Feminism and Religion – Page 29 – Feminism and Religion

Dignity of Women Across the World’s Wisdom: Parliament of World Religions Webinar by Carol P. Christ

I have been asked to post my contribution to the Parliament of World Religions Webinar: Dignity of Women Across World’s Wisdom.

I am participating in this discussion as a representative of women who are on a Goddess path. I do not represent any established or newly formed religious or spiritual tradition. Rather I speak for an increasingly large number of women who are seeking alternatives to established traditions that celebrate and legitimate male power as power over or domination. We do not follow leaders or gurus and we place no trust in any sacred texts.

Most of us have grown up in cultures where the most prominent religious traditions feature male Gods, male teachers, and male religious leaders. We agree with Mary Daly who said that when God is male the male is God. In traditions where God is male, male teachers and religious leaders are viewed as reflecting or being in the image of the male divinity. We do not assume that images of God as male are never valid, but we do assert the need for images of God as female.

As I said in my often re-published essay, “Why Women Need the Goddess,” the most important meaning conveyed by the symbol of Goddess as the ultimate creative power in the universe is that female power is legitimate and good. This does not mean that female power is always good, but it clearly undermines the widely held view that female power exercised apart from male control is always evil or bad. This view is reinforced by images of women as evil in religious traditions, for example, Eve seduced by the snake. Continue reading “Dignity of Women Across the World’s Wisdom: Parliament of World Religions Webinar by Carol P. Christ”

Women’s Circles Need Well-Established Structures to Ensure that Everyone’s Voice Is Heard by Carol P. Christ

In a recent blog on Feminism and Religion, “Insights on Sisterhood,” Eirini Delaki opened a dialogue about problems that arise in women’s circles. According to her, many of us are reacting against the poisonous pedagogy of control which is all too familiar in patriarchal families and patriarchal cultural, religious, and economic institutions. Desiring to be free of hierarchical structures that inhibit our growth and happiness, we often react against all structures.

We imagine that groups without structure will provide a space where we can learn and grow together. We begin with a vision of sisterhood in which everyone’s voice will be heard. In practice, however, groups without structure usually end up being dominated by those with the loudest voices and the biggest egos. The quieter and less sure members of the group find themselves dominated again. When the vision of sisterhood is not realized, the group is likely to dissolve. Continue reading “Women’s Circles Need Well-Established Structures to Ensure that Everyone’s Voice Is Heard by Carol P. Christ”

Insights on Sisterhood: An Offering to the Great Goddess by Eirini Delaki

I have been facilitating women’s circles in Europe since 2006. This has involved years of deep, challenging, thankful, and fun teaching and learning. During that time, I have collaborated with different facilitators in the fields of art and spirituality and connected with different cultures, experiences that have reinforced a vision of SISTERHOOD.

Let me clarify that in no manner am I excluding men from these reflections. On the contrary, I believe that many dysfunctional and suffering men have been shaped by women who haven’t managed to stand up for themselves. They harm their children through manipulation while not directly challenging an oppressive system out of fear or a need to feel accepted and to belong.

My students and I are going through an important transition. Most of us come from parents who have spent their lives seeking material possessions, safety, comfort, and success in terms of competition enforced through harsh discipline. Then we moved to the other extreme: we have a reactive attitude towards the previous patterns that is manifested as procrastination, avoidance of tasks that involve responsibility towards ourselves and others, being too permissive, confusing freedom with doing whatever feels right at the moment, and so on. Continue reading “Insights on Sisterhood: An Offering to the Great Goddess by Eirini Delaki”

Grief, Disappointment, and the Big Comforting White Guy Who Can Make It All Right by Carol P. Christ

As the results from America’s Super Tuesday election primaries came in, I found myself feeling disoriented. I could not focus on any task and found myself obsessively reading the news and checking my Facebook timeline. Many of my friends who had supported Elizabeth Warren were embracing Biden as the next best hope to defeat Donald Trump. Sometime on Thursday, I came across Starhawk’s Facebook post on the grief and disappointment so many of us were feeling following the latest primary results.

In the post, Starhawk spoke of her disappointment that Bernie and Elizabeth did not do better and that Biden did so well. She spoke first of her grief that Elizabeth’s campaign never took hold. No doubt she, like me and many of you, had heard feminist friends express the fear that a woman could not win, saying that as much as they wanted to vote for her, they probably would not. Starhawk said that we simply do not have enough archetypes of female power to enable people to imagine a woman as President. Continue reading “Grief, Disappointment, and the Big Comforting White Guy Who Can Make It All Right by Carol P. Christ”

Matriarchal Politics by Heide Goettner-Abendroth

Today’s blog is a sequel to: “Matriarchies Are Not Just a Reversal of Patriarchies: A Structural Analysis.”

On the basis of modern Matriarchal Studies, we can develop the vision of a new matriarchal, egalitarian form of society. This is called “Matriarchal Politics.”

The path to such a society has to combine matriarchal spirituality with politics, to create another kind of economy and another society. How this can be achieved is clearly portrayed by traditional matriarchal societies. Their economy, politics, social life and spirituality are inseparably connected: their goal is to provide a good life for all and this is assured through their structure and conventions.

Of course, we cannot go back and simply transfer historical patterns to the present. It is unlikely that we will return to societies based on the blood-relatedness of clans or sole dependence on agriculture. History and its social development cannot be turned backwards. But for our own path into new matriarchal, egalitarian societies, we can gain much stimulation and great insights from patterns which have been tried and tested for millennia. Continue reading “Matriarchal Politics by Heide Goettner-Abendroth”

Ancient Mothers, I Hear You Calling Me to Crete by Carol P. Christ

On a cold and rainy morning in Lesbos, I ponder the advice of my intuitive friend Cristina to reflect on the spiritual dimensions of my decision to move to Crete. When asked why I am moving from Lesbos to Crete, I tend focus on the negative: I am lonely in my small village; and I am disheartened by my neighbors’ lack of compassion for the refugees who come to our island from Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan.

As I begin to think again, I recall the many wonderful things I have experienced in Lesbos. This is the island where Sappho sang, and I too have been inspired by the muses who arise from the land. It is here that I first felt Greece calling me to leave my home. It is here that I learned to speak Greek. It is here that I listened to the stories of the old people who remembered a time when everyone lived closer to each other and the land. It is here that I learned to dance the traditional dances of Greece. It is here that I learned to identify over 300 species of birds that visit the wetlands on spring migration or are year-around or summer and winter residents. It is here that I dedicated a decade of my life to the effort to protect the wetland home of the birds I came to love. It is here that I was asked to run for regional and national office by the Green Party Greece. It is here that I met green friends I will always hold in my heart. It is here that I became an amateur geologist, learning the volcanic history of an island that has been declared a UNESCO Geopark. It is here that I imagined the time before 1922 when Turks, Armenians, and Greeks lived together in my village. It is here that I renovated a small Turkish house in a neighborhood that once had a mosque and later, a Neoclassical “mansion” (not particularly large by American standards) built by a Greek shipowner who transported goods brought by camels along the silk road from China. It is here that I learned to drink retsina and to relish food drenched in olive oil. I will carry all of this with me, for it is in my blood and in my bones.

But now, Crete is calling me. Continue reading “Ancient Mothers, I Hear You Calling Me to Crete by Carol P. Christ”

“And a Rich Old White Man Shall Lead Them”? by Carol P. Christ

“And a rich old white man shall lead them.” Is this saying found in the Bible or any other collection of sacred texts that those committed to social justice admire? If not, then why are liberal pundits (and even some of my friends) rushing to declare Michael Bloomberg to be the candidate—and perhaps the only candidate—who can save America from Donald Trump?

When the Democratic Party changed its rules to allow Michael Bloomberg onto the stage after “following its rules” to exclude Kirsten Gillebrand, Kamala Harris, Corey Booker, and Julian Castro, I was appalled. I agree with Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren that it is imperative to get big money out of politics. I supported the small step in that direction enshrined in the debate rules requiring significant numbers of small donors. The decision to rescind this rule in order to place Bloomberg on the debate stage made my blood boil: it confirmed what I already knew—that the Democratic party is not fully committed to cutting its ties to big money.

Bloomberg’s brazen attempt to buy himself the Democratic nomination should be reason enough for progressives to reject him. That Democrats are rushing to support him may say more about their fear of Trump winning again than about any admiration they have for Bloomberg. Joy Reid, for example, opined that Bloomberg would be able to outspend Trump in the election and that unlike other Democratic candidates, he would not be afraid to fight just as dirty as Trump.*

Charles M. Blow took another view. In a New York Times opinion piece, he reminds Democrats of Bloomberg’s notorious “stop-and-frisk” policy when he was mayor of New York City: Continue reading ““And a Rich Old White Man Shall Lead Them”? by Carol P. Christ”

Matriarchies Are Not Just a Reversal of Patriarchies: A Structural Analysis by Heide Goettner-Abendroth

Matriarchies are not just a reversal of patriarchies, with women ruling over men – as the usual misinterpretation would have it. Matriarchies are mother-centered societies. They are based on maternal values: care-taking, nurturing, mothering. This holds for everybody: for mothers and those who are not mothers, for women and men alike.

Matriarchal societies are consciously built upon maternal values and motherly work, and this is why they are much more realistic than patriarchies. They are, on principle, need-oriented. They aim to meet everyone’s needs with the greatest benefit. So, in matriarchies, mothering – which originates as a biological fact – is transformed into a cultural model. This model is much more appropriate to the human condition than the patriarchal conception of motherhood which is used to make women, and especially mothers, into slaves.

Within matriarchal cultures, equality means more than just a levelling of differences. Natural differences between the genders and the generations are respected and honoured, but they never serve to create hierarchies, as is common in patriarchy. The different genders and generations each have their own dignity, and through complementary areas of activity, they function in concert one other. More precisely, matriarchies are societies with complementary equality, where great care is taken to provide a balance. This applies to the balance between genders, among generations, and between humans and nature. Maternal values as ethical principles pervade all areas of a matriarchal society. This creates an attitude of care-taking, nurturing, and peacemaking. Continue reading “Matriarchies Are Not Just a Reversal of Patriarchies: A Structural Analysis by Heide Goettner-Abendroth”

I Hope “This Changes Everything” by Elise M. Edwards

Last week, I attended a film festival in Waco, Texas that showed the 2019 documentary This Changes Everything. Spending Friday evening at a film festival seemed like an enjoyable and appropriate way to kick off a weekend that would culminate with the Academy Awards (the Oscars). I had no idea that this film would inform the way I viewed the movie industry and its most celebrated awards show. It did change everything for me.

This Changes Everything is about the representation of women in film, particularly their underrepresentation and misrepresentation on screen and in the film- and television-making process. It is not the first time this theme has been explored in a documentary. What struck me at this viewing, though, was the way the film portrayed patterns that resonated with my experiences in academia and in religious communities. There are parallels between the way sexism manifests in entertainment and I, along with other members in the (predominantly female) audience, couldn’t help but see parallels in Hollywood’s patterns of exclusion and the discriminatory conditions we confront in numerous other industries and professions. What were these patterns?

Continue reading “I Hope “This Changes Everything” by Elise M. Edwards”

The Ability to Feel and to Feel the Feelings of Others by Carol P. Christ

The term “panpsychism” is made up of two Greek words: pan, meaning all, and psyche, often translated mind or soul. Panpsychism is the view that (forms of) soul or mind or consciousness are found throughout the web of life. This view is in contrast to the traditional western philosophical and theological consensus that having a soul or a mind is what sets human beings apart from other forms of life. In contrast, mystics, children, and many indigenous people assume that human beings are not the only form of life with consciousness.

Traditional western thinkers believed that God created the world out of nothing according to principles in his mind. Those principles included the idea that minerals, plants, and animals are “lower” unconscious forms of life, while humans, angels, and the deity are not only “higher” forms of life, but are the only forms with consciousness or mind.

This view was still widely held when I was in graduate school in the late 60s and early 70s. My professors mocked anyone who dared to suggest that animals—including family pets—had any form of consciousness or feeling. However, the notion that human beings are essentially different from other forms of life creates an unanswerable question for evolutionary theory: how did human beings with consciousness or mind evolve from forms of life that had no consciousness or mind? Continue reading “The Ability to Feel and to Feel the Feelings of Others by Carol P. Christ”