Women and Religion

The Vows We Make, by Molly Remer

I make a vow of self-sovereignty,
a declaration of wholeness,
a promise to myself that I will keep:
I vow to listen to my heart,
to claim my power and my voice.
I vow to live my own magic,
to step into the center of my own life
and live from there.
I vow to live a life
that includes space for me,
to stand up for what I need,
to listen to my longings,
to honor my inner call,
to do my own work with trust.
I vow to never abandon myself.
I vow to inhabit my own wholeness
in all ways.

In February, I signed up for a Vow of Faithfulness class with WomanSpirit Reclamation. Guided by Patricia Lynn Reilly (of “Imagine a Woman” and A God Who Looks Like Me fame) and Monette Chilson, the class was based on Patricia’s book, I Promise Myself: making a commitment to yourself and your dreams. Structured as a seven week online women’s circle, the class took us on a deep dive into vow-making, culminating in a vow ceremony in which we made a public (to the class that is) declaration of our own vows to ourselves. As the class unfolded, I found myself reviewing past vows as well as sensing new vows bumping up against my consciousness, whispering to be heard.

The People Who Have Always Had Questions by Liz Cooledge Jenkins

A few weeks back, author and historian Jemar Tisby tweeted that an acquaintance of his “described their general experience with white evangelicals as ‘people who don’t have any questions.’ I immediately knew what they meant.” The tweet gained some traction, with 62.1k “likes” at the time I’m writing this. The next week, Tisby followed up with a thoughtful reflection piece, expanding on his own experience with white evangelicals needing to have answers to every question, from “How old is the earth?” to “How should Christians vote?” Tisby unpacks the dangers of this kind of arrogant certainty, inviting Christians instead to embrace mystery, curiosity, and learning.

I resonate with many of Tisby’s observations and reflections. From my experience (including thirteen years in evangelical churches and a Master of Divinity degree from an evangelical seminary), I wouldn’t say these things are true of every single white evangelical—but they’re definitely true enough of the movement as a whole that they are very much worth naming, engaging, and challenging. I appreciate Tisby’s work.

From the Archives:“Vaginas are Everywhere!”: The Power of the Female Reproductive System by John Erickson

Moderator’s note: This marvelous FAR site has been running for 10 years and has had more than 3,600 posts in that time. There are so many treasures that have been posted in this decade that they tend to get lost in the archives. We are beginning this column so that we can all revisit some of these gems. Today’s blogpost was originally posted June 19, 2012. You can visit it to see the original comments here.

I have a beautiful picture of vagina hanging on my wall. However, for the longest time it was in the back of my closet, with a plastic bag covering it. I wasn’t ashamed of it but my ex-boyfriend, like most gay men, refused to have it on the wall where he could see it. He is now long gone; the vagina is now out and proud.

I bid on the picture one fall during a showing of the Vagina Monologues at Claremont School of Theology. One of my best friends was in the show and I had always loved its powerful message. I walked out of the theatre, waiting for my friend, and there it was: the picture of the vagina. I found myself caught up in its beauty. Its gaze had mesmerized me. The outlying layers of red, the contours of its shape, they all began to mold into a figure before my eyes. While I have never thought of myself as a religious person, I realized that at that moment I was no longer looking the old photo but rather I was staring at the outline of the Virgin Mary. At that moment, I realized that I had to have the picture.

Women v. Religion: The Case Against Faith and for Freedom BOOK REVIEW by Katie M. Deaver

In the book, Women v. Religion: The Case Against Faith and for Freedom, editor Karen L. Garst puts together the voices of women from a variety of backgrounds in an effort to present a case against faith.

While the introduction to the full volume suggests that women ought to turn away from all forms of religion the majority of the individual pieces that the book features focus on the Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The included pieces are written from a variety of disciplines and viewpoints, some feature historical facts and timelines, while others are the raw and difficult personal stories of women struggling to leave the religions they were raised within.

Most of the articles dig into many of the traditional critiques of religion. For example that the Abrahamic faiths are inherently patriarchal, and cannot be redeemed for women. Others take these traditional arguments against religion a step further and argue that in addition to religion being a tool for female subjugation, religion has in fact inhibited Western progression and is a key reason why the United States has not yet had a female president, and why women continue to have to fight for their bodily and human rights.

Continue reading “Women v. Religion: The Case Against Faith and for Freedom BOOK REVIEW by Katie M. Deaver”

What We Can’t See by Sara Frykenberg

As a professor, I find myself returning to a similar struggle again and again. I know what I know; and I know what I hope students will gain from the class, in terms of content knowledge, critical thinking, classroom community-making, etc. But often, I don’t know what they don’t know.

This might seem a silly kind of observation. No duh, Sara, you barely know this group of people. Also, this may seem an easy question to answer. And sometimes it is; and I do have part of the answer when I begin a class. My “Intro to Ethics” students, for example, will understand and be frustrated by the way people use the Bible to justify their own positions, but they usually won’t know the term “proof texting,” or easily understand “hermeneutics.” My “Women in Christianity” students will understand sexism and often, the idea of gender as a social construct, but they are usually unfamiliar with the dualistic gendering and ranking of larger social realities, like nature and culture, production and reproduction, etc.

There are obvious differences in academic training—that’s why I’m allowed to teach at a university after all. But I’m not really wrestling with what I can contribute in terms of content knowledge or historical/ theoretical contextualization. I think what I don’t know is what understandings of reality they bring into the classroom and what these realities have allowed them to see. Learning and/or teaching feminist theory and theo/alogy for the last fifteen years at least, I also often take my own reality for granted. I “know what I know,” after all—I just can’t always remember what it was like to learn it. And all of these classroom dynamics can make it harder to catch the realities we can’t yet know or can’t see. Continue reading “What We Can’t See by Sara Frykenberg”

Friendships That Save Lives: For Rita M. Gross 1943-2015, by Carol P. Christ

When Rita Gross visited me in Lesbos two summers ago, we spent many long hours discussing our lives and work. Rita and I met at the Conference of Women Theologians at Alverno College in June, 1971 when we were young women. We did not know it then, but our lives would continue to be intertwined through our common interests, first in the Women and Religion section of the American Academy of Religion, and then through our work on Goddesses and feminist theology.

When we met, Rita was a convert to Judaism working on her dissertation on Australian Aboriginal women’s religious lives, and I was a Christian about to begin a dissertation on Elie Wiesel’s stories that would lead me to express my own anger at God. Continue reading “Friendships That Save Lives: For Rita M. Gross 1943-2015, by Carol P. Christ”

Buddhism and Feminism: Is Female Rebirth an Obstacle? by Rita M. Gross

Feminist foremother in the field of women and religion and Buddhist feminist theologian Rita Gross died on November 11, 2015 in her beautiful home in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, surrounded by symbols of Buddhist art and the loving presence of her cats. Rita suffered a massive stroke in late October, and in accord with her wishes to refuse extraordinary care, she was provided with hospice care in her home, which kept her comfortable as she died. Those who were with her said that she entered into an advanced meditative state in her last days.

In gratitude for her life and work, FAR republishes her reflections on the Buddhist notion that female rebirth is an obstacle.

Buddhist teachings recommend appreciating obstacles because they are helpful to our practice. Without obstacles we would never develop profound understanding or compassion. Buddhists have also frequently claimed that female rebirth is an obstacle. If obstacles are of great benefit, shouldn’t women, who encounter more obstacles than men, rise to the top of the hierarchy of revered Buddhist teachers? But that has not happened.

Is this obstacle actually of benefit to women, as teachings on the helpfulness of obstacles would suggest? After practicing Buddhism for almost forty years, I have come to appreciate how much the many obstacles I faced over the years have taught me. For a woman of my generation (born 1943), none has been greater than the limitations placed on me as a woman, both by Western culture and by Buddhism. Continue reading “Buddhism and Feminism: Is Female Rebirth an Obstacle? by Rita M. Gross”

THE REFUGEE CRISIS IN GREECE: A TEST OF OUR COMMON HUMANITY by Michael Bakas, translated by Carol P. Christ

Note from Carol Christ: I returned home from the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete a week ago to find my island, Lesbos, and my village, Molivos, overwhelmed with a refugee crisis of enormous proportions. We are a town of about 1000 permanent residents, and I would estimate that 10,000 or more refugees from the wars in Syria and Afghanistan have passed through our village in recent months. Local authorities and volunteers are exhausted, and there is an urgent need for help from the European Union. This week instead of my own blog, I am offering my translation of a moving plea for help from my dear friend and colleague in the Green Party, Michael Bakas, who by the way is himself a feminist.

There is nothing new about refugees fleeing from war. At the beginning of World War I, more than 50,000 people arrived in Lesbos from the nearby shores of what is now Turkey. At the end of the war many of these refugees returned to Asia Minor, but after the Greek army invaded and was driven back, the Asia Minor Catastrophe of 1922 sent nearly a million refugees to Greece.

Faced with an ocean of refugees flooding the island, the local population was dumbfounded, fearful, and tied up in knots. They shut their doors and averted their eyes: “it was as if a dark cloud of death had descended on their minds, and so they felt nothing. They did not want to see anything or to hear anything that was happening on the other side of their doors.” The end of this story is well-known: with courage and a great will to live, the refugees put down roots and found their way.

In the first decade of the 21st century Lesbos again experienced a wave of refugees who came via Asia Minor. This group, mainly from Afghanistan, came to the island with the hope of putting war behind them. Most of them were held for a year or more in cramped conditions near the capital of Lesbos. This center was closed in 2009 due to the efforts of local volunteers who had alerted European groups to the problem.

But the Greek debt crisis soon followed. For several years, the flow of refugees lessened. When it began to increase at the end of 2012, volunteers from all over the island came together without any government support to provide help. Thousands of refugees were housed in a former campground for children’s holidays, where they were offered clean clothing, blankets, and food, as well as love and compassion.

Lesbos became known as an all-European model for solidarity. Resisting the xenophobia that was growing in Greece and in Europe as a whole, the citizens of Lesbos reached out to the refugees, refusing to listen to those who were promoting hate. The neo-fascist anti-immigrant party known as Golden Dawn gained less support in recent elections in Lesbos than in most of the rest of Greece.

The good will of the people of Lesbos is currently being tested by the wave of migrants now arriving on our shores. Estimates are that more than 20,000 refugees have arrived in our island alone in the first five months of 2015. There are no systems in place to deal with them. Yes, the European Community has dedicated resources to the “refugee problem,” but most of that has gone into patrolling the borders in hopes of stemming the flood of refugees—not to helping those who arrive on European shores.

Those who arrive in northern Lesbos are being welcomed and fed by volunteers, but the Coast Guard does not have the resources to transport them to the capital city for processing. Thus they are being told—mothers and babies among them—that they must walk 60 kilometers on mountainous roads in summer heat to reach their next destination.

Once they arrive in the capital city, the Coast Guard is not able to accept and process all of them, because the reception center cannot cope with the numbers. Thus, thousands of refugees sit in the harbor, hoping the authorities will arrest them and thus be forced to process them.

The residents of Lesbos are once again beginning to become afraid of the influx of refugees. In the touristic village of Molivos, at the same time that both locals and foreigners are helping the new arrivals, others are saying that “it spoils the vacations of tourists to be faced with seeing so many refugees.”

The situation seems to be more than government officials can cope with. The mayor of the island has been trying to find a place where the refugees can stay while they are being processed. The regional government has not yet lifted its hand. The Minister of Immigration visited the island, but no interventions followed. The European Community has yet to act. The UN and international aid groups have not arrived.

This state of affairs plays right into the hands of the racists and xenophobes. Rumors are spreading about the refugees—lies about diseases they are carrying and threats they pose to local and tourist women. People who in the past have been sympathetic to the refugees and the volunteers are getting fed up. Their pent up anger could lead to violence within our own communities or against the migrants.

At the same time more and more refugees are arriving, sleeping in the streets, relieving themselves without toilets–among them pregnant women, babies and old people, and even disabled individuals—all trying to save themselves from violence in their own countries.

Instead of fighting each other, it is time to get serious about finding a solution to a humanitarian crisis of vast proportions. Lesbos—along with other islands of the Aegean—must be declared an “Emergency Zone.” The Greek government, the European Community, and international organizations must provide resources.
We need arrival centers in northern Lesbos, where the immediate needs of the migrants can be met—including shelter from the sun, food, toilets, blankets, and a place to sleep if necessary. Processing centers adequate to the numbers of refugees need to be opened in the island’s capital. Transport to these centers must be provided. Trained Greek or EU officials must be sent to staff them.* We also need a plan for August when the ferryboats being used to transport the refugees to Athens will be full, and if no alternate plans are made, large numbers of migrants will be forced to stay on the streets or in already crowded centers in the worst of summer’s heat.

It is time for us to move forward–Greeks, Europeans, and migrants together–in the name of our common humanity and in concern for the lives of all human beings on our planet. We also need to work to end the wars and the violence that drives people from their homes and homelands.

*We have just learned that the EU is planning to send a team of officials to assist with processing the refugees.

Michael Bakas is a leader of the Green Party in Lesbos, Greece and has been working for many years with its committee on Human Rights. This call to action was originally published in longer form in Greek on June 16, 2015 on Apolotaria.gr., and was published in English in Green European Journal on June 19, 2015, the International Day of the Refugee.

Timothy Jay Smith has been working closely with volunteers in Molyvos and Mytilini to provide for the refugees. If you wish to contribute to these efforts, you can donate through Tim’s account at PayPal: kosmosfilms@gmail.com or send a personal check to Timothy Jay Smith in U.S. dollars or Euros (French banks only). Also see his “Mister, They’re Coming Anyway.”

Carol P. Christ leads the life-transforming Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete (facebook and twitter). Carol’s books include She Who Changes and and Rebirth of the Goddess; with Judith Plaskow, the widely-used anthologies Womanspirit Rising and Weaving the Visions and forthcoming next year, Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology. Explore Carol’s writing.

IN THE NEWS: Health Care, Contraception, and Religion

A case brought forth by a mining company challenging the required coverage of contraception without a copay by employer health care plans was dismissed Friday in a Missouri court. The mining company argued that the requirement was conflicting with its owners religious beliefs. Continue reading “IN THE NEWS: Health Care, Contraception, and Religion”

“Vaginas are Everywhere!”: The Power of the Female Reproductive System by John Erickson

Nice girls don’t say the word vagina.

My ex boyfriend was ashamed of the photo. I let him shame me into putting it in the back of my closet and cast it away like it was nothing. Like the experience, call it religious or not, had never happened. When we ended our relationship, I found myself inconsolable and pacing up and down my stairs in a never-ending cycle of sadness and downheartedness. As I was pilfering through our items, I came about the picture. I saw it and for a split second, I was no longer sad. Continue reading ““Vaginas are Everywhere!”: The Power of the Female Reproductive System by John Erickson”

EASTER OF THE GODDESS: A VIEW FROM GREECE by Carol P. Christ

On Good Friday, Easter Saturday, Easter Sunday, and Easter Monday the blogs on feminismandreligion.com celebrated mothers and God the Mother.*

This is my body, given for you.

This is my blood, given for you.

While these words are the center of a Christian liturgy celebrating the sacrifice of Jesus as the Christ, they are more appropriately spoken of our own mothers. Your mother and my mother and all mothers, human and other than human, mammalian, avian, and reptilian, give their bodies and blood so their offspring might have life. True, mothers do not always make conscious choices to get pregnant, but almost all mothers affirm life in their willingness to nurture the young who emerge from their bodies and from their nests. Had mothers—human and other than human–not been giving their bodies and their blood from time immemorial, you and I would not be here.

The Easter liturgy fails to acknowledge that the original offering of body and blood is the mother’s offering. Christianity “stole” the imagery associated with birth and attributed it to a male savior. If that was all Christians had done, it would have been bad enough. In most countries today there are laws against theft. Christian theologians and liturgists should also be given an “F” for plagiarism–defined as presenting the ideas of others as if they are one’s own. Z Budapest was right when she famously famously opined, “Christianity didn’t have any original ideas.

Continue reading “EASTER OF THE GODDESS: A VIEW FROM GREECE by Carol P. Christ”

1, 2, 3, 4: FEMINISTS DON’T WANT ANOTHER WAR by Carol P. Christ

War is a feminist issue for many reasons, most importantly because war is always war against women.

Patriarchy, war, rape as the “spoils” of war, and the taking of women and children as slaves in the wake of war arose together. Recent blogs on Feminism and Religion have addressed the war on women—from the rape culture, to Humane Vitae, to the Catholic Church’s and other church’s attempts to remove birth control from health care, to the tolerance of sexist hate speech in the culture at large. While the issue of Rush Limbaugh calling Sandra Fluke a slut is being focused on in the press, the drums of war are being sounded again in the Middle East: the US is considering bombing Iran or supporting Israel if it decides to do so. Feminists must stand together against war and the harm it does to women, children, and all living things.

Military spending is 28-38% of US government spending. US government spending accounts for 40% of total global arms spending. The US and its allies are responsible for up to 75% of total global spending on the military. It does not take a mathematical genius to figure out that if good-sized chunk of this spending were cut, the US budget could be balanced, the deficit covered, and there would be plenty of money left over for the social good. Continue reading “1, 2, 3, 4: FEMINISTS DON’T WANT ANOTHER WAR by Carol P. Christ”

Feminist Theologies: Past, Present, and Future

On February 7, 2012, a panel discussion focused on the past, present, and future of feminist theologies took place at Claremont Graduate University to celebrate the release of TheOxford Handbook on Feminist Theology. The panel was organized by John Erickson, moderated by Grace Kao, and featured Karen Torjesen, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Gina Messina-Dysert, Zayne Kassam, and Sheila Briggs as presenters. What resulted was a terrific discussion about women, religion, and feminist theologies. Many were in attendance and participated in the panel; for those who were unable to attend, here is a video of the presentations from that evening. We look forward to you sharing your thoughts and comments about the past, present, and future of feminist theologies.

Women, Religion and Consumption By Amy Levin

While my last post focused on the similarities between the social and collective experience (perhaps qua Durkheim?) of the occupy movement and the feminist movement in religion, I’d like to continue thinking about themes by taking a different path towards the more direct relationship between religion, women, and capitalism. There are two contemporary studies that are just as useful as they are fascinating on this triadic dynamic: Bethany Moreton’s To Serve God and Wal-Mart: The Making of Christian Free-Enterprise, and Kathryn Lofton’s Oprah: The Gospel of an Icon. Both of these authors pay attention to the nuanced ways in which patriarchy, capitalism, and religion can reinforce each other, and that women are at once victims and creative agents of these processes.

Though Wal-Mart currently stands as world’s largest multi-national corporation, it began in the mind of Sam Walton in a small Ozark town of the Sunbelt. Bethany Moreton’s book calls attention to the particular rural, Southern, agrarian, and Christian family values that helped construct the spirit of free enterprise so representative of Wal-Mart, and women had a particular role to play in the rise of this capital, helping to negotiate and construct Wal-Mart as an icon of good Christian family values. Conflating the store and the family served to bolster both the virtuous ideals of Wal-Mart culture, as well as calm anxieties of men who were threatened by female workers and the potential emasculation of working in the service economy. In this gendered economy, women – mainly white, middle-class, middle- aged mothers – helped structure a unique dynamic in the Wal-Mart industry, helping to restore Protestant family ideals in the workplace. While women held the majority of jobs, chain managers received decision-making power and sturdy salaries. Moreover, through an ethos of service and virtuous buying, women produced a “. . .victory of sanctifying capitalism and consumption under Christianity.” Wal-Mart acted as an agent of mass consumption by making mass service work an honorable endeavor. Continue reading “Women, Religion and Consumption By Amy Levin”

Forty Years and Counting: Women and Religion in the Academy By Carol P. Christ

Carol P. Christ is a founding mother in the study of women and religion, feminist theology, women’s spirituality, and the Goddess movement. She teaches in the Women’s Spirituality program at CIIS and through Ariadne Institute offers Goddess Pilgrimages to Crete. Her books include She Who Changes and Rebirth of the Goddess and the widely used anthologies Womanspirit Rising and Weaving the Visions.

The receipt of an invitation to the Fortieth Anniversary Celebration of the Women’s Caucus in the American Academy of Religion and the Society for Biblical Literature this week, takes me back to the summer of 1971. At the first meeting of Women Theologians at Alverno College (which was followed up at Grailville in succeeding years), I proposed that we form a feminist caucus in the field of religion, as had already been done by feminists in several other fields.

Since I was one of the few women at Alverno who had attended the annual meetings in the field of religion, I was delegated to call Harry Buck, then director of the AAR, to ask for space on the program. Harry, who continued to support the work of women in the field through lecture series at Wilson College and the magazine Anima which he founded, offered not only space at the meetings, but a print-out of the names and addresses of all of the members of the AAR who were not obviously male. I invited all of them to come to a feminist meeting at the AAR in Atlanta. It is hard to imagine now, but before 1971, the women who attended the AAR in any given year could probably have been counted on one hand. Continue reading “Forty Years and Counting: Women and Religion in the Academy By Carol P. Christ”