Is it possible to be a good Christian at the same time as being a feminist?

[SummerHoliDidi]

I count myself as a feminist, and am also a Catholic, but I am finding it increasingly difficult to be both.

I sat through a very Christian wedding (much more overtly Christian than I have ever been to before) yesterday, where there were a LOT of references to the bible passage that talks about women submitting to their husbands but men only having to love their wives. I found myself wanting to tell the minister to fuck off, which is hardly a Christian thing to want to do. The man is the head of the household - fuck off. If a man loves his wife and only wants to do the best for her what wife wouldn't submit? - fuck off. Hearing "obey" in the vows - fuck off. Having children is God's will - fuck off. The bride being "given away" by her father - fuck off.

I appreciate that this particular wedding is not typical of Christianity as a whole, and my friend has actively chosen to have this type of ceremony (she was always very sensible back when we were at uni, but "found God" a couple of years ago and I hadn't realised quite how much she's bought into it).

How do other Christian feminists reconcile both viewpoints, or do you find yourself picking and choosing which bits to take from each?

[LRDYaDumayuIThink]

curlew - I'm not sure it is intrinsically misogynist - or, I suppose, it's as intrinsically misogynistic as our society as a whole.

If your own sect can be non-misogynistic, so could (come the revolution) a church be.

It seems to me that being religious and a feminist is going to bring you precisely the same issues as being any kind of social creature and a feminist - you can be feminist as all get-out in isolation, but we all have to interact with a world structured by misogyny.

(Not related, but I can't fucking stand postmodernism. Overexposed passe shite.)

[daftdame]

Don't worry its a daft name any way

[EmmelineGoulden]

I do not claim to be post-modern and I don't see how it is even relevent to what I have posted.

[daftdame]

The relevance is that without external reference everything is open to individual interpretation. Everything becomes relative as experiences and our perceptions of them differ.

[LRDYaDumayuIThink]

But that's only true if you are a postmodernist, daft.

[EmmelineGoulden]

Even with external references everything is open to individual interpretation. Just read back through this thread.

I think ethics stem from our biology. Humans aren't the only animals to display behaviour in keeping with a moral code and experiments show babies may well have an idea of justice long before they could be taught the idea by adults.

The fact we don't all agree doesn't mean it all falls away and is meaningless any more than the fact Christians don't all agree automatically means Christianity is meaningless.

[LRDYaDumayuIThink]

I think most things are open to individual interpretation.

I don't think things 'become' relative as our perceptions of them differ, and frankly I find it an odd idea to presume that this is a statement of fact, when it stems from an ideology that distrusts statements of fact.

I am sure all Christians perceive God differently, but that doesn't mean God is different. Just our perceptions. God doesn't become 'relative'.

[DogsAreEasierThanChildren]

Hear hear LRD. I don't believe that Truth-with-a-capital-T is accessible to any human person, and I run a mile from people who think it's been revealed to them, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

[DogsAreEasierThanChildren]

And curlew, going back to my earlier post, you could certainly have said the law was intrinsically misogynist 100 years ago - indeed there's a good case to be made that it still is. Should women therefore have said they wouldn't be solicitors, barristers or judges till the law was reformed?

[LRDYaDumayuIThink]

YY, totally agree with the way you put that dogs.

[daftdame]

Emmerline you see the innate sense of justice to me indicates intelligent design concerning our biology and that of animals.......

LRD perhaps I should of said our potential to understand what is truth rather than being hindered by our interpretation of it is difficult without external references. Although in Christianity it is more complicated because we internalise God.

[Italiangreyhound]

Emmeline I get your point, maybe we can just agree to disagree. I would never say there were not women and men of other faiths or no faith doing great things. There are. But I just know a lot of Christian ones.

Summer that is lovely that your church is so welcoming and understanding.

treaclesoda I am so sorry for you that that kind of teaching still prevails. I am sure there must be some churches somewhere teaching something different, but I have not been to Northern Ireland so don;t know that! It is also very easy to box ourselves into a corner and say we are the true lot and the rest are wrong etc. I wonder what Jesus will say, when he comes back, about how petty minded we all are! Actually I tend to find if you can find something you are passionate about, which you feel God is passionate about, like ending poverty or slavery or FGM or fighting for prisoners of conciounse etc then you will meet others, if you go to a Christian group for that thing, from other churches and may find 'hey, I have more in common with these guys from different churches than my own chruch because we all feel passionate about the same thing and are trying to do something about it." I am an evangelical and when I meet catholics who are very community minded I find I just click with them a bit even though my 'theology' and their 'theology' might be very different. It doesn't mean we need to all run out and leave our churches, (IMHO) but maybe when we put out toe into something different it sends ripples out! Good luck funding people who think more like you.

FairPhyllis if we did not have free will then submission would be pointless, as we would already be cowed down as slaves. But we are free and we willingly submit. I don't think of it as a terrible or bad thing, and sometimes I don't even do it! I think of it like submitting your head of hair to the hand of a friend who gently grooms it for you. I think there is a lot of free will in living as a Christian. More and more as I get older and maybe more liberal in my old age I see God giving us choices and we make them. Sometimes we start out doing stuff we do not want to do (like doing a chore) and end up enjoying it. It is very different to be forced to do something evil, cruel or violent, it is more about (IMHO) being ready to embrace things God has for you.

Curlew lots and lots of people in the church want women bishops, it's not that women are not wanted.

jothehot not sure how you can hav ethe authority to say people must choose?

[LRDYaDumayuIThink]

daft - yes, I can follow that ... that makes sense.

This is a really interesting debate, btw. summer thank you, and I hope it's helping you.

[curlew]

I don't think I understand the lawyer analogy. I suppose it applies if we're talking about women becoming priests and bishops. but how is it relevant to the position of the ordinary woman in the pew?

[SummerHoliDidi]

I'm glad you're all enjoying the thread. It has helped me a lot, but I think you've all gone a bit in depth for me to be able to contribute much now, even though I thought I was quite knowledgeable about Christianity.

[treaclesoda]

Italiangreyhound , thanks for your kind words, that has given me something to think about. Without wanting to hijack the thread, the churches here are generally very very conservative and there are these massive issues about things that just don't seem to matter that much to Christian churches elsewhere. e.g. drinking alcohol. Its such a massive deal to a lot of people here that I know people who will drive 30 miles from home to buy a bottle of wine because they daren't be seen by anyone they know, as drinking alcohol is such a massive taboo. Divorce is another. I have a female friend who was dismissed from her role in her congregation because her marriage broke down. And there would be no question of a church agreeing to, for example, baptise a child if the parents weren't married.

Even though I am a believer, I struggle to even call myself a Christian, because I can never live up to these standards. I was raised in an evangelical Baptist church and plainly remember being taught as a child that if I even thought, for one moment, to question what I was being taught, that it meant the devil had a hold of me and was taking control, and I was destined for hell, and that was all there was to it. I was probably about six years old. It messed with my head and even now in my late 30s I struggle with the idea that there might be different viewpoints.

[EmmelineGoulden]

curlew in the law anology, the ordinary woman in the pew might be a litigant or someone who sticks to the speed limit, it's not just lawyers and judges who use the law.

[LRDYaDumayuIThink]

Take care of yourself, summer.

I'm not getting all of it either, but I think this is the first proper thread I've seen where we've discussed feminism and Christianity and the thread has still been relatively civil and not full of 'yer all deluded innits' by page 2.

[SummerHoliDidi]

Treacle that really doesn't sound like my experience of Christian churches at all. I know intellectually that other churches in other places have different standards and practices, but it always surprises me when I hear of people's experiences in other places. I have been a practicing Catholic in 3 different churches in England, a few places in Australia, and even spent 4 months living in a convent/leprosy centre in India with Missionaries of Charity. Each church has been different.

The one that sounds most like your experiences was the one in India, but I put a lot of the differences down to the different wider culture over there, maybe it was more their interpretation of Christianity. I enjoyed my time there, it was very relaxing and peaceful to attend mass every day and pray for an hour each evening, but I wouldn't ever be able to live up to those same expectations over here in my 'normal' life.

The church I felt happiest in was the one in Sydney, I was staying in the middle of Kings Cross (a notorious red light district) and it was really enlightening to go to a church where nobody batted an eyelid about the transsexual prostitutes sitting next to them, or the tramps who turned up and sat through mass in order to get the refreshments afterwards and the food parcels the church put together for them. I sometimes wish my church now was more diverse, but we're in a nice mc area now, so the congregation are nice and mc.

LRD I'm really glad we're all being fairly civil. I didn't want to start a thread that descended into insults.

[Italiangreyhound]

Treacle my dear how awful and terrible. All I can say is that they were teaching you what they believed about God. You can find out for yourself what God is like and how being part of God's kingdom feels. You are not limited to live your life as that six year old. It is really horrible that such thoughts were put in your head and maybe brought about fear. Perfect love drives out fear. God is love and does not want, I believe, for us to live in fear. God is also stronger than the devil. May you be set free from such fears and may you find your own way forward. Christ came to set us free not to bind us up. It was feat that led to people passing on such teaching. So sad and bad though it is you can move forward.

[Italiangreyhound]

fear not feat!!

[Italiangreyhound]

Summer I've been to Australia and to a 'tranny' bar. I have been to a lovely bakery in Kings Cross.

[GoshAnneGorilla]

What an interesting thread.

I would say that most mainstream religious have feminists and therefore women creating feminists movements within them.

From my own personal experience I can tell you that there is a sizeable Islamic/Muslim feminist movement (yes, really) and huge amount of scholarship and literature about this along with actual women's movements too.

In terms of institution s, Islam is a much less organised faith then people realise, we don't have popes, etc different countries with have religious academies with scholars and women can be scholars too (and far more of them used to be ).

Here is a short interview with Amina Wadud, who has done a lit of interesting work:www.resetdoc.org/story/00000022177

Hope this isn't a derail, I just wanted to add another perspective.

[curlew]

"It has helped me a lot, but I think you've all gone a bit in depth for me to be able to contribute much now, even though I thought I was quite knowledgeable about Christianity."

I am sad that you feel like that- and I don't really understand why. Your experience and opinions are obviously as valid as anyone else's. And your OP seemed to me to be very perceptive and clear sighted. A lot of what followed (sorry to dent the universal niceness of the thread) strikes me as obfuscation and special pleading. Yes, of course you can have whatever relationship you want with your own personal God, and perceive him in whatever way you like. But the minute you adhere to any organised Christian church, you are adhering to an organisation with is intrinsically misogynist and which has marginalised and oppressed women for centuries. I say Christian church, because those are the only ones that I feel remotely qualified to talk about, not because I think they are unique in this.
And where the lawyer analogy breaks down is in that we are all obliged to engage with the law in our daily lives. It is entirely up to each individual whether they engage with the Church.

[Tubemole1]

You should have told the minister to fuck off!

That sort of thing made me give up religion. What place does it have in a liberal society where shock women are allowed to think for themselves!

Its impossible to be a feminist and follow the Christian faith. They just don't comply.