Demonstration passes almost unnoticed
The Layman Online, June 14, 2001
LOUISVILLE, Ky.– About 35 members and sympathizers of women’s, gay and lesbian, and other causes held a demonstration inside the exhibit hall where the 213th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) was meeting June 13.
The small group gathered around the booths of Voices of Sophia, the Witherspoon Society, the Covenant Network, Semper Reformanda and the Shower of Stoles Project and read aloud from Illuminations ’95, a Voices of Sophia pamphlet.
The pamphlet includes such phrases as: “We affirm God-Sophia, chokmah in Hebrew, Woman Wisdom present at the dawning of creation;” “We affirm Jesus-Sophia, wisdom incarnate;” “Since females and males are created in the image of God, we call the church to confess that it has further confined our limited understanding of God by using only one of these reflections of the glory of God in worship;” and similar passages.
The occasion for the reading – which lasted about 20 minutes – was a book signing at the Voices of Sophia booth by Johanna Bos for her book, Ruth and Esther –Women in Alien Lands. People walking through the exhibit hall ignored the demonstration, even when the group read such lines as, “We call the church not to exclude any group of baptized persons from ordination and from full participation in the life and ministry of the church;” “Blessed are you who affirm the diversity of gender and sexual orientation;” and “We call the church to re-imagine the entire model of ordination so that creative gifts for service may be loosed rather than bound.”