American History – Page 8 – Feminism and Religion

Moral Accountability, Prophetic Responsibility, and Selma by Kelly Brown Douglas

Rev.-Dr.-Kelly-Brown-Douglas - Version 2 I have been struck in this new year by the reactions to the recently released movie Selma. There has been a palpable recognition by those of who have seen it, that “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” Many have wondered if they are watching about events some 50 years ago, or events some five months ago in Ferguson. The question is why do we remain trapped in this same cycle of sin, where we are alienated from the god who is freedom and thus alienated from our own humanity.

While the answer to this question is complex, one of the reasons we remain trapped in this cycle of sin is because of the way we deny the past and dismiss the future. I have no doubt that until we hold ourselves morally accountable to our past and dare to take prophetic responsibility for our future, then our present realities will continue to be defined by the worst of who we are and not the best of who god calls us to be. Continue reading “Moral Accountability, Prophetic Responsibility, and Selma by Kelly Brown Douglas”

Justice for Mike Brown? by amina wadud

amina - feature I was born the year the Supreme Court of the United States of America began to hear Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka; a case that ought to be known to all as a matter of US history. Here is a precise, but telling history of how that case came into being. This historical account lacks hyperbole, perhaps because one feature of legal-eeze carries the technical title (and appropriately so) of being a brief.

In case blog readers don’t do background research or follow footnotes, I raise these salient points: The Declaration of Independence states “all men (sic) are created equal.” At the same time as it was written and signed into law, the legal enslavement of Africans was in full practice. This incongruence required further legal action to change that in the form of 13^th Amendment to the US Constitution which made slavery illegal.

It should be no surprise that “equality” did not result from this and thus the 14^th and 15^th Amendments attempted to address inequities in more specific terminology. All of these Amendments were ratified the 19^th century.

The last decade of the 19th century, Plessy v. Ferguson reached the Supreme Court. Plessy was an unsuccessful challenge, attempting to point out how manifest inequality– the “separate but equal” doctrine in practice across the United States– violated the constitutional notion of equality before the law. Judge Brown sums up the majority opinion which went against Plessy:

The object of the 14^th Amendment was undoubtedly to enforce equality of the two races before the law, but in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to endorse social as distinguished from political, equality..if one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them upon the same plane

It would take more than half a century before Brown v. Board of Education brought out the many subtle ways, over the century since the legal end of slavery, that the racial divide had been enforced. It started very early in life, in the form of separate educational systems that only perpetuated the impossibility of constitutional consistency and equality before the law.

We still have a long way to go. Continue reading “Justice for Mike Brown? by amina wadud”

She Alone Was There In The Beginning: Nature Creatrix by Stuart Dean

Stuart WordPress photo I concluded my last post by suggesting that “Creator” in the Declaration of Independence (DI) should have been ‘Creatrix.’ Though ‘Creator’ imbues the DI with a bit of quasi-scriptural authority, the possessive pronoun “their” before it effectively limits the full benefits of creation to men. That alone should have precluded even the suggestion that the DI effectively endorses Christianity or that it constitutes the basis for a civil religion.

Quite obviously that has not been the case, but that should not be taken to validate the misogyny the DI manifests. ‘Creator,’ the masculine form of the Latin noun derived from the verb ‘to create’ (‘Creatrix’ is the feminine), is unambiguously masculine in a way that ‘God’ simply is not. Its appearance in the DI raises the suspicion that it was selected to underscore the masculinity of “Nature’s God,” the phase used in the DI’s opening paragraph. Surely some of the signatories of the DI knew their Latin authors well enough to know how peculiar it is to speak of Nature as having or needing a God. Perhaps they wanted to clarify things. Continue reading “She Alone Was There In The Beginning: Nature Creatrix by Stuart Dean”

Are You Ready for Some Football? by John Erickson

Although putting women in charge of drafting new policies that address the “woman problem” currently facing the NFL, it too reeks of the similar dismissive and patronizing actions women face when trying to obtain leadership roles in their religious traditions. Supercilious progress for the sake of progress isn’t progress and progress under the guise of silence is still misogyny. We need women in positions of leadership in both the NFL as well as in religious traditions. The culture of violence and silence will only continue, albeit with a Band-Aid firmly in place, holding the painful experiences and histories of women, long forgotten and often overlooked, until society values their rights just as much as the men leading the prayers and those that are being prayed for on Sundays across America.

John Erickson, sports, coming out. There is never a reason for physical violence. There is never a reason to hit your partner or child to the point where they are unconscious or bruised. There is never a reason to inflict violence against someone else, but apparently there are exceptions to these rules if you’re an NFL football player.

In my native state of Wisconsin, watching football on Sunday is synonymous with attending church prior to the game. Watching football on Sunday is a cultural norm in many, if not all, different regions of the country where individuals, whether you like it or not, gather each Sunday to both praise and pray that your team ends up on top.

In Wisconsin, you attend church with your family and head to your desired destination where you gather with friends and family to eat, talk about your life, and of course watch your local football team battle their weekly rival. Although I am not much of a football fan these days, I have very fond memories of attending football games, watching them with my family and talking about the Green Bay Packers’ Super Bowl chances. It was my time to both bond with the men of my family as well as catch up on the gossip the women would whisper back and forth to each other at the dinner table while the men were in the other room screaming at the TV.

Although I’m sure I will watch more games in my future, lately, all I do is cringe when I think about the growing violence that women and children face and have faced in the large shadow of an organization worth north of $9 billion dollars.

The biggest scandal to hit the news waves lately is that of Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice’s assault of his wife in an Atlantic City elevator. Although Rice and the various other incidents regarding NFL players and violence is disturbing, the biggest problem facing the NFL isn’t just its treatment of women but its continual commodification of them as a disposable resource emblematic with the culture of violence that it has created.

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If you didn’t know, women make up an estimated 45% of the NFL‘s more than 150 million American fans and have, in recent weeks, become their most valuable resource and source of criticism. However, after a long string of incidents stemming back from NFL teams underpaying cheerleaders to the Ray Rice incident, one needs to ask what the roles of women, if any, are outside of the disturbing images of the abused wife, hypersexualized cheerleader? Is being dragged out of an elevator by your abusive husband the only way to get women’s issues addressed in the NFL by fans, league owners, and the NFL commission?

The roles of women in the NFL and religion have many similarities. Aside from end zone celebrations where players praise God for his apparent direct role in helping them score a winning touchdown or certain players edifications as gods on Earth, women make up the crux of both NFL fandom and attendance but are responsible for the gatherings similar to the ones I, and many others, grew up with.

Ann Braude said it best in her foundational text Sisters and Saints that “if we want to understand the history of American women, we need to examine the religious beliefs and activities that so many have found so meaningful.” Without women, we wouldn’t have many, if not all, of the religions that are present throughout the world today and in case we forget, without women, we too wouldn’t have the millions of little boys who grow up being taken to and from practice by their mothers with the hope that they too could one day become the professional football players that fans scream and pray for.

Without women, there is no NFL and without women, there is no religion. Kelly Brown Douglas said it best on this very blog when she stated, “It is the violence that violence creates.” Although I agree with her, I would only add that while violence does indeed create violence, the real sin isn’t the violence itself but rather the silence that follows.

Let us pray that we will continue to not be silent and that we will rise up and fight for the millions of women (and men) each day who do not live in fear that their significant other’s multimillion dollar contract will not be reinstated but rather that they and their children may not see another day on this Earth.

John Erickson is a Ph.D. Candidate in American Religious History at Claremont Graduate University. He holds a MA in Women’s Studies in Religion; an MA in Applied Women’s Studies; and a BA in Women’s Literature and Women’s Studies. The LGBTQ and women’s rights movements, masculinity studies, gender theory, and the utilization of technology in forming communities and creating new teaching methodologies influence his research interests. His work is inspired by the intersectionality of feminism, queer identity, LGBTQ history, and religious and sexual cultural rhetoric. He is a Non-Fiction Reviewer for Lambda Literary, the leader in LGBT reviews, author interviews, opinions and news since 1989 and the Co-Chair of the Queer Studies in Religion section of the American Academy of Religion’s Western Region, the only regional section of the American Academy of Religion that is dedicated to the exploration of queer studies in religion and other relevant fields in the nation. When he is not working on his dissertation, he can be found at West Hollywood City Hall where he is the City Council Deputy and Chief of Staff to Councilmember Abbe Land. He is the author of the blog From Wisconsin, with Love and can be followed on Twitter @JErickson85

We Could Have Been Canadians and Other Thoughts about My New England Colonial Heritage by Carol P. Christ

My 2x great-grandparents Nathaniel Searing and Louisa Caroline Martin were pioneers who cleared the land and built a log cabin in Lyons, Michigan in 1840. They were descended from English Puritan Colonial settlers in New England. At least two of my ancestors are recognized by the Sons and Daughters of the American Revolutions. Other members of my family who were Quakers proudly refused to take part in the Revolutionary War.

My great-grandfather James Augustus married a woman of German descent, his daughter Lena Marie married a Swede, and my mother married a man who was German, Irish, and Scottish. As the descendants of Nathaniel Searing and Louisa Caroline Martin moved around the United States and married into the families of newer immigrants, the succeeding generations also lost touch with their history. Our family’s connections to the New England Colonists were not even mentioned at Thanksgiving! Continue reading “We Could Have Been Canadians and Other Thoughts about My New England Colonial Heritage by Carol P. Christ”

Queering Iconography, Painting Pauli Murray by Angela Yarber

Even as my book, Holy Women Icons, is printed, bound, and available for purchase, filled with the stories of nearly fifty holy women, my project of painting these beloved saints continues. Joining all my other Holy Women Icons with a folk feminist twist is the brave, bold, and revolutionary Pauli Murray.

This month is a celebration of Murray’s life and witness is several meaningful ways. The first of July was her feast day, as she was deemed an Episcopal saint in 2012. LGBTQ author and activist, Kittredge Cherry, detailed Murray’s feast day, celebrating her as a “Human rights champion and queer saint…renowned civil rights pioneer, feminist, author, lawyer and the first black woman ordained as an Episcopal priest.” And the celebration of Pauli Murray’s radical witness continues as the icon bearing her image joins seventeen of my other Holy Women Icons at the North Star LGBTQ Center Gallery in Winston-Salem, NC for an exhibition entitled, “Queering Iconography: Holy Women Icons from Sappho to Pauli Murray.” Continue reading “Queering Iconography, Painting Pauli Murray by Angela Yarber”

Painting Maya Angelou by Angela Yarber

Author. Performer. Activist. Poet. Actress. Playwright. There are few others whose accomplishments are as prestigious, prolific, or expansive as Maya Angelou’s. I initially encountered her work in a ninth grade literature class. The first of her seven autobiographies was our assigned reading. I voraciously consumed every word of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, my heart filled with grief, my eyes filled with tears, my mind filled with questions. It is no wonder this book is the most acclaimed of all her autobiographies, books of poetry, and essays. As a fourteen year-old, my mind was opened to the power of stories, particularly the stories of those vastly different from oneself, and to the oppression black women like Angelou experienced in the United States. As a native white Southerner, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was my first foray into grappling with the nuances of white privilege.

In college, my creative writing professor packed all ten of the creative writing minors into a van to drive to a neighboring college where Angelou was lecturing. I sat in awe, riveted by every word. And upon the completion of my Ph.D., I moved to Winston-Salem, the place Angelou calls home. I have yet to meet her. If I could, I’d surely hand her the icon I painted in her honor, knowing that my words would fail to express how profound my gratitude is for the work she has done in our world. Continue reading “Painting Maya Angelou by Angela Yarber”

I Believe Anita! by Marie Cartier

During the past week I attended a Los Angeles premiere of a new documentary Anita: Speaking Truth to Power (Dir: Freida Lee Mock USA, 2013). The screening was sold out and I had great seats saved for me– sitting with a friend who works at Samuel Goldwyn, the distributor of this fine film.

In 1991, Anita Hill provided testimony she hoped would serve to dissemble the nomination of Clarence Thomas as a Supreme Court justice. Although the vote would end up being close (52-48) Hill’s testimony did not serve to dissuade the decision — Clarence Thomas’ nomination was confirmed and he was appointed to a life term on the Supreme Court four days after Hill’s testimony concluded. Here is an outline of the debate. Continue reading “I Believe Anita! by Marie Cartier”

In Memoriam – God Hates Fags

Phelps didn’t just live a life filled with hate but he also embodied the very reasoning why so many communities cannot cross that proverbial bridge to work together to see past their differences and maybe never will. In the case of Phelps, sticks and stones may break our bones, but words really do hurt.

Fred Phelps, an American Pastor who headed the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas died at the age of 84 on March 19, 2014. While some individuals leave behind legacies of their good deeds and loving memories, the only thing Phelps left behind was a family and church founded on the principle of hate.

A frequent eyesore at various events ranging from military funerals and gay pride gatherings to mainstream events that captured the attention of our pop-culture obsessed society, Fred Phelps and his clan believed it was their sacred duty to warn others of God’s anger over the growing acceptance of not only modernity in general but also issues like gay rights and abortion. From slogans and signs such as ‘God Hates Fags’ to ‘Thank God for IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices), Phelps has caused many controversies both during his lifetime and after his death.

Continue reading “In Memoriam – God Hates Fags”

Beyond Clenched Teeth: Reflections on Forgiveness by Elizabeth Cunningham

“I forgive you.”

These words make my teeth buzz like the sound of chalk squeaking on a blackboard. I can vividly recall my sister and myself, as children, saying these words through clenched teeth. Not only were we Christians, we were the minister’s daughters. We had no choice. The only other words I hated as much: “I’m sorry,” also forced through clenched teeth.

Oddly enough I cannot recall my older brother being told to ask my forgiveness when he and his friend pummeled me. That fell into the category of: “you egged them on.” My mother did used to say of my brother, mournfully and anxiously: “he doesn’t know his own strength.” Which meant: it isn’t his fault that he hurt you. But my sister and I were supposed to be nice to each other. Continue reading “Beyond Clenched Teeth: Reflections on Forgiveness by Elizabeth Cunningham”