God As Seductress: The Call of Nature By Stacia Guzzo

When my husband and I decided to move out of the city, we knew what we wanted as an alternative.

We wanted land. Land to grow things, to raise animals, to build upon, to tend. We wanted blisters on our hands and calluses on our feet. We wanted to taste our sweat, feel our muscles burn, and then relax with some homemade beer in front of a roaring fire at the end of a long day. We wanted to harvest honey, gather eggs, spin fiber, and split wood. We wanted to raise sons and daughters to appreciate the sound of silence and the clarity of a night sky so clear that you can see the Milky Way in cold of winter. We wanted to be in community with other fellow homesteaders, sharing ideas and breaking freshly baked bread together. These were all things that had only been dreams when living in a cramped, rented apartment with little sun and neighbors who ducked into their houses before anyone could mumble a friendly hello.

And thus was the way that Mother Nature courted us. Her sensual beckoning drove us mad with desire and frustrated with impatience. She danced slightly out of our reach, ducking behind obstacles like home loan approvals and darting in and out of practicalities like job security and worries over distance from loved ones. Ah, she was a sly one, that Mother Nature. Her siren song was irresistible, and eventually, we bent beneath the strain. Continue reading “God As Seductress: The Call of Nature By Stacia Guzzo”

Part I: Advent as the Active Wait By Cynthie Garrity-Bond

In the Advent reading of the Annunciation we are silent witnesses to the conversation between the Angel Gabriel and Mary  (Luke 1: 26- 40).

I would like to bring to the surface two ways of looking at the season of Advent though the scriptural story of the Annunciation.  Both require waiting, one in the stillness of surrender and the other in what I call the active wait. While we know that Advent is a season of waiting, it is also one of expectation and hope.  It is suggested we pullback from the busyness of our hectic lives, in the anticipation of renewing our connection to God and therefore ourselves in prayerful silence leading to interior excavation.  The 14th century mystic Meister Eckhart wrote, “We are celebrating the feast of the Eternal Birth which God the Father has borne and never ceases to bear in all eternity.  But if it takes place not in me, what avails it?”  And so like Mary, we wait for the Blessed Unknown to take shape within us. Continue reading “Part I: Advent as the Active Wait By Cynthie Garrity-Bond”

Feminist Awakening By Peggy Ventris

This  post is written in conjunction with the Feminist Ethics Course Dialogue project sponsored by Claremont School of Theology in the Claremont Lincoln University Consortium,  Claremont Graduate University, and directed by Grace Yia-Hei Kao.

Besides being a Feminist Ethics student, Peggy is a Physical Therapy Assistant specializing in Barnes technique myofascial release; Deacon (soon to be priest) in charge under special circumstances at St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church, Twentynine Palms; a fourth year joint M. Div. student at ETSC/CST; a multi-moved(while her husband was off flying) military wife 20 of 43  married years; privileged oldest of four daughters of medical professionals; 21-year grateful member of Al-Anon; mother and grandmother; budding feminist;  all in no particular order of importance.

It’s never too late to be something new like a budding feminist. It doesn’t take rocket science to learn that the system oppresses its members, but it does take a clear-eyed look at privilege. “The man” keeping folks down isn’t just an excuse for school or job dropout; it may be a colloquial naming of patriarchal society.  Solidarity is action to name oppression and take steps to push back against injustice. I learned all this in grad school since the big 60th and find in it the best hope for survival of our world. Continue reading “Feminist Awakening By Peggy Ventris”

Recession Proof Devotion By Valentina Khan

This  post is written in conjunction with the Feminist Ethics Course Dialogue project sponsored by Claremont School of Theology in the Claremont Lincoln University Consortium,  Claremont Graduate University, and directed by Grace Yia-Hei Kao.

Valentina Khan is a first year Master of Muslim Leadership Context student at the Claremont School of Theology.  She is a co-founder of I Am Jerusalem, an interfaith organization which promotes friendship, understanding, and striving for the “greater purpose” by dedicating time to community service and social justice. Born and raised in Southern California, to Iranian mother, and Indian father, Valentina has a diverse background that helps her identify as a “citizen of the world”. Valentina hopes to mediate conflicts between intra-religious and inter-religious groups and cultures, via conflict resolution, as well as promote the peace she knows can exist between people if they just put in the effort. Valentina is a yoga teacher and the creator of Enerji barre, where she enjoys empowering her students to love their bodies, appreciate their health and live in the moment!

“I Am Jerusalem, that’s it, we got it, I Am Jerusalem! You are Jerusalem! We are all Jerusalem!” My best friend Sarah and I exclaimed on our yoga mats one day after a 90 minute intensive Vinyasa flow. Sarah was raised as a Christian, and I as a Muslim. It was when we were in the 7th grade when she asked me the heavy question, “so do Muslims believe in Jesus?” This question was the common theme in my life, growing up in suburban Orange County and surrounded predominately by white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestants. As a child, and still today, I can look up and down any major street in my town and find multitudes of churches: Trinity Presbyterian, a progressive church, First Church of Christ, Christian Science, Lutheran, Episcopalian, Unitarian, Methodist, and Catholic, all within a 5 mile radius. I remember we had to drive about 25 minutes to get to Sunday School at the local Mosque, and I wished so much to just go with my Christian friends down the street, after all God was the same…right? Continue reading “Recession Proof Devotion By Valentina Khan”

Dr. Mercy Oduyoye and the Ninth Annual Patricia Reif Lecture By Gina Messina-Dysert

Dr. Mercy Oduyoye is the Ninth Annual Patricia Reif Lecture speaker and will present “Women and Violence in Africa: the Plight of Widows and the Churches Response” on Monday, November 14, 2011 at 7pm at the Mudd Theater on the Claremont School of Theology campus.  Oduyoye is Africa’s foremost feminist theologian whose contributions have greatly impacted worldviews on gender and religion.  I am familiar with Oduyoye’s work and today had the honor to meet her in person and have a one on one conversation about violence against women, feminism, and religion.

Oduyoye was incredibly gracious and entertained all my questions about her work, her insights in regards to violence against women, and her thoughts about feminism and religion and where the field is going.  She explained that although some believe feminism is dead, the marginalization of women continues to be a serious issue.  Although the issues women face change over time, women continue to be oppressed.  According to Oduyoye, we must recognize that the issues women faced 50 years ago are different from the issues women face today; however this does not mean that gender-based inequalities have seized to exist.  Rather, it means that the culture has manifested itself in a new way.  We must come to recognize this and continue to work towards the eradication of gender-based violence.    Continue reading “Dr. Mercy Oduyoye and the Ninth Annual Patricia Reif Lecture By Gina Messina-Dysert”

Women, Religion and Consumption By Amy Levin

While my last post focused on the similarities between the social and collective experience (perhaps qua Durkheim?) of the occupy movement and the feminist movement in religion, I’d like to continue thinking about themes by taking a different path towards the more direct relationship between religion, women, and capitalism. There are two contemporary studies that are just as useful as they are fascinating on this triadic dynamic: Bethany Moreton’s To Serve God and Wal-Mart: The Making of Christian Free-Enterprise, and Kathryn Lofton’s Oprah: The Gospel of an Icon. Both of these authors pay attention to the nuanced ways in which patriarchy, capitalism, and religion can reinforce each other, and that women are at once victims and creative agents of these processes.

Though Wal-Mart currently stands as world’s largest multi-national corporation, it began in the mind of Sam Walton in a small Ozark town of the Sunbelt. Bethany Moreton’s book calls attention to the particular rural, Southern, agrarian, and Christian family values that helped construct the spirit of free enterprise so representative of Wal-Mart, and women had a particular role to play in the rise of this capital, helping to negotiate and construct Wal-Mart as an icon of good Christian family values. Conflating the store and the family served to bolster both the virtuous ideals of Wal-Mart culture, as well as calm anxieties of men who were threatened by female workers and the potential emasculation of working in the service economy. In this gendered economy, women – mainly white, middle-class, middle- aged mothers – helped structure a unique dynamic in the Wal-Mart industry, helping to restore Protestant family ideals in the workplace. While women held the majority of jobs, chain managers received decision-making power and sturdy salaries. Moreover, through an ethos of service and virtuous buying, women produced a “. . .victory of sanctifying capitalism and consumption under Christianity.” Wal-Mart acted as an agent of mass consumption by making mass service work an honorable endeavor.   Continue reading “Women, Religion and Consumption By Amy Levin”

Leadership As Risk And Open Dialogue By Xochitl Alvizo

Regardless of the context, leadership is too often simply an imitation and implementation of business management strategies that are designed to ‘lead’ people toward a predetermined goal. In business the goal is to maximize profits, minimize cost, and increase production, and as long as it is serves that purpose, employee satisfaction is sought and minimally maintained. I reviewed Ronald A. Heifetz classic text on leadership, Leadership Without Easy Answers, which does take the discussion of leadership into a different direction. And although it does not fall in the direction I want to eventually go, it does offer a solid place to start this conversation on leadership. [1]  Continue reading “Leadership As Risk And Open Dialogue By Xochitl Alvizo”

LGBT Saints: Feminism Leads to a Queer Theology of Sainthood By Kittredge Cherry

Kittredge Cherry

The following is a guest post written by Rev. Kittredge Cherry, lesbian Christian author and art historian who blogs about LGBT spirituality and the arts at the Jesus in Love Blog.  Her books include “Equal Rites” and “Art That Dares: Gay Jesus, Woman Christ, and More“.

Feminists have criticized saints as top-down tools of the dominant morality, but as a lesbian Christian I find that sometimes the opposite is true.  The desire for saints rises from the grassroots, and LGBT saints can shake up the status quo.  Feminist theology is helping me in a quest for new models of sainthood that lead to LGBT and queer saints.  The LGBT saints attract people with the quality of their love.  They show us not only THEIR place in history, but also OUR place — because we are all saints who are meant to embody love. Continue reading “LGBT Saints: Feminism Leads to a Queer Theology of Sainthood By Kittredge Cherry”

Christian Sexual Ethics and Just Love for a Mormon Marriage by Caroline Kline

Several months ago, my husband and I had a fascinating dinnertime discussion on whether or not we have a ‘just love’. I had been reading one of the foremost ethicists on the subject of Christian sexual ethics — a Catholic nun by the name of Margaret Farley who taught at the Yale Divinity School for over 30 years.  Her book is called Just Love.

The framework for sexual ethics that Farley comes up with highlights her commitment to the importance of justice in sexual relationships. For Farley, love is not enough. Love alone can be based on fantasy, it can be manipulative, it can look at the other only as a means to an end. Therefore, in her sexual ethical framework, love must coincide with justice.  Just love must contain these seven norms:

1. Do no unjust harm (don’t be physically, emotionally, spiritually destructive to the other) Continue reading “Christian Sexual Ethics and Just Love for a Mormon Marriage by Caroline Kline”

Seeking Shared Voices By Hannah Heinzekehr

This post is written in conjunction with the Feminist Ethics Course Dialogue project sponsored by Claremont School of Theology in the Claremont Lincoln University Consortium,  Claremont Graduate University, and directed by Grace Yia-Hei Kao.

Hannah Heinzekehr is a second year Masters student at Claremont School of Theology, studying theology and community development. She also works as a Church Relations Associate for Mennonite Mission Network. She enjoys cooking with and for friends, watching and playing sports (especially soccer), drinking coffee and talking about the future of the Mennonite Church. 

Feminism is not a word or a movement that I came to easily. In fact, in an article that she wrote for a Mennonite women’s publication when I was 15, my mom noted that I had chosen to reject the word feminism, because it carried too much baggage and wasn’t relevant to me. It wasn’t that I didn’t care about women’s issues. On the contrary, I was very aware of some of the difficulties that faced my mother when she decided to become a pastor, I felt free to use gender neutral and feminine language for God (for awhile, my favorite image of the Divine was a large oak tree with a swing for me to sit in), and I had an inkling that the discourses I heard at regional church youth rallies about modesty and sexuality seemed to be directed particularly towards women. But I didn’t feel that I needed feminism, because sexism didn’t seem to limit any of my opportunities. The fact that I felt this sense of “limitlessness” is a testament to the work of previous waves of feminism, and to the community that I grew up within. It is also likely a function of my privilege as a white, middle-class child and teenager, who wasn’t constrained by other forms of oppression. I moved through college feeling affirmed by fellow students, faculty and staff. I found that I had access to leadership opportunities and was well-respected in the classroom.  Continue reading “Seeking Shared Voices By Hannah Heinzekehr”