RELIGION / JOHN DART : Criticism for Conference Lingers : Presbyterians: At least four congregations will call for sanctions against denominational leaders who attended the November meeting.

An ecumenical women’s conference--whose worship included invoking a feminine name for the biblical Wisdom of God and conducting a milk-and-honey ritual--has sent tremors along the ideological fault lines that run through the Presbyterian and United Methodist denominations nationwide.

Although the controversial conference occurred last November in Minneapolis, aftershocks have continued ever since with heated charges of blasphemy and heresy by conservative groups. Critics called the meeting a “celebration of lesbianism” and objected to graphic descriptions of bodily fluids--including blood and breast milk--in one ritual.

Participants claim, in their equally fervent defenses, that Sophia , the feminine name in Greek for the Wisdom of God, was not presented as a goddess figure, that the milk-and-honey rite was not a mock Communion service and that no one participating was obliged to agree with unorthodox theology or individual statements.

Yet another tremor will be felt in the San Fernando Valley on April 5, when at least four Presbyterian congregations will submit a resolution for debate by the regional church body, the Presbytery of San Fernando, decrying the “Re-imagining 1993” ecumenical conference and calling for sanctions against denominational leaders who attended.

The four initial sponsors of the resolution are Glendale Presbyterian, Canoga Park Presbyterian, Bethany Presbyterian in Burbank and Palmdale First Presbyterian.

“Our congregation feels there is a theological drift in the denomination and that this whole controversy touches on the radical feminist agenda,” said the Rev. Darrell Johnson, senior pastor of Glendale Presbyterian. He plans to preach on the issue Sunday morning at the 1,100-member church.

An associate pastor at Glendale Presbyterian, the Rev. Marsha Roth, added in a separate interview: “This is a very teachable moment for the church to understand what we believe and what is at stake. Without shared doctrine and standards there is no common life of service.”

However, Presbyterian laywoman Joyce Ride, a conference participant from Encino, said she took notes at the Minneapolis conference and said she believes the ruckus is largely over statements taken out of context.

“While there were some comments that would be alarming, particularly to very conservative and not particularly theologically literate people, there were also some very profound and thought-provoking presentations,” Ride said.

“We went not being afraid of controversial statements because intelligent people can take them or leave them,” she said.

The comments most cited by critics came from the Rev. Delores Williams, an associate professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York, who questioned the usefulness of the central Christian doctrine of atonement: that Jesus died on the cross to pay for the sins of humanity.

In excerpts quoted by a conservative Methodist magazine, Good News, Williams said:

“I don’t think we need a theory of atonement at all. I think Jesus came for life and to show us something about life and living together and what life was all about. Atonement has to do so much . . . I don’t think we need folks hanging on crosses and blood dripping and weird stuff. . . . Is the image of the cross still a powerful, workable image for the churches and women today? . . . I think the cross ought to be interpreted for what it was; it was a symbol of evil. I mean it is the murder of this man, of an innocent man, a victim.”

A United Methodist participant, the Rev. Nan Self, pastor of University Church in Redlands, said that reports of the meeting in church publications and the secular press selected inflammatory quotes from the plenary speakers but reflected none of the small-group discussions that took place.

“The primary work of the conference was at tables of 10 people each as these groups struggled with, and even refuted sometimes, things said on the platform,” said Self.

“Some of the liturgy (ritual) was not entirely comfortable for me, but it was nothing so heinous as to be heresy,” said Self, an official for 18 years on the United Methodist Commission on the Status and Role of Women.

“I’m deeply grieved that conservatives are using the conference as a rallying cry to energize the fearful in their denominations,” Self said.

Part of the controversy was fueled by the fact that Presbyterian and United Methodist denominational funds supported the meeting, which was co-sponsored by four Minneapolis-St. Paul area church councils in an observance of the World Council of Churches’ “Ecumenical Decade: Churches in Solidarity with Women.”

The largest contribution to the conference was $66,000 from a Presbyterian fund which paid transportation costs for about 20 international speakers and participants. The women’s division of the United Methodist Church paid $22,000 in registration fees and travel expenses for 56 officials and staff workers in the denomination.

More than 2,200 persons attended--mostly women, and nearly half either Presbyterians or Methodists.

In February, the General Assembly Council, the Presbyterians’ highest policy-making body between annual conventions, declared that no violations of church policy occurred but that a review of guidelines and denomination fund allocations would be made. The council declined to take action on a proposal to review the job performance of Mary Jane Lundy, a Presbyterian official who served as liaison to the conference. Lundy has been the primary target of critics.

A resolution to disavow the conference, submitted to the Presbytery of San Fernando, will not be considered at the San Fernando body’s regular meeting Tuesday in Encino because it arrived too late, said the Rev. Bob Fernandez, the presbytery’s top administrator. “We will call for a special meeting on April 5,” he said.

If adopted, the resolution, identical to one submitted to the Santa Barbara Presbytery, would be passed along to the denomination’s annual General Assembly for further consideration.

“It seems to me that even in an ecumenical setting,” said Pastor Johnson of Glendale Presbyterian, “you have to remain faithful to the center of the faith and that is Jesus himself. The leadership of the church has moved way beyond that in this conference.”

In contrast, participant Self, who is 65, said the conference “was the most caring, undergirding and nurturing of any that I’ve ever attended.”