Is partnership of women and men possible?

Saindi Chiphangwi

Six years ago WARC member churches in southern Africa established the Southern Africa Alliance of Reformed Churches (SAARC). There are altogether eighteen member churches in Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

A true story

Three years ago I was invited by one of our member churches to speak at a meeting of its executive committee on the objectives and work of SAARC. During my presentation I told the committee that the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) had identified the 'community of women and men' (or 'partnership in God's mission') as one of the foci of its work and the work of its member churches in the period between the last WARC General Council (Seoul, 1989) and the next General Council (Debrecen, 1997).

Knowing that the church was not very sensitive to this issue I appealed to the committee members to consider how the church could respond to the growing outcry from women for fuller participation in all the ministries of the church and in decision-making up to the highest level.

One committee member (a layman) stood up and disagreed with me because my presentation apparently implied that that particular church treated women as 'children' or 'non-persons' by under-utilizing their gifts and talents and also by effectively excluding them from decision-making forums. He explained to me with an air of satisfaction that the church respected women and regarded them as its 'backbone'. For example, he said that they were allowed to organize themselves into women's associations which were doing their work freely without any interference from the church.

The church in question has more than 500,000 communicant members in several countries in the region and women form more than sixty per cent of the total membership but there was not a single woman on the Executive Committee. At the time of my visit some of its constituent synods were already allowing the ordination of women elders and others were not. The ordination of women ministers was not yet a high priority issue at the time of my visit. My response to the gentleman was as follows: 'if women form more than sixty percent of the church, where are they, and who is speaking on their behalf in this important decision-making body today?'

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated experience. One could easily relate similar stories from other member churches of SAARC. Even in the churches where women are represented on decision-making bodies, their numbers on those bodies do not often reflect proportionately their numerical strength in the church. Some of the women who participate as minorities on such committees say that very often their views are not taken seriously, consequently, their presence does not have any impact.

But it would be wrong to give the impression that there are no signs of hope. Some churches that already ordain women elders and deacons are seeking more practical ways of ensuring women's fuller participation in leadership. For example, in response to a SAARC enquiry on the question of the 'community of women and men' in the church today, one of our member churches said: 'Our denomination has opened the eldership to women many years ago. However, we still need to work hard to ensure that women's participation in leadership gives a fine reflection of their percentage of the active membership of the church. Accordingly the following resolution was passed at the 1993 General Assembly: "The Assembly encourages every session whose composition does not reflect that of its congregation in terms of gender and/or of age to examine forthwith and in future whenever an election of elders is due, which members of the congregation from inter alios the under-represented gender and age groups can be nominated or elected to the Session." Our 1993 General Assembly has appointed a Women's Concerns Committee which will research such matters as Domestic Violence and Biblical Perspectives on Women's Leadership in the church'.¹

In November 1992 the then Dutch Reformed Mission Church (now the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa) ordained its first woman minister, Reverend Mary-Ann Plaatjies. In May 1994 the Dutch Reformed Church in Botswana decided to ordain women elders and ministers. Later in the same year the Livingstonia Synod of the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian (Malawi) also decided to ordain women ministers. The main problem is that positive developments tend to be exceptions rather than the rule.

Another true story

Member churches of SAARC meet biennially in a regional conference which is our highest decision-making body. Our constitution stipulates that they should select their delegates in the spirit of By-Law II(a)1, paragraph 2 of the WARC constitution, which states 'one half or more of the delegates of each church shall be laymen, laywomen, or young persons under thirty years of age'.²

Now compare this with the following statistics of women's participation in the decision-making structures of SAARC:

Women delegates at SAARC Regional Conferences

Women executive committee members

The statistics speak for themselves. Our member churches have not yet succeeded in overcoming gender discrimination in their own structures, and this is also reflected on the SAARC level.

The root of the problem

Analysts of gender discrimination in the church generally agree that it is closely related to gender discrimination in the society at large.⁴ Some people trace the root of the problem to culture, tradition, structures (including ecclesiastical structures), human sin, and wrong interpretation of the scriptures.⁵ One of the ways in which it manifests itself is in 'gatekeeping'.

'Generally, the theory of gatekeeping suggests that the people who hold decision-making positions in our society actually select the information and ideas that will be allowed to pass through the 'gates' and be incorporated into our culture. Specifically, the theory draws attention to the fact that our patriarchal society is purposefully arranged so that men fill the decision-making positions and become the keepers of the gates. On the basis of their experience and their understanding, men can allow entry to the information and ideas that they find appropriate and they can reject any material they find unsuitable or unimportant. Gatekeeping thus provides men with a mechanism to promote their own needs and interests at the expense of all others. In doing so, it effectively ensures the continuation of a male-supremacist culture.'⁶

Gender discrimination in the church flies in the face of the love and receptivity which are the hallmarks of the community of women and men who have been liberated by Christ and have become one in him. It divides the body of Christ into 'superior' and 'inferior' classes; it demeans and exploits the inferior class, but oppresses both.⁷ Can a community of women and men that is divided against itself either in church or society survive? Will women or the church any longer tolerate the imposition of barriers in women's path to freedom, full participation and growth?

'If You Do Not Want to Change, Then Don't Pray'

What needs to happen to achieve partnership between women and men in the church? Various strategies have been suggested: changing people's deep-seated attitudes to the opposite sex (male and female), dealing with cultural and traditional values that stand in the way of the liberation of women and men, using the scriptures in a creative way as an agent of liberation, gender-awareness-building among women and men, targeting the family unit where people are trained in the art of conformity, etc. What else can be done?

'Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is sadness, joy; where there is darkness, light. O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console; not so much to be understood, as to understand; not so much to be loved, as to love. For it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.'⁸

I would like to see if the prayer of St Francis of Assisi sheds any light on our question. The background of this prayer was the plight and need of others; material, mental and spiritual need: the need for love, understanding, forgiveness, acceptance by others, affirmation and appreciation, joy, reconciliation and peace. Francis could have chosen to accept the status quo because it would have been futile to try and take on the whole world single-handed. He could have said, 'I have never been eloquent...I am slow of speech and tongue' (Moses), or 'I do not know how to speak; I am only a child' (Jeremiah); or 'O Lord, please send someone else to do it' (Moses).

Instead he chose the way of active involvement in changing the situation for the better. Mere identification of injustice or need is not enough. Need must be met. Like the prophet Isaiah and Jesus Christ before him, St. Francis chose to offer his life and service in love to help in a positive way to bring about wholeness of living. He became God's partner or instrument of change. He became a 'gift-giver', a 'Christian'.⁹

Alan Paton wrote the meditations in Instrument of Thy Peace against the background of the brutalizing system of apartheid in South Africa. As a citizen and a Christian he could have chosen either quiescence or the path of active peacemaking. He chose the former. In his prologue he explains:

'This book is written for sinners, and by one of them... I write...for those who with all their hearts wish to be better, purer, less selfish, more useful; for those who do not wish to be cold in love, and who know that being cold in love is perhaps the worst sin of them all; for those who wish to keep their faith bright and burning in a dark and faithless world; for those who seek not so much to lean upon God as to be active instruments of his peace... I write also for those who are inclined to melancholy, for those who are inclined to withdraw rather than participate, for those who are sometimes tempted to keep some, or most, or all, of their love and pity for themselves.'¹⁰

A life of active discipleship gives one a new vision of the world:

'This world ceases to be one's enemy and becomes the place where one lives and works and serves. Life is no longer nasty, mean, brutish, and short, but becomes the time that one needs to make it less nasty and mean, not only for others, but indeed for oneself... And I say to myself, this is the only way in which a Christian can encounter hatred,injury, despair, and sadness, and that is by throwing off helplessness and allowing himself to be the bearer of love, the pardoner, the bringer of hope, the comforter of those that grieve. And I believe that if you allow yourself to be so made, you will be so'.¹¹

Are we there for others?

The thrust of the message of the Bible and the spirit of the prayer of St. Francis is that a need constitutes a task; a task constitutes a challenge; a challenge becomes a call to combat or right the wrong; and the call demands a responsible decision from individuals, the church and society at large to be there with God for others.

In the New Testament, being there for others makes all the difference between divine praise and divine condemnation. For instance, in the parable of the good Samaritan, being there for others earned the good Samaritan praise, and the Levite and the priest, condemnation (Lk 10.25-37). According to the parable of the great assize, being there for others will determine one's place or no place at all in the kingdom of God (Mt 25:31-46). And in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, not being there for others sealed the rich man's fate (Lk 16.19-31).

The task of transforming the structures of oppression and discrimination against women in church and society continues. Major battles remain to be fought in the home, in the work place, in the church and in the community at large. They call for a concerted effort through a 'community of concern' in the church and in the society. Are we part of that 'community of concern'?

Rev. Dr Saindi D. Chipangwi of the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian is Coordinator of the Southern Africa Alliance of Reformed Churches.

Notes