wfn.org | 1100 Christian women celebrate decade of church solidarity

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4-December-1998 
 
Ecumenical News International 
ENI News Service 
30 November 1998 
 
1100 Christian women celebrate decade of church solidarity 
ENI-98-0538 
 
By Stephen Brown 
Harare, Zimbabwe, 30 November (ENI)--A major international 
gathering of Christian 
women has opened in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, with a warning 
that discrimination against women threatens the unity of churches. 
 
More than 1100 women and 30 men from around the world are attending 
the gathering, called the "Decade Festival: Visions beyond 1998", which 
began on 27 November and marks the conclusion of the Ecumenical 
Decade of Churches in Solidarity with Women, launched in 1988 by the 
World Council of Churches to encourage churches to look at their 
structures, their teachings and their practices, and to make a commitment 
to the full 
participation of women. 
 
The gathering is particularly significant because it comes on the eve of 
the WCC's eighth assembly, opening in Harare on 3 December and 
bringing together representatives of the WCC's 332 Protestant, Anglican 
and Orthodox churches. The Ecumenical Decade will be a focus during 
the assembly deliberations, and the Decade Festival is drawing up a 
series of challenges for action by the churches which will be presented 
to the assembly. 
 
Speaking at the start of the festival, the coordinator of the Ecumenical 
Decade, Dr Aruna Gnanadason, an Indian working at WCC headquarters 
in Geneva, warned of "real anxiety" among women "that now the 
[Ecumenical] Decade is over, the churches will heave a sigh of relief that 
this project is finally over, so that they can move on to other business". 
 
"The challenge to this festival and from here to the [WCC] assembly and 
then to the churches is to ensure that the solidarity we seek is 
sustained," she told the gathering. 
 
"We now have to emphasise that issues such as the economic exclusion 
of millions of women and the demands that somehow women have to 
keep themselves and their families alive, violence against women that 
tears the fabric of our families, our societies and even our churches, or 
racism and xenophobia that keeps even us as women divided - are in 
fact ecclesiological challenges ... these are all concerns that threaten 
the 
unity of the churches - the very being of the church," she said. 
 
Dr Gnanadason pointed out that "some issues relating to women's 
ministries or issues related to sexuality have been considered divisive 
and have even threatened to tear the ecumenical movement and 
churches apart". 
 
There is a wide range of views among the WCC's member churches on 
matters such as the ordination of women, feminist theology, and human 
sexuality. Many of the WCC's Protestant and Anglican churches ordain 
women as ministers, and in some cases as bishops. However, some of 
the WCC's  member churches, including the Orthodox churches, are 
deeply concerned about liberal attitudes to human sexuality, the 
ordination of women and inclusive language in church liturgies. 
 
"That women are once too often at the centre of controversy is 
unfortunate - I think I can speak for you all when I say that this is not 
what we as women want," Dr Gnanadason said. "And, additionally, it is 
regrettable that during this decade there have been some vicious attacks 
on women who have the courage to 'step out' of traditionally acceptable 
boundaries so as to reimagine society, family, community, God and 
Jesus." 
 
Asked later at a press conference to elaborate further on the attacks, Dr 
Gnanadason said that she did not wish to name individuals, but that "in 
every corner of the world I meet women expressing their deep concern 
about violence suffered at the hands of the church". 
 
She told journalists that "increasingly women are feeling that there are 
limits to [their] solidarity [with the church]". 
 
Also speaking at the opening of the Decade Festival, the WCC's general 
secretary, Dr Konrad Raiser, praised the Ecumenical Decade as an 
"innovative source" for ways of "mobilising people in the ecumenical 
movement". 
 
Although there had been "some disillusionment that it has not been 
possible to mobilise churches and their leaderships into the full 
solidarity 
with women", Dr Raiser said, the Ecumenical Decade had "made the 
voice of all women audible in our churches". 
 
The Ecumenical Decade and the Decade Festival were an "essential part 
of the search for a vision and profile of the ecumenical movement in the 
21st century", he said, adding that the commitment to solidarity with 
women was "central to our ecumenical vocation", and "as basic as the 
struggle against racism". 
 
"The implications may be as decisive in the years ahead as with the 
struggle against racism in the 1970s," Dr Raiser said. [749 words] 
 
 
 
 
 
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Reproduction permitted only by media subscribers and 
provided ENI is acknowledged as the source. 
 
Ecumenical News International 
Tel: (41-22) 791 6087/6515 Fax: (41-22) 798 1346 
E-Mail: eni@wcc-coe.org 
PO Box 2100   150 route de Ferney   CH-1211 Geneva 2   Switzerland 

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