At the end of this month, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious will meet to formulate a response to a Vatican trap whose cunning is best appreciated within the long tradition of religious authorities who craft impossible dilemmas for those they perceive as threats.
Two millennia ago, the chief priests sent someone to ask Jesus, “Should we pay taxes?” If Jesus said yes, he would pit himself against Jewish resistance to Roman occupation and therefore, in Jewish eyes, against God. If he said no, the Romans could execute him for sedition. Instead, Jesus famously replied, “Render to Ceaser what is Ceaser’s and to God what is God’s.”
In the fifteenth century, Joan of Arc’s ecclesiastical inquisitors asked her, “Do you know yourself to be in God’s grace?” If Joan answered yes, she would commit heresy because the Church had long taught that no one could be certain of being in God’s grace; if no, they could interpret her answer as an admission of guilt. Joan looked them in the eyes and replied, “If I am not in God’s grace, may God put me there; if I am, may God so keep me.” Continue reading “Vatican Lays a Cunning Trap for American Nuns by Mary Johnson”
“As we approach Memorial Day Weekend (and the militaristic patriotism it promotes), as the 2012 election cycle heats up, and as I meditate more deeply upon my and my country’s many riches, one of [Walter] Brueggemann’s prayers in particular spoke to me.”
One of the three books I took with me on vacation is by the world’s leading interpreter of the Old Testament, Walter Brueggemann. It’s not actually on the Bible, but something he published in 2008 called Prayers for a Privileged People.
It’s incredibly liberating to have the co-mingled sensation of being elevated by aesthetic delight, affirmed by words that reflect the life experiences of you and your loved ones, and honored by another’s desire to relate to you. This type of liberation is spiritual.
Last month, I attended a Lalah Hathaway concert, the first live concert I think I’ve attended in about a year. For those of you who don’t know, Lalah Hathaway is an R&B singer and daughter of the late Donny Hathaway. It was my first time hearing her perform and the audience’s response to her artistry sparked some thoughts in my mind about authenticity, soul, and participation in the black church.
I should probably admit that my favorite genre of music is R&B/soul because of what its name suggests – the ability of the music to connect to the innermost parts of my being, the spirit inside of me that recognizes what is true. Whether they are speaking about joy or pain, love or loss, soul singers have a way of making me feel the authenticity of their souls conveyed through their music and lyrics. Because I agree with the feminist principle that the personal is political, I believe that feminists must take the time to recognize what is personally true for them and what is most real. This is so that feminists’ energies directed toward making the world a more just place can be sustained during times of struggle, and maintained with integrity, regardless of what sphere they’re located within. Soul music helps me remember who I am. Continue reading “When Music Touches Your Soul by Elise Edwards”
It can only be that She begins in a small way at a single place in the world. It can only be that She begins within us.
Carol Christ’s post this week made me think of a favorite little passage I love from a Catholic theologian, Gerhard Lohfink, who wrote a book about whether God needs the church. I’m not going to engage that specific question here nor am I going to talk about the ins and outs of the book. I simply mention it because it holds within it the beautiful passage that deeply resonates with me and has become the primary image I hold on to when thinking about how I want to participate in the transformation of the world. The passage comes from a part of the book where Gerhard Lohfink muses about how God would start a revolution while still respecting human freedom and participation:
God, like all revolutionaries, desires the overturning, the radical alteration of the whole society – for in this the revolutionaries are right: what is at stake is the whole world, and the change must be radical, for the misery of the world cries to heaven and it begins deep within the human heart. But how can anyone change the world and society at its roots without taking away freedom? (Lohfink, 26)
The issue is that for centuries people have tried and tried again to change the world, to ‘free the masses’ and save people from suffering, misery, and oppression – but too often revolutionaries resort to violence as their means. The systems are so rigidly and stubbornly in place that the revolutionary comes to see no other way to bring about radical social change except through a widespread violent overthrow. Continue reading “How Does Goddess Change the World? by Xochitl Alvizo”
I forgot, that relationships, like feminism, are not easy, and that it is a conscious and continual effort of renewal to remind yourself everyday why you love the person you love and more importantly, in the case of feminism, why you fight, “the good fight.”
I was once told by my ardent feminist advisor in undergrad to “not put all my proverbial eggs in one man basket” after discussing my relationship with my boyfriend over a cup of coffee. Thinking my relationship was different and that we were special, I heeded the warning but thought of it no further. Now, looking back on it three in a half years later, I wish I would have.
Relationships are a powerful tool. They help to make you feel special. They help to bring you joy. They help you discover the reason why a divine presence may have endowed us with the ability to love and most importantly they help you realize and discover things about yourself you may have never taken the time to notice.
Feminism 101 is more than just the pop culture stereotype of a bunch of women advising the younger generation of girls to be weary of men and the pain they can bring. Feminism, specifically as what I now call Feminism 101, is the transformative ability to listen to your elders, trust yourself, and ultimately, if you happen to trust in the relationship you have built, knowing deep down that it is built on equality, love, and trust. Continue reading “Why I Failed Feminism 101: Gender, Sexuality, and the Power of Relationships”
She changes everything She touches and everything She touches changes. The world is Her body. The world is in Her and She is in the world. She surrounds us like the air we breathe. She is as close to us as our own breath. She is energy, movement, life, and change. She is the ground of freedom, creativity, sympathy, understanding, and love. In Her we live, and move, and co-create our being. She is always there for each and every one of us, particles of atoms, cells, animals, and human animals. We are precious in Her sight. She understands and remembers us with unending sympathy. She inspires us to live creatively, joyfully, and in harmony with others in the web of life. Yet choice is ours. The world that is Her body is co-created. The choices of every individual particle of an atom, every individual cell, every individual animal, every individual human animal play a part. The adventure of life on planet earth and in the universe as a whole will be enhanced or diminished by the choices we make. She hears the cries of the world, sharing our sorrows with infinite compassion. In a still, small voice, She whispers the desire of Her heart: Life is meant to be enjoyed. She sets before us life and death. We can choose life. Change is. Touch is. Everything we touch can change. Continue reading “SHE WHO CHANGES* by Carol P. Christ”
Calling the Shulamite holy is my way of affirming female sexuality, the beautiful variety of the body’s shapes and sizes, and including the LGBT community in the canon of saints.
Several years ago, after experiencing the innate maleness and straightness of most traditional icons, I decided to give iconography a folk and feminist twist. Biblical women, mythological figures, poets, artists, dancers, scholars, literary figures, and personal loved-ones graced my canvases and with a brush-stroke they were canonized. Miriam, Sappho, Gaia, Jephthah’s daughter, Virginia Woolf, Tiamat, Mary, Baby Suggs, Isadora Duncan, Fatima, the Shulamite, Dorothy Day, Mother Teresa, Mary Daly, Sophia, Sojourner Truth, and many of my friends and colleagues became “Holy Women Icons.” It is these icons—these holy women—that will be the focus of my monthly articles in Feminism and Religion.
This month, the Shulamite is the center of our attention. She is a dancer made famous by the erotic love poetry dedicated to her sensuous curves in Song of Songs:
Return, return, the Shulamite.
Return, return, and let us gaze on you.
How will you gaze on Shulamite in the dance of the two camps?
How beautiful are your sandaled feet, O prince’s daughter.
The curves of your (quivering) thighs like jewels crafted by artist hands.
Your vulva a rounded bowl; may it never lack wine.
Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and renowned Jewish thinker, believes that no one can ever truly understand the profundity and tragedy of the Shoah unless one experienced it. For him, silence is the best way to express the events since words fail to do justice. The principle of letting silence speak, when words no longer can, when pain is so real it debilitates and when tears flow more freely than thoughts, is not original to the twentieth century. The Bible contains many events and personal stories in which this is the case.
Judges 19 begins with two characters: a Levite and his concubine. The concubine has recently run away to her father’s house, when her husband decides to visit her there trying to win her back. He seems to have only good intentions in mind. After leaving her father’s house with his wife, the Levite discusses his future plans with his servant who apparently accompanied him on the journey. He still has not spoken a word to his wife.
The servant and the Levite decide to spend the night in Gibeah, a Benjaminite city. The three of them sit in the city’s square waiting for someone to take them in but no one arrives until evening. At dusk, an old man comes by and offers to take care of the needs of the entire party, including the donkeys, as long as they promised not to spend the night in the city square. Continue reading “JUDGES 19: A BRIEF PAUSE FROM JUSTICE-WORK TO BE WITH HER IN THE SILENCE BY IVY HELMAN”
While I celebrate the rise in status of Hildegard to official saint and soon to be Doctor of the Church, I cannot help but be suspicious of the Vatican’s motivations. One only has to take in the last two months behavior of the CDF, sanctioned by Pope Benedict, to see the real intentions of this papacy—the continued subjugation of all women to clerical authority.
The past month or so has been a very busy time for the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith or CDF and their examination of women. First they (and this includes Pope Benedict XVI) decided American nuns are guilty of the sin of silence by not speaking out on abortion & homosexuality. Their “radical feminist” ideology of standing with the poor and disenfranchised, while good, is not good enough for the CDF. The firestorm of solidarity coming from both laity and religious surely caught the Vatican off guard. Right? Well, not quite. This past week the CDF began its investigation of the Girl Scouts for their purported association with the likes of Planned Parenthood and Oxfam. While both address the needs of the poor, it is the latter and its troubling advocacy for safe sex via condom use that initiated the inquiry. Keep in mine that in 2010 Pope Benedict retracted from his earlier position and bane on condoms, seeing instead their use as a “lesser evil” in the fight against HIV/AIDS. The CDF angst is that the message of condom use might be too much sex-talk for impressionable young women. Continue reading “The Sainthood of Hildegard von Bingen by a Feminist-Friendly Pope? by Cynthia Garrity-Bond”
“Yo soy mujer en busca de igualdad, no aguantar abuso ni maldad. Yo soy mujer y tengo dignidad, y pronto la justicia serd una realidad. Mujer, tù eres mujer, porque supiste ver, la realidad de tu poder. Hoy canto al Dios del Pueblo en mi guitarra, un canto de mujer que se libera” – From “Mujeristas: A Name of Our Own!” – Ada María Isasi-Díaz [i]
Translation: I am woman searching for equality; I will not put up with abuse and wickedness. I am a woman and I have dignity, and justice will soon be a reality. Woman, you are woman, because you have known how to recognize the fact that you are powerful. Today I sing to the God of my people with my guitar, I sing a song of a woman who liberates herself.
Labels, names, and categories can evoke prejudice and oppression. Ada Maria Isasi-Díaz, the founder of Mujerista Theology, wrote:
To be able to name oneself is one of the most powerful abilities a person can have. A name is not just a word by which one is identified. A name provides the conceptual framework and the mental constructs that are used in thinking, understanding and relating to a person.[ii]
These words relate to U. S. Hispanic women, who, according to Isasi-Díaz, struggle against ethnic prejudice, sexism, and in many cases classism [and who] have been at a loss as to what they should be called.[iii]In finding that common name, lyrics from three different songs inspired Isasi-Díaz who developed the term “Mujerista Theology,” replacing Hispanic women’s liberation theology:
“Yo soy mujer en busca de igualdad, no aguantar abuso ni maldad. Yo soy mujer y tengo dignidad, y pronto la justicia serd una realidad. Mujer, tù eres mujer, porque supiste ver, la realidad de tu poder. Hoy canto al Dios del Pueblo en mi guitarra, un canto de mujer que se libera”[iv]
For Isasi-Díaz, mujerista unifies Hispanic women and embodies strength. Mujeristas are those:
Ada Maria Isasi-Díaz Picture From Drew University’s website
Who desire a society and a world where there is no oppression.
Who struggle for a society in which differences and diversity are valued.
Who know that our world has limits and that we have to live simply so others can simply live.
Who understand that material richness is not a limitless right but it carries a “social mortgage” that we have to pay to the poor of the world.
Who savor the struggle for justice, which, after all, is one of the main reasons for living.
Who try no matter what to know, maintain, and promote our Latina culture.
Who know that a “glorified” self-abnegation is many times the source of our oppression.
Who know women are made in the image of God and, as such, value ourselves.
Who know we are called to birth new women and men, a strong Latino people.
Who recognize that we have to be source of hope and of a reconciling love.
Who love ourselves so we can love God and our neighbor.[v]
For Isasi-Díaz, Mujerista Theology is defined as:
“a process of enablement for Latina Women, insisting on the development of a strong sense of moral agency, and clarifying the importance and value of who they are, what they think, and what they do….mujerista theology [also] seems to impact mainline theologies, the theologies which support what is normative in church, and, to a large degree, in society.”[vi]
At the end of this month, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious will meet to formulate a response to a Vatican trap whose cunning is best appreciated within the long tradition of religious authorities who craft impossible dilemmas for those they perceive as threats.
Feminism and Religion 