Esther Nelson – Feminism and Religion

TOXIC POSITIVITY by Esther Nelson

Psychotherapist Whitney Goodman popularized the phrase “toxic positivity” on Instagram—the ideas of which she eventually gathered into a book with that same title (Penguin Random House LLC, 2022). The term itself may be fairly new, however, being and staying positive “no matter what” goes way back.

Psychological exploration of the “concept of unrealistic optimism” goes back to at least 1980. [The] “term toxic positivity first appeared in J. Halberstam’s 2011 The Queer Art of Failure, a work that poked ‘holes in the toxic positivity of contemporary life.’” (Wikipedia)

Many of us remember Stuart Smalley on the TV show “Saturday Night Live” looking at himself in the mirror while giving himself positive, yet cringe-worthy, affirmations.

My yoga classes are full of vapid affirmations and arrogant advice. “You are a beautiful person—inside and out.” “You are kind.” “You are caring.” “You love fiercely.” “You can do ANYTHING you set your mind to.” Really?! Sappy shibboleths and saccharine-laced sayings don’t reach me, other than to make me uncomfortable and squirmy.

THERE’S ONLY LOVE by Esther Nelson

Charlie Kirk embodied characteristics lauded by people I remember from my fundamentalist, Christian upbringing. Confident “believer” who knew the absolute “truth,” a willingness to proselytize (or better known in fundamentalist circles as spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ), and a pugnacious personality essential to fight Satan and his minions in this “ungodly” world.

In a New York Times article titled “We Need to Think Straight about God and Politics” (9/25/25), David Brooks writes: “As people eulogized Kirk, it was rarely clear if they were talking about the man who was trying to evangelize for Jesus or the one trying to elect Republicans.” A spokesperson at Turning Point USA said, “He [Kirk] confronted evil and proclaimed the truth and called us to repent and be saved.” Brooks asks, “Is that what Kirk was doing when arguing with college kids about tariffs?”

I want to focus here on some of the brilliantly choreographed, yet deceptively cruel imagery present at Kirk’s memorial service, showing how the MAGA movement uses a religious group’s theology to foment hatred—with the goal of gaining/retaining political power.

FAMISHED—ON FOOD, SEX, AND GROWING UP AS A GOOD GIRL by Anna Rollins: Book Review by Esther Nelson, part 2

Part 1 was posted yesterday.

MARRIAGE

“He looked at me without judgment. With him, I didn’t feel the need to perform.” Both her future husband (first year medical resident) and she (now studying applied linguistics) disliked fundamentalism’s legalism, but they were still committed to Christianity. Both were “devoted to [sexual] abstinence.” Sex did not even happen on their wedding night, but when it did, it hurt. For years, the pain continued. Vaginismus. “I didn’t know there was a name for it. I didn’t know that…it was twice as common for those who had grown up in religiously conservative households.” It took years to get through the pain. “It’s not until we can believe that our bodies are inherently good and worthy of pleasure and joy that we can begin to heal.”

A new pastor arrived at Rollins’ church armed with Christian nationalist ideas and fervor. It didn’t set right with her. She was moving toward progressive positions beginning with “my body, my choice.” She adds, “If there’s anything someone who’s struggled with an eating disorder understands, it’s the concept of bodily autonomy.” She began to research the Reformers beginning with Martin Luther who said this about women: “If women become tired, even die, it does not matter. Let them die in childbirth. That’s what they are there for.” Rollins’ husband pushes back, though, quoting Scripture—“there is no male or female…we are all unified in Christ.” Why then, Rollins wonders, does sexism run rampant in the church?

FAMISHED—ON FOOD, SEX, AND GROWING UP AS A GOOD GIRL by Anna Rollins: Book Review by Esther Nelson, part 1

In her Preface, Rollins writes, “Hypercontrolling my food and using exercise compulsively had always been how I coped with life, stress, expectations, and fear.” Many people (usually women) use this coping technique in their day-to-day lives. Controlling your body’s needs and desires allows you to feel powerful. I know. I am one of those people.

Powerful or being in control was not something the author felt able to achieve in any “normal” way given her upbringing “in an Appalachian [West Virginia] church that fully embraced purity culture [sexual abstinence before marriage] and rigid gender roles.” Rollins continues, “…I’d bought into the scripts offered to me by both diet culture [controlling food intake to achieve a better-looking body] and purity culture [controlling your sex drive] … [knowing] that if I controlled my appetites, I could control my world. That if I made myself smaller, I would be better, safer.”

Rollins interviewed scholars, psychologists, and an array of women while writing FAMISHED. She states, “When women worked to heal from body shame, their relationship to religion was intricately involved.”

The author divides her work into three sections: Girlhood, Marriage, and Motherhood.

Seeing Double by Esther Nelson

I’ve often thought that we (in the USA) have been somewhat, albeit reluctantly, willing to discuss and perhaps even change our minds, behavior, policies, and laws when confronted about the long-lived presence of racism in our local and national institutions. However, when it comes to misogyny—not so much.

Shirley Anita Chisholm St. Hill (1924 – 2005), was an American politician who, in 1968, became the first black woman to be elected to Congress. “Chisholm represented a district centered in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, for seven terms from 1969 to 1983. In 1972, she became the first black candidate for a major-party nomination for President of the U.S. and the first woman to run for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. Throughout her career, she was known for taking ‘a resolute stand against economic, social, and political injustices’ as well as being a strong supporter of black civil rights and women’s rights” (Wikipedia).

Chisholm noted that “…she had faced much more discrimination during her New York legislative career because she was a woman than for her race” (Wikipedia). Why are not more of us aware of Chisholm’s confession?

PEOPLE GET READY by Esther Nelson

I recently attended an event in Salem, Virginia, put on by The Salem Choral Society titled “People Get Ready,” directed by S. Reed Carter IV. This popular group has sung on numerous occasions locally as well as performing at Carnegie Hall in New York City and the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. The choir (11 men and ~45 women) sang fourteen selections. The song arresting my attention was “People Get Ready.”

From Wikipedia: “‘People Get Ready’ is a 1965 single by the Impressions, the group’s best-known hit, reaching number three on the Billboard R&B chart. The gospel-influenced track was a Curtis Mayfield (1942–1999), American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer. This particular composition displayed [his] growing sense of social and political awareness…. In 2021, Rolling Stone named this song the 122^nd greatest song of all time. Martin Luther King Jr. named the song the unofficial anthem of the Civil Rights Movement and often used the song to get people marching or to calm and comfort them.”

Did We Ask for a King? by Esther Nelson

Northrop Frye (1912-1991), a Canadian literary critic, is probably best known for his book THE GREAT CODE: THE BIBLE AND LITERATURE (1983). In it, he demonstrates how the Bible is foundational for our understanding of Western literature, a body of work replete with Biblical allusions.

Today, most of us are not familiar enough with the Bible to appreciate where many literary themes take root. We fail to see how its stories—gathered over centuries—relate to us. Not only does Western literature mine from Biblical text, our lives as we experience them mirror much of Biblical story and narrative.

I was raised on the Protestant Bible. To this day, I experience the world through Biblical story. There is nothing sacrosanct (to me) about the familiar text. The Bible is not unique.

From the Archives: TULIP by Esther Nelson

This was originally posted on May 7, 2022

I’ve been blown away this Spring by the abundant beauty and sheer number of tulips planted throughout Roanoke, Virginia, a city I’m beginning to think of as “home.”

If I were to pick a favorite flower, it would be the tulip, yet I find it impossible to look at a tulip without being reminded of my religious upbringing regarding “salvation” as represented in the acronym of Calvinism’s “Five Points.” Each tulip displays five petals in its flower. Each petal stands for one point.

T=Total Depravity

U=Unconditional Election

L=Limited Atonement

I=Irresistible Grace

P=Preservation and Perseverance of the saints.

When my (now ex-) sister-in-law delivered her first baby one Spring, I gave her a pot of tulip plants, reminding her that T-U-L-I-P was the basis of our faith. The plant didn’t live to the following Spring, portending perhaps my future abandonment of T-U-L-I-P doctrine—doctrine being an interpretation of Scripture. T-U-L-I-P lays out an understanding of soteriology (doctrine explaining human salvation) hammered out by the French theologian John Calvin (1509-1564) and developed further by his Protestant followers.

Now What by Esther Nelson

Eight years ago (2016), Donald Trump became the 45^th president of the USA. I felt much the same way then as I do now—eight years later—when Trump somehow was re-elected to that office.

Back in 2016, one of my colleagues brought a short essay by Alice Walker (b. 1944) into his classroom a few days after the election. Many of those university students were upset–even dazed—by Trump’s victory. How did it happen? Here’s a link to Walker’s work—a piece that’s just as appropriate today as it was eight years ago.

NOT POSITIVE MASCULINITY, BUT FULL HUMANITY by Esther Nelson

The following New York Times article titled “We Can Do Better than ‘Positive Masculinity’” by Ruth Whippman was published on October 9, 2024. Whippman is also the author of the book, REIMAGINING BOYHOOD IN THE AGE OF IMPOSSIBLE MASCULINITIES. Whippman’s New York Times article grabbed my attention.

Decades ago while taking undergraduate courses in the discipline that was then called Women’s Studies (now known as Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies), most of the authors I remember reading insisted that both masculinity and femininity (human ways of being in the world) were cultural constructs, not something innate in humans we refer to as women and men. Throughout the world, societies have shown a lot of variety in ways that women and men express themselves and are expected to behave.