International Women's Day....was yesterday

Yesterday (8th March) was International Women's Day - and was a special occasion in that women around the world were celebrating 100 years of Women's Day.

While we're a bit late in posting about it, (though for many people it's still the 8th March, anyway) that doesn't mean that many of the options available to both men and women in terms of celebrating the day have been left behind. Jenny Baker offered the following bunch of suggestions - many of which you could do at any time of the year...

• Contact a woman who has inspired or encouraged you and tell her how much you appreciate her
• Join the Big Inequality Debate at http://www.weareequals.org/
• Follow Ruth Wells' example and take action against the objectification of women, or get involved with Object
• Get in touch with a younger woman who has leadership potential, or who inspires you and offer your support and encouragement.
• Use videos and information from The Girl Effect to raise awareness in your youth group - or among your friends - about the injustice faced by many girls around the world.
• Find out more about women around the world on Christian Aid's website.
• Get involved with Restored, Tearfund's new initiative to challenge the church on violence against women.
• Give the money you could have spent on a treat for yourself to help women in poverty around the world - why not give it here, here or here?
• Join Womankind's twitter campaign and tweet your #wish4women

Male & Female He made them

The World Council of Churches in partnership with the World Communion of Reformed Churches has just produced a book - it can downloaded as a pdf- called Created in God's Image: from hegemony to partnership.

The subtitle is: A Church Manual on Men as Partners: Promoting Positive Masculinities. It's edited by Patricia Sheerattan-Bisnauth and Philip Vinod Peacock, and a wide range of writers from around the world have contributed to it. The book has a number of suggestions as to how it might/should be used at the beginning and is laid out in short sections suitable for housegroup study or for other small groups to work on.

Here's the introduction:

In the creation account of the very first chapter in the Bible, the emphasis laid on God creating humanity as male and female in God’s Image is very significant. However, throughout history,cultural and other social factors have led even believers to think and act in ways inconsistent with this basic truth of both male and female being created in the Image of God. In so doing, such people have yielded to values that seem to glorify gender injustice. Men in many cultures have adopted hegemonic attitudes and ways of life and have oppressed women, and far too often they justify such behaviour either by reference to Bible passages or church doctrines.

A rereading of the word of God, acknowledging that human beings (male and female) are
created in the Image of God, demands that we act differently. Such an acknowledgement is inconsistent with any way of life which makes a man a kind of demigod” over women. If men have been culturally and socially conditioned to having a hegemonic self- understanding, our coming to faith in Christ calls us to begin putting off this “burden” and to begin to learn ways in which God calls men and women to partnership, in living in community as well as in engagement in God’s mission.

This is what this book is about. The book is a result of men and women of God reading the word of God and daring to ask critical questions about how we can be more faithful to God in how women and men relate. The book has been developed with sensitivity to invite men into dialogue and critical examination of what it means to be a man in today’s society. It is neither confrontational nor prescriptive, but takes into consideration that gender analysis needs to be contextual and must be done with gender justice perspectives. While some men who see their identity in the “macho” cultural construct may find the contents of this book challenging, many faithful Christians who are ready to be faithful to the Word of God will find this book resourceful and will see it as a valuable instrument that will strengthen their faith as they commit to the vision of partnership reflected in God’s intention for women and men.

The sign in the picture comes from the psdgraphics site.

Out of place?

Many churches focus on family, family, family. Which means that couples (married couples, of course) are the prime base for everything that goes on.

Which leaves the singles out. Single men barely exist in churches - they're regarded as a bit strange, and possibly to be avoided. Marry them off quickly if you can.

As for single women. Hmmm. How do they fit in? Awkward phrases like 'left on the shelf' still linger in the 21st century air. Well, at least they're good for teaching Sunday School: safe, (safer than the men - they're positively dangerous in Sunday School, and even if they're safe they have a tendency to make the kids hyper).

You may disagree and say all this is generalization. Of course it is, but there's a hint of truth in it. And what started me thinking about it, in part, was an article in The Guardian: Another Year, same old witch-hunt. Another Year is the name of the latest Mike Leigh movie, which features a married couple and a single woman, and the article reviews the movie in part.

But what is more interesting about the article is its focus on single women, in which it states that half of women under 35 live alone. Now, this is an English stat, and I'm not sure that I'd take it as gospel (considering its source); nevertheless it indicates that there is an issue, and things may be similar here in New Zealand.

To quote: One survey found that half of its sample [of married couples] never had single women as visitors, and 19% knew no single women at all. Casual disregard for this social group goes unremarked. Our prime minister insists that marriage must be prioritised and rewarded. The last government repeatedly identified "hard-working families" as its abiding concern. In a world centred on cosily coupled units, leftover women labour under an enduring disadvantage. When they're not ignored completely, they're expected to provide tireless but unrecompensed support for people who matter more than them, as babysitters, carers or shoulders to cry on.

Note that the Government regards married couples as their prime focus too.

So what's the point of this post? Single women in our churches: how do they find a 'place' - they find a place? Or is there such an emphasis in every respect on couples that single people feel out of place?

The next big issue?

I don't have any stats for child trafficking in New Zealand - though it appears that this country is doing reasonably well in keeping tabs on the problem, which is a phenomenal global evil. I suspect it will become the big issue of the next decade; certainly the fight to overcome this evil is already well and truly begun.

In the meantime, here are a very few stats from the US:
*300,000 children in the U.S. are at risk every year for commercial sexual exploitation. -U.S. Department of Justice

*600,000 – 800,000 people are bought and sold across international borders each year; 50% are children, most are female. The majority of these victims are forced into the commercial sex trade. – U.S. Department of State, 2004, Trafficking in Persons Report, Washington, D.C.

*An estimated 14,500 to 17,500 foreign nationals are trafficked into the United States each year. The number of U.S. citizens trafficked within the country is even higher, with an estimated 200,000 American children at risk for trafficking into the sex industry. – U.S Department of Justice Report to Congress from Attorney General John Ashcroft on U.S. Government Efforts to Combat Trafficking in Persons

*An estimated 2.5 million children, the majority of them girls, are sexually exploited in the multibillion dollar commercial sex industry – UNICEF

*Investigators and researchers estimate the average predator in the U.S. can make more than $200,000 a year off one young girl. – NBC Report by Teri Williams

If you want a good overview of the way in which women are exploited throughout the world, read, Half the Sky: turning oppression into opportunity for women worldwide - it's written by husband and wife, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

Boys don't cry and other lies we tell men....

In an excellent article on the Sojourners site, Catholic priest, Richard Rohr, looks at the way the inner life of men is hugely neglected in modern culture - with disastrous results.
Here are some extracts - but please read the whole article, which is full of wisdom.

Take a typical woman, educated or uneducated, of most any race or ethnicity, and give her this agenda: “You are not to have any close friends or confidants; you are to avoid any show of need, weakness, or tender human intimacy; you may not touch other women without very good reason; you may not cry; you are not encouraged to trust your inner guidance, but only outer authorities and “big” people; and you are to judge yourself by your roles, titles, car, house, money, and successes. People are either in your tribe, or they are a competitive threat—or of no interest!” Then tell her, “This is what it feels like to be a male, most of the time.” Maleness can be a very lonely and self-defeating world.

I know I am walking on sacred ground here, but I am going to say it: The church often does not really encourage an inner life. It substitutes belief systems and belonging systems and moral systems for interior journeys toward God. As a result the outer behavior is pretty weak as well. I would be willing to argue this position at the highest levels of Catholic hierarchy, Protestant scripture interpretation, or fundamentalist mental gymnastics.

In fact, the reason that such external hierarchy, simplistic and dualistic readings of scripture, and heady fundamentalism exist at all is primarily because of the male unwillingness to feel, to suffer, to lose, and to stand in the place of the outsider with even basic empathy. Which, of course, is exactly where Jesus stood and suffered, “even to accepting death, yes death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8). How do we dare to worship a “loser” and yet so idealize winning?

If our churches do not find ways to validate, encourage, structure, and teach men an inner life—as opposed to mere belief systems, belonging systems, and moral systems, which the Olympics do much better!—I am not sure what the church’s reason for continued existence might be. We are failing the test with one half of the species, which means we are failing for the other half too. Organized religion is not doing its inherent job of transforming people at any deep level.

You will never see revival in the West until you are willing to use your women

When I attended a Pentecostal church, one of things that struck me most was that they took a 'Scriptural' point of view in relation to women preaching in the church, but a very non-Scriptural point of view when it came to women being missionaries overseas - on their own, without support. In other words, out of sight.

In the latest Next-Wave ezine, there's an article by Felicity Dale entitled Rethinking the Challenging Scriptures. The challenging scriptures in question concern the role(s) of women in the church. The thing that most struck me about this article are the words she quotes from Yonggi Cho, who, in 1983 (when Dale visited him) ran a church of some 350,000 members.

Yonggi Cho said: You will never see revival in the West until you are willing to use your women.

That was 1983. A good number of women in NZ have since managed - often with considerable difficulty - to become priests and ordained ministers in mainline churches. But as a colleague said to me yesterday: the average number of women in a Presbyterian Church congregation is around 70%. The average number of men in the leadership (that is, as ministers or elders) is around 80%.

Don't these figures clash just a little in your mind? Perhaps Yonggi Cho's words say more than we think.

Felicity Dale writes a blog called Simply Church which (among other things) has a focus on women in ministry and the need they have for the support and encouragement of men to achieve their goals.

Binge-drinking

In the NZ Herald on the 5th of January, Mick Duncan wrote an opinion piece about women and binge-drinking.

He believes the reason why so many young (middle-class) women go out binge-drinking is that they’ve lived cotton wool-lives, protected from all sorts of risks, told not to speak to strangers, driven to and from school, and much more. Everything was made safe for them as they grew up.

Binge-drinking involves risk: I might get arrested, I might get knocked down by a car, I might get raped or wind up in bed with a total stranger. I might not even survive the night.

While it isn’t much of a reason for these young women to be doing what they do, it perhaps shows that helping children avoid risks isn’t as healthy at it might seem.

It also shows, perhaps, that these people know little about bigger adventures in life; they feel their lives are constrained. (And the same probably goes for the young men, including the boy racers.)

What do you think about Mick's conclusion?

Happiness is as happiness does

According to the latest UMR survey, the happiest men in the country are in the Nelson/Marlborough region, and the happiest women come from the Bay of Plenty. Wellingtonians, however, are the least happy people in the country.

Interestingly, people on less than $20,000 a year are slightly happier than those earning between $70,000 and $100,00. People earning over $100,000 are the happiest of the lot. People in the middle income brackets ($30-70,000), however, are the least happy. (Which probably shouldn't come as much of a surprise: they'll be the ones trying to bring up a family, pay off a mortgage and so on.)

Wellington.Scoop reports: The key things that make people happy are their relationships with their family and friends and their job. For women, the relationship with their family and children is a far more significant factor in their happiness than it is for men. However, for men their relationship with their spouse or partner, control over their life or destiny, recreation time and hobbies are more important than they are for women.

UMR finds that people are less happy than they were when the previous survey was done in 2007/8, and that overall, females are happier than males. People in mid-life are less happy than the young or old (which is hardly a revelation - who has all the responsibility?!), and ethnically, Maori and Europeans were the happiest groups, with Asians the least happy. (However, with a large number of people classifying themselves as 'other,' ethnically, this area of the survey is somewhat skewed.)

Another not-surprising point: widow(ers) and married people were happier than single and divorced, though there might be a certain irony in the fact that widowers were little happier than widows, and married women were a little happier than married men. Curiously women in de facto relationships were happier than men in the same boat. Which seems almost at odds with how people in these relationships are generally viewed.

People living without children are happier than those living with children. At first this seems a point that doesn't bode well for our future, until you realise that it's the lack of dependent children that makes people happier.

And just to prove that we're a quirky lot: Labour voters are happier than National voters. Go figure.

UMR comes to this conclusion: If you want to keep happy through the recession – socialise, keep in close touch with family or friends, have an interest in sports, a hobby or the arts and feel good about yourself.

Where would we fit in, as a Church, on the happiness scale?

Photo by Jill Greenseth from 'Four Happy People'

Twitterstats

In relation to the various posts on here about Twitter and other similar social networking devices, I was interested to read some stats on Twitter which showed that it's being used differently to most other social media sites, such as Facebook and MySpace.

1. Although men and women follow a similar number of Twitter users, men have 15% more followers than women. This is interesting in view of the fact that only 45% of Twitter users are men, while 55% are women,

2. An average man is almost twice more likely to follow another man than a woman, and 40% more likely to be followed by another man. Women are 25% more likely to follow a man. What is surprising about this is that on a typical online social network, most of the activity is focused around women - men follow content produced by women they do and do not know, and women follow content produced by women they know.

3. The top 10% of prolific Twitter users accounted for over 90% of tweets. Many Twitter users use it once, or rarely. Compare this to Wikipedia, where 15% of the most prolific editors account for 90% of the edits.

There's more detail in the article, which is worth checking out if you're interested in stats, and the conclusions that can be drawn from them. And then considering how any of this relates to how we 'do' church...

Wendell Berry

In an essay from 1993 entitled, Christianity and the Survival of Creation, author Wendell Berry writes

I have been talking, of course, about a dualism that manifests itself in several ways; it is a cleavage, a radical discontinuity, between Creator and creature, spirit and matter, religion and nature, religion and economy, worship and work, etc. This dualism, I think is the most destructive disease that afflicts us. In its best known, its most dangerous, and perhaps its fundamental version, it is the dualism of body and soul. This is an issue as difficult as it is important, and so to deal with it we should start at the beginning.

The crucial test is probably Genesis 2:7, which gives the process by which Adam was created: "the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life: and man became a living soul." My mind, like most people's, has been deeply influenced by dualism, and I can see how dualistic minds deal with this verse. They conclude that the formula for man-making is: man = body + soul. But that conclusion cannot be derived, except by violence, from Genesis 2:7, which is not dualistic. The formula given in Genesis is not man = body + soul; the formula there is soul = dust + breath. According to this verse, God did not make a body and put a soul into it, like a letter into an envelope. He formed man of dust; by breathing his breath into it, he made the dust live. Insofar as it lived, it was a soul. The dust, formed as man and made to live, did not embody a soul; it became a soul. "Soul" here refers to the whole creature. Humanity is thus presented to us, in Adam, not as a creature of two discrete parts temporarily glued together, but as a single mystery.

Berry has more to say about God's economy as opposed to economics, about Christianity's willingness to be part of the destructive forces of the world, about its culpability in not seeing this world as Holy, and about a number of other related issues. It isn't an essay that will encourage most of us in the way we presently conduct our lives; that's not Berry's intention. His aim is to give such breadth to our view of Creation and our part in it that we'll deeply reconsider how we behave within this world.

And just to give you a little more taste of Berry's writing, here's a quote from the title essay of his book, Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community: Eight Essays. It was published in 1998.

"If you destroy the ideal of the "gentle man" and remove from men all expectations of courtesy and consideration toward women and children, you have prepared the way for an epidemic of rape and abuse. If you depreciate the sanctity and solemnity of marriage, not just as a bond between two people, but as a bond between those two people and their forebears, their children, and their neighbors, then you have prepared the way for an epidemic of divorce, child neglect, community ruin, and loneliness. If you destroy the economies of household and community, then you destroy the bonds of mutual usefulness and practical dependence without which the other bonds will not hold."

Why not women?

When we think of megachurches, very often we imagine large congregations, numbering in the thousands - and we always think of them as being located in the United States.

In fact. five of the 10 largest megachurches in the world are located in South Korea. According to last year’s research by the Economist, the Yoido Full Gospel Church claims 830,000 members, (yes, no extraneous 0s in there!) and grows by 3,000 members each month.

According to the book, Why Not Women, Dr. Yonggi Cho (the founder of the Yoido Full Gospel Church) was initially unsure whether gifted women teachers should have access to the pulpit because of cultural, rather than biblical, concerns. Yet, under the encouragement of Loren Cunningham - cofounder of Youth With a Mission - Dr. Cho began to open ministry opportunities for women, including positions as ministers and cell group leaders.

Several years later, Cho visited another country and was shocked at the small size of their churches. What was his recommendation? Dr. Cho said:

I told them to release their women, but they insist that’s not the problem. They ask me “What’s the key to your church?” I tell them again, “release your women…” (Why Not Women, p. 69

This is a slightly modified version of a post that appeared in the Sojourners website, under the title, Release Your Women, by Mimi Haddad.

Male-bashing

Let’s have some sanity in the campaign against domestic violence, by Bill Ralston.

Ralston may not be everyone's cup of tea, and some of his opinion columns that have been appearing in the NZ Listener in the last few months probably irritate more than a few people.

This particular column begins:

Recently you might have noticed people wandering about wearing white ribbons in solidarity with the UN’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. Men wear them to show that they do not tolerate or condone violence against women. Presumably if you don’t wear a ribbon, it shows that you do condone and tolerate it, in which case Auckland males must be wickedly violent because I never saw any of them wearing a ribbon.

In New Zealand, White Ribbon Day was just one of the 16 days of Activism Against Gender Violence that finish on December 10. The gender violence it refers to is violence by the male gender against the female gender.

It's an interesting essay on how statistics can be manipulated by people with different agendas, and while Ralston certainly doesn't condone violence against women, he wants the figures to be looked at a little more carefully.