wfn.org | Churches accused of ignoring or condoning violence against women

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4-December-1998 
 
 
Ecumenical News International 
ENI News Service 
30 November 1998 
 
Churches accused of ignoring or condoning violence against 
women 
ENI-98-0539 
 
By Stephen Brown 
Harare, Zimbabwe, 30 November (ENI)--Churches around the world 
are ignoring and even condoning violence against women, a major global 
gathering of Christian women has been told. 
 
During a special hearing held as part of a festival in Harare to mark the 
conclusion of the Ecumenical Decade of Churches in Solidarity with 
Women, women spoke publicly about the abuse and violence that they 
had suffered, including within churches. They told of sexual abuse by 
clergy, of the unwillingness of churches to support women who had left 
violent marriages, and of victimisation and rejection by 
predominantly-male church structures. 
 
The hearing, which took place on 28 November, was one of the first 
open debates at an international ecumenical gathering about violence 
against women. The gathering is considering a series of 
recommendations to put to the eighth assembly of the World Council of 
Churches, which launched the Ecumenical Decade in 1988. The WCC 
assembly opens here on 3 December. 
 
The hearing, which wove together liturgy, worship, accounts of 
suffering and of attempts to tackle the issue of violence, culminated in an 
act of healing by Chung Hyun Kyung, a Korean who now teaches at 
Union Theological Seminary, New York, intended to lead women from 
"crucifixion to resurrection". Drawing on Korea's "shaman tradition", a 
traditional form of Korean spirituality which has now been taken over by 
Christian women in Korea, the healing act combined music, drama and 
meditation. 
 
Opening the hearing, Irja Askola, a Finnish Lutheran woman working on 
the women's desk of the Conference of European Churches in Geneva, 
and one of the main organisers of the hearing, said that it had become 
"very obvious" during the Ecumenical Decade that "violence against 
women in our societies and in our churches" was a significant issue. 
"We know now that our churches, we as churches, have not only 
ignored this issue, but have sometimes even sustained it by misusing the 
Bible and the authority of the pulpit". 
 
She referred to the results of a series of team visits to the WCC's 
member churches to discuss the Ecumenical Decade. Altogether 75 
teams, each composed of two men and two women, visited more than 
300 churches and 650 women's groups around the world. All the teams 
reported that violence against women was a major challenge facing the 
churches. According to a document presented at the hearing, the teams 
also reported "the total insensitivity of many church leaders to this 
concern". 
 
Irja Askola told the gathering: "My hope and desire is that church leaders 
getting together will condemn violence against women as a sin." 
During the hearing five women related their experiences of exclusion, 
violence and abuse. Olivia Juarez de Gonzalez, an indigenous woman 
from Mexico, spoke of the violence suffered by indigenous women in 
Latin America; Ann Smith, an Anglican priest from Canada, said she had 
been sexually abused as a child by her father, an Anglican priest. In her 
late teens and early 20s he forced her to join a fundamentalist cult which 
subjected her to ritual abuse; Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz, a theologian from the 
United States, described the marginalisation of women-centred 
theologies and women theologians as a form of violence. 
 
Rebecca Alman, a Roman Catholic from Papua New Guinea, and now 
coordinator of the Women's Crisis Centre in Wewak, in the northeast of 
the country, spoke of how, 22 years ago, she left her husband after 
suffering six years of domestic violence, and started living with another 
man. Since then she has not been able to receive holy communion as the 
Catholic Church has not annulled her violent marriage. 
 
Susan Adams, from Aotearoa-New Zealand, spoke of institutional 
violence towards women by male-dominated church structures even in 
churches which declare a belief in gender equality, inclusiveness and 
openness to the contribution of women. 
 
But as well as testimonies of suffering, there were also accounts of 
attempts by churches to tackle the issue. 
 
Responding to the accounts of violence, the WCC's general secretary, Dr 
Konrad Raiser, a German Protestant theologian - and the only man on the 
platform - said that they demonstrated that "our church needs healing, 
but only a church that admits its sickness can be healed". 
 
He vowed "to challenge any attempts to cover up" violence against 
women, saying that the "sickness of our churches feeds on 
complacency and self-righteousness, and utterly misplaced efforts at 
self-justification, especially by men". 
 
"The Ecumenical Decade has helped uncover these defensive strategies, 
and its momentum must not be lost." 
 
He added: "Violence is an expression of male culture which for too long 
has been condoned by churches." 
 
Speaking to ENI after the hearing, Askola said that the "silence has been 
broken. There's no way the ecumenical movement can ignore the issue." 
Churches had to begin by recognising that, by ignoring the fact of 
violence against women, "we have rejected a lot of the victims, but - 
even worse - we have justified a lot of violence against women". 
 
"The first thing is to recognise, to admit, to do our own homework. Only 
after that can we speak with a prophetic voice. We cannot be a 
prophetic voice until we have taken this first step." [866 words] 
 
 
 
 
 
All articles (c) Ecumenical News International 
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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