The controversial "Re-Imagining" Conference, held last November in Minneapolis, and endorsed by the UM Women's Division, was supposed to be a theological conference. The problems with the theology offered there have been well-documented in Good News and other publications. But speakers at the conference-and Women's Division leaders later trying to defend their participation-have also sparked serious questions over their teachings on the family, their understanding of religious liberty, and the quest for Christian unity.
First of all, anyone who looks objectively at our own society will admit that our frayed and fractured families are a central and growing social problem. Speakers at the Minneapolis conference sought to re-imagine the family, advocating, among other things, that "sex among friends" be considered normal and appropriate, that sexual pleasure is a "human right," and that fidelity is a kind of idolatry.
This is exactly the wrong message for our desperately needy society. Rather than re-imagine the family, our churches must work to rebuild and renew family life-including the virtues of lifelong faithfulness to one's partner in marriage and a sacrificial commitment to one's family.
Secondly, there is religious liberty. In defending its involvement in the "Re-Imagining" Conference, the Women's Division published a fact sheet which implied that Division critics somehow were questioning religious freedom.
This is spurious and false. No one has denied the right of American citizens to organize this conference, nor called for any government action to prohibit such conferences. But those of us who criticize the conference have strongly objected to support offered by Christian churches to the blatantly non-Christian teachings. We believe genuine religious freedom must include the right of religious groups to define themselves and exclude those who do not share essential elements of their faith.
Perhaps worst of all, the Division's use of the "red herring" comment about religious liberty is an affront to Christian men and women who even today risk their lives by living and proclaiming the gospel in societies which do indeed deny religious freedom. For their sake, we must not tolerate in our own churches the denigration of the very faith for which they suffer.
Finally, participation in the "Re-Imagining" Conference has been defended as involvement in an ecumenical event. Such a claim demeans the urgent quest for Christian unity. Ecumenism is not syncretism, of which the "Re-Imagining" Conference was a particularly clear example. The "Re-Imagining" Conference offered teachings that are contrary to the truth affirmed by the first ecumenical councils of the Church-truth to which the Church has been faithful in the intervening centuries.
What was proclaimed in Minneapolis was indeed another gospel, another faith. The way of true ecumenism is to lift high the cross o Christ, not to denigrate it. And even dialogue with those of other faiths calls not only for respectful listening, but also for a bold, loving witness to the Gospel we have received. There was no such witness coming out of the "Re-Imagining" Conference.
The women who gathered in Minneapolis set out to re-imagine god. Christians worship the one true God, who first imagined us, who created us in his image, and who revealed himself to us, ultimately by sending his Son, Jesus. From the first, women have joyfully worshipped and followed this Jesus. Martha became one of the first Christian theologians when she confessed that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God. Mary Magdalene and other women were the first to testify to his resurrection. And women today, including those who are a part of RENEW, worship him still.
Diane Knippers is the president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy and a consultant to RENEW.