Feminism and Religion

Pretzels: The cruelty behind patriarchal women in positions of power by Sara Wright

” I would say it’s not just patriarchal men in power. The patriarchal women in power are doing plenty of damage as well. The cruel choices are deliberate and to see the pretzels they turn themselves into to justify the cruelty is a sight to behold.”
Janet Rudolph

During the last year I have been repeatedly betrayed by women. In retrospect my mother initiated me into woman betrayal by terrorizing a sensitive little girl by threatening to send her away if she wasn’t ‘good’. My terror of all women and my mother’s skepticism/dismissal of my grandmother as an ‘old woman’ whose opinions didn’t matter eroded my relationship with my grandmother that followed me into adulthood with catastrophic effects.

My fear kept me separate from the comfort of developing friendships with any woman until I became a feminist (yet I felt like an orphan when my grandmother died so my love for her survived).

I came to feminism through the back door through my love for Nature, the only real mother I have ever known. My love for animals, plants, trees, did their best to sustain me although I was very lonely. It is important to acknowledge that I also chose to be alone because I seemed to have so little in common with women in general (my 50 percent).

The Legacy of Carol P. Christ: Belonging to the Land

This was originally posted on November 17, 2014

I believe that we can restore our hope in a world that transcends race by building communities where self-esteem comes from not feeling superior to any group, but from one’s relationship to the land, to the people, to the place, wherever that may be.—bell hooks

In these words from her poignant memoir-reflection-analysis Belonging, bell hooks suggests that rather than creating identity by comparing ourselves to others, whether in the academy, in communities, or in the larger society, we would do better to root our identity in the land.

Hooks “left home” in rural Appalachia in order to pursue “higher” (why do we call it that?) education including a Ph.D. which enabled her to teach at prestigious universities in the urban north. Despite her considerable success as an academic and a black feminist, hooks suffered persistent depression in the cities where she taught. Eventually she diagnosed her dis-ease as a longing for the home she had left behind, specifically as a need to connect with the traditions of her ancestors, the mountains, and the land that had sustained them since the end of slavery.

Hooks asks if one of the reasons that so many black people have failed to thrive in the urban north has to do with the loss of connection to the land and ancestral traditions that occurred with twentieth century migrations to the north. Though black people—and hooks herself—hoped to find greater freedom and dignity in the north, hooks wonders if the price they paid was too high.

On Ancestors, Judaism, Patriarchy, and Gratefulness.

The other day my partner, her mother, and I visited one of the family gravesites. We go together all three of us, or just sometimes my partner and I, at least two times a year. My partner’s mother certainly goes more often, especially to the gravesites in Prague. I have noticed that Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, and the non-religious alike are all often buried in one cemetery, although it is sometimes divided into sections to accommodate some religious beliefs; that seems to be the case in many places throughout the country.

It is typical to visit the cemetery on Dušičky, or All Souls’ Day, and most Czechs, regardless of religious background, participate in the tradition. While this is a common time to visit, it is very typical to see Czechs in cemeteries tending to gravesites throughout the year. This involves cleaning them, washing the gravestones, removing spent flowers and offerings, adding new ones, and lighting candles in remembrance. Cemeteries in the Czech Republic are busy, colorful, peaceful places on account of this. My partner’s family will also offer prayers after finishing the ritual, but I am not sure if this is common as I only ever go with them.

Medieval Bhakti Women Saints: Early Voices of Feminism by Sonal Jakhar

Long before the first wave of feminism in the mid-nineteenth century had its initial launch, a well-established religious movement sparked a socio-political awakening in India. The processes of social and cultural integration in the bhakti tradition have significantly reshaped medieval Indian society. To understand the reclamation inherent in the bhakti movement, one must first acknowledge the ‘dominant power structure’ that prevailed.

The orthodox Brahmanical hierarchy (the priestly class) enforced a strict monopoly over religious ceremonies, temple access, and sacred texts. On the other hand, spiritual knowledge was bound within Sanskrit, a language only upper-class men could learn. The bhakti movement arose from a desire for a direct relationship with God while rejecting society’s rules and rituals. Women and marginalised castes were heavily oppressed and restricted from public spheres. Since religious space was the only space available to women in the early medieval period, many women embraced bhakti (devotion), and it eventually provided them space to define their own voices that revised society, relationships and religions.

The bhakti movement, since its emergence in the 7^th century in South India, had a seismic impact on women and marginalised groups. Ideas of inclusivity, accessibility, and connectivity were running through reforms and resistance. A small but steadily growing group of thinkers called for the democratisation of the Divine against the social hierarchy in religious practises. Many women supported this reform with resilience, as they knew that change, whether conservative or revolutionary, would inevitably shape gender relations and advance women’s rights.

Sleeping Solo in a Stone Circle by Eline Kieft

What twenty years of pilgrimage taught me about ritual, place and the slow cultivation of perception…

Ever since my first shamanic training in the UK and in Sweden in 2005, I felt called to seek out prehistoric ritual landscapes. Over the past two decades I slept in Neolithic burial chambers, welcomed the dawn from Bronze Age stone circles, wandered among standing stones on remote islands, and returned to certain places often enough that they became companions on my journey.

In this post I share some images and insights from my latest overnight solo adventure at the sacred site of Machrie Moors, on the Isle of Arran, Scotland, and how my practice of spontaneous immersion grew into a deep way of listening.

Going to Machrie Moor

Unlike the better-known circles of Avebury or Callanish, Machrie rarely appears in guidebooks outside Scotland, and perhaps because of that, it retains a remarkable intimacy. Sheep wander freely between the stones, the wind rolls in over the hills, and the landscape seems content in itself.

Set between sea and the dramatic outline of Goat Fell (which in the morning light appeared like a reclining goddess, see image below), the Machrie Moor complex consists of six stone circles in open moorland. There are also several other smaller menhirs that seem strategically placed like signposts leading into the site, which you can’t see from very far because it’s in a valley.

The Turning of the Wheel by Sara Wright

Today Grace enters. The air is clear, the window open. One hummingbird hovers at my window. Every twig is covered with lush green leaves and every time I gaze into the green, I feel that gratitude pulsing through me – the wonder of being alive. A brilliant green frog inhabits my toad pond. Last night a Datura blossom literally opened before my eyes etched with pale lavender – a moonflower of exquisite fragrance and beauty. If anything, I appreciate these moon blossoms more than I did in the desert.

My bee garden is humming, saturated with crimson, deep orange, yellow, pink, a cacophony of color and sound. I say sound because I also imagine that I can hear the flowers singing their song of abundance, gratitude, and praise to all there is…

The first lemon lily pods are ripening, green apples bend the trees low, grapevines are heavy with new fruit, and columbine spikes are bursting with seed that I scatter between the cracks of stones. Diminutive pale pink poppies keep popping out of a tangle of ajuga runners and fledglings hug the cabin. The forest birds have quieted. Some will soon be migrating but stillness blotted out the forest trills when the deadly smoke first filtered in. Little gold birds flit back and forth, sunbursts singing up the dawn. The Mourning Dove waits for me at twilight…

The Four Dragons by Xochitl Alvizo

I’m writing a book, a constructive intersectional ecclesiology theologically grounded in the Gospel According to Mark. In other words, a book about what it means to be church today, in light of the constellation of challenges it faces, that turns to the earliest gospel as a resource.

Early in the book proposal writing process, one of my editors gave me a creative writing assignment; I’m sharing the prompt with you here along with my response. Sit back and enjoy a short story about four evil dragons and a struggling community that lost its way…

THE PROMPT (1/15/26):

I want you to pretend that you are going to tell the story of your book to a 6 year old heading off to bed for the night. This needs to be a kind of mythic story – Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there lived….. And it has to be short. There needs to be an evil dragon, and a wonderous bi princess who slays the dragon and restores peace to the Kin-dom.

Maiden, Mother, Crone: The Anthology by Madeleine White

Introduction: When I last wrote for Feminism and Religion, I shared some of the experiences that led me to write Maiden Mother Crone, a memoir in verse exploring trauma, motherhood, addiction, recovery, hope and the search for more inclusive forms of spiritual expression.

That personal journey has now opened into a wider conversation.

Maiden Mother Crone: The Anthology, published by Sea Crow Press and co-edited by me and Sea Crow Press founder and publisher Mary Petiet, is the third and culminating volume in my Crossing Places series. Drawn from around 150 submissions and developed through workshops in the UK and internationally, it brings together poets from across cultures, generations and geographies to explore body, memory, land, love, loss, motherhood, daughterhood, ageing, renewal, courage and hope.

While responding to Mary’s questions about the anthology, I found myself returning to Bosorka, a statue I encountered recently in Bratislava. Created in memory of the women and men persecuted and killed after being accused of witchcraft, she seemed to embody many of the questions at the heart of the collection: whose voices are heard, whose experiences are mistrusted or erased, and how poetry and storytelling can help us remember, bear witness and create connection.

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: Anne Hutchinson, America’s First Feminist Theologian: 1591-1643

This was originally posted on Oct 20 2014

“She had rather been a husband than a wife; and a preacher than a hearer; and a magistrate than a subject.” Reverend Hugh Peter of Salem

Anne Hutchinson was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for heresy in 1637 and excommunicated from the Puritan Church of Boston in 1638. Her banishment came just three years after she, her husband, and eleven living children arrived in America seeking the freedom to practice their religion as they saw fit. Governor Michael Dukakis pardoned her in 1987. Historian Howard Zinn called her a true American hero.

I managed to get through graduate school in Religious Studies without ever having studied the theology of Anne Hutchinson,* though I vaguely remember references (probably with smirks of disapproval) to the “Antinomian Controversy” which is associated with her name. I recall Anne Hutchinson’s name because of an article published in Feminist Studies in the 1970s, when I had just begun to study women and religion. However it was not until recently that I learned of her place in history through reading American Jezebel by Eve LaPlante.

Hutchinson was accused of theological errors in her trials. The Calvinist doctrine of predestination figured heavily in the accusations. But the real issue at stake was that Anne dared to follow her own inner knowing, to articulate it theologically, and to teach her views against the grain of the Puritan authorities in Boston.

THE COURAGE TO BE HATED by Esther Nelson

Carla Power, a prolific journalist, has written a long-awaited, insightful biography of amina wadud (b. 1952) titled THE LADY IMAM HOW AMINA WADUD’S LIFE AND FAITH CHANGED THE WORLD (One World 2026). (Because the Arabic alphabet uses no capital lettering, amina chooses to be consistent with that script by not capitalizing her name.)

amina and I were colleagues from the mid-1990s through the mid-2000s at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, where she was a Professor of Islamic Studies. In this essay, I want to highlight some anecdotes from Carla’s book as well as offer some of my own reflections about amina. This essay is not intended to be a book review, but a tribute to someone who learned to navigate her life with grace in spite of myriad difficulties which included diagnoses of bipolar disorder and ADD/ADHD.

Notwithstanding the many words written and videos made about amina, she herself (in addition to chapters in books and essays) has written the following two books:

QUR’AN AND WOMAN REREADING THE SACRED TEXT FROM A WOMAN’S PERSPECTIVE, Oxford University Press 1999.

INSIDE THE GENDER JIHAD: WOMEN’S REFORM IN ISLAM, a book that demonstrates that “jihad” (to struggle) encompasses something well beyond the popular understanding of “holy war.” Oxford: Oneworld, 2006.