In a moving part of Goddess and God in the World, the book Judith Plaskow and I are writing together, Judith describes how the Sabra and Shatila massacre forced her to confront the fact that “her people” are just as capable of perpetrating evil as any other group. Growing up in the shadow of the Holocaust and the pogroms that had scattered her people across the world, Judith was taught to think of the Jewish people as the victims of history rather than as the perpetrators of evil. The willingness of the Israeli army to countenance the outright massacre of up to 3500 people told another story: when in power, Jews too were capable of great evil.
I tell this story because I believe the lesson Judith learned is a lesson that Americans as a group still need to learn. I am thinking about this in the days following the heated debate that led to the removal of the Confederate flag from the Capitol of North Carolina.
In a brave and impassioned speech, Jenny Horne explained that though she is a descendant of Jefferson Davis, she was speaking against the display of the Confederate flag because it is a symbol of the harm that has been done and continues to be done to slaves and descendants of slaves in her state. Jenny Horne was rejecting the story she had been told about what it is to be an American in South Carolina. Continue reading “Changing the American Story? by Carol P. Christ”
Feminism and Religion 