women’s studies in religion

I know that you all will be reading this the day after Christmas…so this is my Christmas and/or winter holiday gift to you. I so love the Feminism and Religion (FAR) community—its discourse, intelligence, and its community of like minds. And I appreciate that so many of us offer lessons to each other on how to live—wild. For in some ways the very juxtaposition of the words “feminism” and “religion” posits an out of bounds existence. What does it mean?

I was recently asked how I would teach a class on “women and religion.” Among my first responses was that I would, among other texts, use the book The Feminine Face of God: the Unfolding of the Sacred in Women by Sherry Ruth Anderson and Patricia Hopkins (1992). Although this book was published over two decades ago it still holds, perhaps unfortunately, as true today as then. The text is based on interviews with women regarding the “unfolding of the sacred” in their lives. This book was required as part of my graduate program in the first class I took at Claremont Graduate University (CGU) “Women’s Studies in Religion.” CGU was the first program in the country where you could get your Ph.D. in Religion, with an emphasis in Women’s Studies in Religion, and I believe it is still the only program where you can do so.

My professor for that class, Dr. Karen Torjesen, challenged us to write, if we could, the “theology” in the book—was there one? She challenged us to see if there was a “theo” “logo” word of God in this idea of the “unfolding of the sacred” in women. I took up her challenge—and so one of my first big graduate papers was to unpack this book of interviews and see if I could find a theology in these lives/stories. This is what I found—what is sacred to women—right now (in 1992 and still today)—is the chance to find the sacred. Continue reading “Be Wild this Holiday and Find the Face of God(dess) by Marie Cartier”

I remember being in Korea for the 2009 International Women’s World Congress with Hye Sook Hwang and Inhui Lee and many (many) others and realizing then in ways I had not before, how crucial feminist scholarly friendships are to not just my work –but my sanity. The way we see things and the way we talk about things makes sense in a way that many times the rest of the world does not make sense. I re-member, to use Mary Daly’s phrasing, Hye Sook’s Magu scholarship that awakened in me and many others the Goddess magic of Korea. I re-member Inhui’s work with the female shamans of Korea and their rituals to honor and memorialize with honor the “comfort” women—Korean women used as sexual slaves by the Japanese during World War II. I went to that conference on the urging of Hye Sook and came home from that conference with new lifelong friends—among them Inhui. At that time none of us were doctors—now we all are. Continue reading “Blessings for the New Year on Feminism and Religion by Marie Cartier”