The Real “Affirmative Action”: Musings on Race, Class, and Gender in the Religious Academy By Egon Cohen

Egon Cohen is completing a Master of Theological Studies at Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth, Texas. His research focuses on gender, sexuality, ethics, hermeneutics, and the intersection of liturgical praxis, politics, and BDSM. Egon likes riding motorcycles and eating Haribo gummibears. He is secretly still 10.

According to the Association of Theological Schools, about 1,100 students enroll in Ph.D. programs at divinity schools and seminaries in theU.S.each year. And hundreds more enroll in graduate religion departments at public and secular universities. However, job postings on theAmericanAcademyof Religion, Society of Biblical Literature, and Chronicle of Higher Education websites suggest that in any given year there are only around 200 tenure track openings in the field. Needless to say, those of us who are pursuing academic careers in religious studies/theology are a bit nervous (and if we aren’t nervous, we should be).

So, when we’re not discussing all the fun God stuff, grad students in theology often spend our time talking about our (lack of) job prospects. And there’s a common refrain that almost invariably surfaces. My friend, Mr. X, put it rather eloquently the other day: “My dad told me that I need to work extra hard—after all, I’m a white male trying to get a job in theology.”  Continue reading “The Real “Affirmative Action”: Musings on Race, Class, and Gender in the Religious Academy By Egon Cohen”

Sex as a Weapon of Sustenance By Cynthia Garrity-Bond

In a recent news post, Filipino women went on a sex-strike in order to bring peace to their rural village. “If you keep fighting,” warned Aninon E. Kamanza, of the Dado Village Sewing Cooperative, “you’ll be cut off.”  It seems their cottage business of sewing made delivery of goods impossible due to road closures brought on by the violence.  Dado, the small village of 102 families mostly affected, is a town caught in the middle of conflict involving clan feuds and land disputes. The ultimatum worked. Vis-a-vie the threat of no sex, the violence has stopped, the roads are open, the women can transport their goods and the men can breath a sigh of relief.  What I find so compelling about this story is the resourcefulness of the women. Understanding the nature of their men, they used the withholding of sex to accomplish their goal of making money in order to care for their families.  But what about the reverse? What about women who also use sex to care for their families but as sex workers?  Can we applaud their resourcefulness and commitment to family as well?   Continue reading “Sex as a Weapon of Sustenance By Cynthia Garrity-Bond”

The Intersection of Care Theory and Public Policy By Christopher Carter

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.

Christopher Carter is a Ph.D. student in Religion, Ethics, and Society at Claremont Lincoln University, and the Senior Pastor at Compton First United Methodist Church. His interests include Ecotheology, Critical Race Theory, and Christian Social Ethics.

“George Bush doesn’t care about black people!” Music artist Kanye West made these scathing remarks during the NBC telethon “A Concert for Hurricane Relief.” West’s anger toward George W. Bush was the result of the frustration that many people had regarding the lackluster federal response to Hurricane Katrina. Five days after Katrina West was asked to lend his star power to the relief effort. In those five days West, like many of us, watched the news broadcasts incessantly hoping to hear something positive; believing that our country – the United States of America – would not abandon any citizen in their time of greatest need. With the help of news broadcasts that portrayed the displaced African Americans of New Orleans as scavengers at best and criminals at worst, whatever hope the African American community had in our government had faded away.  Thus we arrive at West’s assertion that “George Bush [i.e. the government] doesn’t care about black people.” As much as I agreed with this statement at the time it was made, reevaluating it in light of Nel Noddings seminal work Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education (1984) has caused me to reverse my opinion. Indeed, George W. Bush through the actions of the Federal Emergency Management Association (FEMA) showed the world that he did care about black people. Continue reading “The Intersection of Care Theory and Public Policy By Christopher Carter”

RESTORE THE REVENUE STREAMS! By Charlene Spretnak

Charlene Spretnak is one of the Founding Mothers of the Women’s Spirituality movement. She is the author of eight books, including most recently Relational Reality. She is a professor in the Women’s Spirituality graduate program in the Philosophy and Religion Department at the California Institute of Integral Studies. For further information about her books, see www.CharleneSpretnak.com. 

In the 1990s a broad coalition of Christian organizations and development NGOs mounted a successful international campaign known as Jubilee 2000, which pushed for a just resolution to a moral issue: the crushing interest payments on “Third World” development loans that had been forced on those countries in ways that had enriched the Northern banks and drained the South for decades. The campaign resulted in the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative, which provides systematic debt relief for the poorest countries as well as new safeguards to assure that aid money is actually spent on the alleviation of poverty, and also the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI), which offers 100% cancellation of multilateral debts owed by HIPC countries to the World Bank, IMF, and African Development Bank. Continue reading “RESTORE THE REVENUE STREAMS! By Charlene Spretnak”

In the Beginning was . . . The Mother By Carol Flinders

The following is a guest post written by Carol Flinders, Ph.D.  Carol received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of California at Berkeley and has authored multiple books including Enduring Grace: Living Portraits of Seven Women Mystics; At the Root of This Longing: Reconciling a Spiritual Hunger and a Feminist Thirst;  Rebalancing the World; and Enduring Lives. She has taught at UC, Berkeley, and at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley and gives workshops and lectures nationally and internationally. Carol is a Fellow of the Spirituality and Health Institute, Santa Clara University and is currently adjunct faculty at the Sophia Center in Culture and Spirituality, Holy Names University, Oakland, CA.

The word matrix  comes, of course, from the Latin root mater. Its literal meaning is “womb,” but it can also refer to the fine-grained portion of aggregate rock, the “glue” that holds the rest together.

It was probably this latter sense of the word that a resident of Littleton, Colorado, had in mind when she was interviewed after the Columbine shootings in 1999 and spoke about “the stunning erosion of our social matrix.”

When we get it right, she seemed to be saying, in the family, or community, or nation, an invisible container or force field comes into being that keeps everyone safe.  Something like this was implicit in the definition of matriarchy Peggy Sanday offered here a few weeks ago: “A balanced social system in which both sexes play key roles founded on maternal social principles.”  Continue reading “In the Beginning was . . . The Mother By Carol Flinders”

Religious Mestizaje by Xochitl Alvizo

Some have said that all theology is autobiographical. Whether this is always the case or not, in my case, it is absolutely true. I came to the topic of religious mestizaje because of my own need to make sense of the fact that I fully identify as a Goddess loving person as well as a Christian-identified one. I have made reference to this before on this blog; I have admitted that even after my feminist awakening, even after coming to love and practice Goddess spirituality, even after reading all of Mary Daly’s books (some of them more than once), I have chosen to affiliate with Christianity all while also maintaining my Goddess devotion nonetheless. Therefore, Gloria Anzaldua’s understanding of mestijaze, and religious mestizaje in particular, has contributed to the ongoing revision of my religious identity.

The word mestiza or mestizo is born of the incarnation of hybridity and diversity.[1] Historically mestizaje is the new hybrid race, a reference to Mexicans who are the mixed people born of Indian and Spanish blood in the 16th century.[2] The Spanish invaded the land now called Mexico, and in partnership with rival tribes, conquered the Aztec people. Oscar Garcia-Johnson, in his book A Mestiza Community of the Spirit, states that mestizaje “represents a hub of dehumanizing stories and self-empowering templates.”[3] Thus, there is an inherent violence implied in mestizaje as the word originated, and this violence is also implied in my Goddess Loving Christian mestizaje. Christianity has been the cause of much harm and dehumanizing violence, especially in its relationship to women, and really is in need of transformation and self-empowering templates. The origin of mestizaje implies the violence of one tradition or people dominating and suppressing another and the reality that new life, a new people and tradition, find a way nonetheless; I think this is part of what leads to my religious mestizaje. The new ‘way’ that I have found has taken form in a Goddess Loving Christian religious practice that reflects the concrete embodied reality of my experience – a religious practice that is always negotiated with a community of people. .

Continue reading “Religious Mestizaje by Xochitl Alvizo”

Women Standing as Sacred Witness to One Another By Stacia Guzzo

The following is a guest post written by Stacia Guzzo.  She received her MA in Theological Studies from Loyola Marymount University and is currently working toward a MDiv through Fuller Theological Seminary. She is also in the midst of completing certification in Childbirth Education and periodically serves women in her community as a labor doula. She has taught on the elementary and high school levels, led retreats, and spoken at regional congresses through the Los Angeles Roman Catholic Archdiocese. She lives with her husband, son, two dogs, two cats, seven chickens, and five beehives on a small homestead in Tehachapi, California.

“Hands!” The young woman gasped as the next contraction swelled. I quickly put the wet washcloth I had been using to dab her face back in the small bowl of water beside me and grabbed her hands. She squeezed them, moaning low. Her husband stood behind her in the birthing tub, pressing on her hips. Two midwives stood in the background, their encouragement silent and strong. The dim light of dawn was beginning to shine through the window of their home. In another room, the couple’s two-year-old son slept. Continue reading “Women Standing as Sacred Witness to One Another By Stacia Guzzo”

Reflecting on the Construction of Race as our National Identity Shifts By Helene Slessarev-Jamir

The following is a guest post written by Helen Slessarev-Jamir, Ph.D., Mildred M. Hutchinson Professor of Urban Studies at Claremont School of Theology.  Her research focuses on the character of religiously inspired justice work in response to globalization and American empire.  Helene is a member of the Board of Directors and writes for Sojourners; she has authored multiple articles and books including most recently published Prophetic Activism: Progressive Religious Justice Movements in Contemporary America.

Today my son Stephan celebrates his 31st birthday. In the year Stephan was born he was one of very few bi-racial children in the U.S. I personally knew of no one else who had a bi-racial child. His father and I agreed that given the racial realities of the U.S. in 1980, he needed to be raised as an African-American because that was how he would be perceived. We consciously constructed Stephan’s identity as black.

We lived on the Southside of Chicago in an all-black neighborhood. Yet, when he was ready to enter elementary school, I was advised to register him as “white” so that he would have a better chance of being admitted into the local public magnet school. Having resisted any significant plans to desegregate its public schools, the Chicago Board of Education used racial diversity as one of the main criteria for admission into their magnet schools. As a result, Stephan became one of the “white” children in his 1st grade classroom even though all the faces in his school photo were varying shades of brown. Continue reading “Reflecting on the Construction of Race as our National Identity Shifts By Helene Slessarev-Jamir”

The Scars Were Not Me: Gilligan and Self-Care By Drew Baker

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.

Drew Baker is a feminist Buddhist-Christian PhD student in Religion, Ethics and Society at Claremont School of Theology. His work engages the interconnections between trauma theory, religious ethics and ghost narratives.

[DISCLAIMER: Sexual violence is contained in the post below]

When I was a freshman in college, I drastically misread Carol Gilligan’s In a Different Voice. I read her book then, and (wrongly) saw a mirror of my own ideals. Selfless care above all else. I see a more complicated and beautiful portrait in her book today. Something changed.

I was raised Buddhist. Like many Buddhists, I learned about the doctrine of no-self and the moral value of compassion. I came to wed the concepts in my mind. Selfless care. There were no virtues in the world beyond the mantra: ‘love others no matter the cost to the self.’

Kenosis can be quite pragmatically valuable to cultivate as a spiritual discipline for those with power. As a white straight man, honestly, there were few instances in my life growing up that should have called this personal virtue into question. Continue reading “The Scars Were Not Me: Gilligan and Self-Care By Drew Baker”

Gilligan’s Framework and its Implications: The Benefits and Dangers in my Mormon Context by Caroline Kline

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.

Gilligan’s In a Different Voice was a revelation when I discovered it three years ago. At the time I was struggling within my Mormon tradition, wondering if I could continue to remain practicing when doing so, in a sense, perpetuated an institution which I saw as limiting women’s opportunities. Many of my Mormon feminist friends had made the painful decision to leave. They left on principle, as they could no longer lend their support to an institution which promoted teachings which violated their core beliefs in men’s and women’s equality. They were willing to face the pain and disappointment their families would undoubtedly experience, as well as possible ostracism.

I understood and supported my friends’ choices to leave. However, I knew I wasn’t ready to make that choice. Continue reading “Gilligan’s Framework and its Implications: The Benefits and Dangers in my Mormon Context by Caroline Kline”