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Cross-posted from The Chicago Tribune, by Manya Brachear
Cotton swabs tucked between their jaws and cheeks, bishops from the nation’s largest Lutheran denomination sat in silence for three minutes on Thursday as they underwent testing for HIV.
Bishop Mark Hanson of the ELCA
Those few minutes of silence would serve to break another silence, one that the bishops insist has kept the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America from addressing the global AIDS crisis and welcoming AIDS victims into the pews.
“We in the U.S. tend to think of this as a global pandemic unrelated to people in the U.S.,” said ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson, who gave his own three minutes for the HIV test on Thursday. “For me as a married heterosexual man to be tested is a reminder that all communities are affected—if not infected.”
by Amber Leberman, first published in The Lutheran (2 /2009)
Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman inspires Lutherans to challenge their cultures
Zau Rapa calls them “dynamite women.”
Rapa, acting head bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Papua New Guinea, was referring to the 1,500 women who gathered Sept. 13-19, 2008, at the Baitabag Lutheran girls’ school outside the northern village of Madang.
Rapa saw God’s power as “dynamite” within them, which they took back to their villages after six days of worship, Bible study, singing and drama under the theme “Jesus Liberates Women in Papua New Guinea from Male-dominated Cultures.”
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| Bonnie Arua and other women from the Papua District lead those attending a September conference of the Women of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Papua New Guinea in song and dance at the closing night’s worship service. |
Yes, that’s “cultures.” Plural. A Papua New Guinea folk saying puts it this way: “For each village, a different culture.” In a country the size of California, more than 850 languages are spoken.
Many of its coastal and island villages are only accessible by boat, and many highlands villages only reachable by plane. Such a diversity of cultures has bred a long history of intertribal conflict and violence.
Some of the women traveled three days by cargo ship to join their Lutheran sisters. They ran out of food when the journey took longer than expected. Others traveled days by truck on overland roads full of potholes. They represented 16 church districts and hundreds of traditional cultural practices. They united as Lutherans to confront a common challenge: the status of women in Papua New Guinea.
Rapa believes they’ll be the dynamite to ignite change in their villages—their cultures—of which the U.S. State Department says “women generally are considered and treated as inferiors” and “gender violence is endemic.”
The justification for violence against women begins with the bride-price, said Rose Pisae, secretary of the Papua District women’s organization.
Across Papua New Guinea, a new bride’s family is compensated for the loss of her agricultural and household labor. Pisae said a bride-price in her district (which includes the capital, Port Moresby) can bring the woman’s family as much as $20,000.
After paying so much in a country where the average per capita income is $900, Pisae said the husband’s family feels like they own the bride and can place demands on her, such as how many children she should bear.
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| Ibarias Yabon of the Madang District consults her Bible for further insight into the story of Jesus and the woman at the well. Women of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Papua New Guinea spent two hours each day of its convention studying John 4:4-42 for parallels to their own lives. |
Pisae has two daughters—16 and 5. She also has a 12-year-old son. She admits she’s strict with her daughters, expecting them to cook, clean and mind the house.
“Now that I’ve come here,” she said, “I’m thinking that I should have my son do a little work too.
“I tell my two girls: ‘I will not accept the bride-price and I’ll make sure your husbands are good to you.’ I think a lot of women are beginning to understand, to say ‘no’ to the bride-price and to report any violence to the police or the community counselor.”
On Friday, March 6, women worldwide will unite in prayer for Papua New Guinea as part of World Day of Prayer. Women of the ELCA is a denominational representative on the World Day of Prayer USA committee.
Other dynamite women include Jane Henry, director of a Lutheran vocational center in Mount Hagen that trains women in music, theology, church administration, agriculture, nutrition, counseling and computing. Part of the training includes a six-week practicum in which the women share the skills they’ve learned with other women.
“I think the ladies who are here will go back and teach other ladies to speak out,” Henry said. “We can pray to God that it will happen in God’s way.”
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| Michael Wan Rupulga, a recipient of an ELCA international scholarship and lecturer at Martin Luther Seminary in Lae, Papua New Guinea, led a two-hour daily Bible study based on Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well (John 4:4-42). |
Another is Seba Benag, a midwife in Biliau who is training men to be present at childbirth and participate in early child care, despite taboos to the contrary.
Such taboos are something familiar to Bible study leader Michael Wan Rupulga. “I struggled along with my mother my whole life,” he said. “I know how it feels.”
The son of the second wife of a village “big man,” Rupulga refused to follow traditional highlands practices regarding the separation of sons from mothers at age 6, when boys become susceptible to the perceived uncleanliness of their mothers.
He was mocked by other men in his village for refusing to avoid contact with menstruating women. They would ask him: “Do you have your period too?”
He’s gone against his culture, he said, but asks: “What’s more important? God’s word or the culture? If there is a barrier, God’s word will break it down. It is like dynamite.”
Rupulga’s mother died in 1997, but she was the inspiration for him to do his master’s thesis at Pacific Theological College in Suva, Fiji, on Jesus’ reaction to the Samaritan woman. Rupulga received an ELCA Global Mission international scholarship to pursue his degree.
“If there’s anything in a culture that suppresses women, that hurts women, that makes women suffer their whole lives, it doesn’t come from God,” Rupulga said. “It comes from the devil.”
At the end of the week, Rapa told the women he was proud of them. “Go home and talk to your husbands about what you deserve and expect in your relationships,” he said.
Will their husbands be receptive?
“If their husbands are involved in church activities, it will be easy to relate what they’ve learned about here,” Pisae said.
In preparation for the 53rd Session of the Commission on the Status of Women, as people of faith it is important to take some time and space to ourselves and reflect. This year’s theme — “The equal sharing of responsibilities between women and men, including caregiving in the context of HIV/AIDS” — encourages us to look to our own daily lives for the most basic examples of how labor is divided between men and women. Who decides how such decisions are made? How much flexibility is present in the sharing of responsibilities? Who carries a heavier burden, and what kinds of tasks are allotted to which people?
As members of a religious community, the second part of this theme must give us pause. It is the faith-based community who, in the past, helped in perpetuating a negative stigma of people living with HIV and AIDS. Our role in this negative stereotyping requires repentence, characterized by a prounounced humility and tremendous courage in naming our wrongdoing. It is our role, before acting out in advocacy, to ask forgiveness of those whom we have wronged.
We can follow the example set by ELCA Bishop Mark Hanson, who spoke this past summer at the XVII International AIDS Conference in Mexico City. Watch him speak and act in this video to help envision how we ourselves might repent as religious leaders.
The Women of the ELCA‘s 7th Annual Triennial Gathering is set this year to be in Salt Lake City, Utah, from July 10-13. The theme, “Come to the Waters,” references the renewal and committment Christians experience in their baptism. With keynote speaker and author Sister Joan Chittister , upper-Manhattan Lutheran pastor Heidi Neumark speaking, and workshops on important social issues such as racism, activism, and politics, the gathering looks to be a faithful blend of personal spirituality and public action.
EW encourages the Women of the ELCA to go even further, and take up a strong interest in women’s rights on an international scale. While we applaud the good things the organization is already doing, we hope to see more of an investment in international activism around women’s and human rights. Are there any EW members out there heading to “Come to the Waters”? Take your knowledge and passion with you as you head to Salt Lake City!
In light of International Women’s Day–which falls on a weekend this year, Saturday March 8–Ecumenical Women coalition members have been issueing articles and resources about women. The United Methodist Board of Church and Society wrote an article on Women’s History Month in their eNewsletter, Faith in Action. Episcopal Life Online released an article about financing for gender equity, the theme of this year’s CSW, while the ELCA Advocacy department made recommendations on how best to observe International Women’s Day. Finally, the NCC’s program for women’s ministries also wrote an article honoring women’s history month, adding helpful resources and links at the bottom of the page.
Apart from the ecumenical scene, the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said today in the UN programme commemorating International Women’s Day, “I am deeply convinced that, in women, the world has at its dosposal the most significant and yet larglely untapped potential for development and peace… Women are still severly hampered by discrimination, lack of resources and economic opportunities, by limited access to decision-making and by gender-based violence.” He called on everyone in the international community to increase investments in women and girls.
Ecumenical Women wishes you a fruitful and informative International Women’s Day!
