General – Page 290 – Feminism and Religion

The Inter-Faith Youth Initiative and Feminism by Ivy Helman

From June 25th through July 2nd 2013, I participated, as one of three Jewish mentors, in IFYI (Inter-Faith Youth Initiative), an inter-faith immersion experience for high school and college-age youth sponsored by Cooperative Metropolitan Ministries (CMM). The mentors and the rest of the staff guided, encouraged, empowered and supported 30 participants. Throughout the week, I also led an art interest group and co-led an affinity group with Beau Scurich, the Muslim chaplain at Northeastern. The entire community of participants and staff gathered around the week’s theme: the ways of truth and love. As Mahatma Gandhi said: “When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it–always,” (emphasis added).

IFYI was not only an exercise in how to live out the ways of truth and love, but it also became a vehicle through which the participants and staff expressed to the larger world what the ways of truth and love meant to us. Here is some of what the ways of truth and love came to mean throughout our journey together. Continue reading “The Inter-Faith Youth Initiative and Feminism by Ivy Helman”

Creating Ritual by Linn Marie Tonstad

Last time, we considered whether the creation of rituals, I mean habits, might serve as an antidote to depression, or as a way of managing depression. But the creation of ritual has had a much more significant role in feminist religious practice than such an approach might suggest. Currently, WATER – Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics, and Ritual, a leading center for feminist religious thought – creates multiple rituals marking various seasons and events in the year, most recently for the summer solstice. These rituals can provide alternative ways of marking the year’s rhythms, and they can serve as ways to take control of liturgical spaces that have tended to exclude women or to allow women to serve only in various subordinate roles.

Yet the terminology is odd. What does it mean to create a ritual? If I think of the rituals of my childhood, what presented itself to me as ritual was connected either with religious practice, or with seasons of exception. Indeed, the most stylized rituals of the year were areligious (as I understood religion). They took place on Christmas Eve. First, during the distribution of presents, my father would put on a terrifying, horrifying, grotesque Santa mask. It was intended, clearly, to be a friendly Santa, which was why its leering was so fundamentally disturbing. My sister and I would try to run away, emotionally and sometimes physically petrified by the transformation of our father into this monster. Second, after Christmas dinner, we would eat cold rice porridge with cream and try to get an almond – “mandel i grøten” in Norwegian tradition. Getting the almond, which is blanched and hidden in the porridge, is considered an auspicious omen for the new year, and requires that the finder be given a gift – traditionally, a marzipan pig. Continue reading “Creating Ritual by Linn Marie Tonstad”

Adventures in Churchgoing by Elise M. Edwards

I am often greeted by warm smiles and handshakes–and sometimes even hugs–from churchgoers around me. But I wonder if the friendly people would be so welcoming if they knew that I identify as feminist.

It’s hard being a feminist and visiting a new church. I’ve recently moved to Texas from California and I’m looking for a church to attend. There are many things I love about church: corporate worship, talks with people of faith, gatherings where friendships are built, and opportunities to serve and to learn. I also love to sing, and my not-ready-for-primetime voice would love to join a choir with and contribute to other people’s worship experience.

In my past, I’ve been a member (or regular attender) of churches where I felt welcomed and affirmed. Yet, I always feel defensive when I seek out new places to worship. I question whether a church will be affirming to women and girls as whole selves – as embodied, thinking, feeling beings. I mentally prepare myself to hear male imagery and language for God and I pray themes of male headship vs. female servanthood are not expressed. I feel like an investigator seeking out clues to determine our compatibility. It’s no wonder that I’ve recently heard several people compare visiting churches to dating.

Continue reading “Adventures in Churchgoing by Elise M. Edwards”

To Have and to Hold: Gay Marriage and the Religion Question

If a conservative religious traditions can’t give their mothers or sisters full equality, how can we expect them to give a GLBT individual the time of day?

Outrage. Anger. Fear. Hatred. These are just a few of the words that flashed across my Twitter feed as I woke up on that fateful Wednesday, June 26 morning when the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act (or DOMA) was unconstitutional and that supporters of Proposition 8, the hotly contested voter initiative in California that banned same-sex marriage, had no standing. People were mad. However, it wasn’t just the typical kind of mad that is associated with hatred, it was a type of mad that was met with impossible anguish because what I was reading and feeling was a result of one thing: there was nothing more they could do.

What does all this mean? Questions from friends and family were filling up my inbox and although I wanted to take a moment to just hit “Reply All,” and input the words: Equality, I had to hold back and start to examine the notion that although equality may now be firmly on the proverbial table, there is still a lot of work to be done, specifically for gay marriage and those wanting to marrying inside the traditional church spaces they grew up in and not just the ones that have come out as open and affirming in recent years towards LGBT individuals. Continue reading “To Have and to Hold: Gay Marriage and the Religion Question”

What Is Patriotism? by Carol P. Christ

July 4, American Independence Day, has come and gone. Perhaps now is as good a time as any to reflect on patriotism. What is it? What does it mean from a feminist perspective? What is the relationship between patriotism and militarism? Can one be a patriot and oppose war? Can one be a patriot and deny that “America is the greatest country in the world,” the foundation of the doctrine of American exceptionalism?

In a recent blog, Caroline Kline called attention to the use of patriarchal God language in the patriotic hymns her child was asked to sing in the 1^st grade. She wondered if this God language could be changed to female positive or gender neutral. Her post prompted me to ask if changing pronouns would be enough and to revisit the question of patriotism and nationalism.

While I had opposed the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 70s, I was surprised to read Jonathan Schell’s questioning of national sovereignty and the nation-state itself in his 1982 book on the nuclear question, The Fate of the Earth. Schell wrote, “the nuclear powers put a higher value on national sovereignty than they do on human survival, and … while they would naturally prefer to have both, they are ultimately prepared to bring an end to [hu]mankind in their attempt to protect their own countries.” (210) Schell concluded that the adherence to the idea of a nation state may in fact be antithetical to human survival. He stated, “Just as we have chosen to live in the system of sovereign states, we can choose to live in some other system.” (219) Continue reading “What Is Patriotism? by Carol P. Christ”

June 25th or “June Unteenth”: A Sad Day For All Americans

Kelly Brown Douglas wrote recently on Feminism and Religion about the celebrations in black communities on Juneteeth when the emancipation of slaves became a reality in the formerly Confederate states. Sadly, on June 25^th 2013 the Supreme Court announced its decision striking down section 4 of the Voting Rights act of 1965, the most important Civil Rights legislation of the 20^th century. The Supreme Court gave a “green light” to states with previous and on-going records of introducing laws with the effect of preventing minority voters from voting to “proceed straight ahead.” I name this day June Unteenth and call on all Americans to mourn it in sackcloth and ashes.

For every American concerned with Civil Rights this indeed is a sad day. It means states and municipalities—particularly those in the former Confederacy—will in the days following the decision be introducing new legislation which will have the effect of disenfranchising black voters. Those of us who consider the right to vote fundamental in a democracy must rise up, with time, with money, and if necessary with our bodies in peaceful protest.

This is not only a sad day for black Americans. It is a sad day for white Americans as well. June Unteenth is the day 4 white Americans joined by 1 black American (who was hand-picked by white Americans) announced their decision to deny voting rights to large numbers of black Americans. This decision may not affect the right to vote of large numbers of white Americans.

So why should we be mourning June Unteenth? One good reason is that this is a day to be ashamed of our membership in the “white race.” Continue reading “June 25th or “June Unteenth”: A Sad Day For All Americans”

I Love Love Tel Aviv By Laurie-Ann Cota

As a self-identified Jewish musician, pop culture nerd/aficionado, getting in touch with my cultural heritage in creative ways is extremely important to me. This past year I traveled to Israel for the first time and it was life changing.

I traveled with close friends from my undergraduate days at UCLA. We had bonded and formed a friendship through the blood, sweat, and tears shed in a Hebrew class.

As a Jew in the United States I realized that I was conforming to social standards without even knowing it. Coming home to Israel, this became very clear. For instance, many of my friends have very curly hair – we call it the “Jewfro” – and they remedy this problem with the ever so popular Brazilian Blowout, which definitely makes one look less “ethnic.” I have BIG hair, which I maintain by getting it razored or thinned out; if I don’t, I end up looking like Einstein. In Tel Aviv there were big heads of curly hair that were flowing with pride. My friends and I commented that we didn’t even realize how much of our Jewish identity we hid with simple hair products. Something as innocuous as our hairstyles made me step back from the manner in which we alter ourselves to fit into society here in the United States. Continue reading “I Love Love Tel Aviv By Laurie-Ann Cota”

Re-membering the Revolution by Xochitl Alvizo

This post includes information about a conference scheduled for next spring at Boston University: A Revolutionary Moment: Women’s Liberation in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The Call for Papers is due July 1st – just two days away!

I remember how Mary Daly used to ask me where the feminists were – what were they up to today? I would try to update her on the things I was aware of here in Boston, events at the Women’s Center in Cambridge, conferences by Women, Action, and the Media, the latest publication of Rain and Thunder: A Radical Feminist Journal of Activism and Discussion, and the myriad of things happening within feminist theology with which I was most familiar. Nonetheless, Mary was never satisfied with my responses, “Where is the revolution?” she would ask. At the time, I didn’t quite understand her disappointment. I could tell she wanted me to update her on something big – she wanted to hear of sweeping changes, lots of them. I often thought that the changes were already there, that big things had taken place and were incorporated into the daily life of society. I was always vexed that I couldn’t give her the answer she was looking for – but also, I didn’t know exactly what she was looking for. Then one day she asked me to find her a book that was on one of her shelves – she didn’t know which shelf – so I went searching, and in that search I discovered a world that gave me a glimpse of the revolution Mary wanted and I understood a little bit more why Mary was dissatisfied with feminism today. Continue reading “Re-membering the Revolution by Xochitl Alvizo”

Emergence and the Spirituality of the Sacred Feminine by Anne Kathleen McLaughlin

Kathleen and Marie are friends who met at the event in Canada that inspired this post. Marie has given her monthly spot on Feminism and Religion to Kathleen so she can share her reflection with you.

Emergence: the universe flares forth out of darkness, creating, over billions of years, through trial and error and trying again, astounding newness: carbon for life in the middle of a star…. the birth of planets, our earth holding what is required for life to emerge…. the creation of water from hydrogen and oxygen….the emergence of a cell with a nucleus.

Each of these seemingly impossible happenings did happen, offering us humans the hope that the impossible tasks confronting us in our time can be creatively addressed, showing us, as Brian Swimme expressed it, a domain of the possible beyond imagination. Our human endeavour has been powered by non-renewable energy resources. Our task now is to reinvent the major forms of human presence on the planet in agriculture, architecture, education, economics…. We need to align ourselves with the powers of the universe, consciously assisting, amplifying, accelerating the process of creative endeavour. Continue reading “Emergence and the Spirituality of the Sacred Feminine by Anne Kathleen McLaughlin”

Extending Compassion and Vegetarianism by Xochitl Alvizo

“I did not know to recognize you as individuals when I bought you, but I know to recognize you as individuals now…”

I had been a vegetarian, and sometimes pescatarian, for more than 10 years before becoming vegan. Despite the length of my vegetarianism, in all that time I had not been inclined to go vegan. First, I really didn’t know too much about veganism and only began meeting a few vegans about five or six years ago here in Boston, none of whom had shared a compelling enough reason for their choice (at least not compelling to me). Further, I had no imagination for life without cheese or Cherry Garcia ice cream(!), and so I happily continued with my vegetarian ways. Then enters Carol Adams…

In a teleconference that WATER had with Carol Adams on March 14, 2012 (Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual), the beauty of her veganism moved me to a new understanding of my food choices. I listened to the WATER audio recording some months after the actual event (these teleconference audio recordings are a great resource you should all access), and although I had been familiar with some of her work and had heard her speak before, I had not heard her talk about the compassion element of veganism. Her emphasis on increasing compassion, which I witnessed in action during her conversation with one of the listeners, was what moved me to my new practice. Continue reading “Extending Compassion and Vegetarianism by Xochitl Alvizo”