On 2 October 2018, from 10:30 to 16:30, the conference “Woman in Church and Society” will be held in Riga.
The conference is organized by the Latvian Lutheran Women Theologians’ Association together with the Lutheran Women Theologians’ Association from Hannover, Germany.
The conference programme is available here.
The conference sessions will take place at the House of the European Union – Aspazijas bulvāris 28, 2nd floor, Riga.
Presentations:
1. Pastor, theologian Hanna Kreisel-Liebermann (Germany), “What we lack is justice! Luke 18:1-8”;
2. Prof. Dace Balode (Latvia) “Women’s stories in the Evangelical Lutheran Church”;
3. Mag. theol. Aļesja Lavrinoviča (Latvia) “6 different readings of “in the Church of all the saints” 1 Corinthians 14:33 and why it matters”;
4. Prof. Kathryn Louise Johnson (USA) “Sharing the bread of wisdom: the diverse gifts of women theologians”;
5. Mag. phil. Iļja Boļšakovs (Latvia), “A woman’s life, calling and radicalism in the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)”.
The closing part will take place on the premises of the Faculty of Theology of the University of Latvia.
Participation in the conference is free of charge.
Given the limited number of seats in the auditorium, we ask you to register your participation in the conference by 28 September, sending your first name, surname and organization (not mandatory) to the e-mail address [email protected]
If you have any questions, please write to [email protected]
During the conference, documentary audio and video material will be shown about women pastors and evangelists in Latvia with whom there were no discussions or explanations of the situation as the leadership and the direction of leadership of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia changed from one that includes women to one that excludes women. Over the past 25 years, the development of the ELCL reached its culmination – the 2016 Synod came out in favour of denying and prohibiting the ordination of women. Some of the women pastors who had already been ordained and were serving in Latvia, as well as women evangelists, were tactlessly and behind their backs belittled, squeezed out of ministry and out of congregations, as though these women had never existed in Latvia. Some of these women’s stories have already been collected in the recently published collective monograph of the Faculty of Theology of the University of Latvia (2018) “Women on the Path of the Reformation”, and we will hear some of the stories at the conference. The aim of the conference is to discuss openly the right of women to serve in the church, as well as to acquaint those present with theological research on the role of women in Christianity.
Latvian Lutheran Women Theologians’ Association