wfn.org | WCC Churches Told to Elect More Women to Governing Committee

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15-December-1998 
98423 
 
    WCC Churches Told to Elect More 
    Women to Governing Committee 
 
    by Stephen Brown 
    Ecumenical News International 
 
HARARE, Zimbabwe -The World Council of Churches eighth assembly elected a 
new governing central committee on Dec. 10, but only after being told that 
some member churches were not doing enough to have women elected to the 
committee. 
 
    Bishop Melvin Talbert, of the United Methodist Church (USA), moderator 
of the nominations committee, told the assembly that some churches had 
"found various reasons" to decline a request to include more women on the 
list of central committee nominees and "some [men nominated to the central 
committee] emphatically stated that no woman would replace them." 
 
    According to statistics prepared by the assembly's nomination 
committee, which drew up a "slate" of names for the 150-member committee, 
39.4 percent of the slate was comprised of women delegates. The slate was 
approved by the assembly. But this figure disguises significant 
inequalities between the regions, and between Orthodox and non-Orthodox 
churches, on the election of women to the committee. 
 
    Bishop Talbert said of the percentage on the final slate: "[This is] 
less than I personally and the committee would desire," but he said it 
would be difficult to increase to increase further the percentage of women 
on the central committee. A slate proposed earlier in the week to the 
assembly had only 33.3 percent women. 
 
    The issue of women's participation in the WCC's central committee is 
particularly sensitive because the WCC has just concluded a 10-year 
programed -  the "Ecumenical Decade of Churches in Solidarity with Women" - 
to increase women's participation in church structures. 
 
    Bishop Talbert told those churches which were willing to include more 
women in the central committee: "You represent a model of what can be done 
when we commit ourselves to doing what we say." 
 
    The assembly rejected several attempts to amend the slate from the 
floor, including a plea by Archbishop Aghan Belizean, of the Armenian 
Apostolic Church, to replace a woman from his church, Silva Ghazelzan, by a 
male priest, and specialist in ecumenism, Mikael Ajapahyan. The 
assembly later also refused to consider a request from Ghazelzan, at the 
end of voting, that she withdraw to be replaced by Ajapahyan. Bishop 
Talbert warned the assembly of women being put under pressure by church 
leaders and feeling that they "must acquiesce to those in authority over 
them." 
 
    Earlier this week, Bishop Talbert told the assembly that his committee 
was not satisfied with the slate of nominees to the central committee, 
drawn up from nominees provided by the WCC's member churches. At that time, 
when the slate contained only 33.3 percent women,  Dr. Marion 
Best, an outgoing member of the central committee, and a past moderator of 
the United Church of 
Canada, told the assembly: "I feel a very deep disappointment, fast raising 
to a high level of anger. When the Ecumenical Decade in Solidarity with 
Women was launched, I tried to support it ... and now the percentage of 
women on the committee is less than it was [at the seventh assembly] in 
Canberra. I don't know if I want to be part of [the WCC] if it doesn't 
change." 
 
    Among non-Orthodox churches the regional figures for women's 
representation  are: Africa 41.7 percent women, Asia 45.8 percent, 
Caribbean 25 percent, Europe 44 percent, Latin America 50 percent, North 
America 50 percent, Pacific 60 percent. The Middle East (which has only one 
non-Orthodox member of the central committee) is represented by a male. 
Among Orthodox churches the figures are 12.5 percent women among Eastern 
Orthodox members of the central committee, and 20 percent among Oriental 
Orthodox. 
 
    However, the slate also includes three Orthodox women as "interim" 
members of the central committee who are filling places which would 
normally go to the Georgian Orthodox Church (which has withdrawn from the 
WCC) and to the Bulgarian Orthodox Church (which has announced that it 
intends to withdraw from the WCC). 
 
    The total representation of the main church families on the central 
committee is: Orthodox 24.6 percent; Reformed 22 percent; Anglican 10 
percent; Methodist 10 percent; Free, Pentecostal and African Instituted 6.7 
percent; United and Uniting 6.7 percent; Baptist 4.7 percent; Others 6.7 
percent. 
 
    More than a quarter of churches which have sent representatives to the 
eighth assembly of the World Council of Churches in Harare have sent only 
men as delegates, despite a call by the WCC for churches to include at 
least 40 percent women in their delegations. 
 
    According to statistics published by the WCC, 274 of its member 
churches have sent delegates to Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, for the 
assembly. But of these, 77 member churches - including eight Orthodox 
churches - have sent only men to represent them. However, 44 member 
churches have sent delegations comprised mainly of women, and 10 churches 
have sent delegations comprised exclusively of women. 
 
    At the start of its assembly on Dec.3, the WCC had 332 member churches. 
Since then seven new member churches have been admitted, and one associate 
member church has become a full member, making a total of 339 member 
churches. 
 
    Altogether, 360 out of the 958 delegates present at the start of the 
assembly were women, almost 38 percent. The WCC aimed to have a minimum of 
40 percent women delegates at the Harare assembly, and had asked its member 
churches to follow this figure in selecting their delegations. 
 
    The biggest delegation to the assembly is from the United Methodist 
Church (USA) which has 34 delegates, followed by the Evangelical Church in 
Germany (EKD), which has 33, and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, with 26 
delegates; the Russian Orthodox Church, which can send 25 delegates, has 
sent only five. 

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