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Melody Tan

Public relations officer, Adventist Media Network

 

An lecturer's paper about the patriarchy of the Christian church is now on the Internet after a vote by delegates at an annual Bible conference.

 

Education lecturer Dr John Watts presented his paper, entitled "Patriarchy, leadership and the 'happy churchwife heroine': what we are not told and what we do not hear," at the annual Women and the Word Conference, held at on Saturday (May 31). The conference is organised by the Adventist Women's Ministries Department of the in the South Pacific and Avondale.

 

"Older women know about the glass ceiling, but not so much younger women," says Christine Bates, a member of the , who proposed the motion to make the paper available online. "If they read the paper, they will see how life is and that it should not be that way."

 

The paper argues if the church continues to practice discrimination, it will self-implode into an even worse male mediocrity and female subservience, though it may continue to survive as a Spiritless post-Christian social institution.

 

"I am struggling to come to terms with a range of feelings," says John. "Satisfaction the research-based points presented were 'on target'; shame that our church continues to treat women from an entrenched patriarchal standpoint; but probably most of all, a profound respect for women, and some men, for that matter, who continue to focus on serving the Lord in spite of the stark disparities and inequities within the church."

 

According to Joy Butler, director of Adventist Women's Ministries, more women need to be working within the . "Our church began on the basis of gender equality, but we don't hear much about it these days," she says.

 

The conference also raised awareness of issues such as sex trafficking. Delegates watched The jammed, an Australian film about human trafficking in the country. Speakers included Sister Margaret Ng, director of the Josephine Counter Trafficking Project, and David Haupt, project manager of the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) in western .

 

"In the morning, we encouraged delegates to be women of courage," says . "In the afternoon, we showed them how they can be those women. Our sisters are suffering in many parts of the world, and we must help."

 

Visit http://spd.adventistconnect.org and follow the links to women's ministries to read John's paper.

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