Rogers affirms NNPCW
By Paula R. Kincaid, The Layman Online, August 20, 1999
MONTREAT – While speaking about what she believes is “the resurgence of legalism” in the Presbyterian Church, Isabel Rogers told participants at the 1999 Women’s Conference, held at Montreat Conference Center, Montreat, N.C., that the Network of Presbyterian College Women was a “controversial case in point.”
Rogers said her understanding of the NNPCW was that it is “a loose network of groups on campuses across the nation seeking to call college women to the discipleship of Jesus Christ, especially young women who have been disenchanted by the church.”
“So of course,” said Rogers, “knowing those folks would shy away if you try to make them swear allegiance to some creed like the Westminster Confession, what they try to do is to provide an opportunity for young people to explore their faith to ask questions – to try different ways of talking about God.”
Harsh criticism
“They have come under very harsh criticism on two counts: not adhering to some particular ways of interpreting the Bible and not stating the faith in the terms of our confessional standards,” said Rogers. “But that’s the whole point in the report that a task force brought before the Assembly in Fort Worth. ‘We affirm their value providing a safe place in a Christian context for questioning, discussing and exploring issues and concerns of university and college women.'”
“Questioning, discussing, exploring,” said Rogers. “I’m a teacher and that’s the way I understand education. That’s the way people grow.
“To claim our Reformed tradition, I believe, is not to recite Calvin’s words in an unquestioning sort of way. It’s to appropriate the Calvinist spirit of thinking through our faith, testing our faith, using our minds to probe as deeply as we can to understand God’s work in our lives and in our world,” she said. “You can’t explore and question when people are waiting to pounce on you and string you up for not using traditional language.” What are we afraid of? Rogers related the story of a woman at the General Assembly who asked commissioners,
‘What are we afraid of?’
Rogers said her sense of the situation is that the “world is changing so fast that many people are frightened that we could lose our faith. That’s honest and I don’t knock that. And they go on to say, let’s find some things to hang on to … some rocks in the rapids. But my friends, the Spirit sets us free from fear – the fear that makes us circle the wagons to protect our faith in threatening times.”
In Romans 8, Paul says eloquently what the Spirit does for us, said Rogers. “The Spirit enables us to know that we are God’s children. We are in the family, not because of what we have done, but what God has done.”
Rogers said “we know that we have the glorious liberty of the children of God,” and with the end of chapter 8 “we know that nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Now my friends, that’s freedom. That’s life.
“We don’t have to be tied up in knots trying to be good or think right and we sure don’t have to browbeat other people to think the same right thoughts we do,” she said. “We can relax in recognition that others in the family may do things differently or say some different things, but they are still in the family and are to be affirmed as such.”
Annual reviews mandated
While the task force did affirm certain aspects of the NNPCW, it also found that the group’s resources “clearly violated the policies of the PCUSA, being inconsistent with the church’s confessional standards, lacking in biblical and theological foundation, and failing to provide balanced, accurate resources for study or further discussion.” However, they recommended that the 1999 Assembly give the Network a new lease on life and twice as much money.
The 1999 Assembly voted 344-178-16 to continue PCUSA sponsorship of the campus organization, but directed the Women’s Ministry Program Area and representatives of the Evangelism, Justice and Partnership subcommittees of the National Ministries Division to conduct annual reviews of the NNPCW.