Rejecting Christian Beliefs

[KayHarker]

Don't quite know how to say this, but I guess I need to write it down and maybe get some moral support from someone.

I'm walking away from my Christian faith after about 20 years. I tried extreme patriarchy, and then I tried the more liberal versions, but all they seemed to be were weak attempts to fit a highly patriarchal religion into a cosy harmless box which didn't fit. I still consider myself to be a spiritual person, but I really just have to reject Christian belief because it's so anti-women, and the more I read about feminism, the more I want something different for my daughters.

Yes, gender issues is my interest, although Biblical interpretation plays a fair part in that (obviously!). I'm really keen to explore how a matriarchal community works out christianity and the Bible in social and cultural terms. Yes, it's very exciting, but I have to wait until next summer, as I have lots of ground work to do, I'm just at the beginning of my explorations on this level.

Oh, just wanted to add clockface, I am in awe that you are studying theology,(I'm not bright enough) unless I could start with a GCSE

Actually women and nature did that for ourselves. Men created god as the creator, because they couldn't stand the fact that that's what women literally are. They had to have a man-made god to erase women's real creative abilities.

It is called faith. You have a belief in feminism, as do all of us here Ditany. What you lack is faith.

It requires a complete faith and trust that transcends all normal day to day monotony, it also requires that you see the good in people and situations. From your very narrow argument I get the impression of a wronged women.

Whilst I accept that it is the work of women to further the cause of women, don't you realise that in the time it was written the bible, written by men, furthered the cause of the sisterhood. As did the quoran in it's time.

Maybe she means "Sexism and God-Talk" - that's by Rosemary R Ruether though.
Grew up with all that equal-but-different stuff, could never swallow it.

I think you should think twice about what you're doing. The feminists do not go to the religious section to tell women to get out of patriarchal religion and that it is harming them even if that's what we think. People should be able to make up their own minds without outside pressure

Actually I only posted on this thread to make the point that it wasn't god who was incompatible with feminism.

Ditany you are very aggressive in your attitude towards the church. I have read several of your posts on other threads, you are very anti-god, so fine, but OP needs an easy transition. People are not church going christians on a monday and atheists by thursday.

It's up to OP if she thinks her church is patriarchal and opts out. I don't attend church and I'm not christian I posted to highlight that their is a third way less radical than throwing up an entire life time of faith in god.

that there

For me it is about accepting that God created an opposite of man, he created eve to complement adam. She wasn't less of a person, she was different. Womens strength is drawn from those differences.

To me all by itself that sentence is the epitome of how the Christian (and Jewish and Islamic) faith is built on a view of women as the other. It's also contradicted by what we see in nature.

Woman came after man to complement him? How is that a feminist view point? Women's strength is drawn from our differences from men? Not anything we are in our own right, regardless of men's strengths? For those of us who are a damn sight better at the things that are typical men's strengths than most men and not so good at the things that are our "differences" do we have no strength as "women"?

In nature it can't be seen that the female of the species came from the male. Females were not created to complement an already existing male. If anything, it's the other way around (not that it's really that straight forward, but it's women who hold the full set, not men).

Grew up with all that equal-but-different stuff, could never swallow it.
Iggi2011, were you a christian? I don't know what the christian faith tells you, I have no idea what doctrines you are taught.

I am a women though and unless I grow a cock and develop a deep voice, I guess I'll always be different to the men in my life

hmm. x-post. Thread moved fast.

Dittany it's such a sweeping generalisation to suggest people with faith in God have no (or don't use) critical thinking. Theologians and philosophers alike are hardly renowned for their lacksadaisical approach to critical thinking. If all the smart people were just found on one side of the debate, it would all have been sorted centuries ago and we'd be having a cup of tea.

Kay - I left Christianity for different reasons than you, but just wanted to day that the day I left god behind and took responsibility for my own life, I found a true and wonderful peace - the kind I had ironically been hoping to find through Jesus!

I hope you find the same kind of peace, and a new faith in yourself.

Dittany that is hysterical. The spanish inquisition killed far more men, than women.

The crusades, men faught and died.

The Romans and the church supressed and persecuted the Cathers, not just the women, but the men too!

Your original comment about thinking was clearly meant in a negative and dismissive away. Explain it all you like! I love a debate on such issues but it's like walking into a set of open jaws, I'll just run walk away.

No fair enough, and have committed the sin (I know!) of not reading all the thread.
I just feel that what is said of men's behaviour within the Christian church can be said of men's behaviour outwith it. The love of domination doesn't stop with the removal of religion, though I suppose one way of legitimising it does.

Ditany the church hunted down witches not because they were women. The church needed a way of ensuring that illiterate poor poeple had faith in their religion. It wasn't considered enough that people just turn up on a sunday, they were expected to give up " the old ways". All pagan practices and festivals were supressed.

The Normans built churches,either on the original sights of the pagans or where Saxon wooden churches stood, we have them to thank for all the wonderful architecture we see!

Kay I just want to wish you lots of luck on your journey. I walked from my non evangelical Church in Wales faith when my feminist eyes were opened, lived a very secular life and am now learning about and following the Goddess.

I find it amazingly fulfilling and exciting.
Here on MN pagans of all sorts meet on Pagan Interest Thread.

I obviously am not pushing for you to join us , i wanted to join my voice to those thinking of you.