Feminist Religious Leadership: The New Agenda

Feminist Relig= ious Leadership: The New Agenda

Voices of Soph= ia

San Jose, California
June 24, 2008

Mary E. Hunt

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Good morning. Welcome to the after party for those who were at the Midnight Meditation and Post Modern Prayer group of That All May Freely Serve. Thanks to Sylvia Thornston-Smith for inviting me. Thank you, Lisa Larges, for your delightful introduction. It is obvious that in you, Lisa, That All May Freely Serve fi= nds the leadership it needs and deserves. You summed up the conviction of many = of us when you wrote: “…out of gratitude, love and hope for the church, I am compelled by my conscience and charged by my faith to firmly, clearly, and in every way declare that the provisions at G-6.0106b are a mar upon the church and a stumbling block to its mission.” Lisa, why don’t you tell us how you really feel!

It is because of you, Lisa, and your sisters and brothers in st= ruggle that the Presbyterian community, not yet the Presbyterian Church as a whole, but the Presbyterian community, can claim its place in the Jesus movement as well as in multi-religious coalitions for justice. Such moral clarity is no longer a luxury but a necessity in a world where wars rage; racism, sexism,= and heterosexism are played out against one another; poverty strangles; and eco= cide reigns. You are all Voices of Sophia. Let the needs of the world, not the failings of the church, set the agenda.

I am delighted to be with all of you here at the Gener= al Assembly. As a Catholic, I am always impressed by the fact that Presbyteria= ns (and Methodists and Disciples, Unitarian Universalists and others) meet at = all, regardless of some of the dubious results. A Catholic General Assembly is w= hen the Pope dines alone. So count your blessings!

When I come to these events, it seems that I am always with the people on the margins whether they be women, LGBTQ folks (More Lig= ht, TAMFS, etc.), people of color, differently abled people, or others whose fu= ll citizenship in community is under question. Of course I wish it were otherw= ise, not so much because I think the center is so interesting. In fact, in my experience the best and brightest people are usually found on the margins. = We who do not fit the norm—a norm that has been racist, sexist, heterosexist= , abelist, colonialist, and classist—have had to develop coping strategies that = add a layer of insight and wisdom on top of what it takes to navigate in the big meeting, to succeed according to inadequate norms.

I always feel a little like Mark Twain, who said, “Those that respect the law and love sausage should watch neither bei= ng made.” Likewise, those who believe in the Gospel and love the church = might well avoid the business of most churches close up! But then we would be complicit in our silence and guilty of shirking our responsibility to shape= the People of God as Sophia Wisdom intended us to be. We simply have to be care= ful not to confuse the People of God with institutional churches.

Just for= a moment—in honor of our roots in the Re-Imagining movement begun in the 1980s—Re-imagine with me what it would be like if we did not have to worry about women’s issues or LGBTQ inclusion, if we did not have to concern ourselves with keeping abortion legal with a Supreme Court totterin= g on the edge, if we did not have to worry whether young and poor women would ha= ve access to emergency contraception, if we did not have to think about older women’s financial well-being or the needs of immigrant women and chil= dren. Think where we could put our energies if we did not have to struggle for LG= BTQ children to be brought up in a faith community that respects their bodies a= nd encourages their love. What if we could take for granted that our clergy and religious leaders come from a variety of sexualities and life choices which shape a richly diverse church? What if we were in the vanguard instead of the rearg= uard in celebrating same-sex loving relationships? We could be putting our considerable talents and energy to ending war, improving the quality of human community,= creating economic justice, and improving the environment.

Of cours= e we are already doing that and will continue to do so because we now understand the deeply interwoven connections among various forms of oppression. But the continued sexism and heterosexism usurp our creative energies for change. O= ne would reasonably have expected that justice for women and queer people would have= arrived long ago in circles that claim love and justice as their norms. But even as= we celebrate our progress on eradicating sexism and heterosexism, let us admit= that we have a long way to go, as Hillary Clinton found out the hard way, as LGB= TQ Presbyterians live every day. I urge us to pledge to one another today, Sop= hia God as our witness, that our children will never experience these forms of discrimination as long as we have breath in our bodies to change them.

Let me look specifically at what Christian women, especially mainline Protestant women, have contributed to the world and the church in the last four decades. I will conclude with a glimpse of where we= are going as Christian feminists.

As women= have moved into church leadership in significant numbers beginning in the 1970s,= and now in some denominations making up half or even more of those in theologic= al schools, we can affirm that women have improved the qua= lity of ministry markedly. How do I measure this? I measure it by the brilliant ser= mons women preach, by the learned courses we offer, by the skillful pastoral cou= nseling in which we engage, by the meaningful liturgies we create, by the justice w= ork we ignite with our passions, none of which would exist if women were not ta= ken seriously as religious and moral agents.

Feminist theologians have raised the level of theological discourse. We have explored the scriptures again and again, rewritten church history to reflect the contributions of t= he invisible, marginalized people. We can no longer be lied to about our herit= age. We have offered new meanings for the divine. Sophia herself got a boost from the writings of her sisters such as Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza and Elizabeth Johnson.

Feminist ethicists have br= oadened the scope of caring through insistence on a multi-faceted ethical agenda th= anks to early leadership from Beverly Wildung Harrison and Delores Williams. We = know that we care not because we are women with some super-sensitive glands, but because children, those who are ill or poor, and elderly people need care. = Care begins with the needs of the needy, not with the gender of those who respon= d to them. This is feminist justice-seeking ethics.

I say without fear of contradictions that feminist contributions to the field of religious studies have reshaped the religious landscape itself. Sophia be praised! No longer = is every prison chaplain a man, nor every pastor of a tall, steeply church whi= te. No longer is every hymn addressed to “a mighty fortress” and ev= ery prayer to “Father, Lord, Ruler, King.” But there is still a considerable way to go to claim our faith as an inclusive, welcoming one, beginning with a renewed public commitment to eradicate racism, especially during this election cycle.

The backlash against our g= ains is the stuff of legend. Voices of Sophia began as an answer to backlash aga= inst the Re-Imagining Conference. To this very day there are those who work acti= vely to put us out of commission. They do so by claiming, like false prophets of old, that we are no longer necessary, that women’s work is done. In a self-fulfilling prophecy, they make sure there is not enough money to fund = what they would persuade us is a luxury. They continue to call our efforts heret= ical and divisive. They are powerful forces and it is hard to overcome them.

This same story has been t= old countless times in the past ten years as one after another women’s religious gr= oup has gone out of existence. I think fondly of re-Imagining, Re-Imagining, the Center for Women in Religion in Berkeley, = or the Immaculate Heart College Center in Los Angeles, to name just three. Our organizations—Voices of Sophia, the Women’s Alliance for Theolo= gy, Ethics and Ritual (WATER), Women-Church Convergence—emerged out of 20= ^th century feminist insights into the exclusion of women and women’s experiences from religious and academic theological tables. We lobbied in e= very way we knew for equality. We built our own tables. Much work remains to be = done, but in the 21^st century we do it differently. Why? Because the V= oice of Sophia is still speaking, and it speaks in many tongues.

In the 21^st century, the needs of the world and the demands of the churches continue to= have a moral claim on our energies. Our women ancestors were in the missionary societies, convents, wo= men’s circles, and church schools. They were preachers and movers and shakers long before anyone ordained them. While their goals and possibilities were different, I suspect that underneath it all they, too, got together because they realized, however nascently, the glorious pleasures of working with wo= men to do justice. They, too, heard the Voice of Sophia calling them to “= make all things new” (Rev. 21:5). &n= bsp; They needed to express their faith on their own terms. We bow to the= m as we become them.

Progressive Christian women’s groups are all in transition. In my view this is a combination of backlash and success. On the one hand, it is wearing to defend constantly one’s space. It saps cre= ativity and obscures vision. On the other hand, the strength and wisdom gained from staking a claim on women’s well-being is what is required to take on = war, racism, heterosexism, greed, and ecocide. Practice makes perfect and we are nothing if not practiced. So let feminists/womanists lead the way in our communities.

The 21^st century presents a new set of challenges. We need to learn how to be Christian in a multi-religious world; we need to ask why stay in denominations that persis= t in discriminating when good alternatives are available; we need to figure out = what to do about the growing conservative power in both religions and nations. We have learned a lot in shared struggles that will stand us in good stead as = we embrace the new agenda. Let the needs of the world, not the failings of the churches, set our direction. Let me share one example of what I mean.
&= nbsp; I just spent a week in Washington, DC, with 35 women from many countries in what we hope will be an annual Summer Forum sponsored by WATER and Feminist Studies in Religion, Inc. The group w= as Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim, and Christian. About half of the women were of co= lor. They came from India a= nd Botswana, = Finland and Belgium, Spain and = Germany, Hong Kong and Korea, a= s well as the United States= . There were lesbians aplenty and heterosexual women alike. We lived and work= ed in the Gothic splendor of Cathedral College, attempting= to create a radically democratic space of possibilities where seasoned scholars (Kwok Pui-lan, Judith Plaskow, Deborah Whitehead, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, and I) acted as resource people, working in groups with doctoral students and junior faculty, living the new reality on which we now reflect= .

Our focus was on “Feminist Theologies: Heritage = and Future.” It used to be that a mixed group was Catholics and Protestan= ts, whites and blacks, lesbians and heterosexual women. But now we come from a range of religious traditions; we are richly diverse in our racial/ethnic makeup; sexualities abound in their variety and even how we became women can range from birth to surgery and some options in between. In this first Summ= er Forum we looked not at resurrection and hermeneutics, not at exegesis and hymnody, though those are all important, but at economics, globalization, health care, fundamentalism, and immigration. We pooled our interdisciplina= ry and interreligious resources to come up with strategies that will make a re= al difference where most people live. That is the work of feminists of faith.<= o:p>

The last night of our gathering featured a margarita p= arty according to the tastes of our younger colleagues. In a talent show one wom= an did a bit from “Vagina Monologues,” while another read her poem= on sexual assault. We at WATER offered a rendition of “Take Me Out to the Pope’s Mass.” A Jewish woman and a Muslim woman who had been roommates got up and sang together “You say shalom, I say salam; you keep kosher and I keep hal= al.” Older European-rooted feminist theologians danced with hip young Asian women. A woman in a wheelchair clea= rly enjoyed herself as much as anyone else. A nun in a veil and a Muslim woman = with a head scarf did not stand our as all of us sported homemade party hats for= the occasion. Girls just gotta have fun, even if they are theologians and schol= ars. The strains of “YMCA” and “Dancing Queen” echoed off the walls of the usually staid Cathedral College with a nois= e so joyful and speakers so good that a Cathedral security officer arrived to announce there had been a neighborhood noise complaint. Imagine how proud we were underneath our polite apologies! It was clear that the world of women = and religion has changed forever.

So, I reiterate that the n= eeds of the world and not the failing of the church set our agenda. Our groups must be multireligious, multiracial, international, transgenerational, and multi-issue if we are to= do that work effectively. This does not mean that we abandon the tradition-spe= cific and denomination-specific groups like VOS and Women-Church Convergence. To = the contrary, we continue to need to know our own intimate groups with whom the jokes are obvious and the assumptions clear. But the needs of women and dep= endent children around the world require our strong coalitions for justice. It is in those groups that Sophia s= peaks with a clear voice in many languages, including silence. =

Our agenda for the 21^st century, in deep continuity with the work we have done in the 20^th century, follo= ws the scriptural injunction from Micah 6:8 “to do justice, to love kind= ness/mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” By week’s end here in San Jose this pas= sage, which conveys the theme of the General Assembly, will seem trite and overwr= ought. But let us embrace it in specific this morning at a time when Voices of Sop= hia is in dynamic flux.

Here is my glimpse of where we are going:

1.&n= bsp; However we get there, it will be in coalition—as diverse and multiple as we c= an manage, always erring on the side of inclusion even if we are not sure what= the addition, for example, of trans women, will mean. That is how we do justice= .

2.&n= bsp; We are moving to the same justice-hearted beat that our ancestors heard, but in our time we need to take account of our privilege, do a rigorous audit and prioritizing of our struggles, and render an honest accounting of our abund= ant resources as we go about the divine task of transforming the world. This is= how we love kindness, for to do less would be to act without mercy.<= /span>

3.&n= bsp; As Sophia continues to speak, let us amplify her voice with music and dancing, with a clarion call to create a world in which our children’s children’s children will live in justice unimaginable today and unattainable without our best efforts. This is our humble walk because it i= s a challenge that we will meet only partially, handing on to those who follow = us a legacy of our best efforts. No one can do it all, but “together we ar= e a genius,” as the women of the Grail movement say.

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<= span style=3D'mso-tab-count:1'> &= nbsp; I have every confidence that Voices of Sophia, as you renew yourselves and reshape your organization, will do so in concert with women around the world whose children will delight to dance and sing with our own.

<= span style=3D'mso-tab-count:1'> &= nbsp; Let it be so, amen, blessed be!