Is it possible to be have faith and be a feminist?...

[onelittlefish]

This is a questions I am asking myself because recently I have started to feel more like a feminist in my view of world. However, I am also a christian and there are some elements that I find hard to reconcile with with feminism - particularly, where the bible says that a woman should submit to her husband. Also, most of my Christian friends seem to be stay at home mothers; not something I have an objection to in itself but I think they perceive that the Bible says they should.

However, there are parts that are fully conducive to feminism: there is one part that say one person should not objectify another - this something that is very relevant to feminism and goes to it's roots as women have always been objectified by men.

So please answer, do you think it is possible to have faith and be a feminist?

If you can manage to separate the essence of your faith (which usually is "be nice to people") from the millennia of patriarchal crap through which it has been delivered to us then yes you can totally be a feminist.

It's very hard to do that though.

@Posie: Islam was quite feminist at its inception, if you consider the times in which it began. There are some pretty amazing Muslim feminists out there that I found during another similar thread on MN. MN is so damn educational!!

KalSkirata - are you inside my brain?!! That was the website that I was trotting off to find! Have you read this article on there? It is spot-on and so relevant to all women everywhere, regardless of religion.

messy, totally agree with you. The original message of the faith needs to be separated from patriarchal practices.

ballroompink - I would love to take up the opportunity to read the materials you suggested. Please send me the links and titles.

I know I have chosen a Church that makes me think about these things - maybe that is why I like it, because I have never thought about these issues seriously before.

I am a (Progressive) Christian and a feminist.

My denomination back home in the US is 'United Church of Christ', a very forward-thinking (progressive) denomination, which has long campaigned for and supported rights for women.

For example, it was way back in 1981 that the UCC General Synod first released a statement affirming a woman's right to choose to have an abortion. UCC ministers don't have to be 'pro-choice' themselves, but they have be supportive of women in their church, who are considering or who have had an abortion.

Faith is personal, and there are Christians who treat the Bible like a rule book, but there are also those who treat it as a book of stories which we can learn from, but like any book you can also find flaws within its pages. Some call it cherry-picking, I call it exercising the free will God gave us.

A few months ago my mum (a Christian feminist who likes the odd glass of wine) was thinking about joining a new church and was asking one of the elders about the ethos of the church in general. Her first question was "What is the church's position on drinking?". Her second was "What is the church's position on women as leaders?".

I've berated her ever since for putting alcoholism before feminism!

anyone got any links to jewish and christian feminist blogs/articles?

This isn't a Christian feminist blog as such, but Vicky Beeching mainly blogs about Christian theology, and often covers feminist issues.

Here's an example:

vickybeeching.com/blog/christian-feminism-is-not-an-oxymoron/

onelittlefish just want to break in here about that Pauline verse re: women talking in church

you have to remember that up until the Christian thing happened, women were not included in Jewish "teaching time" in the synagogue. Jesus' attitude towards women, him including them, talking to them, addressing them in sermons etc, was revolutionary to the point that a lot of people were utterly shocked and even disgusted by it.

up till then, men were the ones who were educated and in the synagogues, listening to teaching and then debating it afterwards.

so in early christian communities, women were suddenly included in this process for the first time. it was still old fashioned, with the women on the left side of the church (under the icon of the Virgin) and men on the right side (under the icon of Christ)...

so you have this bizarre scenario where women are being included in religious instruction for the first time (hearing sermons etc.) and they are calling across the aisle to their DHs, "DH WTF is this man on about? is this the thing with the 10 commandments? or is it this other thing..." etc., because a lot of the concepts that are being bandied about are things that Jewish men had been taught about/debated about since childhood. But the women had never been included before, and they are trying to get up to speed.

so Paul was actually saying "FGS will you teach your wives the basics at home, i can't bear all the shouting and talking in church"

even in the most conservative churches in the world (e.g. Orthodox church where a lot of the v v v old, now-forgotten, true context of the Eastern aspect of Christianity are still part of daily practice), females give readings, chant hymns (compare orthodox Judaism where the cantor can only be male) and paint icons. the only thing they don't do is priest-y things, the understanding being that pregnancy and childbirth is the female version of priestiness. (make of that what you will, not saying everyone is going to like that explanation!)

i always chime in with this because a LOT of the original context of Christianity in particular has been completely forgotten in the West, because the western church has gone through so much political infighting etc. and the church has been used as a cultural weapon rather than a source of succour and deep philosophy. a lot has been lost. and its a pity imo

Paul was the apostle to the gentiles, he wasn't writing to Jewish converts, but to gentile converts. The men would have been just as ignorant as the women.

Also, Greek and Roman women weren't totally excluded from religious instruction as the Jewish women supposedly were*, they had their own goddesses, their own ceremonies in which they took part in. They wouldn't have been strangers to religious instruction. IMV, these newly converted Greek and Roman women were behaving in Christian gatherings the same way they behaved in the temples of their former Gods, and Paul - the horrified Jew that he was, felt the need to put these women in their place and remind them that women were to be silent. As he did when writing to Timothy.

Jewish women weren't even that excluded, apart from in temple worship. Jesus had female followers who 'sat at his feet' and listened to instruction. John the Baptist likely also had women followers. Neither Jesus nor John were unique either. There were many itinerant prophets wandering around Israel, attracting followers or having people just turn up to listen.

You can have faith and be a feminist just so long as you're not a strict literalist who believes the Bible to be the inerrant and infallible word of God.

SLTS it's nice to "meet" someone who knows a bit about Paul :)

Paul is considered the Gentile Apostle in popular church history, but he addresses mixed Jewish and Gentile audiences in his letters, with the exception of Hebrews, which has disputed authorship in any case.

Corinth (where the offending letter was bound) was a very diverse city of both Jews and Gentiles, and the rhetoric in 1 Corinthians appeals to/assumes a solid understanding of Judaic tradition. cf. Luke's gospel which was aimed squarely at Gentiles. It's unlikely that letter was intended for an unmixed Gentile audience.

SLTS maybe you are a great scholar and i am completely misinformed, was just trying to offer what i've learned myself. I am not a Paul fan at all, btw. I just so often hear shit spouted about that particular verse (not here, but by religious misogynists) so i tend to want to jump in when i see it mentioned.

Not meaning to take your thread off-track OP, sorry. will hide this to avoid being drawn into a debate that you did not intend :)

the debate about Paul is interesting

Quoting as it's back up the thread a bit 'It makes no sense to me as all we have to base religion upon is religious texts, so how one can imagine a relationship with a God not found in these books?'

posie, I'm sure you can have organized religion without books, though. Pliny the Elder and other Roman writers reckoned the Celts (non-literate) had organized religion (and there must be hundreds of other examples of non-literate organised religions, it's just the one that strikes me).

I think literacy and printing make a huge difference to how religion works and we're conditioned by that, so we forget that religion exist without books, and can be flexible and changeable, rather than being all set down in a big book you never change.

If 'all' we had to base religion on were books, it'd be bibliolatry, not faith in God.

I'm not an especially great Pauline scholar, but some years ago I was working out my own salvation with fear and trembling and went through the pro-Paul arguments. Those were the conclusions I reached.

I don't have faith and never have, but it's really cheering to think of people working to make changes in the church. I'd rather have feminists in it than not.

I don't see why the old interpretations of religious texts have to stand. I've been mooching about in theology sections recently and there's a lot on feminist theology, queer theology, Marxist theology, etc. I was flicking through a wonderful text that claimed the Trinity as an orgy, for example...

My inlays are all religious and DH was brought up within their cult church.

Whilst I think I would find great comfort in faith there are simply too many things that I won't double think about. I don't think homosexuality is a sin, I don't think that a man = head of the household just because he has a penis, divorce is only acceptable in cases of adultery, that adultery is the same as murder (not that I agree with adultery, I just don't think it is literally as bad as murder) and so on.

My SIL & her DH are a good example of this. She is far, far brighter than he is and is much more practical and has a good grasp of money. He is expected to bring home the bacon whilst she stops working because women should be supported by their husbands. She is expected to defer to him in all things, even when he is obviously wrong. They have made a number of financial mistakes (like selling a house that was mortgage free and making great rent) because he didn't want to have a second property even though it was her who did all the work with it.

I realise this is just one man - who many will say sounds like a nob - and many will say that most religious men don't behave like this but this is expected and normal behaviour within their church. Their church takes a rather literal view of the NT. DH's family think it is an active failing of our relationship that my voice is equal to his and I "get my way"

I just can't get over the double think needed to be a christian and a feminist, certainly within the families religion it isn't possible for me.

inlaws obviously, not inlays. Bloody autocorrect.

I studied feminist theology with a Catholic lecturer....now that was fun!! Seems that anyone can bend their own religion to suit themselves, actually it seems that EVERYONE bends religion to suit themselves, feminists too!

If God was a feminist the time of Jesus/Mohammed would not have made a blind bit of difference women would have been equal. BUT as even in creation and judgement women are not equal I find explanation of how one squares being feminist with God pretty tenuous.

what do you mean by 'even in creation and judgement women are not considered equal'? By who?

God gave people free will. men then oppressed women. Should God have not given free will and had robots instead?

Religion and faith are two different things.

When did God give freewill? After evil Eve took an apple or before? Are we believing 'creation'? As I think that makes a huge difference to what a feminist can ignore.

Freewill that leads to equality by a creator would not have men stronger than women, gestation would not take so long, birth would be a lot easier.

posie, if you thin it's all rubbish though, why would it bother you if feminists were 'bending' religion to suit themselves?

I don't believe I am but I find it really odd when atheists insist that believers should only follow one strict interpretation of religion and never try to change things (or as you put it 'bend' religion). I mean, why do you care if you think it's all made up?

It does seem kind of strange to me - like you're saying 'how dare feminists bend religion' ... feminists do an awful lot of disagreeing with patriarchial structures all over the place. Why on earth should religion be exempt?

I am trying to understand the oxymoron of a feminist follower. I don't really think I have to be in the God Squad, do you?

I didn't say you did, posie.

I just don't understand your argument and it's quite a common one.

A lot of atheists have the idea that religion is all about strict rules and unchanging structures, and that it's inherently patriarchial. There are two ways for me as a feminist and a believer to answer that.

One is, well, no, I just don't think it's theologically valid - there is plenty of precedent for change and flexibility. This argument only carries me so far, because you're then coming back with 'but you're bending the rules!'

So my second response is, 'so? Feminists expect to bend - and break - patriarchial rules all the time'.

Now, a religious person might come back at me and say 'how dare you break the rules, you might get it wrong and annoy God/end up being a heretic/get struck by lightning'. And I'd disagree with them, but I'd probably go back to arguing from theological precedent or I'd accept I don't much care what someone thinks if they insist on being a religious misogynist.

What makes less sense - to me - is when an atheist comes back at me and says 'how dare you break the rules', because I just don't get why it would matter to them? If you believe it's all made up, how can me bending the rules to make a more feminist relationship with God be a problem? You can just assume I'm a dim misguided fool who has an imaginary friend - but, you know, at least it is a feminist imaginary friend.