wfn.org | Speakers Encourage College Women to Empower Themselves

[PCUSA NEWS <pcusa.news@ecunet.org>]

Reply-To: wfn-news list <wfn-news@wfn.org>
25-August-1998 
98278 
 
    Speakers Encourage College Women to 
    Empower Themselves Through Education 
 
    by Julian Shipp 
 
COLUMBIA, Ill.-Tying in with the theme, "Women and Education: Liberating 
Hearts, Minds and Souls," speakers at the National Network of Presbyterian 
College Women (NNPCW) Annual Leadership Event here, Aug. 12-16, encouraged 
young women to empower themselves through education. 
 
    More than 40 participants engaged in four days of dialogue, worship and 
community interaction from an educational perspective. Meeting in small 
groups, Network members also mulled ways to enhance the organization's 
goals of examining issues related to being a Christian, a woman and a 
college student and ministering to the needs of young women on college and 
university campuses. NNPCW works to broaden opportunities for leadership 
and faith development among young Presbyterian women. 
 
    During her presentation, "Educating in and for Justice: Vision and 
Process," Carol Lakey Hess, assistant professor of Christian education at 
Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, N.J., differentiated between 
"education for justice" - education that teaches the importance of a just 
society - and "education in justice" - education that itself is a just 
process and asks who determines the norms and patterns that are considered 
values and standards for educational situations? 
 
    "My goal in educating in and for justice is to look for ways in which 
the quality of education can be increased to broaden and stretch our 
understanding of norms and standards of high-quality (multicultural) 
education so that all students are respected and challenged," Hess said. "I 
argue that education needs to be critical, dialogical and engaged in praxis 
[practice]." 
 
    Hess discussed justice in terms of inviting persons and communities to 
share power in shaping our society and not simply "giving their treasures 
to it." She cautioned that "multicultural education," a term that is 
bandied about frequently in society, must be understood as "more than a 
tourist's delight in other cultures" or, even more devastating, she said, 
"more than conquerors taking booty from other cultures."  She said 
education cannot be "a trivializing absorption into the dominant system of 
those treasures from other cultures." 
 
    The Rev. Deborah Krause, an ordained Presbyterian minister and 
assistant professor of New Testament at New Eden Theological Seminary in 
St. Louis, Mo., presented "Reading the Bible for Power: Confronting and 
Coping with Sexism in Sacred Scripture." 
 
    Krause entreated her audience to approach scripture in new ways that 
challenge the absolute authority traditionally associated with scripture 
with a notion of scriptural authority in which people view the texts as 
"places of struggle and witness to God's revelation in the world." She said 
the scriptures should be examined in terms of  their "nitty-gritty, 
everyday life details" for the purpose of comparing what occurs in the 
scriptural text with what's going on in contemporary life. 
 
    "That is the context for seeing God speaking to us in our place and 
time, an opportunity to see the witness of God's spirit at work for ancient 
Israel and for being a church today," Krause said. While the Bible is full 
of stories that are "overtly and implicitly sexist" and relegate women to 
secondary status, she said, women "have a voice in our tradition, something 
good for the church." 
 
    Dorothy Solomon, executive director of The Jobs Partnership Center of 
St. Louis County in St. Louis, Mo., said she is passionate about issues of 
economic justice and the imperative to provide training for the poor before 
placing them in the work environment. As director of the Center, Solomon 
oversees four programs that prepare people to make the transition from 
welfare to "workfare" for entry-level employment in business and industry. 
"Work for justice and you will have peace," Solomon said. "You have to be 
open and be involved in what's going on in life." 
 
    Sylvia Thorson-Smith, a lecturer in religious studies and sociology at 
Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa, recommended several books by feminist 
authors as models of leadership and as illustrations of women who have 
struggled to overcome tremendous obstacles. Among them were "God's Fierce 
Whimsy" by the Rev. Katie Geneva Cannon; "Sisters in the Wilderness," by 
Delores Williams; "Struggle to Be Sun Again: Introducing Asian Women's 
Theology" by Chung Hyun Kyung; and "Reformed and Feminist" by Johanna W.H. 
van Wijk-Bos. 
 
    "Hope resists, hopelessness adapts," said Thorson-Smith, who is also an 
ordained Presbyterian elder. "You don't really have a deep connection with 
someone until you're at the point where you're asking hard questions." 

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  This note sent by PCUSA NEWS
  to the wfn-news list <wfn-news@wfn.org>.
  Send unsubscribe requests to wfn-news-request@wfn.org