Tag: liberation

Hagar: A Portrait of a Victim of Domestic Violence and Rape

This week Twitter has been a flurry with information for victims of   domestic violence and rape.  This ranges from the U.S. redefinition of rape to include men to Nigeria’s first anti-rape toll free hotline for women.  There is even a male movement to stand against rape.  This problem is an ongoing issue, one that shows no sign of diminishing or going away.  According to Amnesty International, one in three women worldwide have been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused and their abuser is normally someone they know.  As I contemplate this very difficult issue, I am reminded of the Biblical Hagar in Genesis 16. The story of Hagar and Sarai is abundant

Men Can Stop Rape (http://www.mencanstoprape.org/)

in ethical situations that draw in the reader and presents complex issues that can be very troublesome.  If you take the text hermeneutically, through an ideological examination in its English translation, we have an Egyptian woman, who is also referred to as slave or concubine, forced to engage into sex with her owner’s husband for producing an heir.  Here the abuser is a woman with a docile and obedient husband portrayed by Abram.  What can we  glean from such a story for today’s battered women?  Hope or horrific defeat? Continue reading “Hagar: A Portrait of a Victim of Domestic Violence and Rape”

The Crosshairs of Connotation By Ruth Marston

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.

Ruth Marston is a third year Master of Divinity student at the Claremont School of Theology.  She is currently seeking Elders Orders in the Pacific Northwest Conference of the United Methodist Church.  A lifelong feminist, Ruth hopes to serve churches by helping construct communities of faith that educate, empower and value diversity as a divine gift. She enjoys Science Fiction, dry humor, and has been known to drive twenty miles for a quality cup of coffee.

A fellow student spontaneously invited me into her apartment in for tea.  It was at the beginning of our Master of Divinity Degree.  We were just discovering the physically and spiritually grueling nature of the three years in front of us, and I think we both sensed that friends would make this journey possible. Continue reading “The Crosshairs of Connotation By Ruth Marston”

Is the Prophetic Vision of Social and Ecojustice the Fruit of the Poisonous Tree? By Carol P. Christ

Carol P. Christ earned her BA from Stanford University and her Ph.D. from Yale University.  She is a founding mother in the study of women and religion, feminist theology, women’s spirituality, and the Goddess movement and work has revolutionized the field of feminism and religion.  She has been active in anti-racist, anti-war, feminist, and anti-nuclear causes for many years.  Since 2001 she has been working with Friends of Green Lesbos to save the wetlands of her home island.  She drafted a massive complaint to the European Commission charging failure to protect Natura wetlands in Lesbos.  In 2010 she ran for office in Lesbos and helped to elect the first Green Party representative to the Regional Council of the North Aegean.  She helped to organize Lesbos Go Green, which is working on recycling in Lesbos.

My hope for the new blog on Feminism and Religion is that it can become a place for real discussion with mutual respect of feminist issues in religion and spirituality.

I agree with Rosemary Radford Ruether who argued in a recent blog “The Biblical Vision of Ecojustice” that the prophets viewed the covenant with Israel and Judah as inclusive of nature. Indeed in my senior thesis at Stanford University on “Nature Imagery in Hosea and Second Isaiah,” in which I worked with the Hebrew texts, I argued that too. I also agree that the dualism Rosemary has so accurately diagnosed as one of the main sources of sexism and other forms of domination comes from the Greeks not the Hebrews. I agree that Carolyn Merchant is right that nature was viewed as a living being in Christian thought up until the modern scientific revolution. I agree with Rosemary that it is a good thing for Christians to use sources within tradition to create an ecojustice ethic. I am happy that there are Christians like Rosemary who are working to transform Christianity.  Finally, I am pleased to admit that I have learned a great deal from her.

Continue reading “Is the Prophetic Vision of Social and Ecojustice the Fruit of the Poisonous Tree? By Carol P. Christ”