Feminism and Religion – Page 64 – Feminism and Religion

Hope for the New Year by Katie M. Deaver

I have never been one to set major resolutions at the beginning of the new year, but this year feels different somehow. I can’t say that I am sad to see the end of 2017. This year has felt like an unpredictable roller coaster both on a national and personal level. The highs of finishing a doctoral program and building a relationship with my boyfriend’s six year-old daughter were met with the complications of job searching, concern over losing access to affordable health care, and my feeble attempts to balance appropriate and timely responses to the constant onslaught of ridiculous, or often downright appalling, headlines with my need to remain at least somewhat sane. All in all I am ready for 2018 to begin and I feel a new drive to find ways to make this a better year for myself and for those around me.

How do I go about accomplishing this? I don’t want my new goals to go the way of so many resolutions… given up on or discarded by mid-January or perhaps February if I’m lucky. Rather I want to find ways to dedicate myself to small changes that I can sustain long-term, small changes that help me feel as though I am having an impact. In addition, I want to find ways to rejuvenate and reinvigorate myself and my actions on a regular basis… to make 2018 feel more like an enjoyable walk in lightly falling snow and less like slogging through five feet of that snow while carrying a heavy burden on my back.

Continue reading “Hope for the New Year by Katie M. Deaver”

Women Religion Revolution and its Political Theological Orientation by Xochitl Alvizo

I introduced the volume Women Religion Revolution, the collected works that Gina Messina and I co-edited, in a previous post. I now write about the political theological orientation with which we entered the project of the book.

The very first thing to note is that this work was, from beginning to end, a collaborative effort at multiple levels. First is the personal, relational. The idea for the book was Gina’s, but she invited me to join her in the project very early on. We brainstormed contributors and hit the ground running. Next, with the help of Kate Ott, we partnered with Feminist Studies in Religion, Inc. and its newly launched FSR Book Series. We were excited for the opportunity to have our book be among the first ones published. Organizationally, FSR Inc. partners with the Carter Center and its Mobilizing Action for Women and Girls Initiative. The Carter Center helped support the launch of the FSR Books series out of its concern to support works that make a difference to women and girls. And so, by way of FSR, this project was also made possible by the Carter Center (more on that in a bit). Continue reading “Women Religion Revolution and its Political Theological Orientation by Xochitl Alvizo”

“It Came Upon a Solstice Morn” by Carol P. Christ

It came upon a Solstice morn,

that glorious song of old,

with angels bending near the earth,

to touch their harps of gold.

“Peace on the earth.

good will to all,”

from heaven’s all glorious realm.

The world in silent stillness waits,

to hear the angels sing.

I wake in the dark of Solstice morn.

Mountains shrouded in clouds,

cold wind blowing,

light dawns.

My mother heard

the angels sing,

on Solstice eve,

calling me to life,

her Christmas Carol.

Blessed Mother Always With Us.

Longing for my beloved,

on Solstice morn,

I heard Sappho sing:

Thank you, my dear

You came and you did

well to come: I needed

you. You have made

love blaze up in

my breast–bless you!

Bless you as often

as the hours have

been endless to me

when you were gone.

Cold tiles,

bare feet,

coffee brewing,

elderly dog stirring,

I open the garden door.

And there it is.

Solstice miracle.

Three purple irises.

blooming in the cold.

Life triumphing over death,

every time.

New words to the traditional carol “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” by Carol P. Christ.

Sappho translated by Mary Barnard.

Thanks to Miriam Robbins Dexter for the digging iris bulbs from her garden for me to plant in mine.

My mother promised my father to name me Susan or Peter but when she heard carolers in the hospital, she changed her mind.

* * *

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. It could change your life! Spring tour filled, sign up now for Fall 2018.

Carol’s photo by Michael Honegger

The Making of Women Religion Revolution by Xochitl Alvizo

Last month in Boston during the American Academy of Religion (AAR) Annual Meeting I presented on Women Religion Revolution, a volume of collaborative work with fifteen other women that Gina Messina and I co-edited. The book is the third one published with FRS Books, the new book series of Feminist Studies in Religion, Inc. (FSR, Inc.) – a project with which we are very proud to partner.

FSR Books organized a panel featuring these first books. Serving as a backdrop of the whole panel was Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza’s own book, Congress of Wo/men: Religion, Gender, and Kyriarchal Power, which was FSR Books’ first publication. In this book, Schüssler Fiorenza introduces the concept and vision of the ekklēsia of wo/men as kosmopolis. Defining the ekklēsia of wo/men as “the decision-making assembly of the kosmopolis,”[1] she explains the kosmopolis as the polis/city-state “governed by the egalitarian values and visions of justice and well-bring for everyone without exception” (106). She calls feminists in religion to “build a global, transcultural, cosmopolitan organizations for articulating a wisdom spirituality of cosmic world citizenship and for securing the welfare of everyone in the kosmos/world and of the kosmos itself” (111-112). In other words, Schüssler Fiorenza’s volume is a renewed call for feminists to think big and think together beyond the binary of secular/religious so as to more effectively counter the neoliberal domination of our current global context. Continue reading “The Making of Women Religion Revolution by Xochitl Alvizo”

Another Season of Reflection and Review by Elise M. Edwards

I turn inward and become reflective at this time of year. It’s the Advent season in the Christian liturgical year, which encourages practices of piety focused on preparation, examination, and hopeful longing. It’s the end of a semester and a calendar year, which provokes review of the months before. In the northern hemisphere, it’s a time of darker days and longer nights, which suggest a retreat indoors, in silence or in stillness.

During this time of year, I’m typically exhausted, and so I seem to enact annual rituals with a recurring sense of ambivalence. I really love the celebration of Christmas, but preparing for it takes a lot of energy. So I do some decorating, but not as much as I planned. I attend some parties and celebrations, but end up missing or cancelling others. I start a new devotional book, only to set it aside within a week or so. I want this time of year to be both reflective and celebratory. I want it to be spiritual and religious. I want to be sociable with friends and family and also find time to rest and recover in solitude. At some point, those goals seem too contradictory to be realizable and then I start practical negotiations: How much decorating will I do? What kind of time will I set aside for solitude and self-care? Will I have enough energy to be joyful and present with my family and friends?

“Some, but not enough” is the answer I seem to come to every year.

Some decorating, but not enough. Some time for solitude and self-care, but not enough. Some energy for social occasions, but not enough. This year, I want to let go of that voice that says it’s not enough. That voice that says I am not enough.

To help myself let go of the guilt and self-deprecation, while retaining the reflective focus of the season that may be life-affirming, I reviewed my previous years’ December writings on this blog. What might I discern from this pattern of yearly reflection?

In 2012, I wrote about why women might be tempted to cancel Christmas. I was in my final year of the Ph.D. program when I wrote that, and was prompted to do so when I heard that friends and colleagues were planning to skip Christmas preparations or scale them back dramatically. That year, I sought to maintain “religious and social rituals associated with Christmas” so that I could be “spiritually grounded, emotionally provoked, mentally rested, and physically fed.” I don’t have a vivid memory of that year’s holidays, but as I read it again, I wonder if I was carrying a sense of religious obligation rather than release. Did I feel free or beholden to social custom? I’ve learned that I will only be able to let that “not enough” voice go when I let go of the expectation that Advent and Christmas should look a certain way or I should be present to it in a certain way. I’m more willing this year to let peace and joy ebb and flow in celebrations and moments of sadness and mourning that accompany the season, too.

In 2014 and 2016, my Advent reflections were more focused on justice and peace at the societal level than in the household. They were mournful. In December 2014, I was trying to stave off despair after Michael Brown’s killer was not indicted by a grand jury. The police officer would not stand trial for killing the black teen. That year, I was mourning Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin and the loss of my own naivete as I became more conscientized about racial violence. I had a similar wake-up call last year when Hillary Rodham Clinton lost the US presidential election and I working through the anger and dread I felt at 45’s approaching presidency. This year, the struggle continues as we anticipate changes to the tax code and DACA. But at least Roy Moore lost. We do continue to work for progress and systemic change, and sometimes, it works.

Feminists have long asserted that the personal is political and that the political is personal. I’m acknowledging this holiday season that my perpetual weariness during Advent and Christmas is legitimate, as it emerges from personal and political struggle. I am frustrated with the injustices and hardships I encounter at home, work, and the broader community. I would not be weary if I was not awakened to the suffering. This year, I accept that the exhaustion is part of the cost of my work and my calling. The weariness will ebb and flow, as will joy and peace. Being able to teach and write is a blessing that allows me to help others become more aware of injustice and more involved in addressing it. This year, I’m acknowledging that I’ve done what I can do. I’m resisting the impulse to assess whether it was enough. In previous years, I’ve been trying to hold on to hope; this year I’m resting in God’s grace.

As Christmas approaches, I’m embracing the Christian teaching that the divine meets humanity where we are. The beauty of the Incarnation is that the eternal meets the temporal and that God unites with human to bring light to a suffering world. That’s a gift for me this year, a comfort to be able to shift the focus from my own action and being to divine action and being.

I can see the sacred work and presence in this online community and other communities of faith. Holiday blessings to you all.

Elise M. Edwards, PhD is a Lecturer in Christian Ethics at Baylor University and a graduate of Claremont Graduate University. She is also a registered architect in the State of Florida. Her interdisciplinary work examines issues of civic engagement and how beliefs and commitments are expressed publicly. As a black feminist, she primarily focuses on cultural expressions by, for, and about women and marginalized communities. Follow her on twitter, google+ or academia.edu.

Black People Elect Jones, White People Vote for Moore: And What That Means by Carol P. Christ

By now the exit poll statistics from the recent election in the state of Alabama are well known: 98% of black women and 92% of black men voted for Democrat Doug Jones, while 74% of white men and 65% of white women voted for Republican pedophile and child-molester Roy Moore.

These statistics raise two important questions. The first is why white women would vote—some would say against their own interests—for a man whose abusive behavior toward women and girls is a matter of public record. The second, and related question, is whether the Democratic strategy of trying to appeal to racist and sexist white people by downplaying racism and sexism is a winning strategy. Continue reading “Black People Elect Jones, White People Vote for Moore: And What That Means by Carol P. Christ”

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”

Grieving through the Holidays: Painting Holy Women Icons of Grief by Angela Yarber

The holiday season is a particularly difficult time for grief. Whether it is grieving someone who died earlier in the year as you celebrate your first holiday season without them, or the lasting memories of loved ones who are no longer present at family gatherings, this time of year makes grief bubble to the surface. Since this is my first holiday season without my little brother, who died in March, I’ve planned ahead with coping strategies that I’d like to share with other feminists struggling to grieve through the holidays.

Upon the death of a loved one, most people in the West are offered commodified grief, costly funerals, and stifled feelings pre-packaged as dignified tradition. When deathcare became a commercial enterprise at the turn of the twentieth century, there was what mortician and author Caitlin Doughty calls a seismic shift in who was responsible for the dead. “Caring for the corpse went from visceral, primeval work performed by women to a ‘profession,’ an ‘art,’ and even a ‘science,’ performed by well-paid men. The corpse, with all its physical and emotional messiness, was taken from women. It was made neat and clean, and placed in its casket on a pedestal, always just out of our grasp (Caitlin Doughty, From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death, 136).”

Continue reading “Grieving through the Holidays: Painting Holy Women Icons of Grief by Angela Yarber”

Depicting Mary by Natalie Weaver

In October I had the opportunity to travel to the Louvre Museum on a free day I had from a conference I was attending in Leuven, Belgium. I went predisposed to consider images of the Madonna as I had been thinking about her representations in art for some time. In my own painting, I have been developing a version of the Annunciation that depicts Mary as a teenage girl reading a pregnancy test. Her fear and consternation, coupled by the shock of the event of learning of her pregnancy strikes me as a more accessible telling of the true vulnerability and risk of the unwed child Mary than classic depictions of Mary as a reclining queenly figure quietly receiving the angel’s message. I likewise had been working on a wood burnt figure of a Black Madonna as a study in both icon making and also understanding the tradition of Black Madonnas found throughout Eastern Europe.

I am deeply aware that representing this figure is a culturally laden task because the Madonna speaks both to some of the deepest spiritual needs and inclinations of many faithful Christians world over, just as she is almost shorthand for division among Christian communities. Her presentation is tremendously political as it is received by fans and critics simultaneously as at once championing women (and the divine within women) and also condemning real women whose maternity and bodies can never be as morally or physically pristine as Mary’s. Mary’s skin, clothing, age, gesturing, posture, gaze, and more speak volumes about the social location of her patrons and creators as well as the manner in which the viewer is being invited to receive her.

Continue reading “Depicting Mary by Natalie Weaver”

Gifts from My Father by Carol P. Christ

My father was a very intelligent man who tested “genius” in the army. Drafted into the army at a young age, he decided not to take advantage of the “GI Bill” that would have paid for his college education after the war, because he already had a family to support. My father was lucky not to have served in combat. Scheduled for the invasion of Japan, he served in its occupation. I once asked him if he saw the devastating effects of the atomic bombs that the United States dropped on Japan. Instead of answering directly, he said dismissively, “I suppose you think I was traumatized.” I imagine that on some level he was, because unlike many WW II veterans he never spoke about his time in the army, and most tellingly, he was the only member of his unit not to sign up for the “extra pay” to be earned in the reserves, and thus the only one not to be called up to serve in Korea. Although he never questioned the US government’s right to wage war, he always told me, “war is hell.” Though he was not at all pleased when I became active in the anti-war movement, I found some of the roots of my opposition to war in my father’s refusal to glorify it. Continue reading “Gifts from My Father by Carol P. Christ”