Vol. 26 No. 1, March 2007

In God's Image is an Asian Christian women's effort to provide a forum for expressing our reality, our struggles, our faith reflections and aspirations for change.

Editorial

Sometime in 2004 three young women from the Coordinating Team Members (CTM) of AWRC informally discussed with Coordinator Yong Ting Jin the possibility of bringing together young women of the AWRC network. A proposal was made to the CTM that a series of two workshops to “build and sustain young women leadership within and through AWRC” be initiated. Both workshops were aimed at integrating the young women into the AWRC network. These women were to come from the age range of 25-45; younger (women) senior friends from SCM who seek further space to be involved in; theologically trained women with an aptitude for feminist issues who would like more training; Christian women working with NGOs who are exposed to women’s issues and are seeking further theological training and reflection. A basic briefing about AWRC, its ways of functioning and its programmes, would also be part of the workshop components.

In August 2005 a wider group of young women in the AWRC network met during another AWRC workshop to brainstorm ideas about the purpose and rationale of the workshop series. This growing group developed into a loose network that is now called the ‘Young Women Doing Theology’ (YWDT) Network of AWRC. This group decided to maintain an e-group to “keep in touch and build community”.

The first formal meeting of the YWDT took place in January 2006 for two days in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This being a pre-gathering to the AWRC joint workshop on re-reading history from a feminist perspective, the theme revolved around telling our stories critically and gleaning from them some pointers for re-reading history from a feminist perspective. The young women devised the process of the workshop which was participatory and interactive with group activities and brainstorming. 

Putting out this edition of In God’s Image was part of the group’s decision made at that workshop. Since there are many concerns that we want to voice out in this edition, we decided on a broad and comprehensive theme, “Claiming Our Space: Young Women Doing Theology in Asia”. 

AWRC has been a pioneer in many areas of Asian feminist theologising and practise - be it interfaith dialogue, women’s alternative leadership, or sexuality. It is in keeping with this pioneering tradition that this effort to create a space, voice and support group for young women doing theology in Asia also stands. We in the YWDT are thankful for this space where we can be ourselves, critique ourselves, learn and grow together. The opportunity to get to know more about AWRC and other members, learn and understand the vision and legacy of our foremothers in AWRC is a rare gift that we all treasure. “Roots holding close, Wings set me free, Spirit of Life come to me!” – are words of a song that aptly captures the process we the YWDT are in. 

In this edition of IGI we have shared our efforts to claim our space as young women by telling our stories, trying to critically reflect on them, analysing the contexts we find ourselves in (in society, in the church, and in the women’s movement) and critically re-reading biblical texts and themes for liberation and transformation. The most important thing that we as YWDT of AWRC have learned is that the journey to define and live our feminisms is an ongoing, self-reflexive and evolving one. It is not so much a journey towards some particularized goal, but “the journey is home”. We hope that our efforts to express our journey in this IGI edition will strike a chord in you and you will all catch the pains, the joys and excitement of this journey. 

Coordinators – IGI edition on the YWDT

Acknowledgement

It is with much joy, pride and gratefulness that we are putting out this special edition of In God’s Image consisting of the writings, articulations, stories and reflections of the Young Women Doing Theology network of AWRC. This special edition is a concrete witness to AWRC’s commitment to the empowerment of young and younger women in Asia, thanks to the tireless efforts of our coordinator, Yong Ting Jin. 

We are very grateful to Anna Marsiana, Kajori Biswas and Jessica Richard who agreed to do the task of coordinating this edition collectively. Jessica was kind enough to chase after the younger women, many of whom are busy workers with various NGOs dealing with women and environment in their respective countries. 

To all of you – thank you very much for entrusting your stories with us. May your stories inspire more young women to come out and claim the gift of God’s image that is already within them but which is often distorted and violated by patriarchal mindset, structures and systems.

Publications Secretary

If articles listed in the table of contents interests you, and you would like to have a copy of this journal, please write to igi@awrc4ct.org.