Lutheran women leaders explore at a gathering ways to transform patriarchal attitudes and structures
Cooperation in challenging patriarchal structures and attitudes was the main task for the participants of a seminar devoted to women’s issues, who gathered before the annual Council meeting of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) in Geneva, in order to share stories and to plan strategies for advancing gender justice throughout the global Lutheran family (Lutheran World Information Centre).
Ahead of the LWF’s 2019 Council, women leaders met on 12 June to discuss progress toward the goals that are enshrined in the gender justice policy, which the Council approved in 2013 and which is now available in 26 different languages.
At present, five of the seven vice-presidents in the LWF leadership are women. They presented many different challenges that they face in their distinct national and regional contexts. Desri Maria Sumbayak, the Asia vice-president, explained that gender justice is “a very new idea” in her native Indonesia, where some church leaders are reluctant to engage publicly in work with women’s organisations. She emphasised that, in connection with these issues, education is needed, starting with kindergarten-age children and their parents, but also at the congregational level – among both men and women. “In order to introduce gender justice into our context, in Asia there are probably more opportunities with greater impact to first address the faithful in congregations rather than the church leadership.”
Cultural challenges, positive partnerships
Participants from the Asia region highlighted how their work is often hindered by traditional teachings about men as the leaders of the family and community, where women are expected to play a supporting role. In several countries around the globe, women who have raised their voices against exploitation and discrimination have suffered from negative backlash and personal insults. Other participants pointed out how some church leaders resist theological training for women, while others try to overturn their churches’ decisions on the inclusion of women in ordained ministry.
In some parts of the LWF communion, considerable progress has been made, as reported by Rev. Elita Mojo of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Zimbabwe. Her church was the first in the country to establish a gender justice office in 2012, translating the LWF policy document into local languages and offering it as a resource for others who wish to follow her church’s example. Despite widespread poverty and culturally conditioned views, her church has established partnerships with the government, the police, lawyers, village leaders and many other organisations. They work together on urgent problems, in order to address violence directed against women, to stop child marriages and to encourage girls to remain in the education system.
Insidious attitudes and transformative theologies
In Europe and North America, Lutheran women have reached the highest leadership levels of their churches, but they still face challenges created by patriarchal ways of thinking. Archbishop Dr. Antje Jackelén, the vice-president of the Nordic region, spoke of “four dangerous ‘P’s’ – populism, protectionism, polarisation and post-truth,” which are increasingly on the rise in today’s society. She added that a fifth problem, patriarchalism, is “the background noise that makes those four an even more dangerous cocktail.”
Provost Astrid Kleist, the vice-president of the Central Western Europe region, noted that there still exists widespread suspicion of anyone who studies and speaks about gender and masculinity. She said that, as in other Western countries, a greater number of women in ordained ministry has not always led to an equal standing and equal numbers in church leadership. “In Germany, slightly more than 50% of church members are women. 80% of our church staff are women. But women are too poorly represented in church councils, and the higher we look, the fewer women take part in administration.”
Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton, the vice-president of the North America region, spoke about a new document that will soon be discussed by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), titled “Faith, Sexism, and Justice: A Lutheran Call to Action.” She pointed to the negative reactions that women in ministry still experience and praised her male colleagues, “who are working to bring to the foreground a reality that we thought had been overcome. We are not threatened by physical violence, but we have other, more insidious threats.”
“We are not threatened by physical violence, but we have other, more insidious threats,” ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton, vice-president of the North America region.
Members of the Youth Council, men and women, join the afternoon sessions to discuss the next steps in advancing the idea of gender justice in the churches belonging to the LWF. All the participants agreed that strengthening theological education is significant in order to challenge patriarchal structures in church and society. While rules and quotas that ensure women’s involvement in leadership are a central part of the process, lasting change can come only if it is grounded in a transformative theology that replaces oppressive attitudes with the values of the gospel – liberation and the equal dignity of women and men.
Geneva
13.06.2019.
Source: Lutheran World Federation news
Photo: LWF/A. Hillert