Race & Gender Webinar, March 13. Join us!

Members of the Women in Leadership Project Steering Committee–Regina Shands Stoltzfus, Linda Gehman Peachey, and myself (Joanna Shenk) will be presenting a webinar via Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS) on Wednesday, March 13 at 2:00pm. We’d love to have you join us for the conversation!

We’ll begin by helping participants think about their social location and how they experience the intersection of race and gender in the church. Then we’ll take a historical looks at the conversation. It’s been around for awhile!

And, indeed it must be said that this isn’t merely a conversation, this is a reality. Sadly some of us have been conditioned to deny it. I reflected on this in a recent blog post.

We’ll merely jump back to the late 1700s to start. With that overview, we’ll hone in on the Mennonite tradition–where has the conversation been happening and where isn’t it happening? We’ll be interested to hear from you about that too.

Next we’ll talk about the systemic reality of racism and sexism and how they work together to silence and divide us. Our input will both name the challenges and benefits of recognizing and transforming these systems.

We’ll end with ways to get involved and initiate/continue to the conversation in your context! Like I said, we’d love to have you join us!

And here are the specifics from AMBS:

Women Leaders Engaging Race and Gender in the Church

March 13 — 2–3:30 p.m. EST

Presenter: Joanna Shenk, M.A., Regina Shands Stoltzfus, M.A. and Linda Gehman Peachey, M.A.

With a wealth of wisdom from their collective experience as church leaders addressing issues of race and gender, presenters Regina Shands Stoltzfus and Linda Gehman Peachy will reflect on current expressions of patriarchy and racism in the church. This will be an opportunity to learn about signs of hope, areas of continued concern, and the ways in which these two systems of oppression intersect, reinforce, and compete with each other in our daily living. Participants in this webinar will come away with both a greater awareness of the challenges facing the church as we continue to work at dismantling systems of racism and patriarchy in our midst, and several next steps they can take in their own setting toward transformation.