Women of Vision: Past, Present & Future
by Peggy Harris W.A.S.H. Board
Chair
1992 Association of Adventist Women Conference President’s Speech
What do an evangelist, a widow, and a General Conference Secretary have
in common?
Ellen Edmonds Lane was one of the earliest licensed ministers of the
Seventh-day Adventist Church from 1878-1889.
She conducted evangelistic meetings in one part of Ohio while her
ordained minister husband held evangelistic meetings in another part of Ohio.
They were truly a ministerial team until his death, then Ellen took up
her ministerial duties alone.
Sarepta Myrenda Henry was a widow with three children who was one of the
early leaders of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union in Rockford, Illinois
in 1874. When she became a
Seventh-day Adventist in 1896, she soon became the first leader of “woman’s
ministry” in 1898. This position
was left unfilled from her untimely death in 1900 until 1990 when Rose Otis was
appointed General Conference Women’s Ministry Coordinator.
Lorena Florence Plummer, better known as L. Flora, soon after she became
a Seventh-day Adventist in 1886, joined the Sabbath School Department of the
Iowa Conference and in 1900 the Sabbath School Department of the Minnesota
Conference. When the General
Conference Sabbath School Department was organized in 1901 Mrs. Plummer was
appointed corresponding secretary. From
1913 until her retirement in 1935 she was secretary of the department.
These are only a few examples of women of vision from our past.
Perhaps we need to ask ourselves why, after such beginnings, women for a
long period of time were few and far between in recognized service in our
church. Most of my generation grew
up knowing little or nothing of our rich heritage of women who were actively
proclaiming the gospel ministry.
One day when I was a ninth grader in academy, I think it was on Academy
Day, all the village girls were locked out of the village girls room.
The reason was that a upper class girl and boy wanted to use the room to
“make out”. I can remember
having to get something of mine that was in the room.
I knocked on the door and waited until the girl questioned me, then she
unlocked the door and let me in while they stood in the corner.
I did not have the courage to tell, not even the principal’s secretary,
what was going on. I did not want
to be a tattletale. That was
considered very bad. We were
stifled by someone we thought had more power and influence than we did.
The most daring thing I did as a teenager happened when I was an academy
Junior. Several girls decided we
wanted to go horseback riding at our upcoming junior-senior picnic.
In those days wearing jeans to any school function was a no-no for girls.
Unfortunately several of us did not have slacks so we took jeans with us
and only put them on when we went horseback riding. No one else saw us. The
next day the “lovely young teacher’s wife” who was one of the sponsors for
the senior class, called me in to ask if I wore jeans. She knew I wouldn’t lie and I didn’t. So another girl and I, were called into the principal’s
office. I think he thought the
whole thing rather foolish he only talked briefly to us and assigned us each
one-hour free labor.
If we thought about is, I’m sure many of us could share stories of how
we were programmed from childhood to conform into a certain mold.
McCall’s magazine, June 1992, quotes from the new book by Dalma Heyn
“What Perfect Wives Give Up for Love”.
She speaks of the children’s story of “the Little Mermaid” by Hans
Christian Anderson. The book’s
jacket cover “calls it a ‘timeless story of courage, sacrifice and the
triumph of unselfish love’. Enchanting?
But by whose criteria?
“Little girls who read ‘The Little Mermaid’ read only a terrifying
cautionary tale, about a mermaid who saves a sailor’s life, falls in love with
him and because she can’t let him know she is a mermaid undergoes a change to
become a woman. This story contains
five clear lessons about love, each one progressively less enchanting.
“Love
lesson #1. In order to be chosen by
a man you must undergo a drastic transformation.
You cannot be yourself and be loved.
“Love
lesson #2. After your
transformation, which will be agonizing and deforming, you can only hope the man
for whom you
“Love
lesson #3. If he doesn’t
recognize who he is seeing, or doesn’t like what he sees, you are in danger of
ceasing to exist.
“Love
lesson #4. No matter what happens
to you, you will be without vengeance, you will be gracious, silent and
forgiving,
“Love
lesson #5. This goodness – that
is, your willingness to be silent and be maimed in order to win a man – will
qualify you
Author Wendy Kaminer, an attorney and public policy fellow at Radcliffe
University has written a number of books on politics and culture. She has just written “I’m Dysfunctional, You’re
Dysfunctional”, a stinging critique of the national infatuation with recovery
and self-help and the billion-dollar industry it has spawned.
In an interview for People Magazine by Sue Avery Brown (June 1992) she
stated that “It’s not good for people in a participatory democracy to think
they should be surrendering to a higher power”. The “higher power” being a person. As to alternatives for this system, she says with wisdom,
“But maybe the alternative is for people to start thinking for themselves”.
The only “higher power” we should ever submit to is God. If we could open our eyes and see with the discernment of the
Holy Spirit, we should be astonished to see all of the “other God’s” we
have allowed ourselves to submit to. People,
jobs, material things, hierarchical systems, etc. All of these are not bad, but they can become a “higher
power” that is taking the place God should have in our life.
Very few of us had the courage in younger years to be ourselves as God
created us. It was the accepted
thing to be good little girls, stay in our place, don’t question anything and
above all don’t raise a ruckus. I
spent all of my youth and a large amount of my grown up years doing just that.
And while that is not all bad, just where has it gotten the church?
Some are afraid, that if we are really ourselves, it may destroy the
unity in the church. So our gifts
and talents have been directed into areas that would be sure not to have the
opportunity to bring any significant change in church hierarchy. We could have and should have long before now been in the
kingdom. Instead here we are.
Now we face many fears. As
we raise our children, and guide our grandchildren and great-grandchildren, we
hope they will stay in the church. We
try to protect them from the increasing dangers and threats from society, drugs,
sex, crime and violent behavior so freely viewed on television.
We try to hang onto some thread of spirituality when we view immorality
and see a lack of spirituality in the church
Ezekiel saw a great valley of dry bones.
In his vision the dry bones heard the voice of the Lord through the
prophet and came to life, joined together and became powerfully useful beings.
I see in and around the church today a multitude of dry bones, members
and former members, burned out, and spiritually dead.
We should be asking ourselves why and how they died spiritually.
We would learn that they have been brow beaten, mistreated, humiliated,
cheated and suffering from spiritual disillusionment.
Perhaps it has been because they are victims or perpetrators of sexual
harassment, abuse, incest and the like. The
only way they have been able to survive is through denial or by becoming dead
emotionally.
Three million cases of child abuse are reported each year. Seventy percent of men who are abusive were abused as
children. Eleven hundred new cases
of child sexual abuse are reported every day.
Four children die everyday from neglect or abuse. There are no agencies
to respond to reports of emotional abuse. I
found this out for myself when I called the Child Protective Agency in my area
about a neighbor who I could hear verbally abusing his children through my
townhouse walls.
I invite those who have experienced these kinds of abuses along with
those who know someone who have been abused to join me in working so that
together we can put an end to this terrible kind of misrepresentation of God.
We need a newly trained army of individuals who I have designated as
W.A.S.H. (Women and Men Against Sexual Harassment.
We must stop the continuation of this sin from generation to generation.
Perpetrators must stop creating the hell in which they live, in others.
Statistics show that one of three to five girls and one of five to eight
boys have suffered sexual abuse. I
do no ask you to do anything I would not do.
When I was a child an uncle, a family “friend” and a family doctor
betrayed my trust in some adults by improper touching.
I never told anyone until while watching the Thomas/Hill hearings, my
husband asked me if I had ever experienced anything like that. I told him of these three instances of abuse that are
indelibly etched in my mind. Our
anger towards these abuses, especially of children, must be directed to protect
those who are helpless as well as stopping the perpetrators.
I have been shocked by the interest indicated in the responses to our
last fund-raising letter that mentioned how we can help AAW make a difference in
this area. Here are a few synopses
of the notes and phone calls that I have received to add to my “Chronicles of
Abuse”.
A
woman church educational employee has experienced the problem of low salary, low
status, and the resulting low self-esteem due to being in a secretarial job
supervised by men while being put down in very indirect and usually
unintentional ways.
A woman discovered that her young daughter, age 4 had been sexually
abused by two 10 and 12 year old sons of a conference employee. The child has experienced multiple personalities and is still
in counselling a year later. The
parents of the boys denied this ever happened.
The Child Protective Agency verified that it did indeed happen and took
action to prevent these boys from baby-sitting their younger sister who they had
also abused. No action has been
taken by the local conference other than removing the mother of the young
daughter from her job because her performance level went down trying to deal
with this terrible damage to her daughter.
A young girl who lived in her teens with six different Adventist families
in safety made short visits to her sister’s house where the husband (11 years
older than the teen) tried to molest her twice. Her sister didn’t believe her then but 15 years later
acknowledge she should have when she sent her teenage daughter to live with the
younger sister because of incest.
When a woman discovered her very young daughter had been sexually abused,
she began to have flash backs of her own sexual abuse by her father when she was
an infant to 10 years of age. The
ages of 6 to 8 are still blocked from her memory.
Her father was very active in his local church and presented a picture of
godliness to the congregation. A
sister, now an adult, who is also now having flashbacks, told an elder in her
church that she needed a woman pastor to talk to and since there were no women
SDA pastors in her area, that she might need to go to a local church of another
denomination to talk to a woman pastor. The
elder told her if she did this she might as well leave God.
So now she does not attend any church.
About seven years ago a woman who had been a victim of sexual abuse
herself when she was young, was interviewed by a woman detective who was
checking on a 16 year old girl who was accusing her father of multiple rapes.
The detective made the statement that every woman she had interviewed on
this case had experienced some sort of sexual abuse or molestation.
Many pastors and church leaders do not know how to deal properly with
these kinds of problems. This
results in a lack of confidence by people to bring these problems to the
attention of the proper church leadership.
There is a need for training and development of support systems so that
the victim is not further victimized by the system within the church.
There needs to be guidelines for the protection of both the victim and
the church. Too often the only
concern has been to protect the perpetrator and the church.
Also there needs to be available help for the perpetrators of these
sexual crimes. The thoughtless,
harmful comments that are sometimes made that injure and hurt people needs to be
addressed in a way that will educate and help our pastors, educators, and church
leaders to act positively instead of negatively when faced with problems.
The way we, as a church do “business” must be representative of
God’s sacred calling.
Women in the church have been set up for sexual harassment and abuse by
the much-abused practice of male headship in the church. This practice dates back to paganism with all its idol
worship and was adopted into early Christianity.
If the church had practiced equality of both race and gender, as we were
instructed and started doing in the late 1800’s, we would have been ahead of
the world in treating people fairly. By
allowing this to continue we are permitting leaders and members who abuse others
to continue misrepresenting God.
All of these people are precious to the Lord, He gave Himself for them,
and only He can bring them together and heal them.
He put us here on this earth to help one another in this process.
No longer can we have blinders on. No
longer can we ignore this in our church. It
has been ignored at the highest levels of our church structure on down to the
local level. Denial must cease. Healing must begin!
At the North American Division (NAD) Women’s Ministry Advisory in March
of this year, the attendees were asked to prioritize strengths, weaknesses and
opportunities that face women in our division.
Women are now defining needs, setting goals and designing programs.
At last attention is being given to neglected church issues such as
domestic violence, sexual abuse, etc.
We need your help right now. Will
you respond today? Your commitment
will establish this much-needed work to begin.
We need to develop a list of resources available in each union
conference. You can be a pioneer in
its development by filling out the interest sheet being handed to you now.
Please leave this in the baskets by the door as you leave this room.
There will be a workshop to begin the process of development at 1:30-3PM
on Friday in the grand ballroom.
Women of today realize that there is a lack of awareness on the part of
Adventist women about their potential, individually and collectively.
The Adventist Church has no clear statement on the theology of women’s
role in ministry. There is no
medium of communication for women. There are inaccurate perceptions and communications about the
motives and goals of Women’s ministries.
Budget provisions for the Office of Women’s Ministries at the division,
union and local conference level are so low that it hampers operations and
devalues the entire concept.
Opportunities may be found in the proper utilization and full funding of
the NAD Office of Women’s Ministries. There
is an opportunity and need for providing healing environments for hurting women.
There is an opportunity and ability to reach former Adventist’s and
non-Adventist friends of church members through women’s ministry and AAW
events. These events can provide a vehicle to help women see their specific,
individual potential.
Your president, working with Dr. Rosa Banks (Office of Human Relations),
Elizabeth Sterndale (NAD Women’s Ministry) and Elder Robert Dale (NAD Vice
President) has presented a proposal to the North American Division to establish
a Commission for the Prevention of Sexual Harassment.
The formation of this commission is now underway.
(This became the NAD Sexual Ethics Commission).
The Association of Adventist Women has been on the cutting edge of life
in the Adventist church for the past ten years.
Our association will continue to work with our church leaders in bringing
about the enabling for all, women and men, to fully fulfill the call God gives
to each one of us.
Present day women have begun to come alive, as our eyes are opened to the
strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to the particular ministries
God has given to us. This has
resulted in the growth of many women’s organizations within our church.
I am most often asked why there are so many of these groups.
It is because we do not all have all the same appetite any more than we
all eat broccoli and nothing else. I
believe God has inspired the leaders and organizers of these various groups to
meet the needs of twentieth century women to fulfill the proclamation of the
gospel. We are not all the same but
we do have the same desire to help others know about the wonderful God who will
soon come to take us home.
A friend recently told me she had no use for any women’s ministry
group. As far as she was concerned
all women should stay at home in the kitchen.
I replied that it was because of the so called “women’s movement”,
those women of vision in our past that allows women to have more choices today,
whether it is to have a career at home or elsewhere, to be able to vote, enabled
to live healthier longer lives, to have children or not.
Women of today, are no longer just brood mares to perpetuate a line of
humans. We are equally responsible
inhabitants of this planet.
Women today, are called to give the good news of salvation to a dying
world. Women today, are called to
work equally with men to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, help the
homeless and strangers, clothe the naked, visit those imprisoned whether they
are behind bars or imprisoned by the substance abuse of their mind set.
How we have responded to these opportunities is the basis of how we will
be judged by God at the final judgment.
While going over the memory verse in the children’s Sabbath School
lesson, on of my granddaughters recently asked me why the Bible was only written
for men. Her perception was that
men only, were to do this and that. We
quickly changed the word in the memory verse from men to people so both
granddaughters could see that God is really speaking to all of us.
How wonderful it would be if the Spirit of Prophesy books were revised to
provide inclusive language. They
could reach out to today’s women, both in the church and those so hungry to
hear the good news of salvation. We
have a gold mine in these timeless principles, but need to package it in a way
that will appeal to women, men and youth.
This is no time for women’s groups to engage in petty rivalry.
It is time to stand firmly together.
Our differences need not divide us from the purpose God has for each of
these different women organizations. For
too long Satan’s policy has been to divide and conquer.
It is time for us to draw together, supporting each other, sharing our
stories and experience. It is time
to unite with the one purpose of finishing the work, bringing healing to women
and men in the church as well as the world.
Nothing can stop us if we keep our eyes upon our Strength and Hope, our
Redeemer God! All the power of the
universe is here to help us NOW!
There is room enough for all of us to work together and do the work given
us by God. The Association of
Adventist Women envisions the very near future when women pastors, equally with
men pastors will be able to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ and administer
the healing balm of Gilead. Soon,
very soon, it will all be over. We
will see the King of the Universe face to face.
God will fulfill our dreams as we allow the Holy Spirit into our lives.
We are truly women of
vision! In closing I want to share
with you a poem I wrote especially for this conference.
It is dedicated to all women of vision.
CALL
TO VISION
July
16, 1992, “Verses of Hope”
We
learn from our yesterdays,
We live in our todays,
But our tomorrows are for dreams.
By working together.
Dreams that can bring hope
To the dead lives around us.
These
visions,
Given to us by God,
Can fulfill His promise
To bring restoration to individuals
And through them, the church.
So,
dear friends, dream actively.
Envision strong changes
That can bring us from numbed senses
To lively, living jewels
In preparation
For the soon coming of the One
Who gave us the visions?
The dreams,
The hope we hold so dear.
This page last updated on Sunday January 29, 2006 11:25 AM
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