Faith and feminism

[Spindelina]

Inspired by another recent thread, I’d like to talk about feminism in the context of faith and/or faith in the context of feminism.

I grew up in a Quaker family, then took a detour via evangelicalism to somewhere in the middle. My feminism is more recent - really since having DD.

My church has become much less evangelical in the last decade or so. We started out on a path of wanting to “do good” and kind of realised that running the holiday lunch club was much more important than meeting on a Sunday morning.

I don’t have any particular questions, but I’d just like to chat. There were a lot of wise words said on the other thread.

In some ways I agree Floral about the retrospective thing which can be tempting to do, but having studied it in some depth I'm more of the view of @LittlePearl about the more blatant place of women in the early NT church. I think that there is mention at all says a great deal, and that there are so many women mentioned and commended tells us more. We also know a lot about the women who supported Jesus - financially and otherwise. I'm not sure this is retrospective feminism reading of scripture - more an attempt to use proper exegesis tools to unearth what was being said and what was actually happening before the later patriarchal institution of church blurred the waters and caused so much damage.

So yes, I think that, while the early church was in no way some rose coloured egalitarian paradise, it was very different to how it was later presented, and, in fact, suppressed.

Madhairday I love your comments, so helpful. I also love Elaine Storkey's writing.

Floral you are speaking so much sense, lovely.

OP I think as I am an evangelical I maybe over looked Mary. She was/is I think incredible.

The comment about a sword piercing your own heart. I think as a mum myself, now, it is hurt for my children which is most feared.

I think the story of Jesus going missing, age 12, was a preparation for that later hurt.

Christianity is not an easy religion but to me it makes sense.

I've been a Christian for over 35 years and it still pisses me off (my religion) but it does make sense.

Women and Jesus, oh yeah. Remember how He went to the home of Mary and Martha:

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!" "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."

Did Jesus say to the disciples, "Can one of you blokes step into the kitchen and make us some tea, so our hostesses can join the talk here? It won't take long, and you've heard it all before."

Fat chance of that, eh.

Italian I wonder if the Protestant church has tried to put clear water between itself and Catholicism by diminishing the role of Mary.

Bertrand I appear to have picked an argument where I didn’t intend to, so I’m going to stop digging.

Spindelina-no, it's my fault. I misunderstood the scope of the thread. Sorry!

@Spindelina as an evangelical I'd have to say I think Mary's role is somewhat inflated in Roman Catholicism. So it's not that the reformation tried to put distance for distance sake but rather gave Mary a humbler position. Whether this was aided by the general misogyny or a fear of anything, not sure.

Could I just point out that Christianity is not the only religion or philosophy?

The concept of original sin is entirely absent in other religions. The concept that there is anything wrong with a woman recognising or fulfilling sexual desires with a consenting partner is not universal.

That's not to say that the religions as they are practiced now are not misogynistic. As soon as patriachy begins to codify rules, misogynism becomes prevalent

There's nothing in Christianity that tells women they shouldn't have sexual desires or fulfill them with a consenting party. The Song of Songs, one of the books of the Hebrew scriptures, still part of the Christian canon, is an extended love poem containing some really quite fruity imagery.

But indeed, Christianity is not the only religion, and the only reason I've referenced it in my replies is that it's my main frame of reference. I've always been interested in comparative religion and have a sneaking affection for neopaganism, too.

I have a feeling no one is going to watch the programme I linked to upthread so I an going to let out the spoilers.

The archaeological evidence points to Judaism previously being indistinguishable from the Canaanite faith/culture. It was polytheist, with a 'council' of Gods. Baal the popular God of thunder had 2 parents: 1) God 'the father' which is the God of Christianity and 2) Asharah - the mother God. She is depicted with the tree of life on her abdomen and she is also depicted as being interchangeable with the tree of life. It is likely she (and the tree of life) represented fertility.

It wasn't until the Babylonian invasion that the texts were edited to make it appear there was only one God (the father) and the majority of Asharah references were removed from all the biblical texts at this time. Presumably it was during this time that the story of Adam and Eve was re-jigged and the 'tree of life' no longer meant Asharah's fertile belly.

So the current received monotheistic OT was largely cooked by misogynist scribes turning against women in a stressful and humiliating historical period and says a lot about the state of these men's minds at the time, rather than an accurate handing down from the past.

Really interesting thread OP, thanks v much. As a struggling Catholic, now separated this is an area close to my heart.

Interesting, Clarice. I'm much more of an NT specialist, but do know well that the OT is chock full of references to the Jews joining fully in with pagan practices and worshipping Baal/Asherah/El etc. It's an unfolding story of a people who are learning what it means to turn to one God and all their deviations along the way - The books of Judges and Kings for eg make it very clear that arriving in the promised land didn't mean a settling into monotheism but an unsettled period of hundreds of years of judges and kings of various persuasions turning the people against and towards the one God.

I don't know of any evidence pointing to the editing out of Asherah worship; there's plenty of it in there in its full glory. And Asherah worship itself was more fundamentally mysogynistic than monotheism - with its widespread practices of temple prostitution and child sacrifice.

Au contraire, Clarice, watched it this evening, apologies for not getting to it sooner!

It was fascinating, but not quite as wotld-tilting as I think the academic thought it was. Even when I was an evangelical, it was extremely clear that the Israelites were not remotely faithful monotheists. It was the subject of numerous (incredibly tedious) hour long sermons to show the inherent weakness in the human soul that we are incapable of remaining true to the One God even when we have it all laid out for us.

And we very nearly named one of our daughters Asherah because I thought it was such a pretty name, and we only didn't when we discovered it was the name of a Goddess and therefore probably not that appropriate for Strict and Particular Baptists!! So for a secret hidden by the writers of the bible, it wasn't all that well hidden...

I don't think anyone but the most fundamental believer isn't aware that monotheism is a progression, an evolution in religious expression.

What I did find especially interesting, though, was the barely brushed on idea that really strict monotheism is very much a male affair, which can be seen in a number of its modern expressions - from Islam to some kinds of Protestant Christianity.

As a Catholic convert who very nearly became Orthodox, I am very comfortable with the ideas around "Heaven being busy" as the academics discussed in the last few minutes of the programme.

Thanks for sharing it, I enjoyed it a lot. Are the other episodes in the series knocking about anywhere?

Sorry to sound pushy! I think the thing that was most interesting was the slant it puts on Adam & Eve and the story of the tree of life, tree of knowledge etc. I wonder if this period was when woman being born of men was put in? Also Eve 'tempting' Adam?

Here's part I

Part III The Real Garden of Eden

MadHairDay in the documentary Dr Francesca Stavrakopoulou says there isn't evidence of temple prostitution. I don't thinks she mentions child sacrifice though.

Also, what isn't mentioned is that Minoan culture, just across the water from Canaan in Crete (a wealthy trading point on the Med) had lots of 'snake Goddesses' - they had lots of references to women dancing, breastfeeding, wearing apron skirts with snakes on their abdomens - I read somewhere someone propose that period pains were represented as the snake in the belly. (Could this relate to the tree of life also in the abdomen? Is this why the serpent is in the tree?) They also held snakes in their hands. They also had bare breasts painted white. Perhaps there was influence across the water and sexist men assumed they were 'temple prostitutes'. Minoan women's social status slowly went down through having to fight off invaders though..

Thanks Clarice. Interesting, though a quick Google shows that is by no means a majority view as I found several sources citing archaeological evidence for temple prostitution associated with Asherah (more so Baal) - not that this matters very much! I wish I was more knowledgeable on OT stuff :)

Regarding all the images of the tree of life, serpents etc I'm wouldn't really be at all surprised if the creation narrative did blend in various bits of symbology from varying ancient civilisations and practice. It was a community's developing understanding of their relationship to God and where it had started, their interpretation of how things had gone wrong. I believe it was inspired by God as a rich allegory to give us an understanding of creation and the fall, but obviously not that it would be a literal account.

Really a quick Google usually throws up a male bias historical view of just about anything. Feminist historians are reclaiming the importance of female deities and fertility and breastfeeding rites for women. When male historians/archeologists look at the evidence they tend to view it from the perspective everything was created to service male sexual impulses - porn/prostitution/etc, rather than by and for women wanting to survive pregnancy and birth, give birth to live babies, to produce enough milk for them to thrive, etc.

Dr Francesca Stavrakopoulou gives the impression of being in a bit of a man's world in her discipline, but it is interesting the scholar who discusses the many exaggerated breast female figurines found in domestic dwellings with her is also a woman.

Yes, I thought the discussion about the figurines was very interesting. The automatic assumption by male scholars that a representation of a woman with prominent breasts and a clear pubic triangle is evidence of temple prostitution and that the figurines were a titillating thing was extremely unsurprising.
I've been familiar with such depictions through neopagan stuff (I even have a rather fetching pair of dangly earrings with that kind of Goddess on them, which I wear when I feeling especially cheeky) and it's never been presented as a sex thing - it's always been understood as a nurturing, life-giving reference.
How often in our own culture do we see this nonsense play out in discussions about public breastfeeding? Or even in the recent TRA stuff, when a woman's physicality is being presented by some as narrowly focused on sexuality (ideas about vaginas as 'holes' and so forth), despite a cavalcade of women talking about the realities of periods, vaginas being anazingly complex organs, and all the enormously fabulous things the female body can do.
(BTW, not turning this into a trans thread, just pointing out a parallel in understanding there)

Yes, absolutely to all that, FloralBunting.

Yes. It is the 'rule' of misogyny about women who go around being female at men by having periods and breastfeeding deserving to be punished.

I wonder how much this has cost women.

What's the big thing about breast feeding? 100s of years ago it was only way to feed.

I always thought the statues with big blobs and bellies were fertility 'idols'. Is there evidence they were not?

Not every woman can breastfeed so well and production of milk can be affected diet and stress.

by diet