Feminism and Religion – Page 80 – Feminism and Religion

Storied Women by Natalie Weaver

Natalie Weaver edited One of my goals for the summer is to paint more. I find I can often say or think by a picture something that I am trying to work through in a formal, discursive way. Art functions as a methodological tool for my theology insofar as it helps me to articulate in one language something that I am trying to say in another. As my teaching career has lengthened, I’ve become more confident using images I have created to communicate my ideas. This no doubt has something to do with the liberty one gains in teaching as a performance exercise, combined with avoidance of repetition, and the desire to engage as well as to be entertained in one’s own right. Even more than just working out an idea, sometimes I also find making images to be a therapeutic tool. I can laugh, mourn, gripe, or celebrate through an image, and sometimes, I can even protest by one.

One area in which I feel inclined to protest is in those figures I describe as “storied women.” To me, this term refers to those outstanding figures in history or myth whose lives are rendered into legend, usually for a didactic or moral purpose. While occasionally such rendering is heroic, as in the cases of Esther or Joan of Arc, the story-ing is usually typological and flat. The woman(en) is used as a secondary element in a story, often for the purposes of advancing a primary narrative about men. Tamar, for example, is treated as a figure in and around whose body the action, succession, and political positioning of David’s sons are enacted. Bathsheba is also an exemplar of the storied women in the poet-king’s court, standing as one of the definitional temptresses of biblical history. Continue reading “Storied Women by Natalie Weaver”

I’m Failing by John Erickson

“How is your dissertation going?”

Never before has a simple question packed such a punch. Five little words strike fear into my heart as I remember I have a countless number of things to do before I get that title after my name: Ph.D.

There are so many reasons I feel like I’m failing at my dissertation and school, which I used to love. The first reason is I never have any time to write. Continue reading “I’m Failing by John Erickson”

A Servant of God or a Lover of Life? by Carol P. Christ

Thus through an enormous network of mythological narrative, every aspect of culture is cloaked in the relationship of ruler and ruled, creator and created. . . . [Sumerian] legend endows the Sumerian ruler-gods with creative power; their subjects are recreated as servants. . . . [This new narrative was] deployed with the purpose of conditioning the mind anew.(20, italics added)

This provocative statement is found in a chapter titled “The First Major Sexual Rupture” in a collation of the writings titled Liberating Life: The Women’s Revolution by imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan (pronounced Oh-cha-lan). According to Ocalan, who clearly had been reading authors like James Mellaart, Marija Gimbutas, and Heidi Goettner-Abendroth, the values of the societies that preceded Sumer in the Near East were entirely different. Continue reading “A Servant of God or a Lover of Life? by Carol P. Christ”

Our Ladies of Sea, Earth, and Sky by Joyce Zonana

Sara and the Marys — Sainte Sara encompassing Sainte Marie-Salome and Sainte Marie-Jacobe

O Sainte Marie-Jacobe, priez pour nous.

O Sainte Marie-Salome, priez pour nous.

O gardeures de la Provence, priez pour nous.

The priest intoned the words in deep, liquid accents, his voice echoing from the ancient stone church in the remote village of Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, in the Camargue region of Southern France, where the waters of the Rhone River meet the Mediterranean Sea in a wild, wide, flat expanse populated by black bulls, pink flamingos, and white horses.

“O, Saint Mary-Jacobe, pray for us.”
“O, Saint Mary-Salome, pray for us.”
“O, guardians of the gates of Provence, pray for us.”

I could feel the words resonating through me, bringing sudden, hot tears. The people gathered in the small village square repeated the priest’s chant, their voices rising above the low, white-washed houses into the sunlit sky, out towards the shimmering sea where legend tells us the two Marys had drifted two thousand years ago in a boat without rudder or sail.

Continue reading “Our Ladies of Sea, Earth, and Sky by Joyce Zonana”

Toxic Masculinity: “Masculinity Must Be Killed” by Carol P. Christ

Carol Molivos by Andrea Sarris 2 A few days ago I watched the movie An Unfinished Life starring Morgan Freeman, Robert Redford, and Jennifer Lopez. Though it was recommended as a sensitive psychological drama, and though on the surface level it criticizes (male) violence against women and animals, on a deeper level, it confirms the association of masculinity with violence, suggesting that violence is the way men resolve their problems with each other.

At the beginning of the film, Robert Redford, who lives on a ranch in Montana, picks up his rifle with the intention of shooting a bear who mauled his friend Morgan Freeman. This act of violence is stopped by local authorities who arrive to capture the bear. However, the bear is not removed to a more remote area, but rather is given to a local make-shift zoo where it is kept in a small cage. At the end of the movie, Redford frees the bear after Freeman realizes that it should not be punished for injuring him. The bear is last seen crossing a mountain ridge in the distance.

Redford is grieving the death of his only son who died in an automobile accident while his son’s wife (played by Jennifer Lopez) was driving. After being beaten by her current boyfriend, Jennifer Lopez escapes with her daughter and ends up on Redford’s doorstep, announcing that her daughter is Redford’s granddaughter. Redford, who believes Lopez is responsible for his son’s death, grudgingly allows them to stay.

When Lopez’s boyfriend tracks her down in Montana, Redford drives him out of town, threatening to kill him with his rifle. When the boyfriend comes back, Redford shoots out the tires of his car, smashes the car’s windows with his rifle, and beats the boyfriend bloody before putting him on a bus out of town.

The movie asks us to condemn the boyfriend’s violence against Lopez and Redford’s desire to kill the bear, but it also asks us to condone and even to celebrate Redford’s violent acts against the boyfriend. After all, in this case, justice is done. Right? Continue reading “Toxic Masculinity: “Masculinity Must Be Killed” by Carol P. Christ”

Khutba “A Call to Radical and Angry Women of Faith” by Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente

Sacred+Circle+home+page+image+one I am grateful to the Interfaith Group of Feminist Theologians and Women of Faith for remembering my spiritual affiliation and giving me the opportunity to lead this service in this fully of blessings month of Ramadan and share with you a reflection in the form of a sermon or khutba. Perhaps you know that in orthodox Islam, tradition, without any theological basis, still forbids women to speak or lead rituals. So, this is a joyful occasion for me and I want to start with my usual invocation:

I thank God for this day. I praise Allah for the paths I had to walk that led me to its light and the present day. I ask the protection of the Divine that lives in the essence of everything. and I invite my female ancestors to walk with me in this journey.

A Call to Radical and Angry Women of Faith

My dear sisters, I want to invite you this evening to reflect on what it means to be a radical woman of faith, in a context of extreme upsurge of violence against women and minoritized groups we live in. What does mean being a radical woman? As we know, radical women are feared even by their activist and feminists peers. For the mainstream of society, a radical woman is a little crazy, a little witch, a little ugly, and especially, a very angry woman.

Well, they are right about anger. To be radical is to be as outraged enough to, fearlessly and tirelessly, claim and work for the total end of all kinds of oppression. You heard it right, the total end of all kinds of oppression. For women of faith, like us, who believe in social justice as the prior duty and principle of living in the creation, the current status of abuse, violence and exploitation to which a part of humankind is subjected must provoke us to rage, anger and outrage.

Aren`t you upset? Because I am. Religious patriarchy has historically exercised and endorsed, until today, violence against women and those group defined as “minority.” This religious patriarchy, composed for priests, imams, lamas and rabbis legitimize multiple forms of exclusion of women, sexism, control of our bodies, misogyny and rape culture.

This week we mourn the death of about 50 of our Latino siblings in Orlando. We have to add to this list the hate crimes against queer people in Veracruz, México, as well the slaughtering of women in thousands of gendercides that have become the standard cover of newspapers every day, and the violence against lesbians and trans women, crimes that fail to capture the visibility and solidarity of a homophobic and androcentric society.

Without denying the misogyny and homophobia existing in my community, I want to say that the specific religion of those criminals doesn´t matter, you know why? The pernicious influence of religious patriarchy extends beyond the limits of our assemblies. People blame misogyny and LGTBQphobia on religions as if this is something external to their lives. But each day, at the school, workplace and media our society reproduces all that hetero-sexist, colonial, racist, elitist violence. Heterosexuality as a political regime, validated by hegemonic religious narratives, present in all belief systems, is a source of violence and a form of terrorism itself. Continue reading “Khutba “A Call to Radical and Angry Women of Faith” by Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente”

Religion and the #StateofWomen by Gina Messina

The White House Summit on Women was held this week on Tuesday, June 14, 2016 and it was a great privilege to be among those invited to participate in this inaugural event. There was an incredible line up of speakers and so much was shared. It proved to be an overwhelming day – in a very good way. Topics addressed included violence against women, economic empowerment, and education. In addition to the main event, there were breakout sessions on a myriad of topics presented by the most preeminent authorities in their fields. I walked away from the day with a sense of urgency to find news ways to engage gender issues and social policy. However, I also wondered how to bring religion into the dialogue and give greater attention to its impact on women’s issues in the US. Continue reading “Religion and the #StateofWomen by Gina Messina”

Goddess Politics and the Cauldron of Memory by Kavita Maya

KavitaMaya ‘Someone needs to gather the stories, to keep the cauldron,’ said the late Goddess feminist artist Lydia Ruyle during one of the last times we spoke, at the 2014 Glastonbury Goddess Conference. I had hinted at my concerns around conducting doctoral research in the presence of ongoing conflict within the Glastonbury Goddess community (especially when my broadly-stated site of interest is ‘politics’), and in reply she had stressed the need to ‘hold space’ for the different voices and perspectives in the UK Goddess movement, and that conflict would be inevitable. ‘There needs to be a weaver,’ she said.

The following day I recorded an interview with Lydia and some of her friends at Café Galatea on the High Street, which she had been keen to ensure since the previous summer—with poignant foresight, given her death in March 2016. I’m not sure if she was expecting that I should fully take on the role of this ‘weaver’—there are more stories than one PhD thesis can claim to encompass—but the theme is present in my writing. Her words lead me to reflect on the weaving together of politics with memory and storytelling, and on the need to honour the plural histories of the British Goddess movement. Continue reading “Goddess Politics and the Cauldron of Memory by Kavita Maya”

Garden of Eden Retold by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir

Trelawney bio picture

Today, I came up with a less patriarchal Garden of Eden story:

Endelyn (age 7): “When I think of my soul, in my name “fire-soul,” I think of a powerful wind.”

Me: “That makes sense, since one of the names in the Bible for God/ess is Ruach, which means “breath” or “wind”, but we call it the Holy Spirit. God/ess is also symbolized by the other elements: fire, air, and earth – like when she shaped Eve and Adam out of clay.”

Endelyn, “What? I don’t remember that story.”

Me: “Oh, ok, I’ll tell you.” ……

Here’s the part where I froze momentarily, thinking “how can I tell my children that misogynist failed mentor story? how? how?” <deep breath>
Continue reading “Garden of Eden Retold by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir”

What Traci West Taught Me about Dominant and Excluded Voices by Elise M. Edwards

In my previous post, I mentioned a book I am writing about how theological and ethical considerations in architectural design can define good architecture. In that post and in ones to follow, I am acknowledging the feminists and womanists and mujeristas who have influenced me while also opening up the dialogue to the feminists in this community who continue to inspire and guide me to do my best work.

But today, instead of talking about creativity or architecture, I want to discuss how I arrived at the conviction that community decisions about how we ought to live—whether those are decisions about laws, institutional policies, religious practices or architectural buildings—need to include the voices of the diverse people they directly and indirectly influence. Continue reading “What Traci West Taught Me about Dominant and Excluded Voices by Elise M. Edwards”