General – Page 51 – Feminism and Religion

Poems by Annelinde Metzner

For a number of years, I’ve been staying at the St. Helena’s Island, South Carolina home of Ifetayo White, Reiki Master, teacher of doulas, and healer in many modalities. I am always deeply healed by Ifetayo’s presence, and by the island itself. This island near Beaufort is the home of the Gullah people, who have kept their land since Reconstruction according to a legal system called “Heir’s Property.”

The spirits are strong here, and I’ve tried to capture some of the essence of the island and of Ifetayo, in these poems. In the first, I describe Ifetayo’s wonderful healing room. The second features the Grandmother Tree, one of the live oaks covered with Spanish moss, so prevalent in the Low Country. The third features the Resurrection Fern, which appears brown and almost dead on the limbs of the oaks, but springs into vivid greenness after a rain.

Genuine Inclusivity Means Rejecting “Comparative Suffering” by Dr. Hadia Mubarak

Moderator’s Note: Part 1 was posted yesterday. You can read it here.

Rejecting the notion of “comparative suffering” is critical for those who are committed to the work of social justice, human rights, and antiracism. There is no Guinness world record for “human suffering” for which groups or individuals need to vie to outrank one another. The human capacity to empathize with one people’s suffering does not diminish our capacity to empathize with another group’s suffering, even when those respective groups are at war with one another.

On March 26, I began my talk on a women’s panel titled, “Global Women Speak,” for Mount Saint Mary University with this reminder. Before I could speak about the humanitarian challenges facing Palestinian women in Gaza today, I felt compelled to make this argument due to my experience six days earlier at another women’s interfaith panel. In this previous panel, a co-panelist rudely cut me off four times within a span of one minute when I began to address Palestinian suffering, although she had already addressed Israel’s current challenges in response to a question that we were all asked. For several days following this jarring experience, I kept wondering, what felt so threatening to this co-panelist about the stories of Palestinian suffering that she felt compelled to shut it down?

The Policing of Muslim Women’s Speech: Invited, then Silenced on a Women’s History Month Panel by Dr. Hadia Mubarak

Moderator’s Note: This is part 1 of a 2 part series. A version of this article first appeared in The Charlotte Post on March 25

In her paradigm-shifting book, Why I am No Longer a Feminist: A Feminist Manifesto, Jessa Crispin reminds us that having token “female representation” does not solve the problem of systemic oppression or marginalization. I was recently reminded of this truth when a female co-panelist attempted to silence me twice, when I shared my perspective on women’s challenges in Gaza.

On March 20, I joined an all-female interfaith panel for an elite retirement community center in Charlotte, NC in honor of Women’s History Month. As three female panelists, we were invited to represent our respective faiths, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. After we each responded to the scripted questions posed to us, community members began to ask us questions. One man stood up and said, “I have visited Jordan, Egypt, and Israel. Will it be safe to travel to Israel again given the current situation?”

Goddess in a Twig by Sara Wright

In 2024, science seems to be catching up with reality. “A rapid succession of peer-reviewed studies and reports all point to a single unambiguous conclusion: that Canada’s unqualified claims of ‘sustainable forest management’ belie a reality of widespread forest degradation”.

Almost 36 million acres of forests have been clear cut in Quebec and Ontario alone. Canada still has six percent of old growth forests left but clear cuts almost exclusively. Maine has one tenth of a percent of old forests remaining but says it maintains a few limits on clear cuts (the research is ambiguous and around me we have mostly clear-cut mountains, so I am deeply suspicious).

Why should we care?

A new crop of trees will be moving north into Canada along with the rest of the migrants (birds, animals, understory/woodland plants) because of a warming climate and loss of habitat. Too many people.

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: 1, 2, 3, 4: FEMINISTS DON’T WANT ANOTHER WAR

This was originally posted on March 19, 2012

War is a feminist issue for many reasons, most importantly because war is always war against women.

Patriarchy, war, rape as the “spoils” of war, and the taking of women and children as slaves in the wake of war arose together. Recent blogs on Feminism and Religion have addressed the war on women—from the rape culture, to Humane Vitae, to the Catholic Church’s and other church’s attempts to remove birth control from health care, to the tolerance of sexist hate speech in the culture at large. While the issue of Rush Limbaugh calling Sandra Fluke a slut is being focused on in the press, the drums of war are being sounded again in the Middle East: the US is considering bombing Iran or supporting Israel if it decides to do so. Feminists must stand together against war and the harm it does to women, children, and all living things.

The Painful Problem and How the Divine Feminine is the Answer by Caryn MacGrandle

Two young kids and an Airline Pilot husband who got caught in the 911 lay-offs, a first divorce, struggling, a second marriage and struggling again. Moving around the country with no ties and not knowing many people. I remember after my first marriage having to move to a less expensive neighborhood, I had the thought “Match.com? I don’t need a Match.com, I need a Friend.com!”

Only “Friend.Com” doesn’t work. It is awkward to go out to lunch “Do you want to be my friend?”

And so I remained isolated and struggling alone.

I drank daily in order to quell my anxiety and fall asleep.

TRUMP AS MESSIAH by Esther Nelson

Once upon a time long, long ago, I identified as an evangelical Christian. The term “evangelical” has evolved over time, however, evangelicals can probably be found in every branch of Protestant Christianity. Wherever you find them, they emphasize the authority/ inerrancy of the Bible, a “born-again” experience into the Kingdom of God, and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Generally, evangelicals are socially conservative and rarely does their thinking go beyond the borders of their insulated theology.

It comes as no surprise to me that many (most?) evangelicals embrace Trump with a fervor akin to their enthusiasm for Jesus. Trump supporters, especially those who identify with the Religious Right may love Jesus, but Jesus is not the Messiah they yearn for.

Paradigm Shifts: Playing the long game

You’re probably tired of hearing it… We live in a time of major change. But hardly anyone acknowledges that change doesn’t happen overnight.

In anthropology and ritual studies, the state of change between the old and the new, is called liminal or threshold space. It is the in-between time. I believe we are living in such a time now. Our familiar frames of reference are crumbling, yet there are no clear new ones in place yet.

In this post I reflect on a few aspects of this long-dance with the unknown.

Mountain Mother: Symbol from the Past, Beacon for the Future by Jeanne F. Neath

Dreaming of and working toward creating an earth- and female-centered future is proving to be my best strategy for surviving and enjoying the ecologically and politically problematic present. Current realities and predictions for the future, such as those made by climate scientists, are certainly grim. What else can we expect in a global society that puts male power and profit above the needs of people and planet?

Those in power cannot possibly undo today’s polycrisis as they are too invested, personally and financially, in the status quo. They cannot even begin to dream of the transformations called for. This is something that we women can do that they cannot. We are the ones who give birth, create new life. We can certainly dream up and create new ways of living.

Archives from the FAR Founders: We are Worth the Time it Takes to Create a Practice by Xochitl Alvizo

Incarnation, Goddess spirituality, Xochitl Alvizo, god became flesh This was originally posted on September 10, 2014. It seems relevant to me these days as I continue to develop practices for my groundedness, community, and well-being.

Recently, in response to the excellent conversation following Nancy Vedder-Shults’ post on the goddess Kali, Carol Christ commented to Nancy, “I too love our conversations, wish there was more in depth talk on our blog [FAR], maybe there will be.” Carol’s comment* struck a deep chord within me. One of the main objectives that the FAR co-founders had in creating Feminism and Religion was that it be a place where we could and would engage with one another across a diversity of feminist issues and the broad range of feminist passions and work – where we could discuss, critique, and build upon on each other’s efforts.

So two things came to mind as I reflected on Carol’s comment. The first was my personal lament that I have not been as actively participating in the discussions that follow the FAR blog posts as I did when we first started Feminism and Religion. FAR has such rich and valuable material – it really does provide a great opportunity for conversation and dialogue – and sadly I have been a passive participant as of late. I read and learn from the discussions, but I have not been joining in. I lament that. FAR is definitely a place where I could engage with others in deep conversations, but how actively am I actually doing this? Continue reading “Archives from the FAR Founders: We are Worth the Time it Takes to Create a Practice by Xochitl Alvizo”