Emerging Women

Peter Rollins, author of “How (Not) to Speak of God” (our book for March) will be coming to Tucson, AZ. He will be here to help our community kick off Lent (in late February). We are really excited to have him come. Our community will be reading the book and holding discussions during Lent. If anyone is interested in attending, or learning more, please let me know. I am personally excited to be able to read this book with my community here and at home. It couldn’t have hit at a better time. I look forward to meeting Peter. As staff at my church, we are having a dinner with him, I plan to share here any great ideas or discussions that come out of these times.

Greetings emerging women! I decided that it might be a good idea to write my introductory post while I’m feeling the effects of the Darvocet I’m taking for some minor oral surgery. That way if I sound really asinine I can say it’s because of the drugs, but if I sound fairly normal I’ll say it’s in spite of the drugs. Kind of a win/win, you know?

Anyway, my name is Anne, (AnneGogh to the Oozers), and I’m an elder – not in a church elder way, but in the universal way that has a much more distinguished connotation than just being over-the-hill or a Woman of a Certain Age. My experience may be a little different than some here as I had a very nominal upbringing as a Christian. There wasn’t much emphasis put on its importance in my family, and so it was easy to wander away from it during my hippie years. I stayed away from Christianity until my mid-30s when I discovered that unbeknownst to me that small seed of faith in Christ had quietly been growing through the years. That faith-blossoming led me to the Catholic church, but half a dozen years later after much personal turmoil I found myself wandering away. I stayed away from church for a number of years until one day I found myself walking into a building called Threads. I didn’t know the word “emergent” in relation to a new type of Christian church. I only knew I had discovered a place that felt like I had walked back in time to what I imagined the early church might have looked like, and that it was a wildly creative place as well. It was a perfect fit for a twice-divorced, ex-hippie graphic designer woman. I found out I didn’t have to wear a mask there, and that my creativity would not only be welcomed, but would fluorish and grow within the church walls.

I have been a part of this motley crew for over two years now, and am very involved in a Creative Collaborative ministry that develops experiential worship elements for our gatherings. I have found that life can be rich indeed within a community of Christ followers. Thank God for that. And thank you for having me here.

I recently came across a series of short articles by the Washington Post that, in one way or another, are addressing this question:

Have women fared well or badly in the world’s religions down through the ages? Why?

I’d particularly interested in the article entitled “Stereotypical ‘Female’ Qualities Are Core of What Jesus Taught.”

I’d be curious to hear everyone’s opinions on the piece – do you consider values like compassion, sensitivity, empathy and intellectual honesty to be more stereotypically “feminine” in nature?

So the discrimination against women continues. I got online this morning and read this post over at Scot McKnight’s blog Jesus Creed regarding the removal of a female seminary professor by a new administration because she was female. Read the news brief here. Since reading it, I have been seriously pissed off all day. It was one of those last straw moments – how much more of this crap are we as women willing to take?

Now Scot McKnight poses some good questions on his blog regarding if one is inclined to ban women from teaching where do we draw the line? Can men read books by women? What about in high schools or non-theology classes? While I think those questions point out some of the absurdity of the stance that views women as lesser creations, there are guys commenting there who really think they should be considered if we are to be biblical. Since when does the excuse “being biblical” make it okay to be a sexist immoral jerk? And when women there complain about how hurtful situations like this are to women in general, men there accuse us of overreacting and getting away with it just because we are women. I feel like I’m being treated like I’m a puppy dog – “that’s a good girl, settle down now, there’s no need to get excited, you don’t count anyway, your opinion is worthless to me…”. So if we are hurt or offended we aren’t allowed to do anything about it because then we are overreacting or claiming to be victims. That’s a great way to guarantee the continuing spread of injustice.

I am sick of having to fight this battle. I am sick of having to actually defend the equality of women. I am sick that there are people who are so wrapped up in hated and fear that they do things like this to women. I am sick that the debate of whether women are capable of doing XY or Z or if we are inferior to men actually still happens. And I am sick that the only place that it is still happening is in the church.

So yes, this is an opinionated rant. I had to share here because my toddler wasn’t really interested in the long monologue she had to hear about the stupidity of men who think they are better than women just because they have a penis… But I had to say it. The news needs to go out, because the more people who know the more people there are to stop the evil from spreading.

In the Dance of the Dissident Daughter Discussion something came up that I thought deserved its own discussion. A couple of people mentioned feeling that using the feminine metaphors and names for God would be insulting to God. They mentioned that this was something they had to work through and examine. It struck me though to see it as insulting. I know that many here are not (yet) comfortable with feminine language for God and we don’t need to discuss that right now (unless people want to…) , but I wanted to explore why it might be “insulting” to God. (and I don’t mean to limit this to or put on the spot the women who mentioned this already, this is for all of us – men and women).

Are we ashamed of being female? Is being female inferior to being male or feel that way? Why is being labeled with feminine terms such an insult (he ___ like a girl???) (God our mother???)? Did your parents wish you were male (or rejoice that you were)? Did you do that with your children?

Why do we think these ways and what can be done to change it?

As a follow-up to our discussion on Dance of the Dissident Daughter and our journeys as spiritual women, I thought it would be fun to each (whoever wants) create something out of our well of woman-wisdom something to share with the group. Perhaps a poem, a song, a painting, a story of a girl-woman heroin to read our daughters or a research piece on some aspect of SMK’s ideas that triggered a deeper journey in ourselves. Literally ANYTHING!

Hi,

Does anyone here listen to podcasts on Wiredparish.com? I’ll be on three casts on “God, Life and My dog Jack” due in Feb. It’s an interview on the theme of my upcoming book. Check it out if you can.

what’s great about wiredparish is that you can hear so many good thinkers, authors, ministers, etc for less than it would cost to buy a book from just one of them.

I love Reggie McNeal’s stuff on the missional church. Great, useful stuff.