feminism and religion – Page 38 – Feminism and Religion

“Womenspiration” for International Women’s Day by Elise M. Edwards

Happy International Women’s Day! I hope it is a happy day for you as we recognize women’s achievements throughout the world. Our FAR community is not only for or about women, but as feminists in some form or another, collectively we support women, their growth, their health, and their contributions to the world. On a day like today, we should take note of what still needs to be done and recommit ourselves to our work. But let’s not rush past an opportunity for joy and celebration. Many generations of women have fought for equal rights and participation in all sectors of society, and we have made progress. To commemorate that legacy today, I am highlighting just a few of the women who inspire me with their lives and with their work. They are my “womenspiration.” My hope is that you join me in recognizing them and that as you read about them, you reflect on the women who inspire you.

Continue reading ““Womenspiration” for International Women’s Day by Elise M. Edwards”

Time Traveling Letter to Kids of the 70s (especially you, Natalie) by Natalie Weaver

Hmmm…. Time Travel? Maybe, I suppose. I recall a strange video clip in which Steven Hawking throws a Time Travelers’ Party. He sends an invitation for a fancy soiree, holds the event, and sets the scene where future folk will find a welcome reception at specific coordinates in the past, should they find the means to get there.

Then, there’s the Baby and Bird pub in Oxford, England, where the famed Inklings writers convened to share manuscripts. There was a curious tile in the wall of one of the more private rooms, wherein, while drinking my Pimm’s Cup, I was told by some cat playing cards that Tolkien, Lewis, and company made a pact to use that tile as a sort of gathering horcrux, if they discovered they could get meet up again after crossing into the world beyond. I can imagine that conversation among pipe-smoking guys in tweed, very seriously stacking their hands together, imbuing their spirits into a piece of decorative ceramic. I hope it is a true story. I’ve heard enough Brian Greene to appreciate theoretically how perhaps skipping ahead to the future is possible.

My greatest sympathy, though, for the time theorists goes to my old professor, who used to pray for things to be different in his past. He said he believed God could change anything. I thought it was eccentric, and I sort of think he was praying for particular events and things to actually have been different. I admit, his level of specificity is hard for me to brook, but the concept makes a measure of sense when I consider that a person’s past is still actively present in her or his personhood insofar as we are constantly remembering, revaluing, and reintegrating ourselves in one way or another.

From a transcendental personal perspective, things that are decades old condition certain meanings, values, and tolerances in the present self. I have lunch with a friend every couple of months, and there is a never a visit that goes by in which she does not recount and somehow integrate the experience of having a gun pointed at her head. Our stories, especially how we re-member them, great and small, live on in us. It occurs to me even as I write that our conditioning is not even our own exclusively; we carry legacies of the human and cultural past in our embodied presents. And, we presume the future every time we make a promise.

I am reminded of St. Augustine here and largely persuaded to appreciate the value of recognizing something like a perpetual NOW: Continue reading “Time Traveling Letter to Kids of the 70s (especially you, Natalie) by Natalie Weaver”

Children of German Immigrant Farmers in Cherry Ridge: American Stories by Carol P. Christ

In my genealogy research, I traced my father’s grandmother, Catherine, to her roots on the Iloff farm in Cherry Ridge, Honesdale, Pennsylvania, about two hours north of New York City. Catherine’s parents were Henry Iloff, who emigrated in 1841 from St. Nicholas, Saarland, and Catherina Lattauer who emigrated in 1845 or 1846 from Ober-Floerscheim, Hesse-Darmstadt. They were married February 2, 1846 at St. Matthew’s Church in “Little Germany” on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

In 1850, Henry and Catherina purchased land in Cherry Ridge, Honesdale, where they built the farm that remained in the family for a hundred years. In 1851 Catherina’s sister Agnes Lattauer Schweizer emigrated with her family from Ober-Floerscheim to Cherry Ridge. The Schweizer farm also remained in the family for a hundred years.

I had been told about the family Henry Iloff had with two wives who were somehow related: nine children with his first wife and nine with his second over a forty year period–fourteen of whom were living at the time of his death in 1889. I was shocked to learn that when his first wife died in 1869, Henry married his wife’s sister’s daughter Johanna Schweizer–who was half his age and his children’s cousin. I suspect that the marriage was considered scandalous in a conservative farming community, and that it did not sit well with the children of the first marriage, four of whom left the local area. Nonetheless, Henry Iloff was elected to the prestigious position of Wayne County Commissioner a decade later. Continue reading “Children of German Immigrant Farmers in Cherry Ridge: American Stories by Carol P. Christ”

Questions that Matter: What is Feminism? by Elise M. Edwards

It certainly is a busy time of year for me, but I’m fortunate that many of the events I am participating in offer a chance to share what is important to me. Next week, I’ll be speaking to a group of students in one of my campus’ residence halls about feminism and Christianity. For this informal setting, I was allowed to choose my own topic under the broad heading of “Questions That Matter.” I’ve decided to take on the f-word in religion and attempt to explain why it’s important to me and how it relates to my religious identity. Although I’m still trying to figure out what to say, I’d like to share my thoughts so far and get some insight from you. Continue reading “Questions that Matter: What is Feminism? by Elise M. Edwards”

Great Goddess, Mother Goddess, Creatrix, Source of Life by Carol P. Christ

The symbol of the Goddess is as old as human history. The most ancient images of the Goddesses from the Paleolithic era are neither pregnant nor holding a child. In Neolithic Old Europe the Goddess was most commonly linked with birds or snakes and only rarely portrayed as mother. Yet we tend to equate the Goddess with the Mother Goddess. I suspect that images of the Virgin Mary with Jesus on her lap and prayers to God as Father have fused in our minds, leading us to think that the Goddess must be a Mother Goddess and primarily a Mother.

In a recent blog, Christy Croft reminded us that in our culture, women’s experiences of mothering and motherhood are not always positive:

[The mother] doesn’t always appear in our stories in simple or easy ways. Some of us mother children we did not or could not grow in our bodies; some of us birth babies who are now mothered by others. Some of us are not mothers at all. Some of us had mothers who could not love us unconditionally, or did not have mothers in our lives, or had mothers who brought us more pain and humiliation than comfort, from whose effects we are still recovering, are still healing.

Women who have had negative or painful experiences of motherhood or mothering may find the symbol of the Mother Goddess off-putting. Continue reading “Great Goddess, Mother Goddess, Creatrix, Source of Life by Carol P. Christ”

In Light of Women by Mary Jane Miller

Why are so few women mentioned in the great feast days like Pentecost, the Last Supper, the Baptism of Christ, etc.? God made no commandment that they not be included.

Inquisitive women like myself have always been around Christ listening to His message. There they were, cooking and cleaning at the Last Supper, at the wedding at Canon and when He fed the five thousand. When Christ invited the children to come to him, you can be sure the mothers were there, too.

Beginning as early as the fourth century the dominant Christian leaders, all men, twisted and distorted Holy Scriptures to thwart the ascendant positions for women within the religious hierarchy and in christian societies in general. Yet, the underlying teachings of Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul, Moses and the prophets, – all call for the proper and equitable treatment of God’s children. Without a doubt, God and Christ love all of humankind with no gender bias. When women listen to scripture we naturally fill in the gap, or adjust the gap knowing in our hearts and souls, we are not inferior to men.

Continue reading “In Light of Women by Mary Jane Miller”

Just How Rotten Are Things in Denmark? by Marcia Mount Shoop

The Shakespearean quote, “something is rotten in the state of Denmark,” comes from a palace guard. After watching Prince Hamlet walk away with the ghost of Hamlet’s murdered father, the former King, the guard has a sinking feeling about how screwed up things are in his country.

And if you remember the play at all, things were pretty rotten. By the end of the story just about everybody dies. Revenge, misunderstandings, accidents, and lust for power are just a few of the causes of death. The guard was right. Something was rotting away at his country—something that was vacating people’s integrity and trust, something that was not afraid to use violence and lies to get its way, something that was blind with a hunger for more and more power no matter the cost.

Continue reading “Just How Rotten Are Things in Denmark? by Marcia Mount Shoop”

Run Women Run! You Can Do Better than a Mediocre White Man! by Carol P. Christ

When I was in graduate school, I learned to doubt myself. Despite having won Danforth and Woodrow Wilson graduate fellowships that paid for my tuition and living expenses, I was continually told by professors and male students alike that I would not finish my degree and that if I did I would get married, have children, and never use the degree I had earned. I tried hard to maintain my confidence in myself, but it was difficult when I was the only woman in the program. There was one other woman my first year, but she was older than I was, a nun, and I never saw her in class or at social events. My self-esteem was gradually eroded. If I had not had a fellowship, I would probably have dropped out.

Fast forward a few years. There were several more women in the program, but only one in theology, my friend Judith Plaskow, and she too struggled. I was working on my comprehensive exams and wondering if I had what it takes to pass them and then write a Ph.D. thesis. After the initial shock of being treated as if I was not the equal of the male students in the program, I began to look around me. A few of the male students seemed really bright, many of them were average, and some of them were plodders. I hate to admit it, but I looked at the least competent among them and said to myself, “If he can do it, then surely I can.” And I did. I passed my exams. A few years later my Ph.D. thesis was approved.

If contributions to the field are any indication, Judith Plaskow and I were not only as good as the most mediocre men in our graduate program, we smarter than the average ones, and at least as smart as the smartest ones. But we didn’t know that then. Men have been getting degrees and being promoted and moved up that ladder because other men like them, identify with them, feel sorry for them, and for lots of other reasons having nothing to do with excellence, and sometimes not even do do with competence.

Last week I heard Cecile Richards say something to Lawrence O’Donnell that reminded me of this. Speaking of the huge numbers of women who—inspired by the women’s marches–will be voting, registering voters, campaigning, and running for office in 2018 and beyond, she said women “totally understand that they can do better than who’s in office now.”

For far too many years women have been held back by lack of self-confidence and self-esteem. We didn’t think we could and we didn’t. We don’t think we can and we don’t. We thought men were smarter than us or had more time or more drive. The founder of the Society of Women Engineers at San Jose State told my classes that women who got even one B+ in an engineering class were likely to drop out of the program, while men graduated who graduated with C averages went on to get great jobs. Now we see truly mediocre white men holding public office all across the country and in its highest offices. The harm they are doing to women, to children, to the elderly, to people of color, to the environment has been a wake-up call for all of us. There are so many mediocre white men in office that women–of all colors and ethnicities–are realizing that we can do better than that! Once we begin to see what we can do when there are large numbers of us holding office all across the country, there will be no stopping us!

Carol P. Christ is an internationally known feminist writer and educator living in Molivos, Lesbos, who volunteers with Starfish Foundation that helps refugees, assisting with writing and outreach. Carol’s new book written with Judith Plaskow, is Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology. FAR Press recently released A Serpentine Path: Mysteries of the Goddess. Join Carol on the life-transforming Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete. Carol’s photo by Michael Honegger.

The Beauty Way by Carol P. Christ

When I learned about the Navajo Beauty Way, I understood it to be a path in which human beings respect all beings in the web of life and live in harmony with them. But I didn’t understand why this path was called the “Beauty Way.” As a young woman, I knew that my worth was defined by many in terms of my ability to conform to ideals of female beauty promulgated in movies, tv, and advertising. I didn’t believe the Navajos were talking about beauty in that sense, but because of my conditioning, I was not yet able to fully grasp what they might mean by beauty. I would have called the way they were describing a “Way of Harmony” or a “Way of Respect for Life.”

Still, I wondered: why the Beauty Way?

Marija Gimbutas described the societies of Old Europe as peaceful, settled, agricultural, highly artistic, matrifocal and probably matrilineal, and worshipping the Goddess as the power of birth, death, and regeneration in all of life. Though I am impressed with the beauty of the many small works of art Gimbutas reproduced and interpreted in The Language of the Goddess, I sometimes inadvertently omit the words “highly artistic” when repeating in her definition of the culture of Old Europe. I have tended to view the fact that Old Europe was peaceful and matrifocal as more important than the fact that it was highly artistic.Yet this judgment is wrong. In calling the cultures of Old Europe “highly artistic,” Gimbutas was trying to convey her understanding that appreciation of the beauty of life was fundamental within them.

We have been taught that “high” or “great” art is most often monumental in size. The Pyramid of Giza is over 230 meters (756 feet) tall. The Great Sphinx of Giza is 20 meters (66 feet) high. The Parthenon rose to 14 meters (45 feet) and the statue of Athena inside it was 9 to 11 meters (35-40 feet). It is telling that we use the words “high” and “great” (originally measures of size) to describe the value of artistic creations.

Statue of Athena in Parthenon reproduction in Nashville, Tennessee

The purpose of monumental works of art is to diminish the viewer, to make the her feel small, to induce her to bow down, to worship, and to obey a power or powers greater and higher than herself.

In contrast, the small scale of the art of Old Europe does not diminish anyone or anything. Its purpose is not to make anyone one want to bow down. Instead small works of art make the viewer feel comfortable, welcomed, and part of the beauty of life that is depicted.

Marija Gimbutas viewed ancient Crete in the Bronze age as the final flowering of the culture of Old Europe. In Crete too, everything is on a small scale. Though the so-called Palaces or Sacred Centers are large, the rooms within them are small. There is not a single room where crowds could have bowed down to a King or Queen. Nor are there images of deities larger than life. The famous Minoan Snake Goddesses are less than 15 inches tall and the well-known pitcher Goddesses are even smaller. Such objects would have been held in hands during rituals or set on low benches in small rooms lit by oil lamps.

Snake Goddesses of Bronze Age Crete c. 1500 BCE

When my friend’s daughter Klia was seven years old, she spent her afternoons collecting stones by the sea. One day I asked her if the stones spoke to her. “Of course,” she replied. “What do they say?” “They say, ‘we are very beautiful.’”

Klia intuited the meaning of the Beauty Way. It has nothing to do with artificial beauty standards. It has nothing to do with size. It is recognizing beauty everywhere and in everything. When we do so, we walk in beauty, in the grace and joy of life. And yes, the Beauty Way has ethical implications, for no one who truly recognizes beauty could want to harm it. This was understood by the Navajos, the Old Europeans, and the ancient Cretans, and many others. Only we seem to have forgotten. We can remember.

Considering Our Spaces in the Pursuit of Justice by Elise M. Edwards

This past summer, my friend and I were perusing the exhibits at the National Museum of African-American History and Culture when she urgently called for my attention. “Psst… Isn’t this where you are from?” she asked, pointing at a placard titled African American Life in Montgomery County. Yes! I grew up, I was educated, and I was churched in Montgomery County, Maryland. So I eagerly read the exhibit’s description:

By 1900 there were at least eight African American communities in Montgomery County, Maryland. Unlike many rural African Americans, the residents were not tenant farmers—they owned their property and homes. This gave them greater control over the land and the crops they produced. They also directly benefited from improvements to their homes, which was an incentive to make additions and to stay in place. Descendants of these early settlers still live in these communities today. Continue reading “Considering Our Spaces in the Pursuit of Justice by Elise M. Edwards”