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A feminist Christmas reflection.


Alta Gaudia

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Lucrezia Borgia

every word of it is true - Mary absolutely would have experienced that - like every female before her, and after, who has given birth. Truth alone should be enough for the piece to stand on its merits. It should be able to be recited from every pulpit - because its true. But truth isn't enough sometimes is it, when the meaning behind it is so dangerous.

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Yes, it sounds like a lot of work. I think the team may really benefit from having Zeppelina write the announcements in future.


The poems are great but to me they harshly underline the sexism of organised religion. Looking at the events in the US, I'm not sure the long game really will be worth it.

 

The author of the poems would agree with you. Her journey has been an interesting one to follow. Whilst not wanting to speak for her, my understanding is she grew up in the typical US evangelical Christian household, moved to a more progressive Christian faith (probably where I would say I sit) and then became further disillusioned with the Trump-following Christians/Churches in the USA, to a point where she now says she is not a Christian. She has stated, "I don't want to worship their God." And I know where she is coming from, because, even though I call myself a Christian, as a Jesus follower, I don't see myself as worshipping the same God as them either.

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@Alta Gaudia and @Lees75

Thank you both for sharing those poems!

I have to be careful when I consider religious ideas as I fundamentally come from a feeling of abhorring the practise and content of so much of what I think I know religion is.

It is extremely eb like to just whack me in the face with a different perspective that helps me to reflect on my prejudices and how they ultimately are as intolerant as I often feel religion can be.


I hope my comment isn't insensitive to anyone, as I really mean to reflect on a very important slap in the face for myself and don't mean to be judging others, although I realise I have done so in the past, for which I apologise.

You don't come across at all as insensitive. I can't speak for [mention]Alta Gaudia[/mention] , but, assuming she feels like me, we wouldn't put these type of things up if we weren't prepared to engage with other members of EB about them.

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What struck me about both poems is for me, they speak really loudly to the experience of feeling at times alienated from a belief system which at other times has helped you understand the world. and made you who you are. The cost of speaking what others see as heresy while simulatnaeously trying to hold beliefs free from damage and hold them authentically.

 

Yes, I think you've put words to some of my experience very well there (possibly better than I could have, honestly).


I do see the value of the place of dialectic tension. It is incredibly costly. I think, for me, EB has been part of what has helped me do that, actually; because it gave me a place that balanced other places in which I had to show up and be present.


I could post that poem here, I would have to think hard before reading it from the pulpit, for example.

[mention]Heretically[/mention] , your words quoted above are spot on - thank you.

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every word of it is true - Mary absolutely would have experienced that - like every female before her, and after, who has given birth. Truth alone should be enough for the piece to stand on its merits. It should be able to be recited from every pulpit - because its true. But truth isn't enough sometimes is it, when the meaning behind it is so dangerous.

 

The pulpit is not just about truth. It should be a place of truth; truth so raw, sometimes, that it is sacred in what it dares speak, and what it affirms. (And I use sacred there in the deepest sense of what goes to the heart of who we are).


But... the pulpit is a place of enormous potential to harm. My first and primary responsibility, in stepping into that place, is not to speak in a way which harms anyone who hears what I say. When I say I would need to think hard, I mean I would need to consider the history, the hearts and the needs of the people I know would hear it (and the people who might hear it, and the parts of their stories that I don't know). And I would need to be sure that my reading it, and what I said around it, and the context in which it was said, did no harm to them. And that is something that it would be difficult to be confident about.


Other contexts - small groups, perhaps, with more chance for discussion and debrief - I would have less concern. But there's a time and a place, and finding the right one is part of the art of ministry.

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What struck me about both poems is for me, they speak really loudly to the experience of feeling at times alienated from a belief system which at other times has helped you understand the world. and made you who you are. The cost of speaking what others see as heresy while simulatnaeously trying to hold beliefs free from damage and hold them authentically.

 

Yes, I think you've put words to some of my experience very well there (possibly better than I could have, honestly).


I do see the value of the place of dialectic tension. It is incredibly costly. I think, for me, EB has been part of what has helped me do that, actually; because it gave me a place that balanced other places in which I had to show up and be present.


I could post that poem here, I would have to think hard before reading it from the pulpit, for example.

 

Do your mob do anything for the Annunciation? That'd be the appropriate time. Just be a :ninja:

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I am not a person of faith, but I can certainly see there is space inside religion for women to hold a certain type of power, both spiritual and temporal. Thinking especially of nuns from earlier ages, who were able to find learning and freedom and independence through the religious life. Some fascinating women through the centuries have found their voice and space through religion.

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Lucrezia Borgia

every word of it is true - Mary absolutely would have experienced that - like every female before her, and after, who has given birth. Truth alone should be enough for the piece to stand on its merits. It should be able to be recited from every pulpit - because its true. But truth isn't enough sometimes is it, when the meaning behind it is so dangerous.

 

The pulpit is not just about truth. It should be a place of truth; truth so raw, sometimes, that it is sacred in what it dares speak, and what it affirms. (And I use sacred there in the deepest sense of what goes to the heart of who we are).


But... the pulpit is a place of enormous potential to harm. My first and primary responsibility, in stepping into that place, is not to speak in a way which harms anyone who hears what I say. When I say I would need to think hard, I mean I would need to consider the history, the hearts and the needs of the people I know would hear it (and the people who might hear it, and the parts of their stories that I don't know). And I would need to be sure that my reading it, and what I said around it, and the context in which it was said, did no harm to them. And that is something that it would be difficult to be confident about.


Other contexts - small groups, perhaps, with more chance for discussion and debrief - I would have less concern. But there's a time and a place, and finding the right one is part of the art of ministry.

 

it’s interesting you mention “harm” - it’s a word used a lot lately, but it can be sometimes hard to pin point what actually constitutes harm, and when it should be used to censor speech - even if that speech is true.


Waleed Aly wrote a brilliant piece in the Monthly touching on this topic. i won’t link it because it also delves into topic which is forbidden on here - but he makes the point - what kind, and what extent of harm, justifies not speaking the truth? if a handful of parishioners felt uncomfortable or anxious listening to your words, while others felt empowered, would that be enough to justify censoring any further sermon on the topic? from his article -


“This makes “harm” an enormously promiscuous concept. Rendered this broad and decisive, just about anyone can deploy it to censure (and censor) just about anything. Imagine the possibilities. If criticising the Anzacs is harmful – to their memories, to their families, to the soul of the nation – perhaps those doing so deserve to be silenced. Plenty of people say religion is harmful. Should we move to ban or no-platform it? Plenty of others say godlessness is harmful. Do we fight that, too? In the absence of some kind of threshold for these assertions of harm, that requires accusers to argue that the harm in question is serious enough to trump other considerations, there is no way to resist any of these claims that doesn’t boil down to one’s own ideological conviction. If every ideology tried to adopt this, the only possible outcome would be everyone trying to censor everyone else. It is precisely the same style of argument that wants to censor songs, books and haircuts because they will “corrupt our youth”. The ends are different because woke politics wants to remake social norms rather than preserve them, but the approach is the same. They are really only a semitone apart: highly discordant next-door neighbours. “

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Yes. It reminds me of Everest. All these people are told they can do anything and of course they can climb Everest. But Everest is tough and you can die quite easily while climbing. 11 people died in 2019. They think people can rescue them, but they can't. It's so hard to breathe at the summit you can't do stuff like carry someone. So they just lie there beside the trail, dead and frozen, because they believed if some people can do it, anyone can.

In the coming world, it may well be abelist and offensive to say someone can't climb, or can't go any higher. The harm of stating the fact will out do the harm of actually trying and dying. I believe Nepal is thinking of implementing tough health based rules so that corpses won't litter the mountain so much.

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There was some religious discussion when I studies Women's Studies at Uni. I remember a very interesting lecture on the idea of virgin birth, and the way that idea as a central tenet of Christianity (and in various other areas) perpetuated misogyny through the ages. I wish I could remember where my notes from that subject were, I wouldn't mind looking back at them. I remember thinking that the historical Mary, assuming she existed, must have had a very hard life.

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it’s interesting you mention “harm” - it’s a word used a lot lately, but it can be sometimes hard to pin point what actually constitutes harm, and when it should be used to censor speech - even if that speech is true.


Waleed Aly wrote a brilliant piece in the Monthly touching on this topic. i won’t link it because it also delves into topic which is forbidden on here - but he makes the point - what kind, and what extent of harm, justifies not speaking the truth? if a handful of parishioners felt uncomfortable or anxious listening to your words, while others felt empowered, would that be enough to justify censoring any further sermon on the topic? from his article -


“This makes “harm” an enormously promiscuous concept. Rendered this broad and decisive, just about anyone can deploy it to censure (and censor) just about anything. Imagine the possibilities. If criticising the Anzacs is harmful – to their memories, to their families, to the soul of the nation – perhaps those doing so deserve to be silenced. Plenty of people say religion is harmful. Should we move to ban or no-platform it? Plenty of others say godlessness is harmful. Do we fight that, too? In the absence of some kind of threshold for these assertions of harm, that requires accusers to argue that the harm in question is serious enough to trump other considerations, there is no way to resist any of these claims that doesn’t boil down to one’s own ideological conviction. If every ideology tried to adopt this, the only possible outcome would be everyone trying to censor everyone else. It is precisely the same style of argument that wants to censor songs, books and haircuts because they will “corrupt our youth”. The ends are different because woke politics wants to remake social norms rather than preserve them, but the approach is the same. They are really only a semitone apart: highly discordant next-door neighbours. “

 

I think there are a couple of points of difference there with what I'm talking about.


First, I'm talking about making my own judgement call and exercising restraint in what I say (and the context in which I say it), rather than being censored or censured by anyone else.


Second, as I sort of noted, I am speaking (from the pulpit) across a very, very steep power gradient. We are not, there, talking about "speech" in the general sense, but speech delivered (and heard as being delivered) with a level of authority.


(An aside: when I was going through the final interview process before being ordained, one of the questions I was asked was, What difference would it make for me to be ordained? Part of my answer was that with ordination - the title, the collar, all the baggage that goes with that - came immediately a great deal of power, and power to do harm. Something that could be heard as not holding much weight if I were a lay person, would automatically pack more punch if it has the freight of the whole religious institution, and the sincere faith that supports it, behind it. I am acutely aware of that potential to harm, in all that I do, and it shapes my understanding of what I do and how I do it to a very profound degree).


Third, in other areas of discourse, (the law courts come to mind as an example) "harm" might not be the governing concern. But in ministry, it is at least never absent as a concern. At my ordination as a priest, I was told: "Remember that you will be called to give account before Jesus Christ: if it should come about that the Church, or any of its members, is hurt or hindered as a result of your negligence, you know the greatness of the fault and the judgement that will follow." I believe that. I believe that I will be answerable for every harm I inflict. And I have spent far too much time sitting with people who have been hurt or hindered due to the negligence, the carelessness, the thoughtlessness, or the casual cruelty, of too many of my colleagues, to take that lightly as potential collateral damage of "the truth."


It is true that it can be hard to pinpoint exactly what constitutes harm (and I do not consider either discomfort or anxiety to be necessarily the same thing automatically; there's a place for discomfort; Jesus certainly wasn't always a ball of warm fuzzies!), and even harder to predict what will be harmful. There may be contexts in which one can be relatively careless about that. The pulpit is not one of them, though; and though I may sometimes get it wrong, I make no apologies for making every effort to get it right.

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It has! There has been nothing worse for women than the idea that virginity is desirable and that your privates are 'special'.

 

It's moved well beyond Christianity or even religion more broadly. I couldn't agree more - it's absolutely been the worst thing for women. Not to mention the society that made a young girl think saying she was pregnant and a virgin in the first place was a good plan, let alone all those who have believed it in a literal sense since.

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Lucrezia Borgia
it’s interesting you mention “harm” - it’s a word used a lot lately, but it can be sometimes hard to pin point what actually constitutes harm, and when it should be used to censor speech - even if that speech is true.


Waleed Aly wrote a brilliant piece in the Monthly touching on this topic. i won’t link it because it also delves into topic which is forbidden on here - but he makes the point - what kind, and what extent of harm, justifies not speaking the truth? if a handful of parishioners felt uncomfortable or anxious listening to your words, while others felt empowered, would that be enough to justify censoring any further sermon on the topic? from his article -


“This makes “harm” an enormously promiscuous concept. Rendered this broad and decisive, just about anyone can deploy it to censure (and censor) just about anything. Imagine the possibilities. If criticising the Anzacs is harmful – to their memories, to their families, to the soul of the nation – perhaps those doing so deserve to be silenced. Plenty of people say religion is harmful. Should we move to ban or no-platform it? Plenty of others say godlessness is harmful. Do we fight that, too? In the absence of some kind of threshold for these assertions of harm, that requires accusers to argue that the harm in question is serious enough to trump other considerations, there is no way to resist any of these claims that doesn’t boil down to one’s own ideological conviction. If every ideology tried to adopt this, the only possible outcome would be everyone trying to censor everyone else. It is precisely the same style of argument that wants to censor songs, books and haircuts because they will “corrupt our youth”. The ends are different because woke politics wants to remake social norms rather than preserve them, but the approach is the same. They are really only a semitone apart: highly discordant next-door neighbours. “

 

I think there are a couple of points of difference there with what I'm talking about.


First, I'm talking about making my own judgement call and exercising restraint in what I say (and the context in which I say it), rather than being censored or censured by anyone else.


Second, as I sort of noted, I am speaking (from the pulpit) across a very, very steep power gradient. We are not, there, talking about "speech" in the general sense, but speech delivered (and heard as being delivered) with a level of authority.


(An aside: when I was going through the final interview process before being ordained, one of the questions I was asked was, What difference would it make for me to be ordained? Part of my answer was that with ordination - the title, the collar, all the baggage that goes with that - came immediately a great deal of power, and power to do harm. Something that could be heard as not holding much weight if I were a lay person, would automatically pack more punch if it has the freight of the whole religious institution, and the sincere faith that supports it, behind it. I am acutely aware of that potential to harm, in all that I do, and it shapes my understanding of what I do and how I do it to a very profound degree).


Third, in other areas of discourse, (the law courts come to mind as an example) "harm" might not be the governing concern. But in ministry, it is at least never absent as a concern. At my ordination as a priest, I was told: "Remember that you will be called to give account before Jesus Christ: if it should come about that the Church, or any of its members, is hurt or hindered as a result of your negligence, you know the greatness of the fault and the judgement that will follow." I believe that. I believe that I will be answerable for every harm I inflict. And I have spent far too much time sitting with people who have been hurt or hindered due to the negligence, the carelessness, the thoughtlessness, or the casual cruelty, of too many of my colleagues, to take that lightly as potential collateral damage of "the truth."


It is true that it can be hard to pinpoint exactly what constitutes harm (and I do not consider either discomfort or anxiety to be necessarily the same thing automatically; there's a place for discomfort; Jesus certainly wasn't always a ball of warm fuzzies!), and even harder to predict what will be harmful. There may be contexts in which one can be relatively careless about that. The pulpit is not one of them, though; and though I may sometimes get it wrong, I make no apologies for making every effort to get it right.

 

that's true - definitely with your point on Jesus "My house will be called a house of prayer.’ But you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’ ”… - he didn't shy away from speaking truth to power.


"when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say."

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[mention]Lucrezia Borgia[/mention]

That piece Waleed wrote is very on point.



Meanwhile to add a different perspective, I was taught in hard core Catholic household by mum, and I believe it is General Catholic belief that isn't taught anymore....Catholics don't believe Mary suffered any [shadow=blue]physical[/shadow] pain in her life because she is the only person on earth apart from Christ who was born without sin. So no women's troubles and any cuts or scratches. She is the epitome of Grace.

Which is why she was taken body and soul into heaven. Her body was not left here to rot.


It's a Catholic thing not a Christian thing. It is one of the parts that makes protestantism different and caused breakaways because of the adulation of Mary.


We women suffer because we're daughters of Eve and we're born with sin. We suck for eternity. 🙄

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I've certainly heard Catholics say that Mary experienced no pain in giving birth, although I've seen Catholics debate it, too. And yes, I remember when I was a teenager and having horrendous periods my mum telling me, "Well, blame Eve! She's the one who got us into this mess." (Mum's a lapsed Catholic, but obviously some things stuck....)

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I've certainly heard Catholics say that Mary experienced no pain in giving birth, although I've seen Catholics debate it, too. And yes, I remember when I was a teenager and having horrendous periods my mum telling me, "Well, blame Eve! She's the one who got us into this mess." (Mum's a lapsed Catholic, but obviously some things stuck....)

 

No pleasure getting pregnant and no pain during birth. The perfect woman.


The Eve story is clear sexism. God is the one who got us into this mess. God made the stupid tree, God created the stupid rule and God allowed the snake into the garden. He created free will and he allowed for temptation and he set a trap to test both.

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The Eve story is clear sexism. God is the one who got us into this mess. God made the stupid tree, God created the stupid rule and God allowed the snake into the garden. He created free will and he allowed for temptation and he set a trap to test both.

 

Which is all true, even within the terms of the narrative. Which makes a simplistic use of the text very problematic indeed...

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I am not a person of faith, but I can certainly see there is space inside religion for women to hold a certain type of power, both spiritual and temporal. Thinking especially of nuns from earlier ages, who were able to find learning and freedom and independence through the religious life. Some fascinating women through the centuries have found their voice and space through religion.

What a lovely -and innocent - viewpoint.


While entering the sisterhood on paper looks like a certain flavour of freedom, it was, throughout history, an enclave still very much controlled by men and money. Only women of privelege could buy a berth, and they were at the whims of priests and princes in their "freedoms" and independence.


Not to denounce the whole - some fascinating women did indeed find an ability to find voice and space - but it wasn't a given.


I am an ever-diminishing Christian and it is religious systems that make the ever-diminishing part get lesser (? greater? more-pronounced?) each day, it seems.


I love the poem, but I think it (and a lot of the discussion here) reminds me very much that what we say, what we are allowed to say and how we say it is always in a certain historical context, we always bring with it our own upbringing, our reactions to that and who we personally want to be in the society we are saying it and how shitty our day has been.


There will always be whataboutary - we just don't always realise that we too are what abouting - and from which hill it is being shouted.


We are lucky that we are allowed to say and discuss these things without severe threats hanging over our heads as there are in some religious (and/or vehemently anti-religious) societies.


We are unlucky that by speaking our minds on occasion will ostracise us and set us apart from those that we wish to belong with.


Strip away the "feminist" tag and it is still a woman lamenting cracked nipples - how truly impolite to an earlier generation; a story about a teenager which will always bring a frown to the establishment; a focus on the disempowered - and omg, I got to be in a room beside foxtel blaring yesterday and I have heard how they get blasted by pompous gits full of self-importance.


I have no point - all observation.

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