c. 1998 Religion News Service

UNDATED _ Some 1,000 women _ and a few men _ marked the end of the World Council of Churches”Ecumenical Decade of Churches in Solidarity with Women”with a second major”re-imagining”conference last month. But unlike the first gathering five years ago, critics could find precious little to complain about.

It was one of a number of such events held around the world to celebrate and assess the 10-year World Council of Churches-sponsored program aimed at fostering greater participation by women in the life of the church and society and to highlight the contributions feminist theology is making.”We tried to enter the churches by the front door, but we found only the attic window ajar,”Grieke Land, chair of the Dutch steering committee for the WCC-sponsored decade told a meeting in Kampen, Netherlands, of women’s efforts to boost their role in the world’s Protestant, Orthodox and Anglican churches.

The St. Paul, Minn., gathering _”Re-Imagining Revival _ was sponsored by the Re-Imagining Community, a group formed in the wake of the controversy that erupted out of the 1993 Re-Imagining conference drubbed unmercifully by conservative critics as pagan goddess worship.

This time, the best they could do was label the event”theological tomfoolery.””Re-Imagining is about allowing people explore their faith and ask important questions that they haven’t felt comfortable asking in their churches,”said Nancy Berneking, a gathering spokeswoman, objecting to the critics’ characterizations of the conferences as dominated by”goddess-worshipping feminists.””Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior,”Berneking said without apology.

While more mindful of the implications and possible misinterpretation of their words, speakers refused to back away from the central message that has marked each of the successive conferences since 1993 _ that people of faith are empowered to speak creatively of God and no metaphor, including masculine designations, can be allowed to put God in a box.”If we do not speak, if we don’t bear testimony, if we do not engage in actions that light up the world, if we do not trouble the waters, then we grieve the Holy Spirit of God,”said the Rev. Barbara Lundblad, a Lutheran and associate professor of preaching at Union Theological Seminary in New York.

Conservatives, whose criticisms of the 1993 gathering generated fierce controversy in both the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) and United Methodist Church, spent more time criticizing what they said was missing _”the presence of the Lord,”according to the Ecumenical Coalition on Women and Society, an off-shoot of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) _ than on what took place. And, said the Presbyterian Layman, a conservative Presbyterian newspaper, the conference was another case of”Sophia upstages Jesus.” Sophia is the Greek word for wisdom. In the Bible it is embodied as a woman, which some feminist theologians argue represents the feminine attributes of God.”At the first event we were naive, innocent,”said the Rev. Cathy E. Rosenholtz, a seminary student in 1993 and now pastor at Our Saviour Lutheran Church in Jamaica, N.Y.”We didn’t realize that women doing theology together would create such a backlash.” At this year’s gathering, participants said the meeting was about the role of women in the church; the role of women of color, not only in the church but in society as a whole; and the roles of gay and lesbians in church and society and how each of those fit in with the idea of revival.”Revival means to tell of God’s deeds in our lives and in our community,”said Musimbi Kanyoro, YWCA general secretary in Geneva.”To name God and acknowledge God so that others may experience the goodness of God.” An IRD news release after the session zeroed in on theologian Delores Williams, who they said must have been invoking”Sophia or some other goddess”when the scholar used the word”deity.”The IRD, which monitors mainline Protestantism for theological and political lapses, said the event had”pagan overtones”because the opening ritual used lanterns and drums and included a drama called”First Woman.” Yet, Karelynne Gerber, 23, a New Testament student at the theologically conservative Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary near Boston, said she didn’t see the participants as heretics.”I don’t think they are nearly as bad as they have been made out to be,”Gerber said.”There’s a variety of theological positions represented here. Everything isn’t evil.”

END BRIGGS