Newsletter of the Asian Women's Resource Centre for Culture and Theology
Vol. 12, No. 1, April 2007

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AWRC holds committee meetings

The Asian Women’s Resource Centre for Culture and Theology (AWRC) held a series of meetings in Janda Baik, Malaysia from 28 January to 4 February. The meetings included the Coordinating Team Members (CTM), the Editorial Advisory Committee (EAC) of In God’s Image, and the Planning Team (PT) for the Modules on Asian Feminist Theologies project.

Although time was given for the three groups to meet separately, the three met jointly for some decisions at parts of the CTM meeting.

The Editorial Advisory Committee of IGI heard the reports of the Publications Secretary and Publications Assistant, agreed to the revised subscription rates, discussed the IGI & AWRC anniversary issue, and planned the themes for future issues of IGI.

The Coordinating Team Members heard the Coordinator’s report and reports from various Feminist Theology workshops held in 2004, 2005 and 2006, as well as the summary report from the Planning Team.

The Planning Team reviewed the second module and planned the third and fourth modules.

The following are some decisions made by the AWRC CTM.

(1)  Young women’s program

The Coordinating Team Members of the Asian Women’s Resource Centre affirmed the plan of the Young Women Doing Theology planning group to hold its second program in August 2007 in Taiwan.

The focus/theme of this program is “Life Stories in the Tension Between Power and Empowerment” and the objectives are:

To create and develop young women leadership in the AWRC membership.

To encourage and sustain young women leadership in the efforts towards doing feminist theologies in Asia.

To create critical feminist consciousness through a praxis of critical feminist theology of liberation among the young women leadership group and network.

To promote and continue the need for a critical feminist reading and interpretation of the Bible.

To use the “Dance of liberation and transformation” to reflect critically on our lives for liberation and transformation.

This is the second in the series of 2 workshops, which began in 2005-2006 when the network was formed. The participants are in a way their own resource persons and they have invited Lieve Troch to be the facilitator in their program process. The expected participants are 30.

(2)  CTM Elections

The Coordinating Team Members decided to call for nomination for some positions of members whose terms have expired, which will then be followed by a postal ballot election of new CT members. Nominations will be called for all the sub-regions.

In relation to elections, the CTM decided that current members would continue to serve until after the elections. Doreen Teo’s term as Local representative was renewed up to the time Ting Jin completes her term as AWRC Coordinator.

The CTM also renewed Chung Sook Ja’s term as co-opted member for 2 more years and extended Malini Devananda’s term from February 2007 to January 2009.

(3)  Position of AWRC Coordinator

AWRC is calling for applications for the position of Coordinator.

The CTM accepted with regret Yong Ting Jin’s notice to complete her term as AWRC Coordinator with no more renewal. With Ting Jin’s agreement, the CTM decided to extend her time until the new Coordinator has been appointed and can start to assume the responsibilities of Coordinator by August 2008 (actual date is negotiable).

The CTM also decided to announce the search for the new Coordinator through womenet and the AWRC website to ensure that the process is open and transparent and to encourage qualified applicants to apply. The job description and selection criteria are available on request from Hisako Kinukawa (hkinukawa@nifty.com), a Coordinating Team member. Interested applicants may apply through email by sending a letter of application and updated curriculum vitae to Hisako at the above email address. The closing date for applications is 31 July 2007.

(4)  Revised Membership Zones and Fees

A proposal was put forward to revise overall membership fees and also re-zone members in Zone A. Membership fees were revised in view of the increase in postage costs. This increase came with the reclassification to align Malaysian postage charges with international rates in 2005.

Members in Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan are grouped into one zone while those in Japan, Australia and New Zealand into another zone. This is because the Malaysian postal system charges a higher rate for mail to Japan, Australia and New Zealand. Also, taking into consideration members earning in stronger currencies, Diaspora is further separated into those living/working in countries outside Asia and those doing regional work.

The CTM endorsed the proposal to revise the geographical zoning and agreed to the revised fees (in US$) as follows:

Zone A: Diaspora – living/working in countries outside Asia temporarily

Zone B: Diaspora – regional work

Zone C: Australia, Japan, New Zealand

Zone D: Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan

Zone E: Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand

Zone F: Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka

Zone G: Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Vietnam

Membership Categories and Revised Fees

This revision takes effect from 2007. Dues that have been received in advance are not affected by this revision. This means that those who have already paid their dues for 2007 and 2008 will only pay based on this revised fee from 2009.

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IGI Subscription Rates Revised

Subscription rates for In God’s Image are also revised due primarily to the reclassification of postage charges in Malaysia in 2005, which brought about a substantial increase in our postage costs, and also rising production costs.

The new rates, effective from 2007, Vol. 26 are as follows:

Subscriptions that we have received in advance are not affected by this revision. This means that those who have already paid their subscriptions for 2007, 2008 and 2009 will only pay based on this revised rate from 2010.

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2nd AFT module on ‘HerStory’

The second book in a series of Modules on Asian Feminist Theologies (AFT), a project of AWRC, is with the printers and will be ready for distribution very soon. The book is entitled, “Telling Herstory: Introduction to an Asian Feminist Re-reading of History.”

The process of developing this module began with a workshop in January 2006 that included an overview of history, an attempt at a historical reconstruction of early Christian origins, and a critique and reconstruction of early Christian history – all from an Asian feminist perspective.

The process of reconstructing herstory involves one’s own stories and finding connections with other women’s stories. This component will be highlighted in the module.

Feminist theological and historical reconstruction of women in early Christianity will feature inputs by resource persons in the January 2006 workshop. Topics include: “Asian Feminist Perspective: An Overview” (by Virginia Fabella); “Women’s Leadership and Authority in Pauline Christianity” (by Hyunju Bae); “The Typology of Women’s Leadership in Early Christianity” (by Hyunju Bae); “The Nag Hammadi Codices, the Gospel of Mary and Other Gnostic Documents” (by Hisako Kinukawa); and “Women’s Discipleship and Leadership in Jesus’ Movement: An Asian Feminist Theological Reconstruction” (Pauline Chakkalakal).

Two other components are part of the book as a result of the workshop: a module on “My Story, Our Stories” by Jessica Richard and a reflection on the workshop materials and processes by Jen-Wen Wang, now entitled “Tracing the Way of Our Foresisters

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Plans for 3rd and 4th AFT modules

The Planning Team (PT) affirmed the importance of the third book in the modules project – “Women and Religions” – with Asia being a multireligious context. However, unlike the two earlier books that came out as a result of workshops, the writing of the third book will involve inviting prospective feminist writers from the major faith communities to write about women from their religious perspectives.

Expected contents of the book are women’s perspectives from Buddhism (Mahayana and Theravada), Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, and possibly Confucianism. A perspective from Tribal religions was also being considered if contact could be made with some women practicing such religions.

Through personal contact, some members of the PT will meet with some prospective writers from the different religions to invite them to write from their respective religious perspective, and to do follow-up work.

The PT has re-set the date for publication of the third book of modules in March 2008 and the deadline for submission of articles in September 2007.

Meanwhile, the PT discussed the plans for the fourth book on “An Alternative Feminist Ekklesia and Leadership for Asia”. Identified as important parts of the book are feminist views of Church/Ekklesia and feminist leadership. Components will include re-reading of scripture, texts of the church, worship, liturgy, creeds, church traditions, authority and power – and how these need to be reconstructed and critiqued to come up with feminist styles or models.

For this fourth book, the PT felt that another workshop is needed to bring together women to share reflections, experiences and visions on feminist models of Ekklesia and leadership prior to the production of this book.

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Materials on womenet may be quoted and copied provided that womenet is acknowledged as source. Printed copies of womenet are available on request from the AWRC Office.