Wrong reading of Bible can harm women, says global church group

["Daphne Martin_Gnanadason" <Daphne.Martin_Gnanadason@wcrc.ch>]

World Communion of Reformed Churches  
News Release 
7 March 2011
 
Wrong reading of Bible can harm women, says global church group
 
The World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC), through its
programme on gender justice, is supporting an appeal from a
Christian communication organization for increased attention to
how words and images can harm women. The appeal comes in advance
of International Women's Day, 8 March. 
 
The statement by the World Association for Christian
Communication (WACC) calls for a focus on the importance of
“fostering media and information literate societies” in order
to protect women’s rights.
 
“We agree with WACC that words mould perceptions that can harm
women and deny them their rights,” says the head of WCRC’s
programme for Gender Justice and Partnership, Patricia
Sheerattan-Bisnauth. 
 
“Controversial biblical texts on women such as a passage saying
women are to be silentin church (I Corinthians 14.33-34) can harm
women when they are used to justify enforced submission of women
to male authority,” the Guyanese theologian notes. 
 
“If the language of the Bible is not understood in today’s
terms, some passages can be used to allow excluding women from
church leadership.”
 
The WACC statement says, “The concept of women’s communication
rights includes the right to fair and balanced representation in
and through the media”. The appeal issued from its offices in
Toronto, Canada, calls for media literacy from a gender
perspective and the ability to analyse content “with a gender
lens”.  
Sheerattan-Bisnauth believes this gender lens is an important
aspect of understanding and following biblical teaching. “It is
necessary for church women and men to learn to read the Bible in
the context of their economic, social, political and cultural
reality,” she says. 
 
“Churches need to encourage openness to women's interpretations
of scripture and ensure their voices are heard in theological
seminaries and in local parishes." 
 
To address concerns for a broader, more inclusive understanding
of the Bible, the Gender Justice and Partnership programme is
sponsoring a project in the Caribbean region to develop new
models for Bible study that are to be published later this year
in a manual titled Righting Her-Story: Caribbean Women Encounter
the Bible Story.
 
WCRC also offers scholarships and support for women seeking
theological education and ordination. An estimated forty per cent
of WCRC member churches do not ordain women.
 
WCRC was created in June 2010 through a merger of the World
Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) and the Reformed Ecumenical
Council (REC). Its 230 member churches representing 80 million
Christians are active worldwide in initiatives supporting
economic, climate and gender justice, mission, and cooperation
among Christians of different traditions.
 
Media Contact: 
Kristine Greenaway
Executive Secretary, Communications
World Communion of Reformed Churches
PO Box2100, 1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland
tel. +41 22 791 6243; fax +41 22 791 6505
dma@wcrc.ch; www.wcrc.ch ( http://www.wcrc.ch/ )