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THE MONTHLY CAUCUS
The Episcopal Women's Caucus:
Advocating for women since 1971,
theologically, spiritually and politically.
August 2010
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IN THIS ISSUE: Back to the Future
Last month on her Facebook page and the House of Deputies e-mail list, Elizabeth Kaeton posed the question "Where were you on July 29, 1974?" (when, on July 29th, on the Feast of Mary and Martha of Bethany, 11 women were "irregularly" ordained to the Sacred Order of Priests at the Church of the Advocate in Philadelphia, PA).There were many interesting responses, which made the Caucus Board think about where we have been and where we are now.
We often assume that everyone knows what happened in an event like this, or has read the "primer" books about women's history, but of course we should never assume anything. Our future comes out of our past, so it is worthwhile to take a look back in order to look forward.
Included in this issue of The Monthly Caucus are:
* Responses to Elizabeth's question from Joan Gunderson, Pat Merchant, Barbara Cheney, and Elizabeth. It is clear that lives were changed by the courageous act of a few people, both lay and ordained.
* Two books worth revisiting are offered for consideration.
* Revisiting August 26th---and women's right to vote.
* Church and Language
* Church and clergy/lay burnout.
* Folktales and women: how have those tales portrayed women and shaped our lives?
We would love to hear from you about these issues and how they do or don't form your thinking and living. You can always get a good discussion going on our Facebook page, and please do check out our new Episcopal Women's Caucus website: www.episcopalwomenscaucus.org.
Please feel free to pass along articles to friends or forward this email ... and let us hear from you. And if you are a member and would like to "re-up" your membership, please do so by filling out the coupon at the bottom of the page. If you are new to the Caucus and would like to be a member, please use the same form.
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WHERE WERE YOU ON JULY 29, 1974?
The Rev. Dr. Elizabeth Kaeton
 I was a very young wife and mother, caring for my second child, just 14 months old, who had been born to "save my marriage." I was just beginning to awaken to the fullness of my identity, and beginning to understand the delicate interconnections of love, intimacy, trust and sexuality. As a faithful, practicing Roman Catholic at the time, I had not yet begun to consider the possibility of my own vocation. My energies were otherwise consumed with the heretofore unthinkable possibility of divorce and the "love that dares not speak its name." I suppose, in retrospect, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that when the NY Times news of the ordinations in Philadelphia reached me, it made me angry. Very angry. How could these women do that? Living with that question helped me to face other questions I had been running from all my life. Once I began to consider the possibilities, I began the life-long journey of living into the questions of my life. I'm still discovering the answers.
Joan Gunderson, Ph.D. Pittsburgh Lay GC 2009 I was finishing up teaching a class on women's history at Indiana UniversitySouth Bend, a class I began teaching two weeks after the birth of our daughter by c-section; trying to get some sleep since Kristina was a night owl who wanted to play all night and screamed when she was bored; and desperately trying to figure out how I would end the last chapter in American History at a Glance (due at the publisher in the second week of August) because it had to cover Watergate and Nixon had not yet resigned. (He resigned August 8, just in time for me to revise my last paragraph.) I was also getting ready to move to Nashville to take a one-year full-time teaching position, which resulted in a commuter marriage where I got the baby and the cat and my husband kept his job in South Bend. In fact, the ordination was barely on my sleep-deprived horizon. I remember thinking that the irregular ordination would create a backlash and that the church would probably refuse to recognize them. Both happened in the short-run. Ironically, we had moved to Minnesota to teach at St. Olaf just in time for the 1976 Minneapolis General Convention, but did not attend --- tenure track, 2 year old and a another book deadline filled my summer. I was then an active member (in the choir) of a local Episcopal Church where the rector told me that no woman could ever be a priest because she might have a baby on a Sunday morning and thus not be available to do a service. I replied that men were known to have heart attacks and it was easier to plan a substitute for an impending birth than it was for a heart attack. He then moved on to the argument that women would sully the altar once a month, and finished up with we couldn't have women priests because we shouldn't do anything to make relations with the Roman Catholics more difficult. I simply asked him why if it was RIGHT to do something, the Episcopal Church should not lead the way. The Rev. Pat Merchant Clark
I read the Holy Gospel that hot Philadelphia day, as I had only been a deacon for three months! Wow, what a day that was, turned my life upside down. For the first time I could see that men (bishops even!) loved women enough to take risks enough to jeopardize their careers ... and that women could act and not be passive. I saw nuns laugh and dance, and saw the media charge at me in a very scary way. The spirit of the living God was there present in so many ways, through the preacher, the rector, those who were ordained and those of us who celebrated with them. We were lifted up by the communion of saints, who had ached for this day, from the time of Eve, Sarah, Hagar, Deborah, Mary, Martha, and Anna and so many more mothers of God. Women and Men, who lived and died for truth, justice and love and for the Gospel of Jesus the Christ, who liberated women just some few years before. The Rev. Barbara Cheney
Back then I was Barbara DeVries.  I was an active parishioner in St. Philip's Episcopal Church, Wiscasset, ME---one of my responsibilities being as co-leader of a wonderfully creative youth group. I was only somewhat tuned in to this extraordinary happening in the wider church. And yet, because of this encouraging congregation and the activities of the youth group that brought forth a clarity of call within me, three years later I began seminary. The bishop insisted, however, that I not attend EDS, where two of those rebellious trouble-making women priests had been hired onto the faculty, and so off I went to VTS instead.
Most holy and loving God, because through Christ there is no longer slave or free, Jew or Gentile, male or female, we rejoice in the ordination of women to the diaconate, priesthood, and episcopate, giving thanks for their ministry among us. Fill our hearts with gratitude for those who worked and prayed unceasingly for the full and equal participation of women in our church in both holy and lay orders. Strengthen those who still struggle for the full inclusion of all who are called by you; in the name of the Source, the Word, and the Spirit. Amen.
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LANGUAGE AND THE CHURCH
1982: In 1982 a pamphlet, The Use of Inclusive Language in the Worship of the Church, was produced by Wesley Theological Seminary. "While careful attention to language requires extra time and effort, this seems a small sacrifice to make in light of the end we have in view; for as representatives of Christ, we seek to proclaim Good News to the entire world without imposing stumbling blocks that are not inherent in the Gospel itself. In the fullest sense, then, our carefully chosen words are an offering given to the glory of God by the liturgical assembly. As we learn to speak about God more adequately in our worship. we will also come to proclaim God more adequately in the rest of life and to understand more fully who God is."
2010: August 9-11 National Council of Churches Group met in Chicago to discuss the words we use to talk about God
The National Council of Churches (NCC) symposium, "Language Matters," met in August to discuss how to talk about God and faith in ways that respect the sensibilities of people from a variety of Christian traditions and viewpoints. The conversation focused on the language, images, and symbols used in worship and everyday life to talk about faith and God. Initiated by the NCC's Justice for Women Working Group, this conversation was a first step in a larger project designed to create resources for congregations and groups to assist their own conversations.
"Issues around the use of language in our churches have been on the agenda of J4WWG for years. Now the opportunity to take this discussion to another level has arrived. I hope this consultation will be the first of many conversations as we continue to explore ways to welcome and value every person who walks through the doors of our churches," said Kim Robey, chair of the Justice for Women Working Group.
The term "expansive language has been used in some circles to describe respectful language that honors all of God's people and is more than just 'gender inclusive.'" As communions seek to become genuinely inclusive as well as multiracial communities of faith, planners said, the conversation about the use of language in churches becomes more critical, and more challenging.
Part of the impetus to have a meeting on language was the impression of some observers that the use of gender in inclusive language throughout NCC member communions has declined, said the planners. They also noted that new insights have emerged within churches about language that reinforces harmful stereotypes around the realities of race, disabilities, sexuality orientation and gender.
The 30 participants, both lay and ordained, came from a wide diversity of NCC member communions and religious traditions.
The information and insight gleaned from the conference will be shared with the Caucus and other interested groups. |
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FOLKTALES AND WOMEN
Fearless Girls, Wise Women & Beloved Sisters, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, by Kathleen Ragan is a collection of stories about women from around the world (Europe, North & South America, Asia, Pacific, North Africa and Middle East). In the foreword Ragan points out that many fairy tales were altered by "the powers that be," including Walt Disney, to the point where women are reduced to weaklings waiting on their princes to save them, or they are portrayed as bad mothers or stupid women.
This collection of tales features stories that lift up all kinds of women and Ragan has written a paragraph or so after each story pointing out the differences in what we've traditionally read. For instance, when she refers to Rapunzel she says, "The female protagonist gets bumped around from one obnoxious man to another: a bragging father, who lies that she can spin straw into gold; a greedy king, who threatens her life if she doesn't spin straw into gold; and an unscrupulous rascal Rumplestiltskin, who spins for her only if she will give him her first-born child. Her child is only saved by happenstance when a royal messenger discovers Rumplestiltskin's name. Why didn't she do something to change the situation, like tell the king the truth? Why would she want to marry the greedy king anyway? Why on earth did she agree to give away her child?" Raglan gives another tale, "Whuppity Stoorie," where the Goodwife of Kittlerumpit saves herself and her child through her own discoveries. SOMETHING TO PONDER: How have folktales influenced your life? What messages do we receive when we are young which shape and form our future selves? |
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Quote for the Month: "Embracing a circular ministry model that values and uses the gifts of laity and clergy while sharing power and authority engages everyone in the work of reconciliation." Bonnie Anderson
G. Je ffrey MacDonald ascribes clergy burnout to "congregational pressure to forsake one's highest calling." The real problem is the provider versus consumer mentality. Ministry is not solely the work of professionally trained clergy. Rather it is a shared enterprise in which lay people are equal partners. Clergy burnout occurs because both parties lose sight of this fact. The result is clergy who believe that they must meet everyone's needs while playing the role of a lone superhero, and members of the laity who are either infantilized or embittered because they cannot make meaningful contributions to their church.
Embracing a circular ministry model that values and uses the gifts of laity and clergy while sharing power and authority engages everyone in the work of reconciliation. The big questions are: Will the clergy be able to give up their ascribed power? And will the laity be able to step up to the challenge of their baptism?
~ Bonnie Anderson, New York, Aug. 9, 2010
*The writer is president of the House of Deputies of the Episcopal Church |
AUGUST and WOMEN'S RIGHTS
On August 26, 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution became law, and women could vote.
A good rea d for this month is Gail Collins' August 13th Op Ed column in The New York Times, "My Favorite August." She writes, "The story in American history I most like to tell is the one about how women got the right to vote 90 years ago this month ... but first there was a 70 year slog. Which is really the important part. We always need to remember that behind almost every great moment in history, there are heroic people doing really boring and frustrating things for a prolonged period of time."
She mentions that in order for women to vote it took 56 referendum campaigns directed at male voters, 480 campaigns to get legislatures to submit suffrage amendments to voters, 47 campaigns to get constitutional conventions to write woman suffrage into state constitutions; 277 campaigns to get state party conventions to include woman suffrage planks; 30 campaigns to get presidential party campaigns to include woman suffrage planks in party platforms; and 19 campaigns with 19 successive Congresses."
To read the article, go to:
Gail Collins joined The New York Times in 1995 as a member of the editorial board and later as an Op Ed columnist. In 2001 she became the first woman ever appointed editor of the Times' editorial page. At the beginning of 2007, she stepped down and began a leave in order to finish her new book, "When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present." She returned to Times as a columnist in July 2007.
 For more on the women's struggle to vote watch "Iron Jawed Angels," available on DVD from Amazon.com. This film focuses on Alice Paul, who was imprisoned, went on a hunger strike and was force fed. Thanks be to God and to all those women who put their lives on the line so that women might be able to vote. |
TWO BOOKS from the PAST
One of the "primers" of feminist readings first issued in 1978 and again in 1992 is Womanspirit Rising, edited by Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow. In the preface to the 1992 edition, the editors wrote that they never imagined it would become a minor classic in the fields of religion and women's studies, defining the issues and questions in the study of women and religion. They thought the work of the contributors remained as profound and challenging as when they were first written but did acknowledge that a glaring deficiency was the absence of voices of women of color, the invisibility of lesbians, and (with the exception of an essay by Sheila Collins) a failure to discuss class and educational background. In response to that deficiency, Weaving the Visions was later published and made the diversity of women's experience a central concern.
Carol P.  Christ  Judith Plaskow
In a BLAZE of GLORY: Womanist Spirituality as Social Witness, Emilie Townes, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of African American Religion and Theology at Yale Divinity School, writes about the term "womanist," which the African American writer Alice Walker introduced in 1982. Walker said, "Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender." This signaled the move that so many Black feminists made, away from feminist preoccupation with gender inequalities without adequate attention and analytical and reflective insight into the interstructured nature of race, gender, and class oppression.
Womanist spirituality, writes Emilie Townes, is not only a way of living, it is a style of witness that seeks to cross the yawning chasm of hatred and prejudice and oppression into a deeper and richer love of God as we experience Jesus in our lives. Womanist spirituality is embodied, personal, and communal Emilie Townes | . She concludes that spirituality as social witness is the working out of what it means for each of us to seek compassion, justice, worship, and devotion in our witness. In a BLAZE of GLORY seeks to bring together the historic force of African American women's spirituality with the demand of the spirit to contextualize and lives one's faith. (Abingdon Press: 1995)
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AND | | | The Episcopal Women's Caucus wants to know: In what ways might we gather (in person or online) to support one another, the Caucus, and all Women's Ministries? Over the next few months, help the Caucus board envision how to grow our important advocacy work in new and lively directions. Please send your thoughts, ideas or insights to ewcaucus@yahoo.com. We'll share your comments in upcoming "Monthly Caucus" e-mails and in future issues of Ruach.
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