Vol. 11, No. 5, 1994

Articles on Other Religious Topics

Craig Branch

A number of what appeared to be unrelated issues began to naturally converge in Minneapolis, in November 1993. The result was the very controversial and very revealing "Re-imagining 1993" Conference, attended and supported by leadership and members of several mainline denominations.

Many grassroots members of the Presbyterian (PCUSA), Lutheran (ELCA) and United Methodist churches were shocked to their core when they heard about their denomination's participation in the themes and content of the conference which ranged from direct attacks on traditional Christian doctrine and the celebration of homosexuality, to overt paganism, witchcraft, and New Age/Occult ritual.

The Re-imagining conference drew feminist and radical feminists, ostensibly as a convocation to discuss women's issues. The conference was held in conjunction with the World Council of Churches' Decade of Churches in Solidarity (Christianity Today, 4 April 1994, p. 74).

The conveners' stated purpose was "to re-imagine what belief in God and life together in community means from a Christian-feminist perspective" (Christian News, 21 March 1994, p. 1). Johanna Bos, a feminist professor at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary stated, "We have not come here to jump on the feminist band wagon, but to upset the patriarchal apple cart" (Christian American, February 1994, p. 19).

The conference drew over 2000 participants from 27 countries, 49 states and 15 denominations. Records show that 405 Presbyterians (PCUSA), 391 United Methodists, 313 Lutherans (ELCA), 234 Roman Catholics, 144 United Church of Christ, and American Baptists had the largest numbers in attendance. One third were clergy (Washington Post, 4 June 1994, p. C8).

Part of the reason for such a negative response from grassroots and conservative laymen to this conference was that their national organizations were officially involved and financially supportive. The PCUSA contributed $86,000 and had 24 of their national staff there (Christian American, February 1994, p. 19; Christian News, 21 March 1994, p. 1).

The United Methodist Church had over 50 officials in attendance (Charisma, May 1994, p. 76). The ELCA also helped to finance the conference (Christian News, 28 February 1994, p. 1).

The Presbyterian Layman, a conservative, independent, renewal organization in the PCUSA, sends its newspaper to over 500,000 subscribers. Executive editor Parker Wilkinson, an ordained Presbyterian minister, described some of the significant conference themes as "antithetical to the Christian faith seismic shifts in theology, implying that since God is a product of one's imagination to begin with, so He can thus be re-imagined" (Washington Post, p. C7).

What and How?

What was the content of this conference? How could it have occurred? What is its significance?

As stated earlier, a number of what appeared to be unrelated issues converged at the Minneapolis conference. The mainline denominations besieged for many years by liberalism, neo- orthodoxy, and neo-liberalism, have become a greenhouse for nurturing such destructive elements in our culture as neo-paganism, witchcraft, New Age Movement with its corollary deep ecology Gaia (Goddess/Mother Earth), and social/political radical feminism and lesbian movements.

The farther one drifts from the plenary inspiration and inerrancy of the Scripture, the more inevitable the drift will be into depravity and paganism. As C.S. Lewis observed from history, "Pantheism is congenial to our minds not because it is the final stage in a slow process of enlightenment but because it is almost as old as we are. It may even be the most primitive of all religions. It is immemorial in India. The Greeks rose above it only at their peak; their successors relapsed into the great Pantheistic system of the Stoics. Modern Europe escaped it only when she remained predominately Christian".

"So far from being the final religious refinement, pantheism is in fact the permanent level below which man sometimes sinks, but above which his own unaided efforts can never raise him for very long. It is the attitude into which the human mind automatically falls when left to itself. No wonder we find it congenial. [It] has, in the long run, only one really formidable opponent <197> namely Christianity" (Miracles, 1947, pp. 84-85).

New Age and Occultism

Of the 27 main speakers, most of them had published works on feminist theology from several perspectives (Washington Post, p. C8). Some were lesbians, some radical feminists, and a "menagerie of gnostics, tree, wind, fire, water, and nymph worshippers,animist followers of a superstition that all objects possess an indwelling soul, including trees, plants, animals, stones, etc." (Christian News, 21 March 1994, p.1).

The majority of speakers attempted to re-imagine Scripture, the church, and theology to fit their own radical feminist bias. Asian radical feminist, liberation theologian Chung Hyum Kyung, a Korean and graduate of Union Theological Seminary in New York, put it best, "The Christian Church has been very patriarchal. That's why we are here together, in order to destroy this patriarchal idolatry of Christianity" (Presbyterian Layman, January-February 1994).

Speaker Kyung drew substantially from New Age and animistic religions, expressing God as an all-encompassing energy force in nature. She instructed conferees in prana (psychic energy) exercises such as going to a tree and asking it for "some of your life" (Ibid.).

She repeatedly lead the group throughout the 4-day event in singing, "O great spirit, earth and wind and sea, you are inside and all around me" (Ibid.). Kyung's authority for the many Occultic beliefs and practices were the church-rejected gnostic gospels which promoted pantheism (Christian News, 21 March 1994, p. 1).

Lesbian Rights

Francis Wood, of the National Council of Churches, and Elizabeth Bettenhausen, of the ELCA, both lectured promoting abortion rights and homosexuality. Other lesbian speakers were Christine Smith, a professor at United Theological Seminary; Jane Spahr, a Presbyterian activist; Mary Hunt, a Roman Catholic theologian who promoted substituting sexual intimacy among friends in place of family; Melanie Morrison, co-convenor of CLOUT (Christian Lesbians Out Together), led a demonstration calling lesbians and bisexuals to come forward and receive a song from the conferees celebrating their lesbianism.

Judy Westerdorf, a lesbian Methodist minister, spoke stating, "The Church has always been blessed by gays and lesbians, witches and shamans" Lesbian feminist Virginia Mollenkott of the National Council of Churches suggested that it may be necessary for women to leave denominations in order to create a new holistic church (Presbyterian Layman).

Blatant Heresy

Mollenkott also led the way for many overtly heretical attacks on the nature of God, the Person of Christ and His atonement. She claimed that we are equal with Jesus and the only sense that He is our "elder brother" was that "he was the first to show us that it is possible to live in oneness with the divine nature" (Ibid.). Mollenkott also claimed that the idea of Jesus' atonement was "the ultimate in child abuse and a model of human child abuse" depicting "God as an abusive parent" (Ibid.).

Aruna Gnanadson, of the World Council of Churches, and Dolores Williams, professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York, both condemned the idea of Christ's atonement as an abusive patriarchal system with the comment, "I don't think we need folks hanging on crosses dripping blood and weird stuff (Ibid.).

Perhaps the most overtly heretical speeches came from two leaders in the World Council of Churches (WCC). African feminist Mercy Oduyoye, deputy general secretary, taught that we all have mothers in the spirit world avenging us and that the dead are all around us "in the rustling of trees, in the groaning woods, in the crying grass, in the moaning rocks" (Ibid.).

The other WCC spokeswoman, Chinese feminist Kwok Pui-Lan, had also been a featured speaker at a PCUSA Theology and Worship Conference in 1992. She explained that the Chinese reject the depravity of or sinfulness of humans and dismissed Christ for Confucius who emphasized "the genuine possibility for human beings to achieve moral perfection and sainthood" (Ibid.).

She also rejected the doctrine of the Trinity. She preferred her culture's 722 gods saying only one God was oppressive. She, too, quoted the gnostic "gospels" saying that salvation was a matter of "bringing out what is within you". Pui-Lan justified quoting from these New Age sources by saying that it was men who decided the canon, therefore, she was not obliged to accept that (Ibid.).

There were regular convocations during the conference to the goddess Sophia, the source of everyone's divinity, the creator god who dwells within all, instead of God the Father (Ibid.).

The culmination of the conference was an obvious substitution for the Lord's Supper or Communion. In a ritual called "Milk and Honey" participants were asked to pray that oppression of women would cease and a new religion would emerge replacing the old patriarchal Christianity. The chant was repeated, "Our Maker Sophia, we are women in your image, with the hot blood of our wombs we give form to new life; with nectar between our thighs we invite a lover; with our warm body fluids we remind the world of its pleasure and sensations" (Ibid.).

The Body of Christ Responds

As news of the conference began to reach the local church level, reaction ranged from concern to outrage. By April, PCUSA headquarters had received well over 8,000 individual letters and calls as well as notifications of possible withholding of budget funds from 185 congregations. Projected budget shortfall was estimated at $3 million. The United Methodist church officials had received more than 1,000 protests (Christianity Today, 4 April 1994, p. 74; World, 7 May 1994, p. 28).

These figures had grown by June to 520 PCUSA churches protesting the conference and a new estimated shortfall of between $8-12 million (Washington Post, 4 June 1994, p. C8).

A number of retired United Methodist bishops expressed anger. Earl Hunt stated "no comparable heresy has appeared in the church in the last 15 centuries". Mack Stokes added that the conference was "theologically ignorant, ontologically superstitious, Christologically blasphemous [and] ecclesiastically irresponsible" (Christianity Today 4 April 1994, p. 74).

Even top leaders of the liberal American Baptist Churches agreed that some aspects of the conference were inconsistent with historical Christianity. In a prepared statement which supported the "positive empowerment of women", it went on to "emphatically go on record affirming our commitment to the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and to express our conviction that salvation is in no one else" (Religious News Service, 16 March 1994).

Damage Control

The hierarchies of the denominations as well as conference organizers began to respond to a range of charges and demands for apology, discipline, or excommunication of the organizers and participants.

The PCUSA Theology and Worship Office issued a "theological appraisal" which took strong exception to a number of activities at the conference, especially the invocations of Sophia, which amounted to "an alternative employed in distinction form the Triune God" (Religious News Service, 25 February 1994).

Yet when the PCUSA General Assembly council met, they issued a 6-page statement which stated that no violations of church policy occurred and no discipline would be taken. The council especially defended associate director Mary Ann Lundy, who was a main planner of the event, from continual protests and calls for her dismissal (Ibid.). Mrs. Lundy has since resigned as associate director of churchwide planning, claiming that "circumstances have made her goal of effective service to the church unattainable" (Washington Post).

In a statement supporting the Re-imagining conference, leaders of the another ecumenical organization, Church Women United, said they uphold "the absolute right of women to develop theological understandings rooted in their own realities and experiences" (Christianity Today, 4 April 1994, p. 74, emphasis mine).

The United Methodist commission on the Statue and Role of Women responded to criticism writing, "It saddens those of us who rejoice in the diverse expressions of faith, culture, and God when other voices misunderstand and misrepresent such a unifying gathering" (World, 26 March 1994, p. 29).

It is not those who protest this event that misunderstand. What is truly sad is that a significant number of the leadership of these denominations have lost touch with the "faith once and for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 3).

To emphasize this point, observe what United Methodist clergywoman Rev. Kathi Austin Mahle, one of the conference organizers, had to say in response to the complaints, "We wanted speakers who were doing cutting-edge theology [the meeting] was definitely in a Christian context we wanted to set it within a Biblical context, both the Old and New Testament" (Birmingham News, 2 June 1994).

The conference was not consistant, historically or doctrinally, with anything done in the name of Christ for 2,000 years of church history. If they were at all consistant, the conference orgainizers were cosistant with what they have learned from their liberal and neo-orthodox tutors who first challenged the hisorisity, inspirition, infallibility, or accuracy of the biblical record.

This camp postulates a "Christianity" that is void of absolutes and simply evolves to reflect the changing views of culture. Christianity's true uniqueness is found in its historic insistance that the trancenent and eternal God became man in the person of Christ Jesus who singularly atoned for the sins of the world as faithfully and accurately recorded in the Bible. If the Bible is not accurate, then it should not be authoritative. If the Bible is not authoritive, then humans must look within to find truth. Such a journey always "discovers" a god made in the image of the seeker. This is the epitome of idolatry (Romans 1:18-28).

Participants in this confernce represent denominiations that have historically stood on the priniciples biblical orthodoxy. But they have abandoned the essential truths that their denominations have stood for and lost touch with Christians in the pew who hold to biblical orthodoxy. What is truly amazing is how quickly scholars and leaders in major denominations can fall from from orthodoxy to paganizm. What begins with questioning the accuracy of the Bible and ends with goddess worship is a short trip down a slippery slope.

Now perhaps Christians are beginning to see the inevitable and predictable effects of such a hermeneutic. If the Church and Scripture doesn't challenge the culture, shape it, and call it to repent, then culture will continue its course in moral decay and retreat into paganism.