Author: Xochitl Alvizo

Queer feminist theologian, Christian identified. Associate Professor of Religious Studies in the area of Women and Religion and the Philosophy of Sex Gender and Sexuality at California State University, Northridge. Her research is focused on feminist and queer theologies, congregational studies, ecclesiology, and the emerging church.  She is co-founder of  Feminism and Religion (feminismandreligion.com) along with Gina Messina. Often finding herself on the boundary of different social and cultural contexts, she works hard to develop her voice and to hear and encourage the voice of others. Her work is inspired by the conviction that all people are inextricably connected and the good one can do in any one area inevitably and positively impacts all others. She lives in Los Angeles, CA where she was also born and raised.

Process Thought: Feminist Friendly Metaphysics by Xochitl Alvizo

To be is necessarily to be in process and engagement with the lure of creative advance (that is, with God). In this sense, God is the poet of the world continually luring the world toward its full be-coming.

“It all goes back to one’s metaphysics.” That is what my TA said in the first theology class I took during my masters program. We were discussing our theological statements in class – a statement that outlines our individual understanding of God, humanity, sin, etc. – presenting them to one another for feedback and discussion. As we argued and discussed (“How can you possibly believe that?”) our TA made the case that our theological statements and the varying differences among them were largely determined by our particular metaphysics – that is, they are determined by whatever we hold to be the nature of existence. That is to say, if science studies the physical world, metaphysics is the result of asking questions about the underlying reality of that physical world – about the nature of the physical world and by extension all of existence. As one can imagine, not all metaphysics are created equal, but all of them are theories with enormous implications. Continue reading “Process Thought: Feminist Friendly Metaphysics by Xochitl Alvizo”

They Are Trying to Trick You by Xochitl Alvizo

These chocolates embody a truth — the truth that resources are valuable, that living ethically is not ‘cheap,’ and that cheap is an illusion…

Information is everywhere and is being collected about each one of us every minute of every day. If you are reading this post on your computer you have just fed the information gathering machine new information about yourself, your interests, your trends – and if you click on any of the links embedded within this post – all the more so. Welcome to the 21^st Century.

In a way it sounds terribly “Big Brother-ish.” And maybe so, but I don’t think of it that way as that would be terribly overwhelming and perhaps even paralyzing. Instead, I simply see it as capitalism in full force. Capitalism depends on a consumer economy – the more we buy the more profit a small percentage of people make. And the consumption of goods is heavily reliant on marketing, which nowadays is being streamlined more and more so that it can to be targeted and personalized for each individual. In order to do this the powers that be need information about us – detailed information and lots of it! Here enter Google and Facebook – the great gatherers of all the personal information we freely give them. They gather information and share it with corporations so that these may in turn more effectively market products to us that we are more likely to buy. We are now in what is called the Google Age, the great servant of capitalism and our consumer economy.

So what does a feminist do in the face of such an overwhelming reality? I have a few suggestions of course. First, you remember that they are trying to trick you. Seriously, they are! Continue reading “They Are Trying to Trick You by Xochitl Alvizo”

How Does Goddess Change the World? by Xochitl Alvizo

It can only be that She begins in a small way at a single place in the world. It can only be that She begins within us.

Carol Christ’s post this week made me think of a favorite little passage I love from a Catholic theologian, Gerhard Lohfink, who wrote a book about whether God needs the church. I’m not going to engage that specific question here nor am I going to talk about the ins and outs of the book. I simply mention it because it holds within it the beautiful passage that deeply resonates with me and has become the primary image I hold on to when thinking about how I want to participate in the transformation of the world. The passage comes from a part of the book where Gerhard Lohfink muses about how God would start a revolution while still respecting human freedom and participation:

God, like all revolutionaries, desires the overturning, the radical alteration of the whole society – for in this the revolutionaries are right: what is at stake is the whole world, and the change must be radical, for the misery of the world cries to heaven and it begins deep within the human heart. But how can anyone change the world and society at its roots without taking away freedom? (Lohfink, 26)

The issue is that for centuries people have tried and tried again to change the world, to ‘free the masses’ and save people from suffering, misery, and oppression – but too often revolutionaries resort to violence as their means. The systems are so rigidly and stubbornly in place that the revolutionary comes to see no other way to bring about radical social change except through a widespread violent overthrow. Continue reading “How Does Goddess Change the World? by Xochitl Alvizo”

Home At The Margins With My Sisters By Xochitl Alvizo

My faith is in living and being shaped into the divine way of life that happens at the margins, with others who also see that a new world is needed and are willing to participate with one another in creating it.

I wasn’t always a student of theology – obviously. So the summer before I started my masters program at Boston University, I spent my days reading primers in theology. As I read, I started to notice a trend; chapter by chapter, authors would discuss a specific theological topic or doctrine and toward the end of the chapter would usually add, almost as if an afterthought, the critiques or insights from feminist theology regarding the particular theological doctrine or theme being discussed. Even back then, before feminism had even had the chance to seep into my bones, I wondered why feminist theology, along with the other liberation theologies mentioned, was always presented as an afterthought, a footnote, clearly not as important as the theological perspective from which the authors happened to be speaking. I knew though, even from my first reading of these feminist theological perspectives at the margins of these primers, that feminist theology rang true and was important to me; what I didn’t know or understand was why it didn’t seem to shape “mainstream” theology in a central way but was instead relegated to afterthoughts by the authors of these primers. Continue reading “Home At The Margins With My Sisters By Xochitl Alvizo”

The Hunger Games, Holy Week, and Re-imaging Ritual by Xochitl Alvizo

Being passive spectators of violence and injustice, even if mournfully so, is not just a thing of Panem, it is our everyday reality.

In The Hunger Games Suzanne Collins takes the reality of an unjust society and gives it an imaginative makeover. In Panem, most people are kept at such extreme levels of hunger that even when they do eat they cannot fill the hollowness that has settled in their stomachs, while others are deciding on the next cosmetic alteration they will undertake – whiskers, jewel implants, or green-tone skin color? The disparate conditions between the rich and the poor, the few and the many are absurdly and starkly portrayed but done so in a way that we can still recognize our world in theirs. And at the center of this world is the state imposed ritual of punishment and control, the yearly Hunger Games – a nationally televised competition that all the people of Panem are required to watch. The 12 districts watch mournfully as two kids from each of their districts compete to the death, and the wealthy watch gleefully, for the games are the height of their excesses and entertainment. The yearly Games conclude when one kid, the lone ‘victor’, is left standing. All while the nation watches. Continue reading “The Hunger Games, Holy Week, and Re-imaging Ritual by Xochitl Alvizo”

Feminism and the Emerging Church By Xochitl Alvizo

What is emerging in the emerging church will not be faithful, liberative, or just if it continues to perpetuate the erasure of women’s herstory.

There has been on ongoing conversation among Christian identified people for about 20-30 years now. It originally started in the U.K. and Australia before making its impact in the U.S. It has its roots in evangelical Christianity but has since extended more broadly to Christians of all stripes including Catholic ones. This conversation is often referred to as the Emerging Church, the emerging church movement, or, as preferred by many, the Emerging Conversation. Phyllis Tickle has written a book, The Great Emergence, suggesting that this movement represents a much larger historical transformation of Christianity that occurs about every 500 years prompting a kind of house cleaning and rummage sale of the church. Continue reading “Feminism and the Emerging Church By Xochitl Alvizo”

Rara Encarnación By Xochitl Alvizo

Rara Encarnación

Encarnación

The Word became flesh

Why is it always a word?

Did the Divine listen first?

Hear-ing into be-ing…

Or just speaking into being?

flesh

Carne

Continue reading “Rara Encarnación By Xochitl Alvizo”

The Dark Half: Reflections on the Winter Solstice By Xochitl Alvizo

I’m a Capricorn. People seem not to be surprised when they find out. I’m also the oldest of three siblings and a keeper of people’s secrets. Stories and secrets – my family’s included – I hear them all, take them all in. Sometimes someone will share something with me that involves another and afterward say, Now, don’t you go telling so and so that I said this. And of course I always reply, I don’t tell no one nothin’. And it’s true, I don’t tell – I simply take it in. I listen and I take it all in. The stories shared, stories of joy and of love, excitement and disappointment, of hurt feelings and misunderstandings, all of them inform me. They all cause me to reflect and consider the fragility of us all, the precariousness of life. We affect each other so much, from the smallest moment to the largest system, all of it makes such a difference to us.

Tonight we celebrate the Winter Solstice – it marks the boundary of darkness and light – it is the shortest day and longest night of the year. Continue reading “The Dark Half: Reflections on the Winter Solstice By Xochitl Alvizo”

Conversation on Leadership Continues…By Xochitl Alvizo

In a recent post on leadership I proposed that facilitating open dialogue is a central aspect of leadership. That if we are to move into new horizons – that is, feminist horizons of mutual communal empowerment and liberation – we must be willing to both risk and dialogue, and a leader is one who helps facilitate those practices.

Dialogue and the practice of making room for one another’s voices and contributions do not come easily to us however. Humans have a tendency to stifle and squelch one another especially if we sense that our privileges and comforts, our truths and our convictions, are being challenged or threatened. And so the breakdown in dialogue can result in the literal prevention of change and possibility – the possibility and actuality of entering into a more divine reality and way of relating. A leader then must be someone who can recognize and be aware of change-stifling powers, be willing to name and resist them, and help facilitate the creation of a literal time/place space for open participation and dialogue. This new open space has the potential and literally becomes the womb from which something new may be birthed…it is a fluid, messy, mysterious place, and not one necessarily easy to exists within, but absolutely necessary if seek to contribute toward a more just and beautiful existence. Open dialogue is a necessary part of helping create this new womb space where differences (of perspective, voices, people) can come together to interact and spark with one another in order to morph and change and thus birth something new together. Continue reading “Conversation on Leadership Continues…By Xochitl Alvizo”

Privileged Feminist By Xochitl Alvizo

I have the privilege of having radical lesbian feminism ‘work’ for me. I can’t explain why it does – but it does – it just works for me. I am not of the same generation as most feminists who experienced and awakened to radical feminism during the women’s movement of the 70s and 80s in the United States. I am not white nor was I middle-class when I encountered it (though I probably am middle class now). But nonetheless, as I encountered radical lesbian feminist writing, and eventually some of the women who wrote them, it spoke to me in the depths of my being and rattled my very core. Radical lesbian feminism liberated me and birthed me into a whole new way of Be-ing…and that is a privilege I must not take for granted and must hold loosely. Continue reading “Privileged Feminist By Xochitl Alvizo”