Feminism and Religion

Yom Kippur as Seen (With Respect) by a Pagan By Barbara Ardinger

No matter which or how many gods we believe in, thinking about what we’ve done wrong and how we can set it straight is useful. The Day of Atonement, the Talmud says, “absolves from sins against God, but not from sins against a fellow man unless the pardon of the offended person is secured.”

Back in the Stone Age, otherwise known as the early 1980s, I had jobs as a technical writer and editor in five different industries, including aerospace and computer development. Hey, I was trained as a Shakespearean scholar, but in those days—pretty much like today—there were almost no jobs in the academy for newly-hatched Ph.D’s. So I tried technical writing. At one of the aerospace jobs, I sat in the “bullpen”—me and nineteen middle-aged white guys—whereas all the other women slaved—on typewriters in that pre-computer age—in the typing pool. There was a major class distinction in that aerospace firm, and I was glad to be with the guys. (Yes, shame on me.) Those were the days of 9 to 5. As far as I’m concerned, that movie is nonfiction. Continue reading “Yom Kippur as Seen (With Respect) by a Pagan By Barbara Ardinger”

Who is She? The Existence of an Ontological Goddess By Molly

I do feel Her presence directly in my life—call it an energy, call it the sacred feminine, call it the divine, call it source, call it soul, call it spirit, call it the great mystery…I perceive a web of relatedness and love within the world and I choose to put a feminine form to that energy—to name it and know it as Goddess.

To me, Goddess is found in the act of specifically naming that ineffable sense of the sacred that we all, universally, experience or perceive at some point during our lives. Whether it be in gazing at the ocean or in climbing a mountain, in the births of our children or the hatching of a baby chick, almost all humans experience transcendent moments of mystery, meaning, wonder, and awe. We can call these experiences by different names and I feel that the Goddess arises when we have the courage and capacity to name Her as such, rather than stay hazy, generic, or afraid. In my own life, I call these numinous experiences Goddess and through this I know She exists in, of, around, and through the world that I live in. It is in these experiences that I touch Her directly. Continue reading “Who is She? The Existence of an Ontological Goddess By Molly”

Remembering 9/11 and Doing What We Do by Marie Cartier

marie--academic — photo credit: Lenn Keller

I remember 9/11. I was having phone sex with a woman from Chicago that I was seeing and I had just come back from Chicago to Los Angeles the night before. I was on the phone with her…and we were doing what people do…we were doing what we do when we are in love long distance…and then she said to me, “Turn on the T.V…” and I did. And the towers were collapsing. Jesus.

Days later I remember all of us lighting candles all across the city and coming together…it was such an incredible time of coming together and then it got ugly and full of war.

I remember all these images of people at first “being there” for us in the U.S.—even Native Islanders in Papua New Guinea singing and playing I think a conch shell and then it got ugly and full of war. Continue reading “Remembering 9/11 and Doing What We Do by Marie Cartier”

The Black Church, the Blues, and Black Bodies by Kelly Brown Douglas

“Ooh, Ohh there’s something going all wrong”, Ma Rainey sang. There is indeed something going all wrong in the black church. This church, which is born out of the commitment to safeguard the life and freedom of all black people, has gained a reputation for repudiating if not demonizing certain black bodies, namely LGBT bodies. While there are certainly significant black church leaders who have vigorously defended LGBTQ person’s struggle for justice and equal treatment under the law, including support of marriage equality, those black church voices against LGBTQ rights have been vociferous and unrelenting. Continue reading “The Black Church, the Blues, and Black Bodies by Kelly Brown Douglas”

IN THE NEWS: Wives – Silent, Hidden, and Unnamed

“Jesus said to them, ‘My wife…'”

It is now public news that there is a fragment of ancient text in which Jesus makes reference to a wife. Based on testing of the papyrus fragment the text is calculated to have been from 150 years after Jesus died, a time when Jesus followers are still discerning how they should live and what practices they will keep. Though scholars all agree that this does not prove Jesus actually had a wife, it does reflect the liveliness of the debate nonetheless: Karen King explains, “This fragment suggests that some early Christians had a tradition that Jesus was married…There was, we already know, a controversy in the second century over whether Jesus was married, caught up with a debate about whether Christians should marry and have sex.”

The fragment also makes reference to a female disciple. Continue reading “IN THE NEWS: Wives – Silent, Hidden, and Unnamed”

A Sea Change Towards Women’s Ordination by Mary Ellen Robertson

If I see a flaw in contemporary Mormon feminism, it’s that we haven’t ventured outside our own religious community to partner with other religious feminist activists. Working separately or in ignorance of the work already done by other religious feminists, we’re more likely to spend time reinventing the wheel than building upon the lessons learned.

Fortunately, there’s an exciting shift afoot.

Last week, Catholic and Mormon women came together for a dialogue on women’s ordination.
Hosted by Claremont Graduate University, this discussion brought together six women from patriarchal religions to explore what happens when we call an all-male priesthood into question and examine the theological and cultural assumptions upon which an all-male priesthood rests. Continue reading “A Sea Change Towards Women’s Ordination by Mary Ellen Robertson”

Goddess as Love: From Experience To Thealogy by Carol P. Christ

If theology is rooted in experience, how do we move from experience to theology? In my life there have been a number of key moments of “revelation” that have shaped my thealogy. One of these was the moment of my mother’s death.

In 1991 my mother was diagnosed with cancer. While she was being treated, I realized that I had never loved anyone as much as I loved her. When I wrote that to her, she responded that “this was the nicest letter” she “had ever received” in her life and she invited me to come home to be with her and my Dad.

My mother died only a few weeks after I arrived, in her own bed as she wished. She was on an oxygen machine, and I heard her call out in the dark of early morning. When my Dad got to the room, he tried to turn up the oxygen, but it didn’t help. Then he called the doctor who reminded him that my mother did not want to go to the hospital under any circumstances.

My Dad then sat by my mother’s bed and held her hand. As my mother died, I felt that the room was” filled with love.” I sensed that my mother was “going to love.” Continue reading “Goddess as Love: From Experience To Thealogy by Carol P. Christ”

To Garden by Kathryn House

My work is transformed when I view the task at hand through verbs I learned through gardening: tend, nurture, sow, dig, weed, share, till, harvest, nourish, rest.

Yesterday was the autumnal equinox, which means that fall is officially here. Right on cue, the first leaves are changing from green to shades of gold and crimson. The air is crisp, and the nights are cooler. In the Northern Hemisphere, fall also marks the beginning of the harvest season. Tending a garden has certainly changed the way I think about food, but it has also given me a lens through which to reflect more broadly on community, justice, faith, and hope. I love that gardening invites me to consider a way of being that is governed by a rhythm all its own. This steady beat brings my tendency to rush without reflecting to a halt. Every garden is unique and every gardener has a different philosophy, of course. For myself and for the housemates with whom I have gardened over the years, these three raised beds have come to constitute a sacred space. A space of hospitality, of nurture and delight, they are a space around which we are reminded of finitude, of beginnings and endings, of gratitude. Continue reading “To Garden by Kathryn House”

Metamorphosis by Deanne Quarrie

The peri-menopausal woman displays the unbounded limits of her own self. She explores and shares the amazing power of her emotions, now less contained, now erupting in a glorious array of color and sound.

Sometime between the ages of 35 and 55, give or take, a woman enters a phase in her life that can only be described as metamorphosis. Yes, most call it peri-menopausal or menopausal, but truly such changes occur in each woman’s life at this time and it truly is a metamorphosis.

It is that time in her life when she stops producing as much estrogen but the production is often haphazard, sporadic and certainly unpredictable. This affects every aspect of her life. She might notice her eyes being dry in the morning, feeling like grating sand when she tries to open them. Her bleeding times may come on at different intervals or not at all. She may bleed more – she may bleed less. She may experience hot flashes – you ask, “What does that feel like?” Imagine a wave of hot air hitting you in the back of your neck and head – instantly causing you to break out in a sweat. You might even get red in the face! All of this, of course, is without warning, and happening at the most inconvenient times. You will often exclaim, “Is it hot in here?” Continue reading “Metamorphosis by Deanne Quarrie”