wfn.org | Decision to close meeting draws fire for Women's Division

[NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG]

Nov. 1, 2000 News media contact: Tim Tanton·(615)742-5470·Nashville, Tenn.
10-71B{500}

By United Methodist News Service

The Women's Division of the United Methodist missions agency is coming under
criticism for its decision to close a training event for teens and college
women in December.

Reporters and other observers will be barred from the event, "Young Woman,
Rise Up!", which is expected to draw 1,000 participants, adult leaders and
sponsors. Set for Dec. 28-31 in St. Charles, Ill., it is designed for girls
ages 12 to 17 and college and university women ages 18 to 25.
 
The participants will receive training in how to operate new units of United
Methodist Women - district teen units and teen circles in local churches, as
well as college and university units. The million-member UMW is administered
by the Women's Division of the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries
in New York.

Joyce Sohl, chief executive of the Women's Division, said she made the
decision to close the meeting and was affirmed by the division's policy
committee. The decision followed a request from Mark Tooley, executive
director of the conservative UM Action group and editor of its newsletter,
that he be allowed to attend as press.

The move to close the meeting prompted a letter of protest from Faye Short,
president of Renew, an unofficial church organization that describes itself
as a voice for accountability on the part of the Women's Division. The
editor of the United Methodist Reporter newspaper and the director of the
denomination's official news agency also have issued statements opposing the
decision to close the meeting.

"There's no business, and it's not a meeting of the Women's Division," Sohl
told United Methodist News Service. The training event doesn't fall into the
categories of meetings that the denomination's Book of Discipline requires
to be open, she said.

The meeting is a training event, "and all training events are by invitation
only," she said.

"We chose the closed environment specifically to enable the comfort level of
parents and of others as to the presence of the young women," Sohl said. The
parents know who the adults are that will be working with their children,
she said.

"With teen women, it is essential to have all the safe sanctuary rules
applied, and we chose not to have persons present who are not part of our
procedures on safe sanctuary," Sohl said. "Safe sanctuary" rules are aimed
at reducing the risk of sexual abuse and exploitation of children and youth
in the United Methodist Church. (See page 384, 1996 Book of Resolutions.)

The bulk of the event is being funded by the Women's Division, which does
not use general church dollars, Sohl said.

The Women's Division has regional schools and conference schools every year
for training purposes, and no one has asked to attend those, she said.

Short said that other Women's Division events have been closed to Renew in
the past. She cited a national seminar, and said she was unable to get tapes
from the event afterward. "They just indicated that it was a training event
that was not open to the press, and they did not allow the tapes to go to
people other than participants," she said.

Short has written a letter about the closed training event to women in the
United Methodist Church and is following up with another one. 

She said it was important for Renew to be allowed into the event to ensure
that the training equips the participants "to be strong, Christian young
women" who understand their Wesleyan heritage. "In tracking the history of
the Women's Division, we find that they very often take a very partisan,
narrow approach to issues, whether they're political, social or theological,
and they interpret them on the basis of their perspective and really do not
give the women of the church a broad perspective or understanding of these
issues," Short said. "... We want to know that there is not an agenda here,
that there is not a bias, that there is not a certain perspective that is
imparted to them." 

She said she was concerned that the Women's Division would not identify for
her the event leaders or workshop titles. "It is so guarded that it makes
you suspicious," she said.

Thomas S. McAnally, director of United Methodist News Service, said that
closing the training event is a violation of the denomination's book of
rules and bylaws.

"The Book of Discipline clearly states that the United Methodist Church is
an open organization," McAnally said. "We have no secrets. Unlike many
private charities and TV ministries, our records are open to anyone. Because
of this I think the United Methodist Church experiences an unusual degree of
credibility and trust.  

"For the Women's Division to close their December meeting is a violation of
both the spirit and letter of the law as found in our Book of Discipline,"
McAnally continued. "Church members expect their governmental organizations
to operate openly. Why shouldn't their church be expected to do the same?
The 'sunshine rule' in our Book of Discipline provides some specific
instances when meetings can legitimately be closed. The reasons given for
closing the Women's Division event clearly do not fit any of those
exceptions."    

Cynthia B. Astle, editor of the United Methodist Reporter, an independent
newspaper, also was critical of the decision.

"I'm deeply affronted that the Women's Division apparently does not trust
United Methodist communicators to protect the young people of our church
from inappropriate scrutiny," Astle said. "It is a cardinal rule of both
ethical journalism and our life in Christ that innocents are to be sheltered
in sensitive situations. We at the Reporter adhere to this ethical standard,
both in our ministry as church communicators and in our individual Christian
discipleship.

"I'm also appalled that the Women's Division would come so close to flouting

the law of the church,'' added Astle, who is secretary of the churchwide 
United Methodist Association of Communicators. "Paragraph 721 of the Book of
Discipline, which governs open meetings, is explicit regarding the
conditions under which a meeting may be closed to public and press. In my
professional judgment, the meeting outlined by the Women's Division doesn't
appear to fall into any of the permitted categories."

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United Methodist News Service
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