c. 1998 Religion News Service
(Dale Hanson Bourke is author of “Turn Toward the Wind” and publisher of Religion News Service.)
UNDATED _ The few men in attendance looked mighty uncomfortable.
It started with the feminine roar that rose from the crowd when the announcer emancipated all men’s rooms. It got worse when one of the first speakers repeatedly used the word”breast”as she jokingly explained how to prepare for a mammogram. And when another speaker noted,”Clothes may make the man, but a jerk in a $3,000 suit is still a jerk,”rowdy applause followed.
As I sat with 18,000 other women in the US Airways Arena just outside Washington, D.C., I had a flashback to a feminist rally I had attended as a college student.
But this was 25 years later and the women at this gathering were wearing bras and toting Bibles. Mostly suburban churchgoers, they had paid $69 each to attend one of the Women of Faith conferences with a theme promising to”Bring Back the Joy.” While Promise Keepers rallies for men have resulted in group hugs and commitments to bringing the family together, these Christian conferences seem to approach women in an entirely different way.
Men may have trouble bonding, but a common theme here was that women seem to have troubles because of bonding. Presenters spoke to the individual pain of women: loneliness, depression, disappointment. And they acknowledged that much of what had robbed the joy from women seemed to be problems with husbands, children and parents.
Gloria Gaither, a highly respected evangelical author, speaker and lyricist, delivered a brief opening talk that might have been a bombshell had she raised a clenched fist and delivered it in a less soothing tone.
She warmed the crowd up by talking about her grandchildren. She established solidarity by joking about her penchant for clothes from Target and her love-hate relationship with diets.
Then she grew serious. Acknowledging the oft-preached sermons on submission in conservative churches, she instead challenged women to think for themselves and stop using their husbands as an excuse for not doing what God calls them to do.”When you get to heaven, God isn’t going to let you off because you were married to a jerk,”she declared.”Before God we are all single,”she elaborated, eliciting applause and”uh huhs”from the audience. In front of me, two women looked at each other and raised their eyebrows, not seeming entirely displeased with the thought.
A younger, less venerable speaker could never have gotten away with it. But Gloria Gaither signaled a watershed in conservative Christian thought and culture as surely as if she had nailed her proclamation to the men’s room door.
And she did it in such a gentle way even the most traditional women were able to acknowledge that the doctrine of submission is not all it’s cracked up to be.
Women who grew up trying to be obedient to parents and then husbands are disillusioned. After trying to coax their men into becoming spiritual leaders, many now acknowledge all attempts at artificial resuscitation have resulted in no signs of life.
The growth of women’s Bible studies and prayer groups has brought the female church population to a deeper understanding of their faith. But often they have to spiritually”dumb down”so they don’t intimidate men. And many have grown old waiting for some evidence that submission is more than just letting the guy win.
Conservative theology has met reality and something has to give.
While the speakers at these conferences are mostly grandmothers with credentials from organizations like Campus Crusade for Christ, their audiences are women of all ages who are looking for a way to mesh faith with reality.
And while the rhetoric is carefully pro-woman without being feminist, the messages are ones of liberation: Freedom from guilt, depression, anger and sorrow does not come from finding the right man. True freedom comes in finding your identity before God.
Few conservative theologians would disagree with the premise. But the working out of that in churches across America may bring a shock to evangelical culture.
Most conservative churches are still highly patriarchal. Some hold to such positions as matters of theology. Others acknowledge they simply haven’t encouraged women to lead. And in moments of candor, many ministers admit women do much of the church work while men make most of the rules.
Women who decide it is time to listen directly to God and cut out the middle men will make waves in many churches. The hierarchical systems could suffer; the power structure might crack.
It sounds a little like what happened to the Pharisees when a guy named Jesus came along. And for the Women of Faith, his radical words still ring true, no matter what spin modern men may have given them.
DEA END BOURKE
