Proposal:
Try calling God She.
Call God She as prominently, often and casually
as God is usually called He.
How does that feel?
Is is hard to do?
What does it make you think about?
Why?
.
Showing posts with label Gender. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gender. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Women
I've been coming across current expressions of old religious debates about the role women.
They amaze me. Women having authority over men in the context of some secular employment is seen as a problem....what it means for a husband to have "final decision making authority" is discussed at length....
I could enter the arguments & debates: theological, semantic, social, logical etc. (I hate not to, because as a woman saying this I tend to feel I have to prove myself.) But what I think is more relevant and important for me to say just now, is from my experience.
The positions I read about the role and nature of women don't amaze me because I've never heard them before. They amaze me because of how familiar some of them have been, how much I've experienced them and how far from them I've come.
I hope it's not patronizing (or matronizing) to feel this way, but I feel bad for the many women who continue to live within these systems of belief. And of course I want to protect my daughter from as much of the sexism that pervades our culture as I can. At the same time I realize that in many ways I still live within it too. Years of personal experience in patriarchy and centuries of cultural experience in patriarchy don't go away just because one awakens to it a bit and starts to see things differently.
When I primarily identified with conservative Christian groups with predictably conservative views regarding women, I could never really come to terms with those views. It's not that it was always a burning issue. From time to time the issue would emerge, then dutifully get explained and swept back under the rug of rationalization and unawareness to be ignored awhile longer. At the time there wasn't much else I could do. But sometimes it would get noticed enough to be painful. As much as it might be presented otherwise, when I got in touch with it, I couldn't get around the deeply painful sense that in spite of explanation that said otherwise, in reality this position portrayed that women were inherently inferior to men and because of this women were by definition denied certain roles. In other words, as a woman, I was inherently and deeply inferior to that part of humanity that was male, and had to live in an accordingly limited way. I don't think all the explanations in the world, even ones that might be rationally and logically plausible; or the best experience possible in living out relationships with men who might live out this model in the most godly and gracious ways possible, could get me to truly accept this or feel alright about it, then or now.
I want to say to women: you do not have to rationalize this so you can keep yourself within a sexist definition of absolute truth, faithfulness to God and the way "He" made you. You can be honest with yourself and honest with God. You are not a 2nd class citizen because of your gender. You should fight those things from our religion and our culture, and those things within and around you; that say, imply, or make you feel that you are. You are not offending God by doing so.
I don't mean to say men and women, boys and girls are all the same. If nothing else, I've been a wife and mother too long to think that. But don't let your gender put you down or limit you. Trust yourself and trust God enough to be honest about the dynamics of your life, including those related to gender. Then do your best, with God's help, to live true to yourself, the relationships you have and the callings God has given you.
.
They amaze me. Women having authority over men in the context of some secular employment is seen as a problem....what it means for a husband to have "final decision making authority" is discussed at length....
I could enter the arguments & debates: theological, semantic, social, logical etc. (I hate not to, because as a woman saying this I tend to feel I have to prove myself.) But what I think is more relevant and important for me to say just now, is from my experience.
The positions I read about the role and nature of women don't amaze me because I've never heard them before. They amaze me because of how familiar some of them have been, how much I've experienced them and how far from them I've come.
I hope it's not patronizing (or matronizing) to feel this way, but I feel bad for the many women who continue to live within these systems of belief. And of course I want to protect my daughter from as much of the sexism that pervades our culture as I can. At the same time I realize that in many ways I still live within it too. Years of personal experience in patriarchy and centuries of cultural experience in patriarchy don't go away just because one awakens to it a bit and starts to see things differently.
When I primarily identified with conservative Christian groups with predictably conservative views regarding women, I could never really come to terms with those views. It's not that it was always a burning issue. From time to time the issue would emerge, then dutifully get explained and swept back under the rug of rationalization and unawareness to be ignored awhile longer. At the time there wasn't much else I could do. But sometimes it would get noticed enough to be painful. As much as it might be presented otherwise, when I got in touch with it, I couldn't get around the deeply painful sense that in spite of explanation that said otherwise, in reality this position portrayed that women were inherently inferior to men and because of this women were by definition denied certain roles. In other words, as a woman, I was inherently and deeply inferior to that part of humanity that was male, and had to live in an accordingly limited way. I don't think all the explanations in the world, even ones that might be rationally and logically plausible; or the best experience possible in living out relationships with men who might live out this model in the most godly and gracious ways possible, could get me to truly accept this or feel alright about it, then or now.
I want to say to women: you do not have to rationalize this so you can keep yourself within a sexist definition of absolute truth, faithfulness to God and the way "He" made you. You can be honest with yourself and honest with God. You are not a 2nd class citizen because of your gender. You should fight those things from our religion and our culture, and those things within and around you; that say, imply, or make you feel that you are. You are not offending God by doing so.
I don't mean to say men and women, boys and girls are all the same. If nothing else, I've been a wife and mother too long to think that. But don't let your gender put you down or limit you. Trust yourself and trust God enough to be honest about the dynamics of your life, including those related to gender. Then do your best, with God's help, to live true to yourself, the relationships you have and the callings God has given you.
.
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Greeting Anyone
I've noted some juxtapositions in my life lately.
Engaging in social & religious conversation in the morning
with a member of a Baptist church that I used to call home.
Engaging in social & religious conversation that same evening
with a pagan high priest.
Reading quotations from the well known pastor of that same Baptist church,
indicating that women should not hold authority over men, even in some secular positions.
Reading "Dance of the Dissident Daughter,"
"A Woman's Journey from Christian Tradition to the Sacred Feminine."
Between, within and beyond such juxtapositions
are my life, my experience and the people I love.
Sunday at church someone explained to my children that in the time of the service called "The Peace",
you can greet anyone you want.
Another person followed up: "That is, if they're in church."
How true!
So many of the people with whom I want to exchange a sign of peace,
In fact with whom in various forms I do exchange signs of peace,
are not in church.
Some are in other churches (of many different kinds)
Some are scattered across the country or around the world
Some do not express their faith in the context of a religious community and
Some belong to religions with other names.
God is with you.
And also with you.
Let us rejoice in the power of the Spirit.
(found in many, expected and unexpected, wonderful places.)
.
Engaging in social & religious conversation in the morning
with a member of a Baptist church that I used to call home.
Engaging in social & religious conversation that same evening
with a pagan high priest.
Reading quotations from the well known pastor of that same Baptist church,
indicating that women should not hold authority over men, even in some secular positions.
Reading "Dance of the Dissident Daughter,"
"A Woman's Journey from Christian Tradition to the Sacred Feminine."
Between, within and beyond such juxtapositions
are my life, my experience and the people I love.
Sunday at church someone explained to my children that in the time of the service called "The Peace",
you can greet anyone you want.
Another person followed up: "That is, if they're in church."
How true!
So many of the people with whom I want to exchange a sign of peace,
In fact with whom in various forms I do exchange signs of peace,
are not in church.
Some are in other churches (of many different kinds)
Some are scattered across the country or around the world
Some do not express their faith in the context of a religious community and
Some belong to religions with other names.
God is with you.
And also with you.
Let us rejoice in the power of the Spirit.
(found in many, expected and unexpected, wonderful places.)
.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Great God Language
I really like the language for God (if you will, which I think most of my readers will) that Aron used in the blessing Sunday. I grabbed a pencil to jot it down. If I got it right it was:
Holy Eternal Majesty
Holy Incarnate Word
Holy Abiding Spirit
I think it uses traditional language, patterns and concepts, in a way that I suspect makes it accessible and comfortable for many people.
At the same time it opens and expands the possibilities for the way we understand these words (and the way we experience and express our relationship with God) beyond the limits of some of the traditional concepts and language.
If you're inclined to an anthropomorphous and/or male concept of God. I think that can easily fit into this. I don't think this will be too jarring or objectionable. But if you're not, the same applies.
This is a wonderful breath of fresh air.
This is a good step in a direction I want to keep walking.
This is a good step in clearing a path I hope will be available for my children to walk with fewer roadblocks to negotiate than I have found.
This is a good step in clearing a path I hope becomes available for people on the boarder of being disinterested in and disenfranchised from church because for them it is defined by limits that neither fit their lives, nor in my opinion really fit Christianity.
I have no objection to humanized gender specific language for God, or other tangible metaphors for God. I think we should use some of them more. But the humanized male metaphors have so dominated our church and culture that we've often not realized they're metaphors. We've let one or two particular images define and limit our concept of God and with it our spiritual lives and relationship with God.
Thank you again Aron, for helping to open a window.
Holy Eternal Majesty
Holy Incarnate Word
Holy Abiding Spirit
I think it uses traditional language, patterns and concepts, in a way that I suspect makes it accessible and comfortable for many people.
At the same time it opens and expands the possibilities for the way we understand these words (and the way we experience and express our relationship with God) beyond the limits of some of the traditional concepts and language.
If you're inclined to an anthropomorphous and/or male concept of God. I think that can easily fit into this. I don't think this will be too jarring or objectionable. But if you're not, the same applies.
This is a wonderful breath of fresh air.
This is a good step in a direction I want to keep walking.
This is a good step in clearing a path I hope will be available for my children to walk with fewer roadblocks to negotiate than I have found.
This is a good step in clearing a path I hope becomes available for people on the boarder of being disinterested in and disenfranchised from church because for them it is defined by limits that neither fit their lives, nor in my opinion really fit Christianity.
I have no objection to humanized gender specific language for God, or other tangible metaphors for God. I think we should use some of them more. But the humanized male metaphors have so dominated our church and culture that we've often not realized they're metaphors. We've let one or two particular images define and limit our concept of God and with it our spiritual lives and relationship with God.
Thank you again Aron, for helping to open a window.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Odd Man (sic?) Out Again
As it goes on the web, one thing led to another until I was taking a survey comparing myself to other Americans on religious measures. (If you want to join the fun go to the bottom of the page at The Association or Religion Data Archives).
The result that most caught my attention came from the question asking if I think God is a he. Of course I said (any guesses....?) that I strongly disagree. Hope I didn't shock too many of you too badly.
What surprised me was how many women matching my age group, education level and who identified as Protestant differ in perspective from me.
The result that most caught my attention came from the question asking if I think God is a he. Of course I said (any guesses....?) that I strongly disagree. Hope I didn't shock too many of you too badly.
What surprised me was how many women matching my age group, education level and who identified as Protestant differ in perspective from me.
- Those who disagree (7%) or strongly disagree (15%) that God is a he total 22%.
- Those undecided are 26%.
- Those who agree or strongly agree that God is a he total 52%
That got me to wondering about those of the same demographic but of no religion. On this measure I'd fit in better there.
- Those who don't think God is a he are 67%.
- Undecided 21%.
- Those who think God is a he are 12%
I'm tempted to make so much more comment on this.....but I'm afraid to do it here in such a one way form of potentially public communication...too much potential for button pushing and misunderstanding.
Want to talk further? Let me know. This and so many other topics of even greater importance deserve open honest conversation that they too rarely get.
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