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DECADE FESTIVAL
27 - 30 November 1998 |
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| ECUMENICAL
DECADE FESTIVAL BEGINS IN HARARE Ecumenical Decade Festival Press Release No. 1, 28 November 1998
Almost ten years after the Ecumenical Decade in Solidarity with
women was launched, more than a thousand women from all over the world are meeting in
Harare,
Zimbabwe this week to take stock of what has been achieved and to discuss what they will do
with their collective power.
The World Council of Churches Decade Festival, meeting 27-30 November on the
campus of Belvedere Technical Teachers Training College, precedes the Eighth
Assembly of the WCC which meets at the University of Zimbabwe in Harare 3-14
December.
In 1988, the Council launched the programme to provide churches with an opportunity
to study and review their structures and teachings to ensure the full participation of
women. The aim of the decade was to enable women and men to share equally the
responsibility for nurturing and serving the church and the world.
The common blessing of women and men was symbolised in the festival delegates
themselves. They displayed a wide diversity in dress and language as people became
one in worship, song and dance. About 30 of the Festival participants are men.
Dr. Musimbi Kanyoro of Kenya, general secretary of the World YWCA in Geneva,
Switzerland, pointed out the paradox of Africa having a lot of poverty despite its
natural riches because of heavy external debt.
|  FROM SOLIDARITY TO ACCOUNTABILITYLetter to the Eight Assembly of the World Council of Churches from the women and men of the Decade Festival of the Churches in Solidarity with Women
|
 Report of the mid-Decade team visits by "living letters" to all WCC member-churches |
"Our lives as African women
are often marked by endless struggles due to economic constraints resulting from unjust
practices," observed Kanyoro, who also noted that AIDS, wars, and the rape of women and
girls has made life especially difficult. Kanyoro paid tribute to Africans, however, for refusing to give up on God, themselves and the church. She said in God's eyes, the downtrodden, the poor, the refugees and displaced, the street children, abused women, the sick and the dying, are precious. "We can no longer just call for solidarity, but rather we need to be a part of a redefining and redesigning process for all the changes we hoped for during this decade," said Kanyoro, who called for a redoubling of efforts for women's empowerment. She identified trouble-making as another source of seeking accountability, citing the many women who challenged their churches for justice on women's concerns during the ecumenical decade, including women and children who challenged apartheid and won. |
Delegates come from Asia, the Caribbean, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, North America, the Pacific and Africa. CHIPAWO capped everything with a play which, although related to the playing of marimba (a local instrument), taught that boys need to respect girls and their abilities for them to be able to work together.
VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
IN THE CHURCH ACKNOWLEDGED WITH LITURGY AND TEARS
Ecumenical Decade Festival Press Release No. 2 - 28 November 1998
Delegates to the World Council of Churches Decade Festival wept,
sang and danced Saturday as church women from five nations
offered harrowing personal testimonies of violence and abuse.
The statements included stories of rape, domestic beatings, sexual trafficking and abusive
employment practices by church institutions.
But the Festival's Hearing on Violence Against Women in the Church also featured four positive
testimonials on efforts to confront the issue and four statements of commitment to continue
working on the problem.
The World Council of Churches Decade Festival, meeting 27-30 November on the campus of
Belvedere Technical Teachers Training College, precedes the Eighth Assembly of the WCC
which meets at the University of Zimbabwe in Harare 3-14 December. More than
1,000 women -- and some 30 men -- are participating in the Festival.
A Canadian Anglican priest told of being sexually abused as a child by her priest father. Later,
after her parents forced her to join a cult, she was forced to have sex with a young man
designated by the cult as her "husband." "I did not refuse because I did not know
what would happen if I did," she said. "I call that rape."
A woman from Papua New Guinea said she was in a violently abusive marriage for six years and
sought an annulment from the
Catholic Church after she left her husband for another man. Twenty-two years later, the Church
has taken no action and she is
unable to receive Holy Communion.
"The funny thing about this is the perpetrator is not punished by the Church about the violence
but the person who took me in and cares very much for me is punished for doing good," she said.
"It should not take 22 years to get an annulment."
Not all the stories described physical violence. A clergy woman from Aoteara-New Zealand told
how she was forced to resign from her position as a coordinator of ministry education because
her supervisors perceived her as a trouble-maker. When she asked her
church to evaluate why she had been forced out, her bishop interpreted her request as a "personal
attack." Her ministry license was not renewed.
"To those who look at me the metaphorical bruises do not show," the woman said. "Yet from the
inside the "bruises' have become disabling. The face of the institution is still smiling
benevolently, the words from its painted mouth are still sweet."
Just as often, said Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz of the United States, male-dominated church structures
abuse women by not taking seriously their theology or their gifts. "Women need to understand
that God can be understood through women's experience," she
said. "Women's theologies simply reclaim that as women we are made in the image of God."
The hearing opened with a liturgical ceremony in which nine women from around the world
carried vessels of water representing women's tears and poured the water into a large bowl on the
altar.
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World Council of Churches General Secretary Konrad Raiser -- the only man on
the podium -- declared the Church "should not cover up the sickness any
more."
"My final commitment is to work for and encourage a community of
women and men where the sin of violence against women can be confessed
and the healing power of forgiveness can be experienced," Raiser said.
The hearing concluded with a "healing act in the Shaman tradition from Korea" led
by Professor Chung Hyun Kyung, who used music and dance to lead women
from "crucifixion to resurrection."
A liturgical dancer swirled a rainbow-colored streamer behind her as other
women passed throughout the audience with patches of color pinned to their
sleeves. Delegates reached out to touch the colors as Chung sang
reassurances that a woman's touch has great healing power: "Changes,
changes, everything she touches changes."
"I bring the tears of African
women, of those who survived and those who never made it," said the first woman. "Our tears as
victims of war and internal conflicts. Our tears as women whose story was never told. Our tears
as women, struggling to survive because of national debts and global economic control."
Refugee woman, Liberia
Click on photo to order it.
EMINENT WOMEN CHURCH
LEADERS LOOK BEYOND THE DECADE FESTIVAL - Part I
The World Council of Churches' Festival commemorating the close of
the Ecumenical Decade of Churches in Solidarity with Women
brought some of the world's most prominent church women to Harare this week.
The Festival, which met 27-30 November on the campus of Belvedere Technical Teachers
Training College, preceded the Eighth
Assembly of the WCC which meets at the University of Zimbabwe in Harare 3-14 December.
More than 1,000 women - and some 30
men - participated in the Festival.
Several prominent women took time this week to reflect on successes and setbacks over the past
10 years, and to focus their sites
on future developments for women in the churches.
"During the past ten years we were doing an awareness project. Now that the church is aware of
the concerns of women, it is time to
act to correct and to act to transform and this is a challenge that will take a long time," said Dr
Mercy Oduyoye of Ghana, a former
Deputy General Secretary of the World Council of Churches.
Dr Oduyoye said it is time for the churches to implement all the recommendations that were
made in the past Decade. She
challenged churches and church-related organisations to strengthen their women's desks so that
the recommendations can be acted
upon.
The energetic Oduyoye sees no particular obstacle for women to fully participate in the
ecumenical movement. "We have to work
hard to get there, there is no rule that says women should not be in top leadership of the church,"
she said. "The sky is the limit."
Dr. Musimbi Kanyoro, general secretary of the World Young Womens Christian Association
(YWCA), said the Decade was
significant because women from all over the world were able to sit together and discuss issues
that affect them in their diverse
realities.
In the Festival's opening worship service, Kanyoro told the participants that women are no longer
just calling for solidarity but for
change. "We can no longer just call for solidarity," she said, "but rather we need to be part of a
redefining and redesigning process
for all the changes we hoped for during this Decade. Even though we celebrate the end of the
Decade, we must be sure not to accept
being dismissed, but rather be ready to listen even more carefully and speak more articulately.
We will not accept our gifts being
minimized, but rather we will lift up all the gifts of the people of God."
Talking about the future role of women in the church, Dr Kanyoro said she was happy that
women in the ecumenical world were now
empowering themselves theologically, through formal and informal training, women were also
familiarizing themselves with the
structures of the church. This, she said was strengthening the position of women in the church.
"Our strength is going to be visible to
the church. We have been knocking silently but now we are not outside anymore," Kanyoro
said.
Mrs Tendai Chikuku-Nyahoda, the Director of the Ecumenical Documentation and Information
Centre for Eastern and Southern Africa
(EDICESA), said the Decade was a success in that it has enabled women to collectively harness
their energy. She added that the
Decade has shown that there are no doors that can remain closed if women work together.
Nyahoda, the first woman Director of EDICESA, said the Decade was able to strip off the
traditional roles of women in the church so
they can participate meaningfully. However, she noted, women have to gain more confidence in
themselves and to be more willing to
be part of the leadership in the church. "Women are in the majority in the church," Nyahoda said.
"We are the ones who elect the
leadership, we are just not sure of our power."
Dr Aruna Gnanadason, who heads the women's programme of the WCC and was the primary
staff person planning the Decade
festival, said she sees more challenges in what she calls a "decadeless future . . . we no longer
have a Decade project to depend on,
we cannot use it as a crutch," she said. "We still have to create the spaces and keep up the energy
to talk to the churches so as to
keep their commitments alive. This we have to do because there is yet much to be done."
Bishop Andrea DeGroot-Nesdahl of the South Dakota synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church
in America declared the Decade a
success. She explained that if people generally look at whether women's lives have changed or
not, they may dismiss the Decade
as a failure. But if people really look at what has been happening, they will realise that a lot has
been building up and that one day
there will be a big change in the lives of women all over the world.
The Bishop cited positive examples in her own church, which has installed six woman bishops in
the past decade. She explained
that her church has been ordaining women in the past 28 years and it is only in the past 10 years
that women Bishops were
installed.
DeGroot-Nesdahl said one of the realities of the Decade was the realisation that we could not do
what we wanted to do in 10 years
and that we could not do what we wanted to do alone as women. This, she said teaches us the
importance of partnership, discipline
and to learn to rely on God.
FESTIVAL PARTICIPANTS HAVE
LONG MEMORIES OF OTHER DECADES IN THE
ECUMENICAL MOVEMENT - Part II
Ecumenical Decade Festival Press Release No. 4 - 1 December 1998
Many of the eminent women who gathered at the World Council of
Churches' Festival commemorating the end of the Ecumenical
Decade of Churches in Solidarity with women have long memories of the struggle for equal
status in church leadership.
"The concept is that a mega-experience such as this is really the fusion of other related
experiences," said Dr. Thelma Adair. "When
I reflect on all the WCC conferences, Church Women United workshops, United Nations'
decades, I ask myself, How can this flow
from the past bring in new people and meld to move out into a new formation?'"
Adair is a weaver. For her, the Ecumenical Decade is part of the tapestry of this African
American women's active leadership in the
ecumenical movement over the past 60 years.
Adair is weaving new people into that movement. Both she and her daughter, Dr Jeanne D.
Adair, of New York City, members of the
Presbyterian Church (USA), are delegates to the Decade Festival in Harare, Zimbabwe. There's
also her "newest friend Katie", a
Canadian in her 20s, just joining the ecumenical movement.
"Katie comes out of the Student Christian Movement," Adair said. "I'm also out of the Student
Christian Movement - 1938. We're both
part of the thread of the organisation. This is perhaps my gift - watching the weaving."
Adair, a Presbyterian Elder and retired university professor, was the second woman - and the first
woman of color - to serve as
moderator of the then United Presbyterian Church's General Assembly, in 1976. She is a former
President and Board Member of
Church Women United, and currently serves as CWU Vice President.
Adair and her daughter both plunge headlong into conversation about their priority concerns - for
full participation of women, for
elimination of racism, violence and economic injustice - and they weave their comments together
as they talk.
"My daughter brings a new perspective," Thelma Adair said. "Her whole vocabulary weaves the
future."
Jeanne Adair, Project Associate with the New York Technical Center, picked up the thread,
asking, "How you can take the
individual's experience, package it, distribute it, evangelise it? Otherwise it's one or two voices in
the wilderness. We must begin to
organize in cells, and go back to the networks that have brought us to this point.
"This experience, information, contacts and energy we have got from the Festival provide a
higher octane to push those organizations
into the future. The document and Festival serve as rallying points for women around the world.
We need to think how we come back
together and do benchmarks and checkpoints."
As Thelma Adair weaves new people and new generations into the ecumenical movement, she
continues to weave new experiences
and perspectives into her own life. She and her daughter made a pre-Festival woman-to-woman
visit to Zambia, and were deeply
moved at the devastating effect of the external debt - graphically illustrated at an orphanage for
2000 children, most of whom lost their
parents to AIDS-related illnesses.
"The orphanage, in a Catholic church, is staffed by community women who scrape together
resources - for example, selling bread
rolls at two cents each," she said. Few government resources are available - an enormous
percentage of the budget must go to
external debt payments. "The people who want to help have so few resources."
"We as Christians need to help our government and the IMF to reflect on how they are asking
these countries to pay their debt," she
said, speaking in support of the debt cancellation campaign. "And we need a Marshall Plan of
Christian sympathy that goes in to
these areas to get them where they can participate. We need a new form of sharing."
For the Adairs, no one is a "charity project". Everyone is "family". "What happens in the use of
resources anywhere in the world is for
the good or ill of someone else," said Adair. "Reallocating money meant for one music CD can
change someone's life. The Wall
Street boom and explosion of wealth in America has consequences for others. Practices that
demand the lifeblood of others,
countries that become plantations in order for other countries to prosper - this needs to be
re-examined."
The Zambia visit touched the Adairs' hearts in another way. "We experienced the total welcome
of the stranger," she being the
stranger in this case. "I am physically challenged," said Thelma Adair, who walks with a cane.
"Neighbors, cousins, everyone
constantly asked me, Grandma, are you alright?' There was a bad storm, and the family came
with candles for me and to make sure
I was ok. I would have let my guests sleep through it! The best they had, they offered. When I go
back home I have to re-examine the
casual manner in which I take other people."
While Susan Karava Setae was chair of the Papua New Guinea Council of Churches' Women's
Committee, she used that
ecumenical platform to speak widely urging greater participation of women in leadership roles in
the church.
One campaign called on denominational leaders to place more women pastors in congregations.
Ordination of women already was
church policy, but graduating women seminarians were being assigned teaching and other jobs
outside parish leadership.
On one occasion, the audience's response was an angry one. "The men shouted us down," Mrs.
Setae recalled. "They said,
Women, wash your mouths.' We replied, Men, wash your hearts.'"
Setae, a member of the Ecumenical Decade's global planning committee and a delegate to the
Decade Festival in Harare, has
served the women of Papua New Guinea for more than three decades. A trained teacher and
lecturer who moved early in life to
become a community development activist, she was the United Church Women's Coordinator
until 1996, when she became
President of the Papua New Guinea Council of Women.
The Council was incorporated in 1975 and mandated in 1979 by Parliament to be a watchdog on
behalf of the women of the country.
It has close to one million members drawn from 38 member organizations, including provincial
councils of women, non-government
organisations and churches.
A woman with warm brown eyes and a broad smile, Mrs Setae cited gains for Papua New
Guinea's church women. "A lot of
churches have responded very well," she said. "During the Decade, we have more female clergy
and an increasing number of women
at ecumenical decision-making meetings. More women are taking part in theological education.
And now a woman is General
Secretary of the Pacific Conference of Churches," with countries across the region with the
exception of Australia, New Zealand and
the US state of Hawaii.
Concern for women's role and status in society also has been part of work in Papua New Guinea
under the Ecumenical Decade
umbrella. "Church and society aren't separable," said Setae, who challenges the church to be
concerned about social issues and not
just preoccupied with its own administration.
In Papua New Guinea, domestic violence is a problem of particular concern. Many women have
no property rights, the life
expectancy among women is just 47, and the maternal mortality rate is high, said Mrs Setae,
herself a mother of four. (Her husband,
Miri Setae, is a former Secretary of Agriculture and Livestock.)
"We have a very high illiteracy rate," she continued. "Sixty percent of our rural women can't read
or write. That's a violence in itself."
In the Council of Women, "we do a lot of influencing of issues in the government," Setae said.
She was cited in the latest issue of
Papua New Guinea Woman as "the torchbearer of the movement to narrow the gender gap and
promote women as equal partners in
the development of the nation."
"Involvement in the Ecumenical Decade has built me as a person," said Mrs. Setae. "The Decade
has made me become more aware
of the problems we have as women. The Decade has done a lot of good but at the same time
some of us have been victims because
we challenged the churches.
"We are not just churchgoers singing hymns and praying. We also are involved in advocating on
economic and other issues involving
our countries. Women are pushing their voice much louder. The churches and the government
are listening to what the women are
saying, but there are still reservations to full commitment both by churches and governments to
the cause of women."
The Festival, which met 27-30 November on the campus of Belvedere Technical Teachers
Training College, preceded the Eighth
Assembly of the WCC which meets at the University of Zimbabwe in Harare 3-14 December.
More than 1000 women - and some 30
men - participated in the Festival.
Ecumenical Decade Festival Press Release No. 3 - 1 December 1998
8th Assembly and 50th Anniversary
