Emerging Feminist

Interviews with the Apostle Paul

I love this. A very well done 3 part interview with the Apostle Paul on Women!

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3

Hat tip to Dave Warnock

The Samaritan woman’s tale revisited (John 4)

Folk who are familiar with my blog will know that the Samaritan woman from John 4 is one of my favourite characters, and so I make no apologies for re-visiting her story today. She holds interest for me as a woman because although I have not experienced the overt ostracisms' that I believe she would have faced I am aware that like me many women struggle with self esteem, and that even small things can render us outsiders.

The Church has been responsible for some of this shunning, and even today many churches have set ideas on how women should behave and what they can/ cannot do. Like many other women who are in or training for ordained ministry I have been told that I should not be putting myself forward in this way, that it is presumptuous of me to do so, and like many women I have found that many of my fiercest critics are other women. I don't truly understand this attitude, and although my story is a very different story to the story of the Samaritan woman, hers is a tale that I draw encouragement and strength from. And so I offer this narrative retelling today:

My heart was heavy as I dragged myself out into the mid-day heat, I needed water and so I had to go to the well. The heat of the sun scorching though it was was kinder to my body than the tongue lashing I would receive in the cooler part of the day was to my soul.

But I was weary, weary and souls sick. I needed companionship, but I was shunned by my sisters, what made it harder to bear was that this was through no fault of my own. They knew my first two husbands, those two cruel men who divorced me without reason. They had cited burning the dinner and loosing a sandal, but neither of those accusations was true; their real problem had been my failure to conceive, and they being impatient men had divorced me before a year of married life was up!

I was only eighteen twice divorced when I met Josiah, the love of my life; he ignored the rumours and the gossip and married me anyway. We were happy, for four blissful years we were happy. I remember singing as I prepared his meals, smiling as I baked the bread and swept the floors. In those days I walked with my sisters to the well, I was one of them, and when my belly began to grow round and full with our first child they clucked over me like a group of mother hens.

Those days are long gone and so is Josiah; he was a builder by trade, and I will never forget the terrible day when the news came, Josiah had fallen from a roof, struck his head on a rock, and he was dead. The grief overwhelmed me so much that I hardly noticed the labour pains to begin with. Shock had caused a premature labour, and my beautiful daughter lived only a few hours. The women called her Miryam, which means sea of bitterness; I did not have the heart or the strength to insist upon another name.

It was then that the rumours began in earnest, I must be cursed they said. Two more failed marriages followed in quick succession, Jeremiah beat me before he threw me out and Philip soon decided that the rumours were not worth the trouble, and divorced me for forgetting to salt the soup. It should not have been so easy for them to abandon me, but by now even the authorities did not question the web of lies that surrounded me.

So here I am, a concubine, not married, living in the home of Alexis, a wealthy Greek trader, he passes this way twice each year, and when he does I am here. His name means protector and helper. He has provided me with shelter, but he cannot protect me from the dagger like glances or the lashing tongues, and so I keep to myself to myself as much as I can.

That is why I was out in the mid-day heat, making my solitary journey to the well, and that is why I was shocked and surprised to find someone there. I was more shocked when he spoke to me! He asked me for a cup of water, a simple request, and yet in making it he threw aside conventions and boundaries that would have kept us apart.

My conversation with Jesus was like no other conversation, he spoke in riddles, and yet he was direct and clear, he spoke of living water, of spirit and of life. He knew me inside and out, and he made no comment, treating me as if I was normal, and although I knew that he was a holy man for there was an air of godliness about him, it didn't seem to bother him that I was a woman alone.

His words were like a refreshing stream in the mid-day heat, and we both forgot about the well and the need to drink physical water, there was something much more important in the air;

"The time is coming—it has, in fact, come," he said "when what you're called will not matter and where you go to worship will not matter.

"It's who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That's the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship. God is sheer being itself—Spirit. Those who worship him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration."

Worship from within, now that was new, and it was real! He'd asked me about my husband, and then set me free by commending me for my truthfulness! I no longer needed to be bound by how others thought of me, this man who claimed to be the Messiah had accepted me! When his followers returned and cast their disapproving gazes over me I was not concerned, instead I was filled with a desire to tell my neighbours, to spread the amazing news, to invite them to come and see, to decide for themselves whether this man could be who he said he was.

To my amazement they came, there must have been something different about me or they would have simply dismissed me. Jesus and his disciples stayed with us for two more days, the whole village turned out to hear him, this man, this Jew, who did not shun us and whose words were words of life.

 

I am very pleased to have discovered that the Samaritan Woman has her own feast day; she is celebrated as ST Photini, and tradition has given her a name and redeemed her reputation, although the Orthodox Tradition sticks with the traditional story of the woman as a sinner and adulterer I am really glad that she is remembered as one who was transformed by the love of God. At the end of the day we are all sinners, and transformation is what we all need isn't it?

SPEAKING OUT AGAINST CORRECTIVE RAPE!!!

""Every day I am told that they are going to kill me, that they are going to rape me and after they rape me I'll become a girl," Zakhe Sowello from Soweto, told the paper. "When you are raped you have a lot of evidence on your body. But when we try and report these crimes nothing happens, and then you see the boys who raped you walking free on the street."

Corrective rape is a fact of life in many African countries; the purpose, victims are told, is to "turn you into a real African woman." Apparently real women are heterosexual. In one case a victim was told by her mother that "'this is what happens to girls like you ." Part of the problem, though, is not simply intolerance of lesbians - it is also a fundamental intolerance of women in general. One of the victims, Kekeletso Khena, said:

"It's the most disturbing. It boils down to the fact that you as a woman have a role to be a wife, mother and subordinate to your husband. If you are lesbian you are not fulfilling those roles."

I would dare to say that it is more than most disturbing, it is evil, and an evil that is being tolerated by a system that has chosen to turn a blind eye to what is going on. On Friday the Daily Mail reported:

"Support groups claim an increasingly macho political environment led to inaction over attacks.

A statement released by South Africa's national prosecuting authority said: 'While hate crimes – especially of a sexual nature – are rife, it is not something that the South African government has prioritised as a specific project.'

Human rights and equality campaigners are hoping the reaction to Simelane's death and the trial of the three men accused of her rape and murder will help put an end to the attacks.

Laura Turquet, ActionAid’s women’s rights coordinator, said: 'So-called  "corrective" rape is yet another grotesque manifestation of violence against  women, the most widespread human rights violation in the world today.

'These  crimes continue unabated and with impunity, while governments simply turn a  blind eye."

We cannot and must not turn a blind eye to this, if we do we brush aside questions of what it is to be a woman in the 21st century. Even in the comfortable west suspicion and discomfort about issues of sexuality still run strong and deep under the surface. That you might be healed from your "condition", is not an unheard of response and possibly especially in some Christian groups. That is why I really appreciated this poem "The Straight pill" that was sent to me by a friend recently.

Issues of sexuality demand that we enter into grey areas, they demand that we doubt ourselves and our perhaps once firmly held beliefs as we take a good long look in the mirror and ask what it means to be fully human.

There are no easy answers!

But brutality is not an option that we can ignore, and neither is turning a blind eye to those who have chosen to turn a blind eye. So come on South Africa, wake up and speak up, for these crimes ( and that is what they are) deserve a far higher priority than you have chosen to give to them....

I will end with the prayer by Nicola Slee who was writing in response to Phyllis Trible's book Texts of Terror ( a book which looks at some of the terrible deeds carried out against women in the Bible) Nicola Slee exhorts us to continue to read and not to dismiss them, and to use the horror we feel to fuel our  prayers. I posted this again only a few days ago in response to another case of violation of womens rights and bodies. I make no apologies for repeating it!

Should we remember Hagar, Tamar, Jephthah's daughter, and

Lot's?

Should we tell of their wretched lives to our daughters?

Should we speak on our lips the tales of torture, misery, abuse and

violence?

Would we do better to consign them to silence?

We will listen, however painful the hearing,

for still there are women the world over

being raped

being whipped

being sold into slavery

being shamed

being silenced

being beaten

being broken

treated as worthless

treated as refuse.

Until there is not one last woman remaining

who is a victim of violence.

We will listen and we will remember.

we will rehearse the stories and we will renounce them.

we will weep and we will work for the coming of the time

when not one baby will be abandoned because of her gender

not one girl will be used against her will for another's pleasure

not one young woman will be denied the chance of an education

not one mother will be forced to abandon her child

not one woman will have to sell her body

not one crone will be cast off by her people to die alone.

Listen then, in sorrow.

Listen in anger,Listen to the texts of terror.

And let us commit ourselves to working for a world

in which such deeds may never happen again...

 

WE MUST NOT, WE CANNOT BE SILENT!!!

Horrified.... rape/ abortion and womens rights...

From CNN, Hat tip to Mad Priest:

 A doctor excommunicated by the Catholic Church for performing an abortion on a 9-year-old rape victim received a standing ovation during a national convention on women's health, according to a local media report.

The response came during the opening ceremony of an event hosted by Brazilian Minister of Health Jose Gomes Temporao.

The newspaper O Povo reported that Temporao called on the audience to acknowledge the "brilliant" work done by a medical team in the abortion, performed in Brazil's northeastern city of Recife.

The girl was pregnant with twins after being raped, allegedly by her stepfather, police were quoted in media reports as saying. The abuse had gone on since the girl was 6, authorities said.

The abortion was performed March 4 during the fourth month of pregnancy, according to media reports

Archbishop Don Jose Cardoso Sobrinho of Recife excommunicated the doctor, the child's mother and the medical team involved in the procedure.

However, the stepfather was not excommunicated, with Sobrinho telling Globo TV that, "A graver act than (rape) is abortion, to eliminate an innocent life."

The child was not excommunicated, Sobrinho said, because Catholic Church law says minors are exempt from excommunication.

"The church is benevolent when it comes to minors," he told Globo TV. "As for the adults, especially those who approved it, performed this abortion, the excommunication is applicable."

"God's law is above human laws," Sobrinho said.

The case has outraged the Brazilian public and fueled a controversy reaching the highest levels of church and state in a nation whose law bans abortion except in cases of rape.

Temporao recently said doctors must put law before religion.

"The question posed is very simple. There is a Brazilian law which states that a pregnancy can be interrupted in case of rape," Temporao said.

"It is legitimate for the church to have its dogmas, but these dogmas must not be imposed on society as a whole," he added.

Earlier, a verbal spat ensued between President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and the archbishop over the church's decision.

"As a Christian and a Catholic, I find it deeply lamentable that a bishop of the Catholic Church has such a conservative attitude," Lula said on Globo TV.

"In this case, the medical profession was more right than the church," he said.

Meanwhile, a Vatican cleric told Italy's La Stampa newspaper that he supports the Brazilian archbishop's decision to excommunicate all involved in the abortion except for the child.

Dr. Olimpio Moraes, one of the doctors involved in the procedure, said he thanked the archbishop for his excommunication because the controversy sheds light on Brazil's restrictive abortion laws. He said women in Brazil's countryside are victimized by Brazil's ban on abortion.

Some of the doctors vowed to continue attending church services, despite being expelled.

"The fact that I was excommunicated will not keep me from going to Mass, praying, conversing with God, and asking him to illuminate me and my colleagues in our medical team to help us take care of people in similar cases," one doctor said.

TV Globo reported that the child, who is from a town outside Recife, has stayed in the city to recover and to escape media coverage. Her current condition is not known.

A new report by Brazil's IPAS, a non-governmental organization that works with the health ministry, indicates that more than 1 million women undergo illegal abortions in Brazil each year. About 250,000 are treated by doctors for traumas due to botched abortions, said Beatriz Jalli, an IPAS official.

Studies at a Brazilian hospital dedicated to treating female victims of violence, the Perola Byington in Sao Paulo, indicated that more than 40 percent of the cases involved children.

"This is why the Recife case is so important for women in Brazil," Jalli said.

Jalli said the liberated "Girl from Ipanema" image that many foreigners have of Brazilian women is far from reality.

"We live in a male chauvinistic, patriarchal society with a very high rate of sexual crimes against women and minors," she said. "Our reproductive rights are constantly criminalized."

 

What kind of maddness declares abortion worse than rape, especially in a case such as this. It says a lot about how women are viewed as comodities, and child bearing machines rather than full human beings with needs and rights.

Abortion raises complex ethical issues and cannot be discussed in simple black and white terms, if we are to debate the issues with integrity we must acknowledge that grey areas and questions will abound.

BUT in this case we are talking about a nine year old girl who had been systematically abused by her step-father she has suffered terribly in mind and body, can the Catholic Church truly stand by the Archbishop Don Jose Cardoso Sobrinho of Recife's decision to ex-communicate those who sought to help her? It is highly unlikely that her immature body could carry a twin pregnancy without seriously damaging her physical health, the mental and emotional trauma that she would suffer are almost unimaginable.

If we are to retain out humanity, we must be willing to engage with the  complex questions that this case raises for us. In this case I believe that abortion was a humane act, the choice best within a  a bad set of circumstances brought about by an abusive relationship. This young girl is a peson who has been violated, she is not alone. By excommunicating the doctor, his team and the girl mother, but not the step-father the Archbishop has made an astonishing statement about the value of this young life, he has effictively declared her a nonentity, suitable only for bearing children no matter what the cost might be to her. This is crazy, it reinforces patriachal structures declaring womens bodies not their own... we must speak out against such thinking...

I left a comment on Mad Priest's blog simply stating that I was horrified but had no words, well I've found some words...but I remain horrified!

In response to the Bible's texts of terror (Hagar, Tamar and Jephtha's daughter to name a few) Nicola Slee offers these words:

Should we remember Hagar, Tamar, Jephtha's daughter and Lot's?

Should we tell of their wretched lives to our daughters?

Should we speak on our lips the tales of torture, misery, abuse and violence?

Would we do better to consign them to silence?

 

We will listen, however painful the hearing,

for there are still women the world over

being raped

being whipped

being sold into slavery

being silenced

being beaten

being broken

treated as worthless

treated as refuse

 

Until there is not one last woman remaining who is a victim of violence

 

We will listen and we will remember....

...Listen then in sorrow

Listen then in anger

Listen to the texts of terror

And let us commit ourselves to working for a world in which such deeds may never happen again.

AMEN.

 

In defense of liberation theology

I've been mulling over the duscussion that took place in my Hermeneutics Class yesterday and wondering why I came awayfeeling a little uneasy. We had been looking at some pieces of Liberation Theology and critiquing them, bring a hermeneutic of suspicion to the hermeneutic of liberation if you like.

One of the pieces looked at the text of  Mark 5: 21-43, and asked whether this text was not primarily about women. The consensus of the group mainly white middle class middle aged men was that it was not, and that although women were a part of it that issues of what it meant to be unclean were as central to the text as the nameless women!

I do not and cannot agree with this, from a historical perspective the namelessness of these women stands out as a critisism of the patriachal society to which they belonged. Jarius was named, his daughter had no name, the woman in the crowd also remained and remains nameless. Their namelessness serves to highlight their voicelessness. That Jesus spoke to and touched both of these women challenges issues gender as much as it challenges their unclean state in the eyes of the law.

To critisise Liberation Theologies we must first examin our own position and our own power. I believe that the Bible unfolds God's plan for the release of the captives for us in many ways, that it is a living and active text and we ignore it at our peril. But we can and must ask questions of the traditional readings and interpretations. Liberation Theology does not have all of the answers sewn up neatly; the interlocutors for liberation theologies and biblical hermeneutics of liberation are not, as in dominant Western theologies, the educated nonbelievers or Schleiermacher’s cultured critics of religion, but the poor, the “non-persons,” the exploited, especially those who are excluded in terms of class, gender, and race or culture. Liberation Theology does pose difficult questions to the powerful and the comfortable, and we must hear them! 

The Mother-in Laws Tale (Mark 1: 29-39)

He'd gone, they looked for him everywhere that morning, eventually tired and grumpy they set off for the hills. I told them where he'd gone but of course they didn't believe me and why should they I was an elderly widow with no sons to care for her, living in my son-in laws house. But they could have listened, especially after last night… they could have chosen to think differently, to think a bit more like the one they were looking for.

I guess I should really have started my story at the beginning; for then you might understand a little more.

My name is Hannah, and I am Peter's mother-in-law, I live with my daughter's family in their little home near the lake front. I am grateful for the respect I am shown, and am aware that they might have ignored my plight, but Peter is a good boy at heart, a bit clumsy, and very opinionated, but a good boy…

Oh yes back to my story; recently I have been feeling my age, and over the last week or so tiredness and a recurring fever had driven me to my bed on several occasions. This is where they found me yesterday, by all accounts I was on the edge of delirium (not that you'd know it now) when they arrived, my poor daughter Sarah, had been rushed off her feet, tending to the children, trying to prepare a meal and caring for me.

They arrived just as she was reaching the end of the strength to keep going, he knew something was wrong and waved aside all apologies for the meal not being ready with words of peace, and a stern look at his followers daring them to step out of line and complain! Sari said it was funny when she thought about it afterwards, there they stood, grown men being set aside while he cared for me!

He didn't do much apparently, he simply walked in and took me by the hand, Sari said the colour returned to my face and the fever left me almost instantly. I know I feel better than I have for a long time, and after he had served me with a cool glass of water I was able to get up and help Sari to finish the cooking and then to serve the men, he defied convention by thanking us profusely and inviting us to join them once the meal was served!

We had hardly finished eating when the crowds arrived, sick people carried by friends and family, poor demon possessed souls who walked the streets crying out in their agonies, and of course the onlookers who had come for a show.

He spent the whole evening and late into the night receiving them, touching and caring for them, speaking words of encouragement here, and rebuke there he didn't send the crowd home until after mid-night.

I heard him leaving this morning it was early, before dawn, his footfall was soft, but I am not a deep sleeper. I followed him to the edge of town, and that is when he called me to his side. "Remember Hannah" he said, "You are favoured by God, your name speaks the truth!"

At his words a deep peace filled me right to my bones, he smiled, "I am going to the hills to pray, tell the others where they can find me when I wake." That of course is where my story started…

Why?

In this western

comfort zone

women still hurt,

they live

fragmented lives,

they question

themselves

wondering if

they

have been heard…

How do we

convey this

to a hurting

generation?

How do we

find peace?

If lives

even now

are blighted

by hidden

prejudice

is

there

a

way

forward?

Will

we ever

be

whole?

 

I write this in response to friends anguish, she wonders about he worth, and questions whether her voice has been heard… I understand her anguish, and hear her voice. I want to say God hears your cry… for s/he does, and s/he responds… do we have ears to hear???

comfort zone

women still hurt,

they live

fragmented lives,

they question

themselves

wondering if

they

have been heard…

How do we

convey this

to a hurting

generation?

How do we

find peace?

If lives

even now

are blighted

by hidden

prejudice

is

there

a

way

forward?

Will

we ever

be

whole?

 

I write this in response to friends anguish, she wonders about he worth, and questions whether her voice has been heard… I understand her anguish, and hear her voice. I want to say God hears your cry… for s/he does, and s/he responds… do we have ears to hear???

I dare you

This video is another one in the series on youtube from "The Girl Effect", these videos are powerful, moving and challenging.

Are they purposely emotive? I think that yes, this is a criticism that could be brought to them, but then perhaps we need our emotions to be stirred!

I would like to show these to young girls I come across in this country, girls full of potential, and yet girls who feel that they are of little value, girls who are still asked why they want to bother going to University, girls who see themselves as objects of sexual desire and play the part, girls who get caught up in a culture of consumerism and alcohol because for a while it dulls the pain of being a nobody!

They are not nobodies of course, they have at their disposal and education system and opportunities that far outstrip anything the girls on the "Girl Effect" videos have. What they do not have is hope!

Watch your TV;

• When is the last time you saw an advert directed at a professional woman?

• How many women are portrayed as valuable beyond relationships?

• What do you think of the cosmetic and diet industry's constant demands for perfection?

• Why are lesbians still portrayed as butch or weird?

The list could go on and on.......

As a woman in ministry, and soon to enter into full time ordained ministry I still have to fight a battle for acceptance, even in my local area; I have been told just to get on with it and not to fight because there will always be men who do not accept women as equal! Am I really expected to ignore this? I have two talented and amazing daughters, there is no way I am going to ignore this.

Women are fearfully and wonderfully made, in the image of God. Women have value! We may not need to invest money into the young women of the west (although I could make an argument for that), but we do need to invest time in them if we wish to rescue many of them from a life of hopelessness.

Listen to these words from Felicia Richardson Battle commenting on why she wrote the book Feel Good, Girl:

"'If I could go back in time to visit an 11-year-old me, I would tell her that her body was incredibly precious and special, that her real power lay in her mind and heart not in her looks, that she was smarter and stronger than anyone ever gave her credit for being, that the emotions she felt and the words she spoke were valuable and incredibly important, and that she didn't need the approval of others to do well'.

The sub-title to Feel Good, Girl? "So beyond pretty in pink!"

How sad that I am writing this in the 21st Century, for this is not a feminist rant, many men would add their voice to my voice for they see the powerfully degrading effect that our culture still places upon women....

I dare you!!!!

The Girl effect

The other day my friend Mike posted this video on his blog; in fairness he posted it for the music which is great... but the video itself disturbed me...

What do you think?

I commented saying that viewed through a feminist lens I would bring a hermeneutic of suspicion to it, as I was disturbed by the inference that a woman's role is contained within marriage- as if this were her sole end. Mike did not see that, which is fair enough from a man who has been brought up in a privileged western culture.... So I offer this as a critique to his video:

It raises questions of value that are more subtle, but no less real in the west, simply watch the T.V. with care and you will understand what I am saying!

Let me be

Let me be at home

in my own skin!

I don't need you to tell

me about wrinkles

or other imperfections.

I am not a super model,

I am a woman...

my stomach muscles have been stretched

in bearing children;

6 children!

My face bears the crows feet

of smile lines,

and a few frown marks...

for I have lived!

 

I do not need you to tell me

I am older,

and I do not need the mask of youth!

Let me be,

for beauty, true beauty

has nothing to do with media

driven

perfectionism!