Gardner attacks critics of feminism
By Paula R. Kincaid, The Layman Online, August 20, 1999
MONTREAT – “I want to tell you as women that in the Presbyterian Church USA today, women are being questioned and attacked. Women are being ridiculed and stereotyped and accused unjustly,” said General Assembly Moderator Freda Gardner.
Gardner made the remarks while telling participants of the 1999 Women’s Conference held at Montreat Conference Center, Montreat, N.C., about “some important things that happened at the Fort Worth Assembly, some of which did not make the press.”
“Everything that women do, with any degree of creativity or passion, is immediately labeled feminist, which to our critics is a four-letter word,” said Gardner. “Those who would like to throw the first stone would like the church to believe that we women are immature, unprincipled, easily seduced by ideas or other persons. Those with stones in their hands make false accusations which frighten many and cause many to leave the church.”
‘We have made mistakes’
Gardner said that women, especially in leadership, must be open to forthright and honest criticism. “We have done things for which we have had to repent. We have made mistakes. We have used poor judgement. We need to be more attentive to our responsibilities. But we do not need to be trivialized, made to feel that our every inclination is a move toward heresy. And we need not feel, ever – any woman – unworthy of the Christ we worship and the gospel we present.”
She said that one of the most important things that happened at the Assembly “was the conscious effort on the part of most commissioners to speak their own convictions and questions without the necessity to demean someone else in their speaking.”
She believed that many commissioners came to the Fort Worth Assembly in fear and trembling, feeling that this might be the Assembly when the church split.
“In spite of too many attempts to influence commissioners and youth advisory delegates, the commissioners worked hard in their committees – really hard. They debated the issues that they had been assigned to deal with. They prayed together. They did Bible study together. They discussed one more time the Great Ends of the Church,” said Gardner.
But the mood was, she said, “We’re here to do the business of the church. … so let’s do the best job we can under the circumstances.”
Relationships, not rules
“I was not a smooth, cool moderator,” said Gardner. “And I am sure my moderating drove some people crazy. I’m not sorry for driving some of them crazy. But if I interpret correctly what people said and wrote to me, ‘We played by the rules, but we didn’t make the rules more important than the relationships among us.’ And that is the sort of thing that I hope continues to grow in our presbyteries and in our congregations.”
Gardner said that the Assembly not only bought the PCUSA time, it “gave people ways to continue as a church which will never, I think, until God says it’s time, be unanimous in all matters but will go on being faithful to God together on many matters and divided on others, but sharing significant convictions that foster unity and focuses desire to be God’s faithful people wherever we find ourselves.”
She urged the women not only to follow the advice of the previous evening’s speaker, Mary Jane Patterson, of keeping the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other, but also to hold the “newspapers, journals and periodicals that come from within the church and outside the church, from any entity of the church, and any who write about the church.
All Scripture not equal in meaning
“Most of us no longer believe that the Bible is read giving equal meaning to every word in every verse. Most of us have come to that understanding of Scripture. Most of us read or listen to the news about our country and about the world wondering about the authenticity and the validity of what we read and waiting to hear from others where truth really lies.
“So likewise must we put publications of the church and even mumblings of the moderator to two kinds of tests. ‘Is this in fact true and of equal importance? Does it build up the body of Christ?'”
Gardner said this is not an option, but an obligation “for those of us who know the one who is the way, the truth and the light. If we really believe that – if we really believe that the God we know in Jesus Christ is the truth, we need to fear no one’s words. We can listen and read anything that is there for us to experience, because the truth has come into the world and like the light the world will not extinguish it. Read, listen, wonder, discuss with others freely and pray that the God we know in Christ will in fact reveal to us the way we should go.”