Feminism and Religion

On Love, Theodicy and Domestic Violence by Ivy Helman

Last week, I introduced my students to the theological concept theodicy. Theodicy is a theological explanation of why suffering and evil occur that usually includes some kind of defense of divine attributes. For example, if G-d is all-knowing (omniscient), ever-present (omnipresent), all-powerful (omnipotent) and all-loving then how do we explain hurricanes, illness, mass murder, airplane crashes and other forms of evil and suffering? This is quite difficult because, as my students point out after a few minutes of discussion, most explanations are often unfulfilling or inadequate. The discussion turns quite quickly to two reactions. Either, G-d isn’t what we thought G-d was or science does a better job explaining these examples of evil and suffering. Science explains that hurricanes happen because of various environmental factors or a plane crashes because of mechanical problems. Even the concept of humanity’s freewill as the cause of evil often circles back to G-d’s creation of humanity and leaves students unsettled. If G-d created within humanity the possibility of evil, how, then G-d can be all-loving?

The love/evil dichotomy is often the real conundrum of theodicies in monotheism. This has been pointed out by numerous theologians throughout the ages. How do we account for evil when there is only one divine Being? How can an all-good, all-loving Being create or even be responsible for evil? Which leads to the next question, is evil the absence of love? These are extremely difficult philosophical and theological questions.

To explore then, we should start where it is often suggested that we learn most about love: family, close friends and intimate relationships. Take this for example. Continue reading “On Love, Theodicy and Domestic Violence by Ivy Helman”

Painting Fatima by Angela Yarber

She performs ablutions, prays, and mends shoes for years, only to don her death shroud upon her back and place a symbolic tombstone upon her head. With death cloaking her compassionate body, she begins to twirl, invoking the name of the Beloved within her heart. She is a whirling dervish and her name is Fatima. The daughter-in-law of the esteemed Sufi poet, Rumi, joins with the myriad other Holy Women Icons with a folk feminist twist that I write about each month: Virginia Woolf , the Shulamite, Mary Daly, Baby Suggs, Pachamama and Gaia, Frida Kahlo, Salome, Guadalupe and Mary.

Fatima is best understood when placed in an historical context. So, I begin with a very brief history of the whirling dervishes, while also offering glimpses into women’s roles in the Mevlevi Order. The primary Islamic sect that proclaims that dancing is a way of connecting with the divine—for both men and women—is the Sufi Order. Over eight hundred years ago, Mevlâna Jalâluddîn Rumi inspired faithful Muslims to whirl in harmony with all things in nature. The whirling dervishes of Turkey unite the mind, heart, and body, and help to usher peace into the world through their dance by dedicating their lives to service and compassion. After Rumi’s death on December 17, 1273, his followers responded by whirling. These followers of Rumi are known as the Mevlevi Order, or more popularly, the whirling dervishes. Until around the fourteenth century women were included in the practice and leadership of turning. As Muslims in Turkey became more and more conservative, however, women were forced to the sidelines and not allowed to whirl. And even with the secularization of the country with the reign of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, women were still denied access to the turning path because Ataturk essentially made whirling illegal in an attempt to take away as much religion from Turkish life as possible. Ataturk banned tekkes, or dervish homes, in 1925 as he secularized the state. By the 1970s the Turkish government allowed turning once again, but only if it was a performance and not a prayer. There were even reports of an old dervish being arrested because they saw his lips mouthing “Allah” as he turned in a theatre performance for tourists. Continue reading “Painting Fatima by Angela Yarber”

What It’s Like to Be a Woman in the Academy by Linn Marie Tonstad

Last fall, I was asked to sit in on the women’s pre-doctoral colloquium at the divinity school where I teach. In the course of a wide-ranging lunchtime conversation, the central question to which the students wanted an answer was: “what is it like to be a woman in the academy?” The question took me by surprise at the time – mostly because I’d expected to be asked more nitty-gritty questions about applying to graduate school, writing samples, and personal statements – but it has stayed with me in the weeks since the lunch as I’ve found myself trying out answers from different directions.

The first answer, and perhaps the most obvious one, is this: there is no such thing as being “a [generic] woman” in the academy (or anywhere else). Continue reading “What It’s Like to Be a Woman in the Academy by Linn Marie Tonstad”

Luke 12:51-53: On the Verge of a Paradigm Shift by Elisabeth Schilling

I remember being quite happy when my values about body, faith, and purpose lined up with those of my parents. With the support of my Protestant evangelistic community as well, I was “bold and fearless,” not caring who might judge me or disagree with me because I was not standing on my own. The anxiety of becoming embarrassed or having my world crashing down because of the ideas I expressed did not exist. My beliefs seemed special and right, and I had constant reaffirmation from family and community that they were.

But now I hold perspectives about spirituality and humanity that I can no longer discuss with ease in front of my family–not without my mother crying and feeling as if she did not know or like the person I had become. This may matter to me more than it might to other people since I have, for over a year now, returned to that home to write my dissertation. I am constantly challenged with the task of creating a space where I can honor my desires, needs, and truths. Like Judith Butler says, if I am a person who exists by doing, when I cannot express/speak/give an account of myself, I cannot fully exist. Family is important, but what gets sacrificed by pretending and silence? It is not only the self, but the chance for deeper, more authentic bonds. Continue reading “Luke 12:51-53: On the Verge of a Paradigm Shift by Elisabeth Schilling”

Embody the Sacred – Engaging Through the Senses by Deanne Quarrie

The human body is designed to utilize all senses. We, human beings, have drifted away from our natural state through which, at one time, we engaged with all of life through our natural senses, including the intuitive. This change has come about through our active, stress filled lives in which we seldom slow down to even appreciate what is around us. We have ignored much of our sensory ability due to a change-over from right brain functioning, which is more imaginative, creative and intuitive, to left brain functioning, which is linear and analytical. Two of our senses are developed out of proportion to the others. Many people grow up in an environment lacking in exposure to the natural world. With television, computers and video games we have become residents of an indoor and often sedentary world.

In early civilization, humans and all other animals depended on finely tuned sensory awareness for survival. We walked the Earth, using those senses for protection, to find food and to move around. We did not just see and hear our way around but we felt, touched, tasted and smelled in order to survive. Continue reading “Embody the Sacred – Engaging Through the Senses by Deanne Quarrie”

One Thing I Like About Christianity by Erin Lane

I never have good dreams. They always fall into the weird, creepy, or just plain terrifying category. Last night was no exception. I’ll save you the diary entry but after sharing the short saga with my husband this morning (who I’m sure dreams of lollipops, if he could only remember), he looked at me and said, “Geez, Erin. You really care that people like you.”

It was a neighborhood prank gone wrong. In the dream, I had been running through people’s lawns and hiding in bushes with my husband and two other guy friends. We were armed with squirt guns, except that they weren’t squirt guns; they were household cleaners. I don’t know what we thought we were doing exactly – take that organic tomatoes! and that you meddling cat! – but we soon got caught and I proceeded to be excluded, shamed, and taunted. First by a group of wives who snickered at me from a safe distance in their convertible and whispered, “She’s always trying to be one of the guys.” Then by a work colleague standing nearby who asked me, “How would Jesus feel about your actions?” and then let his wife hose me down with a sprinkler, which in retrospect was very un-Jesus like. And lastly by one of my guy friends in crime who called me “snotty” for hamming it up for a photo opp when the press arrived. Continue reading “One Thing I Like About Christianity by Erin Lane”

WATER January 16 Teleconference with Carol P. Christ

WATER TELECONFERENCE WITH CAROL CHRIST: “WHAT IS THE NATURE OF DIVINE POWER?” January 16, 2013, 1-2 PM (EST)

Carol will speak about the book she and Judith Plaskow are writing together, tentatively titled Goddess and God after Feminism: Body, Nature, and Power. Judith and Carol explore their changing views of God in light of their feminist commitments to transform religion.

Carol’s feminism led her to reject a God imaged as a dominating male other. Her commitments to peace and justice led her to reject a God whose power is imaged in the Exodus, the prophets, and much of Christian tradition as the power of a warrior to destroy his enemies. Continue reading “WATER January 16 Teleconference with Carol P. Christ”

Touching Roots: An Incredible Lightness Of Being by Carol P. Christ

A few days ago, a German-speaking friend spoke with an Eiloff relative of mine who lives in St. Nikolaus, Saarland. My relative remembered hearing the story that Heinrich Eiloff, my 2x great-grandfather, emigrated to the United States in the mid-1800s. Since we connected, I am experiencing an incredible lightness of being.

This is the first time my two years of genealogical research have led to a “Kunta Kinte” moment, a connection with a relative in “the old country.” I have been unable to trace most of my ancestors back to the places of their birth.

My relative in St. Nikolaus was perplexed by a call from Greece from a woman claiming to represent his American relative. But when she explained that I only want to find my roots and perhaps visit relatives in St. Nikolaus, he said, “that would be very nice.” He promised to speak with other living relatives and said we should call in a month or two and he would tell us what he found.

According to my research, my 2x great-grandfather Heinrich Eiloff was born in 1820 in St. Nikolas, Saarland, in Prussia (now in Germany).

Continue reading “Touching Roots: An Incredible Lightness Of Being by Carol P. Christ”

Illuminations: A Novel of Hildegard von Bingen By Barbara Ardinger

The Great Goddess and Divine Mother of Us All manifests where and to whom She chooses, no matter what faith we hold. In the 12^th century, She manifested to a German nun named Hildegard. Hildegard’s story has been told in many places, including a highly detailed entry in the Catholic Encyclopedia, which is a wonderful resource for stories about saints. I’ve just finished reading Illuminations (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012), a splendid new novel about Hildegard by Mary Sharratt, who is the author of other excellent novels, including Daughters of the Witching Hill.

illuminations Hildegard, who lived from 1092 to 1179, was the tenth child of a family of minor nobility in the Holy Roman Empire. She’s a sturdy child who loves the outdoors and enjoys running through the forest with her brother. But early in the novel, she learns that she is to be her family’s tithe to the church. Her mother has already arranged for this bright and curious eight-year-old child to be the companion to Jutta von Sponheim, a “holy virgin” who yearns to be bricked up as an anchorite in the Abby of Disibodenberg. Being an anchorite means that, like Julian of Norwich (about 250 years later), this girl and her magistra are bricked in. There is a screened opening in the wall through which their meager meals are passed and through which they can witness mass and speak to Abbott Cuno, the other monks, and visiting pilgrims, but they can never go out. Never. In the Afterword, Sharratt writes that “Disibodenberg Abbey is now in ruins and it’s impossible to precisely pinpoint where the anchorage was, but the suggested location is two suffocatingly narrow rooms and a narrow courtyard built on to the back of the church” (p. 272). As Sharratt vividly shows us, Hildegard survived in that awful place for thirty years. Continue reading “Illuminations: A Novel of Hildegard von Bingen By Barbara Ardinger”

Textual Religion and the Marginalization of Two Huldas by Dirk von der Horst

I am a Protestant in large part because I like to read. Even after grappling with feminist critiques of patriarchal religions, a spirituality rooted in the Word (capital “W”) is very deep-seated in me. One reason I think of my faith as biblical is that a scriptural religion engages me in my favorite activity. At the same time, there are real connections between exclusive dependence on written records and the erasure of women’s history, as well as various ways in which women have been excluded from literary production. The opposition between text and world often becomes a manifestation of the hierarchy of mind and body that many feminists have seen as damaging. It’s like the question of “why are there no great women composers?” The problem with this question is not only that it ignores great women composers such as Hildegard of Bingen, Barbara Strozzi, Louise Farrenc, or Thea Musgrave. As feminist musicologists Marcia Citron and Suzanne Cusick have shown, the question reinforces a hierarchy in which composers, those who create musical texts, have precedence over those who perform and listen. It also relegates places where women’s contribution has been essential to the production of music – educating children, for example – to irrelevance. Continue reading “Textual Religion and the Marginalization of Two Huldas by Dirk von der Horst”