I was surprised and excited when I opened the letter delivered by Canada Post. It was an official invitation to a theological conference at a Mennonite church college. I was a doctoral student in theology at the time, and they wanted me to respond to an academic paper.
When I arrived at the conference, I started getting anxious. The participants were almost all professors; some of them had taught me, I had read books by others. Would my response to the paper be adequate? Would I fit in with any of these men?
I recall there being two other women on the program, also doctoral students. This was the late 1980s, and we were among the first Canadian
Mennonite women studying theology at a doctoral level. There were a few women in the audience, mostly spouses of the presenters.
Each presenter read their paper out loud for 30 minutes, two invited respondents were given ten minutes to speak, and then there was 25 minutes for discussion. We did that six times.
I left the conference feeling pretty empty. For me the event was a huge disappointment. It seemed dry and disconnected from the life of the church. Our interactions were so formal and limited. I didn’t get much response to my response, and the networking that I had hoped would happen somehow didn’t. “Is this what doing theology is like?” I wondered.
I left there asking, “How do we do theology in a way that is more life-giving and engaging?” That was 1989. Now in 2017, that question is still on my mind as I prepare to go to a conference this June on “Anabaptist Theology: Methods and Practices.” The event is sponsored by the Humanitas Anabaptist-Mennonite Centre at Trinity Western University in Langley, BC.
I will be presenting a paper about the practical aspect of how we do theology: is there a feminist way to plan a conference? My paper is titled “Mennonite Women Doing Theology: A Methodological Reflection on Twenty-five Years of Conferences.”
I am researching a series of conferences that took place under the banner “Women Doing Theology”. The conferences happened in 1992, 1994, 1996, 2001, 2003, 2014, and 2016. The first five took place at Mennonite church
colleges around North America; the last two were held at a conference centre in Leesburg, Virginia.
Conrad Grebel University College has a unique connection to this series. Grebel was the location of the first Women Doing Theology conference in 1992, with two faculty members participating in the planning. Four of the conferences have published their papers in The Conrad Grebel Review.
Exploring the content of the papers presented would be fascinating in itself, but for my research, I am focusing on the format of the conferences. How we do theology says something about our theology. The medium is part of the message.
I was, in fact, part of the planning committee for the first conference. Kathy Shantz, Mennonite Central Committee Canada Women’s Concerns staff person approached Conrad Grebel College to co-sponsor this event; Arnold Snyder and John Fast represented the College on the committee. Two doctoral students in theology were invited to participate; I was one, and Lydia Harder was the other. Esther Epp-Tiessen replaced Kathy when she went on a maternity leave.
The purpose of the event was to provide a forum for both women and men to explore women’s voices in theology. We titled the conference “In a Mennonite Voice: Women Doing Theology.”
What would a conference look like where women were not a small minority, but a focus of the event? We had lively discussions about this. The women on the committee were adamant that women doing theology could not just be about academics coming together. Women from many walks of life had theological insights and we wanted to hear from them too.
We wanted an emphasis on praxis, the living out of theology. At this first conference, some of the presenters had doctoral degrees, others were social workers, writers, mission workers, educators, and mothers. I remember we consciously tried to be diverse, inviting women from different racial backgrounds, different branches of the Mennonite family, and from different geographical areas in Canada and the United States.
As we discussed methods of interaction, we felt that reading papers to each other was dry and boring. We wanted to devote as much time as possible to personal interactions. We decided that written materials would be published ahead of time, and we assumed that people would have read them before they arrived. This would allow more time for conversations.
To encourage networking, we put attendees into small groups to process the plenary discussions. We made the groups diverse, putting people from different backgrounds, ages, and geographical areas together. On the registration form you could choose whether to be in an all female or a mixed gender group.
Another important component of the gathering was worship. People coming to talk about theology were people of faith, and so it seemed natural to us to provide the option of worshipping together. This was a break from traditional theology conferences, that assume if you are debating academic topics, worship will take away from that main focus. At the first Women Doing Theology conference there was lively singing, drama was incorporated into worship, and attention paid to visuals as well.
The conference was fascinating. I remember it as a vibrant and exciting event where I met women there who have become very important in my life. There were approximately 140 participants and over a quarter of them were American. Nine men registered.
At the close of this first conference, we issued an open invitation, “Would someone else like to plan another Women doing Theology conference in the future?” This invitational pattern continued for most of the gatherings; sometimes it was followed up directly, sometimes it took several years for a conference to emerge.
I personally attended three of the seven conferences. My research for this paper has involved contacting the institutions that hosted each of the events, the archives associated with the institution, and planning committee members. Even though I was on that first planning committee, it was twenty-five years ago, so I was glad to find records in the Mennonite Archives of Ontario.
The Women Doing Theology conferences are so fascinating partly because there has been no central planning. There was no “vision statement,” no institutional oversight, no ongoing planning committee, in fact almost no overlap at all of people who planned or even attended the events. At the end of each one, we had no assurance they would ever happen again.
What characterizes these conferences planned by women? There has always been a mix of women presenting; some were academics, but the rest came from a variety of occupations. There has always been worship and small group discussion. Women Doing Theology has meant that theology is practical: it’s concerned with how theology is lived out.
Diversity of voices is something present from the beginning, and has become increasingly important over time. An example of this is the last conference, which was organized by the Women in Leadership Project of Mennonite Church USA. The planning committee itself diverse. Worship was in English and Spanish; and and white women were not the majority on some of the panels. White privilege in the Mennonite church was something that was openly discussed. Women of colour talked about how even when we try to be inclusive, church conferences do not feel like safe spaces. They named the fact that for some women of colour, it takes a lot of courage to even attend a church conference, let alone speak and share their story.
These are just a few of the things I’ve noticed about the conferences. I look forward to presenting my paper and the discussion that will follow. I am curious about the ratio of women to men at the event I will be attending in June. Who will be given a voice? Who will not be there? How will the way the conference is structured influence our findings about Anabaptist methods and practices?
Perhaps this article has piqued your interest. I hope you will consider attending the next Women Doing Theology event, which will be held in 2018. It would be great to have a larger Canadian delegation present!
