A review by savaging
Womanspirit Rising: A Feminist Reader in Religion by Carol P. Christ, Judith Plaskow
2.0
"Maybe the most authentic celebration begins with rejoicing in that which is breaking up from down under." - Nelle Morton
There were good moments in this book: Mary Daly's fierce rejection of patriarchy in religion as idolatry; Judith Plaskow retooling the creation myth with sisterhood solidarity ("And God and Adam were expectant and afraid the day Eve and Lilith returned to the garden, bursting with possibilities, ready to rebuild it together."); Starhawk just being Starhawk.
But many of the essays addressed questions far more pressing to white academics in the 70s than they are to me. And here's the thing about compiling an anthology of feminist theology (or rather theAlogy) where all of the writers are white: not only is it unethical and unjust to marginalize the voices of people of color; it is also boring. Let's face it, fellow white feminists: all of the most interesting and powerful theological ideas are coming from people of color, from womanism to liberation theology. It's nice that white folks have witches and Jung -- but otherwise it feels like oppressors get the theology they deserve: dusty, brittle, inauthentic and dull.
The essay that broke out of this for me was Sheila Collins' "Theology in the Politics of Appalachian Women." From the title I was thinking "even when they're going to talk about poor people they hunt down white poor people." While this is true, Collins is aware that the future of religious authenticity is in the struggle against oppression, especially in the work done by black and Latino communities. Her prose sings as she calls religious women, who "have been used to mop up the wounds created by the cruelties of industrial capitalism," to hold to a religious worldview that centers their own stories:
"Such knowledge is powerful. We begin to identify not with the privileged, whom we have always been taught to emulate, but with the common people of the earth. It was such identification Jesus talked about in his Sermon on the Mount. A colonialist church has never been able to understand how the first could be last and the meek inherit the earth. Such knowledge is the beginning of Wisdom, who is personified in the Old Testament as a woman, wild and unladylike, shouting aloud in the streets for bread and justice because no one in the synagogues, the courts or the legislature would listen."
There were good moments in this book: Mary Daly's fierce rejection of patriarchy in religion as idolatry; Judith Plaskow retooling the creation myth with sisterhood solidarity ("And God and Adam were expectant and afraid the day Eve and Lilith returned to the garden, bursting with possibilities, ready to rebuild it together."); Starhawk just being Starhawk.
But many of the essays addressed questions far more pressing to white academics in the 70s than they are to me. And here's the thing about compiling an anthology of feminist theology (or rather theAlogy) where all of the writers are white: not only is it unethical and unjust to marginalize the voices of people of color; it is also boring. Let's face it, fellow white feminists: all of the most interesting and powerful theological ideas are coming from people of color, from womanism to liberation theology. It's nice that white folks have witches and Jung -- but otherwise it feels like oppressors get the theology they deserve: dusty, brittle, inauthentic and dull.
The essay that broke out of this for me was Sheila Collins' "Theology in the Politics of Appalachian Women." From the title I was thinking "even when they're going to talk about poor people they hunt down white poor people." While this is true, Collins is aware that the future of religious authenticity is in the struggle against oppression, especially in the work done by black and Latino communities. Her prose sings as she calls religious women, who "have been used to mop up the wounds created by the cruelties of industrial capitalism," to hold to a religious worldview that centers their own stories:
"Such knowledge is powerful. We begin to identify not with the privileged, whom we have always been taught to emulate, but with the common people of the earth. It was such identification Jesus talked about in his Sermon on the Mount. A colonialist church has never been able to understand how the first could be last and the meek inherit the earth. Such knowledge is the beginning of Wisdom, who is personified in the Old Testament as a woman, wild and unladylike, shouting aloud in the streets for bread and justice because no one in the synagogues, the courts or the legislature would listen."