A church-wide study of the status of women on all levels of the PC(USA) is now underway. This will be good news to many advocates who invested time and energy in advancing the idea of the study or served on the task force that created the original design which was
MoreFeminism, Evangelism, and New Worshiping Communities If you were going to create a church that fully lived into gender equality as one of the central values, what would that look like? Who would preach? What language would you use to represent God? Who would preside at the table? Who would make up
MoreI’ve always loved telling my story. In college, my campus Christian group would pass out spiritual gifting inventories, and we’d take a test to help determine whether we had the gifts of prophesy, faith, teaching, healing, evangelism, service, etc. I never identified strongly with any of these gifts, so I
MoreHow Gender Justice Brought Me Back to the Church “I have always found it difficult to walk away from the church, but I have also found it difficult to walk with it.” [1] Those evocative words, the first sentence of feminist theologian Letty Russell’s formative work Church in the Round, are
MoreIt is hard to remember back to the pre Roe v. Wade days. There were the road trips from Idaho to California with classmates seeking abortions. There were fledgling birth control devices and pills that made some aspects of decision-making easier and others ever more difficult. Somewhere in the 80s
MoreIt’s no secret that the church loves babies. We love cooking meals for families with a newborn, and we coo over tiny infants in their white baptismal gowns. Our lectionaries are full of Bible stories recounting miraculous births. But what happens before a baby arrives – and before a baby
MoreThis article was originally published at Marci Auld Glass’ personal Blog, Glass Overflowing, on October 3, 2012. Many people presume that because I am a pastor, I must, therefore, be pro-life. It is presumed to be the “Christian” position on the subject, right? And I want to be able to
More“Language used in the worship and work of the church should affirm the wholeness of God and the full personhood of every individual.” So wrote Starr Luteri, in the PC(USA)’s 1996 study paper “Language About God”. [1] When you think about it, isn’t that what we want the Church to
MoreThoughts about creating life out of the good for nothing rags of injustice threadbare hope The following article was originally published in the May/June 1994 edition of Church & Society. Download a PDF of the original here. I begin with a poem by Kathleen O’Keefe Reed, a clergywoman of the
MoreAffirming Diversity and Life-Sustaining Relationships The following article was originally published in the May/June 1994 edition of Church & Society. Download a PDF of the original here. Listen to the words of Elizabeth, an enslaved woman and minister, born in Maryland in 1766: “I betook myself to prayer and in
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