described “Story Weaver,” presented “A Story of Diversity.”  This “creative” narrative was about people making up names for God according to their own experience.  For Ms. Hartin-Gelardi, God has not revealed his name(s) in scripture, but rather it is up to each of us to name God for ourselves. According to her, “God saw that all the names people called him were good!”

So, where was the diversity?  Where was even one voice to “lift high the cross” and state unequivocally that Jesus, the Son of God, is the only Savior of the world?

PW provided no worship service on Sunday morning.  It was business as usual, and the theme for the day was “Economic Justice.”  Included in Sunday morning’s plenary was a  scene from a play entitled, Nickel and Dimed.  Nickled and Dimed is a socialist rant, but far more disquieting is the fact that it unabashedly uses the name of Jesus as profanity.  Good Sabbath, Presbyterian Women.

I could continue, but what I have written should give you a pretty good idea that there is a large group of Presbyterian Women who are absent “from the table” when PW celebrates diversity.

But lest I be misunderstood, I am not suggesting that all we orthodox women want is a seat at the table. The historic faith of the Christian Church is not just one truth among many that can exist side-by-side with the false gospels presented at the Gathering.  Jesus demands exclusivity in our lives, and our Presbyterian heritage demands that we take our constitutional standards seriously.

Orthodox believers are convinced that there is such a thing as Truth – Truth with a capital T – Truth that stands over against us in judgment. We also believe that Jesus is the incarnation of Truth, and that by his own declaration, his way is narrow. Remember, those aren’t my words; they are Jesus’ words.”

So, what should we do?  Allow our voices to be silenced?  Decide that our differences are so great that we can no longer meet together?  I don’t think so.  It is my conviction that we need to pray and to work for reform, and to remain a “loyal opposition” within  PW. Of course, that will require that we no longer consider “niceness” and “acceptance” to be more valuable than speaking the Truth clearly and candidly.

However, I also need to say this to the national PW Coordinating Team – don’t be surprised when the numbers of Presbyterian Women continue to decline (my encouragement notwithstanding), and mission pledges continue to drop.  You, of course, know that this is already happening.  What you need to face is the fact that it will continue to happen so long as you continue to operate out of a pluralistic mindset.  Conversely, things will begin to turn around when you begin to acknowledge that while we may hold diverse positions on political and economic issues, we must unwaveringly speak the exclusive message of the church that declares that there is salvation in no other name than that of Jesus Christ.

So, where was the diversity?  Where were the voices of Presbyterian women who hold to the historic faith of our reformed heritage? They were silenced, because, for the time being at least, they are just not valued.