The Evangelical and Ecumenical Women’s Caucus (EEWC) is a group of Christian feminists organized in 1973. It was originally named the "Evangelical Women's Caucus" (EWC) because it began as a caucus within Evangelicals for Social Action, which had issued the "Chicago Declaration." Its mission is to "support, education, and celebrate Christian feminists from many traditions." It favored passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, encourages the ordination of women, and has called for gender inclusive language in all communications. "Ecumenical" was added to the organization's name in 1990 in order to make it clear that members from all faiths are welcome.
In 1986 EWC passed a resolution stating: "Whereas homosexual people are children of God, and because of the biblical mandate of Jesus Christ that we are all created equal in God's sight, and in recognition of the presence of the lesbian minority in EWCI, EWCI takes a firm stand in favor of civil rights protection for homosexual persons." This resolution led a group of more conservative members to form Christians for Biblical Equality.
EEWC maintains a website at www.eewc.com and publishes a quarterly journal Christian Feminism Today, edited by Letha Dawson Scanzoni, co-author of All We're Meant to Be (1975, 1992), Is the Homosexual My Neighbor?(1978, 1994), and What God Has Joined Together? The Christian Case of Gay Marriage (2005). Frequent contributors include Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, author of Women, Men, and the Bible (1977), Omnigender (2007), Sensuous Spirituality (2008), and co-author of Is the Homosexual My Neighbor? (1978, 1994); Anne Eggebroten, blogger and author of Abortion: My Choice, God's Grace: Christian Women Tell Their Stories (1994); and Nancy A. Hardesty, co-author of All We're Meant to Be, and author of Women Called to Witness: Evangelical Feminism in the Age of Finney (197 ), Inclusive Language in the Church (1987), and Faith Cure: Divine Healing in the Holiness and Pentecostal Traditions (2003).
EEWC holds biannual conferences that include lectures, music, workshops, and worship. The 2010 Gathering was held in July in Indianapolis, IN.
Famous quotes containing the words evangelical, ecumenical and/or women:
“Chastity is a monkish and evangelical superstition, a greater foe to natural temperance even than unintellectual sensuality.”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
“Were it possible so to accelerate the intercourse between every part of the globe that all its inhabitants could be united under the superintending authority of an ecumenical Council, how great a portion of human evils would be avoided.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“It is the women of Europe who pay the price while war rages, and it will be the women who will pay again when war has run its bloody course and Europe sinks down into the slough of poverty like a harried beast too spent to wage the fight. It will be the sonless mothers who will bend their shoulders to the plough and wield in age-palsied hands the reaphook.”
—Kate Richards O’Hare (1877–1948)