NEWS STORY: Traditionalist women criticize `radical feminism’

c. 1997 Religion News Service WASHINGTON _ A group of traditionalist women from mainline Protestant, Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches Tuesday (Sept. 16) decried the impact of what they described as”radical feminism”on church and society. The group, the Ecumenical Coalition on Women and Society, represents”the millions of women who go to church on Sunday and […]

c. 1997 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ A group of traditionalist women from mainline Protestant, Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches Tuesday (Sept. 16) decried the impact of what they described as”radical feminism”on church and society.

The group, the Ecumenical Coalition on Women and Society, represents”the millions of women who go to church on Sunday and then live out their faith every day of the week,”said Janice Shaw Crouse, the organization’s project director.”Many of our churches are excessively influenced, and some even dominated, by radical ideologies whose agendas contradict the Scriptures and historic teachings that are the foundation of Christian faith. … We will unite with women of faith who will agree to press for the reform and renewal of our churches,”the group said in a statement,”A Christian Women’s Declaration.” The coalition is a project of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, a conservative activist organization that has been sharply critical of mainline denominations.


Ten women took turns at a news conference affirming the declaration and detailing what it personally meant based on their various faith and cultural perspectives.”We believe that the feminist fixation on power has sadly missed the point of the present cultural situation,”said Mary Ellen Bork, a lecturer on issues affecting Catholic life.”In our view, power is not the goal in life.” Pat Funderbark Ware, an African-American consultant on preventing teen-age pregnancy and HIV, said she chose to join the voices and encouraged other black women to join her.”So many white women … are so co-opted by the feminist movement because they just haven’t suffered enough,”she said.”They really don’t know what it is not to have their men there. … We’ve suffered enough. We know that when we depart … from the plan that God has given us in the Scriptures for men and women, for families, it brings chaos, it brings hurt, it brings degradation.” Diane Knippers, IRD president, said she was comfortable with the”old”feminism calling for equal pay for equal work, but that feminism in some churches could be described as”a new fundamentalism.” Knippers said the document demonstrates an unease with a brand of feminism that is”most clearly”seen on the campuses of some mainline Protestant seminaries.”Those are the places where you see the kind of fundamentalism where alternative voices are really shut out, where men or women who try to pray to God the Father in chapel, they’re laughed out of the room or are chastised,”she said.

But she said the”broad movement”of the”new fundamentalism”is also seen in some Catholic orders and in the evangelical community.”We are Christian women who are engaged in a serious battle within our churches over these theological issues,”said Knippers.”It’s an internal church struggle that we are engaged in.” An invitation-only summit in November will train women to articulate the positions outlined in the statement, Crouse said.

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Several women took the opportunity to denounce the National Organization for Women for opposing the”Stand in the Gap”gathering in Washington Oct. 4 sponsored by Promise Keepers, the evangelical men’s movement. Promise Keepers encourages men to be more committed to their families, churches and communities.”I think the Promise Keepers movement is an important movement and a very helpful movement,”Knippers said.”I would argue that the most serious problem facing our society is the problem of father absence. … I think that it is absurd for a group of women to criticize this kind of movement.”

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