Just in time for International Women’s Day last week, the religious right launched a pair of angry broadsides at the feminist movement. Kurk Gayle let me know about this positively bizarre op-ed by Alice Lindsey: The Paradox of Feminism. A day earlier, an only slightly-less strange piece by Colleen Caroll Campbell ran at the National Review: Faith of the Feminine.
Both essays make the same point: feminism is profoundly hostile to faith, particularly Christianity. Feminists, however, are misguided; according to both Campbell (a former speechwriter for the current president and a robust defender of a narrow understanding of orthodoxy) and Lindsey (a former Episcopal priest who has renounced her ordination and joined a church that doesn’t affirm women in the priesthood), Christianity is the great liberator of women. Lindsey writes:
History shows that wherever Christianity has spread, the treatment of women has improved. Allow me to cite but one example. My great grandfather was a pioneer missionary in India. He established a seminary there, but after time it became apparent that Christian men could not evangelize Indian women who lived sequestered lives. Therefore, my great grandfather decided to train women converts to be midwives and nurses so that they could minister to Indian women at a critical time. So he established a nurse training center and even today the majority of nurses in India are Christian females.
We’re often reminded that the plural of anecdote is not evidence. Lindsey, bless her, doesn’t even bother with getting to the plural.
The slightly more coherent Campbell:
The Church clearly opposes the radical-feminist agenda. But that agenda has little to do with authentic liberation, as American women increasingly recognize. While secular-feminist leaders spend their energies defending partial-birth abortion and working to redefine traditional marriage out of existence, the Church uses its influence to denounce the objectification of women by pornographers and sexual traffickers, the exploitation of women by scientists who covet women’s eggs for cloning experiments, and the manipulation of women by a popular culture that tells women they are worth little more than the sum of their sexual parts.
Gosh almighty, I want to meet the feminists who do endorse sexual trafficking. Got any names, Colleen? One?
The “radical feminist straw-woman” is a standard trope for conservative writers, and complaining about the unfairness of the tactic is useless. And to be candid, I’ll admit I’ve occasionally succumbed to the temptation to mischaracterize and exaggerate an opponent’s position for the sake of strengthening my argument. Most of us do that, though I find that on the whole, few voices in the public conversation are more drastically and persistently misrepresnted than those that defend women’s deep equality. No, what bugs me most about the likes of Campbell and Lindsey is their erection (sorry) of a false dichotomy: Christian or feminist.
The integral role of religious women in the first wave of American feminism is well-documented. With few exceptions, our feminist foremothers and their male allies were able to distinguish quite clearly (and eloquently) between man-made patriarchal religious structures and joyous, liberating faith itself. Feminist and womanist theologies have been around for decades now, and have informed and enriched the lives of Christians across the denominational spectrum. It was not secular feminists who sought women’s ordination in traditions ranging from the Nazarene to the Anglican, after all; it was deeply religious women who took seriously what Paul said in Galatians 3:28, that there was and is “no male or female” , for all are one in Christ.
In the blogging world, my “colleagues” include secular feminists, conservative Christians, and those who are both feminist and devout. After nearly half a decade of blogging on faith, feminism, and sexuality, I’ve noticed that it is my conservative Christian friends are more troubled by my feminism than my feminist friends are by my Christianity. Amanda Marcotte, who famously was forced out of her job with the Edwards campaign over her frequently-sharp critiques of the American church, has been a thoughtful and not-infrequent commenter on this blog, for which I am grateful. At the same time, some of my Christian blogger friends have, I’m sorry to say, “de-linked” me over the years, apparently troubled by the content of some of my posts. Though I’ve often gotten the question “How can you be one of us and still believe in (fill-in-the-blank)” from both sides, the query is usually more pointed when it comes from my dear friends who are conservative Christians.
I don’t teach theology courses. Pasadena City College is not a seminary. (And with each passing year, I forget more and more of the theology I did study in graduate school.) I do teach feminism and gender studies, of course, and I teach to students who often come from strong faith backgrounds. Part of my role is to counter voices like those of Campbell and Lindsey, the voices that foster suspicion of the drive for women’s equality, the voices that say that a commitment to Christ (or to Islam, Judaism, etc.) is fundamentally incompatible with the feminist vision of egalitarianism. In making that case, it helps to be a Christian who can “speak the language”; having more than a passing familiarity with Scripture as well as with both Catholic and evangelical “culture” is a vital tool with which to overcome suspicion. My goal is to help my “believing” students consider the possibility that faith and feminism are compatible, and to help them work out for themselves what it will mean to live a life devoted to both.
I am a Christian because I believe the Good News of Jesus Christ: that each of us is loved and precious, and each of us is called to live out that love as boldly and as consistently as we can. I believe the Good News of eternal life, I believe the Good News that death and suffering will, in the end, be defeated. I believe, as my brothers and sisters in many faiths believe, that all creation reflects, at least in part, the love and justice of its Creator.
At its core, the feminist insight is simple: women, too, are equal players in the cosmic drama of justice-seeking, kingdom-building, and love-sharing. Women’s lives matter as much as men’s. This is not inherently at odds with the Gospel. In His treatment of women and of foreigners, Jesus made clear that biology was not destiny: being born a Samaritan or born with a womb were not obstacles to receiving the message. Feminists, secular or otherwise, make the same case: “plumbing” ought not disqualify any human being from full and radically equal participation in every aspect of human affairs.
Jesus was hostile to traditional family structures , largely because they turned the family into an idol. Feminism, in its insistence that women are more than daughters, wives, and mothers, makes exactly the same point. Jesus called His followers individually, not collectively. When conservative Christians celebrate “family values” and lash out at “feminist individualism”, they betray their own lack of understanding of just how radical the Gospel message is. Indeed, in their insistence that gender has no bearing on how it is we are called to live in the world, many secular feminists do a better job of grasping Jesus’ teaching than do a great many Christians.
In this week where we see the tiresome “radical feminist straw women” re-emerging, it’s helpful to remind ourselves that at its core, the Gospel message of justice, inclusion, and individual happiness is deeply and radically congruent with the great and good tradition of Western feminism.
I wonder if the flow of anti-feminist/anti-woman editorials and articles in the MSM is relatively constant or are we experiencing an increase lately? Is it a coincidence that this is happening during the time that a woman has a serious shot at becoming POTUS?
I wouldn’t say that there is some kind of coordinated effort to discredit women and feminists to keep a particular woman in her place, rather that ways of thinking ebb and flow among society in response to changing conditions.
To reference your cite: anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;, one could easily insert “Political philosophy” in place of “son or daughter.”
I am not going to accuse you of strawmanning, but I do think you miss the point of Traditionalist/Orthodox Christians when they question the commitment of Progressivist Christians, to wit, that your politics come before your faith when push comes to shove.
At the church I used to attend, one of the progressive members there was a supporter of the Roman Catholic Womanpreists movement, and once said, straight out, “If Jesus Christ himself walked out on the balcony of the Vatican and announced that women could not be priests, then I would consider him not to be the God I followed.”
Yes, I can only speak for my experiences in the RCC, as I don’t concern myself much with Protestant Squabbles (Other than to be entertained of times, esp when those who split off from Rome and kept such things as Canterbury Cathedral arguing that their own splinter groups are wrong to do the same). And yes - there are Dyed-In-The-Wool Trads who would not even accept female priests even with an engraved letter from Jesus himself, but those are by far a minority; for all the attention people like the SSPX get, they are a relative flea. The above sentiments, though, seem to dominate the Progressive Catholic dialogue on the subject.
I think, despite some ugly rows in the past, feminism might just be more widely defined than a religious belief is. In order to be a feminist, you have to believe men and women should be equal socially, economically, culturally, and politically. Religion asks more of people, and thus crack-ups can occur, I think, on more arcane details.
Weaver, the calls against female leadership are increasing, and no, it’s no coincidence that women’s equal rights are being questioned right as we’re seeing fulfillment of a feminist ideal of shared power.
>Hugo,
You’ve just inspired a feminist-Christian (auto)biography: “Why (You Can’t Ask Me Why) I Am A Feminist: Some Frank Thoughts”
>The Gonzman,
Have you read anything by Sister Mary Prudence Allen, R.S.M., Ph.D., especially The Concept of Woman: The Aristotelian Revolution 750 Bc-Ad 1250 (1997)? Or are you familiar with works by Sister Carolyn Osiek R.S.C.J., Ph.D., perhaps Beyond Anger: On Being a Feminist in the Church (1986)?
Kurk, brilliant. Wow. I’m impressed and flattered to have been part of the inspiration for it.
that your politics come before your faith when push comes to shove.
Another way of putting this would be that they put their morality before their tradition.
I have read a great deal of the womanpriest theology. I remain unpersuaded. The magisterium of the church remains unpersuaded. In any event - not the point.
Same thing, Consumatopia. You may put it any way you wish - not the point.
The point is, the view of his Orthodox Christian friends is most likely that they perceive, rightly or wrongly, that his politics is more important to him than his Christianity. His Feminist friends might very well perceive the same thing, and thus feel unthreatened by his Christian beliefs.
The point being is that it is by far much more common to look on the left side of the aisle and find people describing themselves in terms of “Recovering Christian” and who have indeed - no matter how thick you trowel the lipstick on that pig - chosen their politics over their faith. Yes, a lot have abandoned Conservative Denominations for liberal ones, but it is far more common nonetheless.
I am sure Hugo would want to accurately characterize this, and not erect strawmen, nor accuse his dear conservative Christian friends of base motives, no?
After nearly half a decade of blogging on faith, feminism, and sexuality, I’ve noticed that it is my conservative Christian friends are more troubled by my feminism than my feminist friends are by my Christianity.
I would suspect this may have as much to do with how you blog than the intrinsic tolerance of feminists vs. Christians. You blog frequently and in great detail about feminism, but rarely get into the nitty-gritty of your faith or make an argument that depends heavily on spiritual premises. You evangelize quite earnestly for feminism, but treat your religion as something personal that you’re not asking anyone else to share if they don’t want to. I’m not saying this balance is wrong (I do, after all, align much more with the secular feminist side than the traditionalist Christian side), but I can understand why feminists would have an easier time accepting your faith than vice-versa.
I suppose that is a function of teaching in a secular college, and the sense that the need for pro-feminist men to make the case for gender equality is perhaps greater than the need for well-off white men to make the case for Christ. That doesn’t mean my feminism trumps my faith, merely that I see the former as more closely connected to my public mission.
Same thing, Consumatopia. You may put it any way you wish - not the point.
No, it’s not the same thing.
If you say someone is putting politics ahead of faith, that’s putting the temporal in front of the eternal.
If you say someone is putting morality ahead of tradition, that’s putting the eternal in front of the temporal.
So, they’re different, and the latter is more accurate–people can have faith in tradition and human authority, or they could have faith in higher-order principles of right and wrong.
No, it’s not the same thing.
Well, in fact it is, when you have people who see their traditions as entwined with eternal truth, that the institution of “The Church” is merely that of being a custodian of the body of belief, doctine, and traditions, and not authorized to modify or change them in the name of “relevance” to a later age; that God is not going to issue a “Decalogue 2.1.1.2 because “society” has decided adultery is no longer that big a deal.
Or instead of dealing with their actual concerns, I suppose you can continue to dismiss them as merely -wrong and stupid.-
“Jesus was hostile to traditional family structures, largely because they turned the family into an idol.”
I disagree strongly with your hermeneutics here. This passage is addressed to a specific audience who had been given a specific and very iomportant task. It is a great example of one of Jesus’ favorite teaching methods, the use of strong hyperbole to make a simplke point. I also don’t believe that traditional family structures inevitably turn the family into an idol, although it is possible.
I disagree strongly with your hermeneutics here. — Grupetti
I would suspect this may have as much to do with how you blog than the intrinsic tolerance of feminists vs. Christians. — Stentor
Now we’re getting to rhetoric, to balance of message and awareness of audience. And in all that, to Christlikeness.
Hugo, like Jesus, you use what James K. A. Smith calls the “Hermeneutic of Charity.” And as I study the life of Jesus in the gospels, I don’t see him hiding his feminism! No it’s front and center: he meets in private with a loose half-breed woman letting her discover that he’s the One sent to her (to us) by God; he even let’s this “woman at the well,” a mere female who Jewish men are not to talk to in public let alone private–he lets her be his first evangelist: the first evangelist to the men who’ve had their way with her sexually back in half-breed (bastard) town. She knows so much better how to speak to their heart issues to get them listening, then, to Jesus. And, likewise, Jesus blasts the religious men on their home turf, as they try to trap an adulteress (where’s the adulterer) and to trap Jesus into agreeing to a public humiliation and execution. Isn’t Jesus out of balance when he refuses to engage theology at that point? Why his feminist emphasis on egalitarianism? Why his making these men reflect on what’s inside them? Let each one without sin cast the first stone. Woman, where are your accusers? You’re free to go and Go sinning no more. Family? Jesus on family? The hermeneutic of love all over again. It’s the one who do God’s will who are his family he says publicly. And don’t abuse a single little child. And, his last dying words are care for his mother. His first resurrected words are to a formerly loose woman, a former Greek-deity infected women, who’s touched him publicly stroking his hair and wiping his feet with hers: you don’t need to touch me now, go tell the men. Jesus gets her to be his first apostle. What love! What toned down Christian proclaimation. What feminism.
To All:
Alice C. Lindsey has most graciously started a dialog over at my blog. You’re all welcome. Remember your home training, please, if you decide to drop by for some conversation.
Best,
J.K. Gayle
Kurk, your penultimate comment is as succinct an encapsulation of the message as could be asked for. Rock on, brother man.