Guest Contributor

Painting Women from Judges – Part 1: Jephthah’s Reflective Daughter by Melinda Bielas

Melinda Bielas The story of Jephthah’s daughter – found in the Hebrew Bible, Judges 11:29-40 – is a difficult story to read. The first time I read it, I was in my Christian high school Bible class and I could not understand why our teacher did not address the violence done by a father to his daughter. In my experience, Christians dismiss much of the violence done to women in the Hebrew Bible as evidence that ancient fathers, brothers, and husbands really did not care for their daughters, sisters, and wives. Since today men love the women in their lives, the ancient problem is no longer an issue, and we can continue with more pressing issues – or so the unspoken logic goes.

However, some feminist scholars – such as myself and Dr. Tammi Schnider – argue that it was common for fathers to love their daughters in the Hebrew Bible, and Jephthah is no exception. His daughter is his only relative in the text, and presumably the only person impatiently waiting for him to return from the war he led. Yet, because of the vow he makes to the deity – a vow the deity does not request or acknowledge – he sacrifices his only loved one. Why would he make such a vow? Why would his daughter go along with it? These are two of the questions I could not help but yell as I struggled with the text. Continue reading “Painting Women from Judges – Part 1: Jephthah’s Reflective Daughter by Melinda Bielas”

Faith Doesn’t Need Walls: A Conversation with Kate Kelly by Kate Stoltzfus

Kate.Stoltzfus-1 When Kate Kelly faced excommunication from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in June 2014, much of the world took notice. The D.C.-based human rights lawyer garnered wide-spread attention for founding Ordain Women, a movement to push for advocacy of female ordination in her Mormon faith. A ripple of press from The New York Times to The Huffington Post chronicled Kelly’s waves of activism and its subsequent consequences: excommunication in absentia on June 23 by her former church leaders in Virginia.

While the press has since died down, the momentum remains. Church leaders denied Kelly’s first appeal against the charge in October 2014, but Kelly remained hopeful of her plan to appeal a second time to the church’s First Presidency when she spoke to WATER (Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics, and Ritual) a month later. Continue reading “Faith Doesn’t Need Walls: A Conversation with Kate Kelly by Kate Stoltzfus”

Tiamat’s Tale by Nancy Vedder-Shults

nancymug_3 About 15 years ago, I was writing a book entitled Embracing the Dragon: A Myth for our Times. In it I critiqued the so-called heroic myth, which I call the dragon-slaying myth. My research led to the discovery of many Western dragon tales, which I retold from the dragon’s perspective. “Tiamat’s Tale,” transcribed below, was one that I offered orally – as a storyteller.

~~~~~~~~~

“The ocean is the beginning of the earth. All life comes from the sea.” And at the outset Her name was Tiamat. Tiamat, the watery womb where all is amorphous and malleable. Tiamat, the primeval cauldron where one thing shapeshifts into another in the eternal whirlpool of creation. Tiamat, the unfathomable abyss. Before Her there was nothing. Without Her there is nothing. And after Her there will truly be nothing.

Those who learn to trust Her, discover Tiamat’s bliss, the creative ebb and flow of Her salt flood. Foremost among these was Apsu, Tiamat’s husband and lover, for he was the first to issue from Her tidal wave. His sweet waters mingled with Her salty brine, and together they brought forth gods and goddesses as silt precipitates from a stream or sand washes up on a shore. Tiamat’s undulations and Apsu’s wet dreams stirred the ardor of their children in turn, and soon there were many generations of gods and goddesses. Continue reading “Tiamat’s Tale by Nancy Vedder-Shults”

Demagogues, Scientists, or Saints: Michael Specter’s Neglected Territory in the Global Food Landscape of Vandana Shiva and the Biotech Industry by Sarah E. Robinson

sarah robinson — Photo credit: Matt Blowers

Written in response to Michael Specter’s article, “Seeds of Doubt: An Activist’s Controversial Crusade against Genetically Modified Crops” in The New Yorker (August 25, 2014). The activist criticized in the essay is Vandana Shiva. This is Part Two – read Part One here.

Biodiversity is a crucial feature of a healthy landscape and a resilient foodscape. Agroecologists and others work to ensure that humanity can lean on our food diversity in hard times, but GMO foods have thrown a wrench into the works.[i] The diversity of our food base increases our potential to continue to eat as we face a variety of weather conditions, droughts, floods, and such. This is the wisdom behind seed banking, what Vandana Shiva does in her non-profit organization Navdanya.

Despite Specter’s claim that India has not permitted GMO foods, his article appeared a month after India approved a number of genetically modified food plants for field trials. Field trials involve open-air release of genetically modified foods. GMO food crops cannot be contained once they are released. An article on the current Indian controversy suggests that biotech companies “hide behind a smokescreen of benevolence.”[ii]

Continue reading “Demagogues, Scientists, or Saints: Michael Specter’s Neglected Territory in the Global Food Landscape of Vandana Shiva and the Biotech Industry by Sarah E. Robinson”

Demagogues, Scientists, or Saints: Michael Specter’s Neglected Territory in the Global Food Landscape of Vandana Shiva and the Biotech Industry by Sarah E. Robinson

Written in response to Michael Specter’s article, “Seeds of Doubt: An Activist’s Controversial Crusade against Genetically Modified Crops” in The New Yorker (August 25, 2014). The activist whose work he criticizes is renowned Indian scientist and ecofeminist Vandana Shiva. This is Part One of two.

In Michael Specter’s article in The New Yorker, “Seeds of Doubt: An Activist’s Controversial Crusade against Genetically Modified Crops,” the author was remiss in omitting overarching narratives in the global food conversation, as well as vital details to clarify the agricultural and ethical landscape in which food scholar-activist Vandana Shiva works. In his celebration of genetic innovation, Specter ignores sciences, such as agroecology, that criticize and co-exist with biotechnology. Most appallingly, Specter repeats a slanderous remark against Shiva without challenging its accuracy. While I appreciate Specter’s attempt to weigh both sides of an issue, as a non-profit director seeking food security for peasants, Shiva cannot be compared with deep-pocketed agribusinesses, which must first attend to a financial bottom line before meeting any humanitarian goals that may be quite honest, despite the smell of greenwashing.

Specter’s article is dubiously well-timed to belittle the hard work of anti-GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms) activists and policymakers in Vermont who face legal challenges to a GMO labeling law passed in April 2014. State-level GMO labeling has become an important political issue in the U.S., as other states prepare ballot measures and similar legislation. Consumers in the E.U., Australia, China, New Zealand, Russia, South Korea, and the U.K. have already either banned or required labeling of genetically modified foods. Just like the so-called “debate” over climate change, the conversation on food safety continues with a hefty dose of political maneuvering. Continue reading “Demagogues, Scientists, or Saints: Michael Specter’s Neglected Territory in the Global Food Landscape of Vandana Shiva and the Biotech Industry by Sarah E. Robinson”

An Advent Journey by Victoria Rue

Victoria Rue I decided to take the fall semester off from teaching. I wanted to volunteer my abilities somewhere in the world. With guidance from a friend and Volunteers in Global Service, I exchanged emails with Visthar: an Academy for Justice and Peace in Bengaluru, South India. “Visthar” means open space. What I discovered right away was that the work of Visthar dovetailed with my own: gender, sexuality, religion, education and theatre.

Visthar presents workshops on the intersection of gender, sexuality and religion to lgbtq activists, social workers, students, women pastors and inter-faith leaders. Within the trainings, Visthar asked me to offer a theatre workshop that allowed participants to creatively embody and strategize these issues. Continue reading “An Advent Journey by Victoria Rue”

Revolution Through Rituals by Jann Aldredge-Clanton

Jann's picture A revolution is happening through Divine Feminine rituals! More and more faith communities are reclaiming the power of the Divine Feminine in sacred rituals.

Rituals move feminist theory and theology/thealogy from the head to the heart. Words and visual symbols in rituals shape our deepest beliefs and values, which drive our actions. Multicultural female divine images in our sacred rituals affirm the sacred value of females throughout the world who continue to suffer from violence, abuse, and discrimination. For feminism to transform our culture, we need Divine Feminine rituals in faith communities. In Women-Church: Theology and Practice, Rosemary Radford Ruether writes: “One needs communities of nurture to guide one through death to the old symbolic order of patriarchy to rebirth into a new community of being and living. One needs not only to engage in rational theoretical discourse about this journey; one also needs deep symbols and symbolic actions to guide and interpret the actual experience of the journey from sexism to liberated humanity” (p. 3).

As I was growing up in the Baptist tradition, hymns were my favorite part of our rituals. One of the hymns I loved singing was “He Lives,” increasing in volume along with the congregation as we came to the refrain which repeated over and over the words “He lives.” Not until many years later could I even imagine singing or saying, “She lives.” I had learned to worship a God who was named and imaged as male. But while studying in a conservative seminary, I was surprised to find Her. I discovered female names and images of Deity in scripture and in Christian history. As an ordained minister, my call has included writing, preaching, and teaching to persuade people that we need multicultural female divine names and images in rituals if we are to have social justice, peace, and equality. My call expanded to writing Divine Feminine rituals, including lyrics to familiar hymn tunes. Continue reading “Revolution Through Rituals by Jann Aldredge-Clanton”

When Baby Girls and Old Crones Ruled by Jeri Studebaker

Jeri Studebaker

The data came as somewhat of a shock to me. I stumbled across it one day in The Civilization of the Goddess, a mammoth book by the late Lithuanian-American archaeologist Marija Gimbutas about what Gimbutas dubbed “Old Europe” – a culture area in southeastern Neolithic Europe that she maintains was centered around female deity.

Until she had the temerity to suggest that people at some point in the past might have worshipped goddesses rather than gods, Gimbutas had a sterling reputation among academics, even being hired to teach at two of the most prestigious of all American archaeology departments, Harvard’s and UCLA’s. After presenting her goddess theory of Old Europe, however, Gimbutas came under attack by a few powerful male archaeologists, after which her reputation among academics began to plummet (see Spretnak 2011 for a good accounting of Gimbutas’ fall from grace).

Before I get to the data that so startled me, I need to tell you a bit about archaeologists. Like the members of many academic disciplines, they disagree with each other – sometimes vehemently (and perhaps even somewhat more vehemently than scholars in other disciplines). One thing however they all agree on is this: the higher the quality and quantity of grave goods buried with an individual, the higher that individual’s status in her or his society. Continue reading “When Baby Girls and Old Crones Ruled by Jeri Studebaker”

Mark Driscoll and Toxic Christian Masculinity by Kate Davis

Kate Davis Mars Hill Church in Seattle has been a large-scale experiment to shape the future of the Evangelical Movement, for good or ill. In recent months the controversy surrounding the Mars Hill founder, Mark Driscoll, gained national attention. Driscoll’s version of radical conservatism wherein he advocates a return to more conservative and traditional faith (with a particular emphasis on gender and gender roles), has long drawn criticism from more mainstream Evangelical factions, but it endeared him to many young Evangelicals.

Recently, Driscoll has been involved in a controversy regarding plagiarism within many of his books, resulting in a flurry of accusations against him (and against the leadership at Mars Hill), spanning everything from attempting to game the New York Times Bestsellers list to misuse of church funds to bullying his fellow pastors at Mars Hill into signing non-compete clauses (which would, ostensibly, prevent them from ministering at any church within 10 miles of Mars Hill in Seattle). Continue reading “Mark Driscoll and Toxic Christian Masculinity by Kate Davis”

Kali Ma (Part 3 of 3) by Nancy Vedder-Shults

nancymug_3 In contrast to the linearity of our time concept in the West, Indians view life as infinite and cyclical. Although Hindus, like ancient Greeks, believe in four ages of humanity (the so-called yugas), these occur not just once, but repeat cyclically every several million years. Similarly, the creator god Brahma is said to have a daily cycle which has recurring effects on the existence of the world. When Brahma awakes the world is created anew, and when he falls asleep it dissolves once again into the primal waters of eternity. Fortunately for us, Brahma’s day lasts 4,320,000,000 human years.

Holland Cotter, in reflecting on Eastern art, once brought these temporal differences into sharp focus when he contrasted two of the major icons of East and West — Christ on the cross and the dancing Shiva. He said, “The Christ figure embodies the Judeo-Christian concept of divine history as a straight, purposeful line from the Fall of Man (sic.) to redemption, but with a tragic human story of self-sacrifice, loss and atonement at its heart. The dancing Shiva is, by contrast, a dynamic, joyous cyclical image: a poised, uplifted foot and hands form a circle echoing the nimbus of flames surrounding the figure. The image represents a culture which…views both humans and gods as participants in a cosmic game that periodically grinds to a catastrophic halt only to begin again.”[i]

Like Shiva, Kali has been depicted surrounded by a halo of flames. But unlike Shiva, her portrait is far from a joyous image. In one example, a 17th or 18th century North Indian sculpture, Kali is personified as a voracious, old hag squatting on a victim whose entrails she eats. Slicing open the belly of the anonymous corpse, Kali scoops out its intestines with her bony fingers and gobbles them with her protruding teeth. The anonymity of the victim brings home to the viewer the fact that ultimately we are all Kali’s prey. And the flames burning around her head reemphasize this point, for as the aureole of the Dancing Shiva, they are the fires of the final conflagration at the end of each world period. But in this image we realize that such flames flicker constantly, since time erodes all that has ever existed and Kali swallows all she has ever birthed.[ii] Continue reading “Kali Ma (Part 3 of 3) by Nancy Vedder-Shults”