Sev­eral times at one of my Women’s Lis­ten­ing Par­ties the­o­log­i­cal con­cepts have been brought up. I noticed that women hung on to the edge of their seats as they learned that the Bible is actu­ally brim­ming with the­o­log­i­cal mes­sag­ing that affirms a woman’s full per­son­hood. The Word of God appar­ently is not sex­ist after all!

So a few months ago I began think­ing about pulling together a Wom­ens The­ol­ogy Camp, a con­cen­trated time together of women learn­ing about a the­ol­ogy for them­selves from other women.  My first one, hosted coin­ci­den­tally dur­ing a Super moon cycle on Sat­ur­day night, went way beyond my expec­ta­tions.  My new friend, Diana Det­twyler, who is a pro­fes­sional pho­tog­ra­pher, brought her cam­era and cap­tured some images from the evening. Also, my friend Sarah Mor­ri­gan LIVE tweeted the Wom­ens The­ol­ogy Camp and even sto­ry­i­fied it. You can access her won­der­ful cap­ture of the evening by click­ing HERE. 

About 30 women gath­ered at Arbor Lodge Cof­fee House for an evening of the­ol­ogy and discussion.

I was grate­ful for the eclec­tic group of women who came together, and on a Sat­ur­day night! We had women dri­ving in from com­mu­ni­ties 2 – 3 hours away. I loved it! Most women I knew from my cir­cle of social con­tacts, and also my reg­u­lars who come to my Wom­ens Lis­ten­ing Par­ties.
There were also a num­ber of new women whom I’d never met before who joined us.

Jodi Hansen taught us Induc­tive Bible Study meth­ods. Does the Bible really say that, she wanted us to ask.

Deb­o­rah Loyd, a pro­fes­sor at George Fox Sem­i­nary, showed us how the Bible is full of fem­i­nine imagery of God. We just need to know how to look for it.

I had an amaz­ing time facil­i­tat­ing such a rich time of study and dis­cus­sion. What we believe mat­ters. It shapes our think­ing and our actions. The­ol­ogy matters.

Women were there to soak it all up and to also con­tribute to the lively dis­cus­sions that fol­lowed each session.

I was thrilled with how atten­tive the group remained and how engaged in the dis­cus­sion times fol­low­ing each teach­ing session.

Strong, intel­li­gent savvy women felt the spirit of lib­er­a­tion the entire evening. Women are not meant to be the sub­or­di­nate gen­der. We belong along side our brothers.

My friend Mimi Schaper brought it all home for us by lead­ing us in a time of song and reflec­tion at the end of the evening. “Oh sis­ters, let’s go down, down to the river to pray.…”

An amaz­ing, sat­is­fy­ing evening of the­ol­ogy, fel­low­ship and encouragement!

One of the pri­mary rea­sons I orga­nized the Wom­ens’ The­ol­ogy Camp was to address the the­o­log­i­cal bar­ri­ers women face when deter­min­ing how to address inequal­ity. When we believe the Bible is the word of God and we are taught that it teaches “woman sub­mit to man’s author­ity,” then it can be prob­lem­atic for a woman of faith to resist oppres­sion to her per­son. She has been taught that inequal­ity is nor­mal, that it’s not even oppres­sive gen­der inequal­ity but it is the “cre­ated divine order.” Women strug­gle with how to cope with the ten­sion of this mis­match when their the­ol­ogy no longer matches their con­science. Yet most women do not know how to the­o­log­i­cally address these ten­sions. This can result in a sense of res­ig­na­tion, a kind of “let’s just go along to get along” men­tal­ity due to the fog­gi­ness from a lack of the­o­log­i­cal under­stand­ing. But when women began to dis­cover that the Bible is a book that is pro-​​woman and pro-​​equality, it can be free­ing on many lev­els to their being.

It was a won­der­ful gath­er­ing. I am espe­cially grate­ful to Arbor Lodge Cof­fee for gen­er­ously host­ing our Wom­ens’ The­ol­ogy Camp.

We’ll do it again in the fall!!!!!