Home > About EEWC-CFT

About EEWC-Christian Feminism Today

The Evangelical & Ecumenical Women’s Caucus (also known by its “doing business as” name, Christian Feminism Today, or EEWC-CFT) is a Christian feminist organization with a long history of working for gender equality. EEWC welcomes members of any gender, race, ethnicity, color, creed, marital status, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, age, political party, parental status, economic class, or disability. Our biennial conferences sustain our spiritual connectedness and foster our learning about critical Christian feminist issues. The Christian Feminism Today website provides Christian feminist news, articles, book reviews, blogs, Bible study, audio, links to explore, and inspiration. EEWC members network with and support each other through local chapters, regional events, and the Internet.

 

  •  

    Mission

    We support, educate, and celebrate Christian feminists from many traditions

    Purpose

    • to encourage and advocate the use of women’s gifts in all forms of Christian vocation.
    • to provide educational opportunities for Christian feminists to grow in their belief and understanding.
    • to promote networking and mutual encouragement within the Christian community.

    Statement of Faith

    We believe God is the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer of all.

    We believe God created all people in the divine image for relationship with God and one another.

    We further believe our relationship with God was shattered by sin with a consequent disruption of all other relationships.

    We believe God in love has made possible a new beginning through the incarnation in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who was and is truly divine and truly human.

    We believe the Bible is the Word of God, inspired by the Holy Spirit, and is a central guide and authority for Christian faith and life.

    We believe the church is a community of people who have been divinely called to do God’s will, exercising their gifts responsibly in church, home, and society, and looking forward to God’s new creation.

  •  

    Who We Are

    We Are Christian Feminists
    • EEWC affirms that the Bible supports the equality of the sexes.
    • We believe that our society and churches have irresponsibly encouraged men to domination and women to passivity.
    • We proclaim God’s redemptive word on mutuality and active discipleship.
    • We value inclusive images and language for God.
    • We advocate ordination of women and full expression of women’s leadership and spiritual gifts.
    We Are Inclusive
    • EEWC is evangelical because our formation was rooted in the belief that the Gospel is good news for all persons.
    • EEWC is ecumenical because we recognize that faith is expressed through a rich diversity of traditions and forms of spirituality.
    • We offer a community of safety for all who have experienced abuse, marginalization, or exclusion by Christian churches.
    • We have discovered that the expansiveness of God calls us to be an inclusive community.
    We Welcome You

     

    Our Council

    2013 Officers

    Barbara Crews (Co-coordinator)
    Indianapolis, Indiana
    Representative, Indiana Chapter

    Kendra Weddle Irons (Co-coordinator)
    Irving, Texas
    Representative, Southwest Region

    Becky Bender  (Treasurer)
    Indianapolis, Indiana
    Representative, Midwest Region

    Becky Kiser  (Secretary)
    West Plains, Missouri
    Representative, Midwest Region 

    Representatives in Addition to the Officers Listed Above

    Southeast Region 
    Jan Clark
    Pittsboro, North Carolina 

    Northeast Region 
    Linda Brebner
    Rochester, New York

    Northwest Region 
    Melanie Springer Mock
    Newberg, Oregon 

    Southwest Region
    Jann Aldredge-Clanton
    Dallas, Texas 

    Southern California Chapter
    Karen Kidd
    Claremont, California

    Serving EEWC as Independent Contractors and Volunteers

    Letha Dawson Scanzoni
    Norfolk, Virginia
    Website Content Manager

    Marg Herder
    email: 
    Indianapolis, Indiana
    Central Office Manager and Website Developer

    Kendra Weddle Irons
    Irving, Texas
    Book Review Acquisitions (volunteer)

    Susan Garrison
    Media, Pennsylvania
    Archivist (volunteer)

  •  

    Our Origin

    In 1973, a group of socially concerned Christians, later known as Evangelicals for Social Action (ESA), met in Chicago and drafted the Chicago Declaration as the basis for their organization. Among the participants were a few women who were concerned about the inferior status of women in Church and society and who called upon the group to consider issues related to sexism from a Christian perspective.

    At ESA’s second consultation in 1974 the women’s caucus was one of six task forces or caucuses formed by ESA participants to study such concerns as racism, sexism, peace, and simpler lifestyles. Thus our group was born as the Evangelical Women’s Caucus (EWC). The EWC group presented proposals to Evangelicals for Social Action on a variety of topics including endorsement of the Equal Rights Amendment, support for inclusive language in Bible translation and Christian publications, affirmation of the ordination of women, and criticism of discriminatory hiring policies in Christian institutions.

    The first national EWC conference, held in 1975 in Washington, D.C., addressed “Women in Transition: A Biblical Approach to Feminism.” The conference attracted more than 360 women from 36 of the 50 United States and from Canada. Since that time, we have held international conferences in Pasadena, California; Grand Rapids, Michigan; Saratoga Springs, New York; Seattle, Washington; Wellesley, Massachusetts; Fresno, California; Chicago, Illinois; San Francisco, California; Norfolk, Virginia; Indianapolis, Indiana; Claremont, California; Charlotte, North Carolina; and, most recently, Indianapolis, Indiana, June 18-20, 2010, where we had also held two earlier conferences (2002 and 2008).

    In 1990, in order to reflect the increasingly inclusive nature and the many traditions of our membership, we officially changed our name to Evangelical & Ecumenical Women’s Caucus (EEWC).

    In 1994, we celebrated our twentieth anniversary at our biennial international conference in Chicago, Illinois. Our twenty-fifth anniversary was also celebrated at North Park University in Chicago, Illinois, on July 27-30, 2000. The theme was “Your Daughters Shall Prophesy and You Shall Be My Witnesses.” In June, 2004, we held our thirtieth anniversary conference at Scripps College in Claremont, California on the theme, “Where Wisdom Calls: Crossroads and Open Gates.”

  •  

    Our Name

    • We call ourselves Evangelical (from the Greek word euangelion, which refers to “proclaiming good news”) because we believe that the Gospel is good news for all people.
    • We call ourselves Ecumenical because we recognize that the Christian faith is expressed through a rich diversity of traditions.
    • We call ourselves a Women’s caucus, because we are committed to the work of achieving full equality for women in the home, the Church, and the world. Our male members work with us toward that end.
    • We call ourselves Caucus to reflect our 1974 origin as one of the various caucuses of an early meeting of Evangelicals for Social Action.

    You many have noticed that since late 2009, our organization has become increasingly associated with the title of our magazine, Christian Feminism Today; and although our legal name continues to be the Evangelical & Ecumenical Women’s Caucus (the name under which we are incorporated as a tax-exempt nonprofit organization), we’re also called by our “nickname” or our “doing-business-as” name and are thus referred to as the Christian Feminism Today group, or more accurately EEWC-Christian Feminism Today, as voted by the Council at their annual meeting in June, 2009. Readers of Christian Feminism Today magazine and viewers of this website have probably noticed that we have been increasingly using the abbreviation, EEWC-CFT in referring to our organization.