All right. I’ve read this article twice and the condescending overtones are still driving me batty.

I’ve picked this up before in arguments by Dawkins, et al over the sexism in most religions. The educated white man takes off his glasses and stares at me, saying, “Why on earth would you want to subscribe to a system that treats you like dirt?”

To some extent, he’s got a point. Why do I stick around in a religion that has historically seen my embodiment as some kind of hindrance, proof of my own unworthiness, or source of evil in mankind? Why do I stick around a religion that seeks to control my body, treat my sexual desire as something dangerous, denigrate my mind because of my embodiment, and that in some denominations would deny my call to the ministry altogether? Why stick around when I hear that churches refuse to address sexual abuse and rape of their female and male members, even by members of the clergy? Why stick around when my questions regarding the feminine side of God are met by statements like “Nobody cares about stuff like that” or “That’s just idolatrous”? Why stick around when my religion has chosen to exclude my fellow queer friends and exploit the marginalized?

According to the article, it has something to do with my crazy woman brains. And my desperate need to have babies and be accepted by society. And the fact that I’m just not as enlightened as the rational men.

I…wait, what?

Did I just hit a time warp?

I get angry in church when some white guy stands up and tells me that I should believe something because he knows what is good for me and his genitalia somehow gives him direct access to God’s mind. I get just as angry when other condescending people pat me on the head, tell me that there might be scientific explanations behind my belief in God, but that I should evolve beyond it because that’s what enlightened men are doing, and they know better than I do what is good for me.

Neither one accepts my own agency as a spiritual being or respects the fact that I might have some darn good reasons for believing in God and being a Christian. And being a Christian woman, I MUST be oppressed, because liberal religion that might affirm women as something other than the tools and servants of men doesn’t actually exist! Never mind that I might be able to carve out a space for myself in my church, or that I might use my own understanding and rationality wedded to my studies and experiences to find a place before God that is my own and cannot be interfered with by any institutions, or that the teachings of Christ might affirm me. Such things are inconceivable in this enlightened age, when religious people are often equated with being ignorant fools.

Furthermore, the arguments are terribly reductionist and reminiscent of so many of the nature trumps nurture arguments that have been used against women seeking their own personhood since…forever? They remind me of almost anti-feminist screed I’ve ever read: that due to our own biological weaknesses, we don’t know what’s good for us and must have someone tell it to us. It’s for our own good.

Look, I’m not going into the history of women in the church or women and the church; there are a lot of books out there that will do so in a more coherent fashion than I can here. I know there are problems. I’ve listed some of them above. But I ain’t going nowhere. In fact, I’m going further into the institution. God(dess) help me. Christ’s message speaks to me. It gives me meaning. It gives me understanding. It gives me a challenge. It gives me love. It doesn’t discriminate, no matter what people have done with it since it was uttered. I love it enough to ask that his church mirror his love for me and others by asking for our inclusion.

In implying that women should accept discursive erasure of their spiritual experiences in order to be liberated, those outside of church are performing the exact same violence that those inside the church have been doing for centuries. Guess what? Y’all both need to knock it off.

Jessica Glaser is a fierce mainline/emergent feminist affiliated with University Park United Methodist Church and House For All Sinners and Saints in Denver. Her writings can be found at http://aredhel72.blogspot.com/.