The quarterly of the World Council of Churches - bibliography included

Ecumenical Review, The, Jan, 2001 by Aruna Gnanadason

What next after the Decade of the Churches in Solidarity with Women? This is the question heard repeatedly from women all over the world. So much energy had been generated during the past Decade -- women celebrating their many gifts; women surviving violence and exclusion; women resisting; women creating spaces of healing and support; women praying and worshipping together; women honouring their unity; women weeping ... and laughing. As Irja Askola, Lutheran theologian and poet from Finland, described this compassionate capacity of women:

   ... we met them during our journey women in towns and villages/in kitchens
   and parish halls who carry sadness in their minds and yet the scent of life
   in their baskets who worry, serve and care, each in her place/and yet take
   steps finding each other on the way/coming across one another on the path
   of the Easter garden/women, who in spite of it all, wake up at dawn/urge
   themselves into life (From Living Letters, WCC, 1997)

The challenge now is to sustain the joy and commitment with which women all over the world picked up the opportunity given through the Decade process to work on issues that concern them deeply. For many women the Decade ended as an unfinished project, untidy in its finishing touches, leaving unspoken the words of solidarity that they so longed to hear.

This was true especially because the Decade exposed the violence and exclusion that is a part of women's lives in many parts of the world. The mid-Decade team visits to the churches, entitled "Living Letters", heard stories of the stark realities of the racism, economic injustice and violence experienced by women in many places. The Decade ended with women speaking of their longing for the realization of a more authentic and more faithful community of women and men in the church -- but also, and too often, with silence from the churches.

The Decade also heard stories of women standing in solidarity with each other, of their commitment to a renewed community of the church. It heard how, even now, something of renewed community is being experienced. Women affirmed the diversity of their experiences and were aware of the multifaith contexts in which they strive to be a community that respects plurality. One of the gifts of the Decade is the longing for solidarity which has grown among women. There have been many events, many common concerns that have transcended regional and denominational boundaries as women have drawn together for refuge.

Through this past Decade efforts have been made to bring women together to the round table for dialogue and reflection on issues which concern them. These events have often been ecumenical, allowing for women to bring their varying perspectives, anxieties and visions together.

To some women the church has provided the sanctuary they are looking for. They are happy with the church as they experience it, and feel that it has recognized the gifts they bring. The multiple ways in which women experience being church need now to be shared, explored, and reflected upon with the WCC member churches themselves, so that together we may learn more about the community that God is calling us to be -- and o live -- in this world.

Being Church: women's voices and visions -- a new post Decade process ...

How do we listen to, and learn from, the insights from the Decade, and from women as they continue to explore, in their different geographical and ecclesial contexts, fundamental questions about what sort of church God is calling us to be? With women (and men) around the world, we need to discover: what it means to be called by God to live in, and for, the world; what forms of spirituality would nurture the life of the church as community; how the ministry of the whole church can be renewed to include the gifts God gives to both men and women for service; what structures would better equip the church for faithfulness in its task of witness and service in the world. This exploration and reflection will inevitably raise Challenges requiring action.

A process has been launched to bring before the churches some insights from women's perspectives on ways of being church, in such a way that the churches themselves will take account of these perspectives and respond to women's deepest aspirations for community (koinonia), justice and solidarity. The hope is that from this listening to, and engagement with, women's voices and visions may come renewal and greater unity. Some of the theological themes to be explored in this process are:

* Metaphors and models of the church: old and new: This involves an exploration of the images of the church in scripture and tradition from the perspective of women; consideration of the implications of understanding the basic reality of the church as koinonia; reflection on new images that are emerging from women's communities of faith and struggle.

* Word, sacrament and liturgy: This calls for an investigation of whether, and how, traditional understandings of word, sacrament and liturgy exclude women and their experience; whether there is something distinctive in the way women experience and interpret word and sacrament; and for an exploration of the role of ritual in women's communities of faith and struggle.