Feminism and Religion

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”

Monthly Highlight: Emilie M. Townes

“In my teaching I want to get students excited about that notion of, you know, you’re not just here to get a Yale degree and have it on your diploma and be able to hang it on your wall…You should be here thinking about what kind of contributions can I make to society….What are you doing that helps enhance the lives of all of us, as opposed to (our) own little idiosyncratic research interests.” – – Emilie M. Townes

Emilie Townes is a pivotal person in the field of Womanist and Christian ethics as well as a foremother and pioneer in Womanist theology. Cornel West of Princeton University said:

“Emilie Townes is the towering womanist ethicist of our time….In this ice age of indifference and evasion, her powerful voice and viewpoint summon us. And we thank her for her vision and courage.”

At an opening address at the Convocation in 2005, Townes stated that there is a need to live in a “deep walking hope” that shapes lives “in ways that are not always predictable, not always safe, rarely conventional” and protests “with prophetic fury the sins of a world, and sometimes theological world views, that encourage us to separate our bodies from our spirits, our minds from our hearts, our beliefs from our actions.” Continue reading “Monthly Highlight: Emilie M. Townes”

Winds of Change in the Roman Catholic Church by Michele Stopera Freyhauf

Michele Freyhauf In 2007, I had a conversation with a professor who felt that change was in the air for the Roman Catholic Church. The basis of this opinion was based on language. The words and the context used in writings that emerged from the Vatican were changing and somehow different – a difference that went beyond personal writing styles of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. This professor was hopeful that positive change for women could be coming. He was right about change in the Church, however, the changes surrounding women that emerged have not been positive.

As I continue to reflect on these words, I ponder the issue of language; specifically the impact words have and the way they are used to facilitate subtle changes in thinking, opinion, and beliefs. The method of persuasion that seems to be employed is the Aristotelian Rhetorical Theory that utilizes the five canons of rhetoric: invention, organization, style, delivery, and memory.

An example of this can be seen clearly in the changes in the liturgy that occurred last year. First, the teaching comes out with the rationale as to why the liturgy needs to change. From there a discussion, especially through the media, addressing the upcoming modifications are followed by subtle changes in the liturgy beginning with the call – response and the language in the creed. Next, the language of the celebrant began to change. Finally, the full implementation of changes is made with the addition of new gestures or movements. When I discussed the mass changes with a family member, there was an admittance that the changes no longer affect them – the changes were no longer noticeable. Their memory was impacted because the routine is now second nature.

In order to come to grips with the issue of language and the observation of my professor, I wanted to do a cursory review of the writings issued by the Vatican during this period. Admittedly, with a blog post, there is a limitation as to the depth and breadth of information that can be disseminated. It is my hope to eventually complete a thorough review of the modification of language used during Pope Benedict XVI’s papacy. For now, I want to address a few observations.

Continue reading “Winds of Change in the Roman Catholic Church by Michele Stopera Freyhauf”

Morals, Malala, and Mapping by Kile B. Jones

Once again, recent events have me thinking of the ethical paradigms people utilize to comprehend and explain violent acts against women. These violent acts galvanize our moral compasses and beg for answers to our most fundamental moral questions. Do cultural relativism, pragmatism, divine command theory, utilitarianism, quasi-realism, virtue ethics, or moral realism better map on to the sentiments that arise in us when faced with misogynistic violence? Can we honestly say that an act is morally wrong when it is tangled up in the cultural and political characteristics of a certain country or group? Or can we justify, in the manner of moral realism, that certain acts are inherently wrong no matter what the context or culture? As you can tell, my ethical plate is full.

The first event that had me thinking of issues is the shooting of Malala Yousafzai. Malala, who I think should have won “Time Person of the Year” instead of President Obama, was gunned down on her school bus by members of the Taliban for being, amongst other threats, the “symbol of the infidels.” Malala survived a shot to her head and neck, and has since received innumerable awards and honors for her efforts to promote women’s education. Recently, 5 female school teachers were shot and killed by Islamic militants in the same province where Malala was shot. These teachers are thought to have been killed for their work fighting polio, since some Muslim extremists in that area think polio vaccines are a Western way of sterilizing Muslim children. Continue reading “Morals, Malala, and Mapping by Kile B. Jones”

Patterns for the New Year by Sara Frykenberg

Life last year continually pushed me to figure out how I should care for those close to me while also caring for myself. I have been pushed to see the difference between myself and other people: their choices and my own. This is perhaps, the most difficult challenge I faced in the first year of the Age of Aquarius… and life has been an unrelenting teacher.

Happy 2013! Or a statement more accurate to my feelings: Happy end of 2012! Last year around this time, I wrote a post entitled: Celebrating the Beginning of the Aquarian Age. The push to evolve was and is very exciting to me. This shifting astrological paradigm challenges us to break away from those habits and patterns that no longer serve us. But excited as I am, I have to admit that the first year of the Age of Aquarius really kicked my butt.

Did last year feel exceptionally difficult for anyone else out there? I really felt like I couldn’t catch a break for the entirety of 2012. This is not to say that my year was simply filled with loss and grief, though I am dealing with loss and a great deal of grief. But some really great things happened last year too, which I celebrated, but also found extremely difficult to manage. Many of my roles and relationships radically changed in ways that were more difficult than I expected or wanted. Riding the Aquarian tides, I felt tossed about and was often confused. I kept telling myself: just hang on. Just hang on, because you are not alone riding these cosmic waves. Hang on, because you will learn how to swim in these new waters.

Therefore, in honor of the New Year, I would like to take this opportunity to evaluate and strategize for my how.

I am not usually one for making new years’ resolutions. The cultural rhetoric surrounding resolutions either presupposes failure or relates success to the amount of money you spend to achieve a goal. Yet today I find myself considering how I approached last years’ challenges, successfully and unsuccessfully. I have concluded that I need to create more life giving patterns and habits in 2013. Many things I am doing now, my coping mechanisms and my defenses, can no longer meet my needs. So, I guess I am making resolutions. I, however, prefer to say that I am actively hope-ing to evolve my praxis of living. ;) Thus, I set the following intentions for 2013: Continue reading “Patterns for the New Year by Sara Frykenberg”