Academics – Page 5 – Feminism and Religion

The Heraklion Museum: A Critique of the Neolithic Display by Carol P. Christ

If I had been asked to write the words that introduce visitors to the Heraklion Archaeological Museum of Crete to its earliest inhabitants, I would have said something like this:

While there is evidence that human beings visited Crete as early as 150,000 years ago, the first permanent settlers arrived from Anatolia in the New Stone Age or Neolithic era, about 9000 years ago, bringing with them the secrets of agriculture and soon afterward learning the techniques of pottery and weaving. As the gatherers of fruits, nuts, and vegetables and as preparers of food in earlier Old Stone Age or Paleolithic cultures, women would have noticed that seeds dropped at a campsite might sprout into plants. Women most likely discovered the secrets of agriculture that enabled people to settle down in the first farming communities of the New Stone Age. As pottery is associated with women’s work of food storage and preparation, and as weaving is women’s work in most traditional cultures, women probably invented these new technologies as well. Each of these inventions was understood to be a mystery of transformation: seed to plant to harvested crop; clay to snake coil to fired pot; wool or flax to thread to spun cloth. The mysteries were passed on from mother to daughter through songs, stories, and rituals. Continue reading “The Heraklion Museum: A Critique of the Neolithic Display by Carol P. Christ”

Goddess Spirituality and Women’s Leadership by Jessica Bowman

As a public school administrator, and a human, I feel tremendous grief for the tragedy generated in the latest school shooting. The impact is devastating and disastrous. Immediately after such a calamity is the public outcry for change and the immediate backlash from others who don’t want to lose their perceived rights under the constitution. Blaming federal agencies isn’t the answer either.

I find it critical to recognize that school shootings are not isolated events. Despite the outcry and current tug-of-war, stricter gun laws will only serve as a Band-Aid to one aspect of a major debilitating world problem. In just over 15 years of serving children and communities as a school administrator, I have witnessed extreme violence, rape, racism, walkouts orchestrated by teachers, administrators engaged in illegal behavior, parents abusing children, bullying, decay, outrageous political power struggles, and more.

Public schools are a microcosm of society; they are not stand-alone programs independent of the larger world. Truthfully, I am sometimes quite taken with how successful school programs are across the nation in spite of these immense pressures and misguided criticisms. Increasing student achievement in math and the English language arts is our charge; sometimes the realities and tragedies of life make this very difficult. But, that isn’t the point of this conversation.

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Reflections on the Theology of Simone Weil by Elisabeth Schilling

French philosopher and mystic Simone Weil, in Gravity and Grace, says forgiveness is knowing I am other than what I imagine myself to be (9). For Weil, our true selves seem to be inextricably intertwined with each other, with the universe; knowing this can bring compassion for the self and world.

Upholding the constructed self that needs to be justified, protected, and admired can cause a lot of stress within our bodies and perhaps violence in relationships. Weil says that the cause of war is that we do not know we have access to the universe in our own bodies (86). Sometimes I feel that we avoid each other, looking in to each other’s eyes, because we cannot bear the weight of energy, the collision of spinning vortex that might occur the closer we move. Our DNA might hold memories, shared vibrations with ancient mountains, and the bodies we inhabit feel so intensely. Every cell seems alive with sensation, and most of us want to avoid the pain that cannot always be extracted from the pleasure that is also ready to be encountered.

One of my students asked me, as we discussed Weil in class, why we should improve, try to become better people, what the point was of anything. I don’t always know the answer to these questions or what might prompt them, but what I think for the time being is that we get up off the floor because there are these moments of intimacy where the universe is felt through our veins, and to experience that, even occasionally, might be worth everything. To do what we might be destined to do, to co-create and do that in healing, pleasurable ways, is to align with something beyond, but not excluding, ourselves.

Continue reading “Reflections on the Theology of Simone Weil by Elisabeth Schilling”

Michal the Priestess: Midrash, Multiplicity, and the Tales of King David by Jill Hammer

When I was in my late teens, I discovered midrash: the Jewish exegetical process by which commentators weave creative and additive interpretations into the sacred text. Midrash comes from the word “to ask,” “to seek,” or “to divine.” For example, the tale in which a well follows the prophetess Miriam through the wilderness is an ancient midrash. The story in which God stops the angels from singing as the Egyptians drown in the Sea of Reeds is a midrash. Each of these stories derives from a particular close reading of text, whether a Torah text or a verse elsewhere in the Bible. Each of them allows a new generation to add its own perspectives to the tradition.

Contemporary feminists, and many other contemporary artists, writers, and exegetes, have used a modern form of midrash to add liberatory perspectives to Jewish tradition and to biblical lore. From Miriam to Vashti, female biblical characters shine in the creative interpretations of feminist midrashists. Judith Plaskow’s “The Coming of Lilith” made a huge impact on the reading of the story of Eve and the legend of Lilith. Anita Diamant’s The Red Tent changed the conversation on Dinah forever. Alicia Ostriker, Norma Rosen, Veronica Golos, and many others have joined in this creative play which highlights marginalized voices within the text. Wilda Gafney has made contributions to a Christian and womanist form of midrash. Voices like Andrew Ramer and Joy Ladin have invited us to see queer and trans themes in the text. And of course many others, from poet Yehuda Amichai to bibliodramatist Peter Pitzele, have added to this rich tapestry.

Continue reading “Michal the Priestess: Midrash, Multiplicity, and the Tales of King David by Jill Hammer”

That Refreshing Change by Esther Nelson

Right now, I’m between semesters so find myself in Las Cruces, New Mexico, nestled into the house I plan to retire in—whenever that time comes. Best to leave it all open.

While traveling here, I began feeling lighter and lighter—not unlike the sensation I got as a kid when school let out for summer recess. Time stretched out forever, holding infinite possibilities. Now that I’ve been in New Mexico three weeks, I wish time would slow down. Christmas and New Year have come and gone with minimal fanfare. I did not hang a single decoration, nor did I attend a single party. Blessed relief.

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Marija Gimbutas Triumphant: Colin Renfrew Concedes by Carol P. Christ

The disdain with which the work of archaeologist Marija Gimbutas has been held in the field of classics and archaeology was shown to me when I stated quietly at a cocktail party at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens that I was interested in her work. This comment, tentatively offered, unleashed a tirade from a young female archaeologist who began shouting at me: “Her work is unscholarly and because it is, it is harder for me and other women scholars in the field to be taken seriously.”

Responding to the backlash against her theories, Gimbutas is said to have told a female colleague that it might take decades, but eventually the value of her work would be recognized. It is now more than twenty years since Marija Gimbutas died in 1994, and the value of her work is beginning to be recognized by (at least some of) her colleagues—including one of her harshest critics. In a lecture titled “Marija Rediviva: DNA and Indo-European Origins,” renowned archaeologist Lord Colin Renfrew (allied with the British Conservative Party**), who had been one of Gimbutas’s most vociferous antagonists and a powerful gate-keeper, concluded the inaugural Marija Gimbutas Lecture at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago with these words: “Marija [Gimbutas]’s Kurgan hypothesis has been magnificently vindicated.” Continue reading “Marija Gimbutas Triumphant: Colin Renfrew Concedes by Carol P. Christ”

High Stakes for Women in Leadership: A Reflection and a Prayer by Elise M. Edwards

A few weeks ago, I was asked to give the invocation for a luncheon at my university. Baylor University was celebrating our presidential inauguration and there were several events leading up to the installation of the university’s 15^th president. The inauguration was historic because it ceremonially marks the beginning of a term for our first female president, Dr. Linda A. Livingstone.

As I write, it is a year after Hillary Rodham Clinton lost the election for President of the United States of America. Like many of us, I’m still coming to terms with the choice my nation made, and how we came to it. I’m thinking about women in leadership, especially occasions such leadership marks a first, a departure for an institution or system marked by male privilege.

What does it mean when an institution is willing to deviate from its long-established patterns of leadership and entrust its governance to women?

Continue reading “High Stakes for Women in Leadership: A Reflection and a Prayer by Elise M. Edwards”

The Impact of Marija Gimbutas on My Life and Work by Carol P. Christ

Last winter FAR contributor Glenys Livingstone lovingly and professionally edited all of the interviews for the film on Marija Gimbutas’ life and work, Signs Out of Time, by Donna Read and Starhawk, and posted them on youtube. Though I received a link to my interview from Glenys, I was too busy (or too depressed?) to watch it at the time.

As I watched and listened to my twenty years younger self yesterday, chills went up and down my spine. How, I wondered, did she know so much way back then? Maybe (I thought) she really was drawing on the underground spring described by Marija Gimbutas as bursting forth from time to timε to bring us wisdom from the ancestors of Old Europe.

Thank you Glenys for the fantastic editing job.

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Carol’s new book written with Judith Plaskow, is Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology.

FAR Press recently released A Serpentine Path: Mysteries of the Goddess.

Join Carol on the life-transforming and mind-blowing Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete. Sign up now for 2018! It could change your life!

Carol’s photo by Michael Honegger

Announcing the 2017 Rosemary Radford Ruether Conference by Grace Yia-Hei Kao

On October 7, 2017, five distinguished panelists will speak at a one-day event: the Rosemary Radford Ruether Conference for Justice and Peace. Co-sponsored by the Friends of Sabeel—North America (FOSNA), Claremont Area FOSNA, Claremont School of Theology, and the Women’s Studies in Religion program at Claremont Graduate University, the conference will be held at Pilgrim Place (Decker Hall)–the retirement community for folks serving in religious or charitable organizations where Dr. Ruether currently resides.

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Cleaning and Cleansing: Rituals of Embodied Life by Carol P. Christ

While the world is falling apart all around me, I have been slowly engaged in a major cleaning and cleansing of my home.

It started when I began to move my summer clothes to my main closet in June. Here in Greece we have no tradition of second-hand stores, Goodwill, or Salvation Army. This makes it difficult to get rid of anything: often the garbage can is the only option. Still, I began with my clothes, tossing out even some much loved and still beautiful things that no longer fit. My Greek-Albanian cleaning lady took all of them, and I didn’t ask her what she did with them.

Then I moved on to the kitchen. Continue reading “Cleaning and Cleansing: Rituals of Embodied Life by Carol P. Christ”