Why Jane?
A commentary by Robert P. Mills, A commentary by Robert P. Mills,The Layman Online, April 22, 1999
First, Jane Spahr was to be given the Women of Faith Award. Then she wasn’t. A final decision will be made by the General Assembly Council’s executive committee, which meets this weekend.
Barbara Dua, Louisville’s associate director for Women’s Ministries, said the award is given to “women who sort of push the boundaries,” and that “the cream rose to the top” in the nominating process. National Ministries Division (NMD) director Curtis Kearns, who asked for a review of Spahr’s nomination, said, “To recognize her would appear to endorse the position for which she’s been advocating.”
It is to Kearns’ credit that he asked for the review. And it is to the credit of the National Ministries Division steering committee that they overruled the award selection committee.
Now the really interesting questions arise.
Why Jane?
Along with “lesbian evangelist” Spahr, the cream that rose to the top of the Women’s Ministries nomination list included Jane Dempsey Douglas and Letty Russell.
Russell was a keynote speaker at the 1996 ReImagining Reunion, where she said she had told a presbytery committee that she was “retiring from the presbytery because of the [PCUSA’s] position on the ordination of homosexuals. … As a lesbian, I had decided to use my energy on subversion and not on church committees.”
Spahr, an acknowledged lesbian, is “evangelizing” the PCUSA to ordain gays and lesbians. Russell, an acknowledged lesbian, has withdrawn from working within the denominational structure to spend her energy on “subversion.” If, in Kearns’ words, “To recognize [Spahr] would appear to endorse the position for which she’s been advocating,” would not the same be true of giving that same recognition to Russell?
In other words, Why Jane?
One possibility
One possible answer involves name recognition. Mention the name Letty Russell in a Presbyterian gathering and the most likely response will be “Letty who?”
Mention the name Jane Spahr and the response, positive or negative, is likely to be one of instant recognition. Is it possible that the NMD’s steering committee considered that distinction when overturning Spahr’s award while allowing Russell’s to stand? If it did, does that suggest their decision may have been influenced less by “the position for which she’s been advocating” than by anticipated outrage at the award’s announcement? And if potential outrage was the prime consideration, what does that suggest about the priorities of our denomination’s top elected leaders?
Additional considerations
Consider also the “constituencies” represented in nominating Women of Faith award recipients: Presbyterian Women, the Advocacy Committee for Women’s Concerns, the National Network of Presbyterian College Women, the National Association of Presbyterian Clergywomen and the Association of Presbyterian Christian Educators.
The first three groups have been outspoken advocates of homosexual ordination and ReImagining theologies. The latter two, while maintaining lower profiles, tend toward the far left wing of our denomination’s theological spectrum. Together they have nominated three women, each of whom, “in her life exemplifies faith in God and commitment to the mission of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.),” that description coming in a press release issued April 21 by Eileene MacFalls, associate for promotion in the NMD’s Women’s Ministries Program Area.
Two nominees passed NMD’s muster. One did not.
Why Jane?
More questions
If the NMD steering committee does not wish to “appear to endorse the position for which [Jane Spahr has] been advocating,” why does it seem unconcerned about ministries under its supervision that advocate Spahr’s position?
If the steering committee is concerned about a position held by an individual, is it not reasonable to expect the entire committee to have similar concerns when the same position is held by entire program areas within its jurisdiction?
The National Ministry Division’s steering committee is to be applauded for making the politically difficult decision to overturn the award to Jane Spahr. In so doing they have given the General Assembly Council executive committee an opportunity to affirm their decision and to move forward. An obvious first step would be overturning Letty Russell’s selection. Perhaps then the politically perilous process of bringing all NMD ministries into conformity with our denomination’s constitutional standards could begin.
If the General Assembly Council executive committee misses these opportunities, it will find itself facing many difficult questions, not the least of which will be, Why Jane?