LWF Gender Justice Policy: Tool for ongoing reformation of Lutheran theology on women in the Malagasy Lutheran Church (MLC)

Abstract

God created human beings in his image. Unfortunately, the fallen humanity broken its original relationship to God, destroyed its rapport to each other and failed to take care of the creation. However, the salvation work of Christ in the cross only restored the human dignity and restored these damaged connections. Thus, the new children of God testimony the renewal work of Christ, by continuing Christ’s salvation work through respecting God and valuing each other. The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) Gender Justice Policy (GJP) is a tool to accompany its member churches to respect the equality of women and men. As a communion of churches in the Lutheran tradition, the LWF take for granted the "sola scriptura" as "norma normans" and the "solus Christus" as "hermeneutical key”. With the diverse interpretations of Martin Luther and his follower’s theology on women, the LWF conducted a critical study of biblical texts to re-affirm the equality of all human beings. It is using the contextual approach as a tool to interpret and implement in its churches different contexts the ten principles and the methodologies of its policy. Offered as a tool to advocate and encourage equal participation of men and women, both in the church and in the society, the LWF GJP was translated in many local languages. The Malagasy Lutheran Church (MLC) is in its final process of translation and publication of the document. Right interpretation of the biblical foundations of equality of human beings and correct use of the hermeneutical tools for the implementations are provided by this paper. They result from the study of the LWF GJP document. The implementation is improved by the learning from the effective employment of the GJP in the other LWF member churches.