I am so frustrated that we are still fighting to affirm women’s place in leadership. I’ve been thinking about this struggle in the context of church ministries (especially preaching) and social activism, seeing a stark contrast between the way institutional churches and universities promote and subvert women’s authority and the ways movements like Black Lives Matter do.
Particularly, I’ve been struck by the ways that more radical movements employ language and practices that are based in spirit more than hierarchical authority. I have found a theme emphasizing equality in humanity’s access to spirit in both historical and contemporary movements and writings about religious experience. I’m certainly not the first one to notice or discuss how appeals to Spirit have empowered those excluded from dominant systems of power to challenge constrictive social structures, but I would like to share how this dynamic has become more visible to me so that, together, we might find encouragement, inspiration, and food for thought.
Continue reading “The Spirit and Jarena Lee: Inspiration to Break Boundaries by Elise M. Edwards”
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