I was raised Catholic and attended Catholic grade school. In the upper grade religion classes we systematically went through the Bible identifying, analyzing, and categorizing the writings into what could be attributed directly to God, Jesus or man. The first to go were any writings that contradicted each other, turns out most of the Bible is one large contradiction. I also began to notice that women were relegated to “other”, be it wife, daughter, sister, or whore. - Chattel - I saw a book composed of mainly man made stories that praised men and degraded women.
That exercise coupled with the growing feminist movement of the time opened my eyes. A male dominated society had warped our world view and relegated women to second class citizenship. I asked, if the Bible is the absolute word of God, why has it been revised so often? Not only did I leave the church, it left me.
I still struggle with it yet find myself moving closing to Deism. In Deism, no one is excluded.
Excellent column! Thanks for identifying the woman who persisted.
‘The Red Tent’ by Anita Diamant is thought provoking read that explores the male - female dynamic through the eyes of a women in the Bible.
4
A simplistic treatment of the picture of women in the Bible. Start with Proverbs 31 where it praises a perfect wife by saying “she considers a field and buys it.” She didn’t buy it because someone told her to—she did so having considered it. Then, consider that in this broken world of ours, the great proponents of libert for women and minorities have come from biblically based cultures. At least the Times is consistent—celebrate The holiest day in Christendom with a hit piece. Can’t wait till Ramadan.
2
Two MALE columnists (Kristoff and Douthat) discuss female roles in religion. Nice. How about equal numbers of FEMALE columnists??????????????
7
I grew up in a religion where one of the most powerful deities was a goddess who vanquished evil demons herself wile riding a lion. Interestingly, the priest was always a man. However, there were folk rituals that were led and performed by women, widows were not allowed. Women had to stay behind during their periods, even though the fertility of the goddess was always venerated, in fact there is a holy site dedicated to her yoni, where natural hot springs that spew colored waters are seen as her periods. The weird intersection of patriarchy with goddess worship always perplexed me. In Christianity, the madonna is venerated. The ability of women to create and nurture life in their bodies had been a mystery until recent memory, and mystery leads to fear. I think ultimately all religions ultimately function as powerful patriarchies, whose course is still being dominated by men, who are scared of women's power to speak for themselves, give birth, make their own choices, etc.
3
Religions are based upon beliefs from faith in unknowable divine powers, unlike the facts and cultural rules of people, religions offer truths which are absolutely true. That is what all true believers think about their religions. The enlightened attribute contradictory evidence to the always fallible understanding of people. Judaism, Christianity, Islam, indeed most religions do not see males and females as people who are mostly the same apart from those due to our bisexual reproductive systems. They all require reinterpretations of doctrines to accommodate that view of people.
As Jan Assmann has convincingly shown, in reality the link between the cult of deities/demons/djinns/... and the notion of "truth" was only established by the world's first monotheism, Judaism.
Monotheism means that only ONE god is a "true" god (the god of the people of Israel, in the case of Judaism).
As you can see in the Old Testament, certain passages still acknowledge the existence of other people's gods, but called them "inferior", with Israel's God as their boss (= a hierarchical system similar to for instance Greek polytheism), but soon that idea was replaced with the notion that there can be only one true god, and that's YHWH.
Christianity than took over that idea, and Islam did so too, centuries later.
From then on, a religious cult was no longer a ritual practice that people do as they come home or visit other places, in order to pay tribute to the local powers (natural and political - for most religions demons (good and bad) etc. aren't supernatural but an entire part of nature, they're just invisible, contrary to other "acting entities"). Now, a cult meant believing that "absolute truth" exists, and started to contain "dogmas", acts of faith that followers HAD to believe in as being such absolute truths.
Until today, however, all religions except the 3 monotheisms continue to NOT link religious cult and "absolute truth".
And Enlightenment thinkers often were and continued to be Christians, remember?
1
God has a gender because most, if not all, humans cannot grasp being loved by an it. Love is the main message, not the artificial gender assignment. The comments by atheists and agnostics remind me of recent comments in NYT about the review of the new Roseanne Barr show. 90% of them were “I do not like Roseanne Barr, did not watch the first run and will not watch this new version.” What do you care what she does? If you are not into religion,what do you care how a church picks its leaders? I am Catholic. I really do not care about the selection process of the Dalai Lama or whether the Japanese Emperor is the head of the Shinto religion. I at least share with those groups an idea of a transcendental existence for which I can aspire and be inspired. Atheists will have none of that belief. That is fine. Still I doubt Canadians appreciate comments on curling rules by Americans that never played. People of faith feel the same way.
5
I'd go with a Marxist analysts on this. Religion used to be favored by the rulers because it helped keep the masses in line. Under capitalism the threat of starvation is enough, and religion is discouraged because its notions of morality might check the ruler's power.
7
The Bible says that both men and women were made at the same time and in hirs image. God is both male and female, according to the Bible.
You seem to have forgotten the passage that says that Eve was born out of Adam's rib?
That means that Adam was created first, remember?
It also states that God created Eve so that Adam would be less alone and would have someone who'd help him. Which implies that he didn't create Adam so that Eve would be less alone ... .
That being said, curiously enough the Old Testament contains TWO stories about the creation of Adam and Eve, and one of them doesn't mention Adam's rib and can indeed be interpreted as simultaneous creation.
And that's certainly not the only contradiction you'll find in the Bible. In fact, in the 17th century already, Spinoza pointed out many of them, and then concluded that the only consistent message conveyed by the Holy Scripture, as a text, is that God wants people to cultivate "justice and charity".
And that in itself clearly implies rejecting any form of discrimination, including gender inequality.
As a life-long Catholic woman, it does not bother me that women cannot become priests. There are so many roles that the Church has allowed women to participate in today that were not permitted years ago. We can read from the altar, distribute the Eucharist, take up the collection and sing in the Church choir. We are kept pretty busy with these very important and worthy tasks. I do not feel we have been slighted one bit. This is not a politically correct thing to write but I must say how I personally feel.
Right at the moment I am watching EWTN, the Catholic channel, which has had excellent programming this Easter morning. I receive my Catholic information from this station which reaches over 270 million viewers around the world. This station has been influential not only in influencing Catholics to return to their faith but also converting many to the Catholic religion. The programming started out from a small garage and grew in influence. People were looking for quality programming and found it here.
The Catholic Church has 1.3 billion members who find it has meaning in their lives. It is the one constant that keeps on growing.
3
Similarly, you can read the Quran in a scientifically valid way, which includes taking original context into account in order to understand Allah's message (= taking the fact into account that language is "local" and "dated", in other words that god uses language that can be understood by the people he talked to, which means that in order to find the deep, eternal message behind his words, we have to take historical context into account).
Once you do, you cannot but notice that the prophet Muhammed's way of dealing with women was extraordinarily revolutionary, at the time, compared to local custom.
As for instance NY Imam Feisal explains in his book "What's right with Islam", "The Quran gave women marriage, divorce, and inheritance rights centuries before women in the West were granted such rights."
Karen Armstrong has pointed out how Muhammed's wives stood up to him and answered him back, whereas the prophet helped with household chores.
And then there's the fact that Khadijah, his first wife, was a wealthy, successful, single businesswoman.
Of course, if you take all these things out of context, it easy to see that women were worse off than today. But put into context, the real message is clearly that each generation has to work hard to end as many habits of inequality as possible.
Conclusion: yes, "Abrahamic ethic" (= the 3 monotheisms) clearly contains the seeds of "feminism".
So no, there's no "religious" excuse for continuing discrimination at all ... .
4
The problem with our attempts to understand mythic texts like the Bible is we imagine our 21st century selves – Jane or John Doe, replete with mobile phones, Netflix subscriptions, global news echoing, reverberating in our brains – transplanted to a different universe, that which we have “time-stamped” as “ancient history.”
Do you know the story of the flatlanders, two dimensional beings placed in a three dimensional world, forever doomed to misunderstand and misinterpret the 3-D world in which they were immersed? It is worse for us, having imbibed, from our earliest childhood, what Blake referred to as Newton’s “single vision,” barred from even a glimpse of that vast, multidimensional world which the ancient prophets attempted to evoke.
A vast, luminous, boundless knowing, seeing, feeling, swallowed up by craving, resentment, fear and sadness - from the Garden of Eden on, this is what they sought to convey, and like the prisoner in Plato’s cave, to inspire us to let go of our fear of the Light, the Power, the Love that surrounds us, in which we “live and move and have our Being.”
To paraphrase the Koran, “She” was a hidden treasure, and sought to be known. Perhaps the women will, indeed, finally find a way toward Blake’s two-fold seeing, and through their caring and compassionate ministry, take us beyond our fear toward a life in the Light that is “brighter than a thousand suns.”
www.remember-to-breathe.org
3
As the Sufis say, "Remember God with every breath."
2
I believe in God but am not religious and religions today who claim to speak for God don't seem much different than pagans of old for me.
But having more women in leadership roles and the typically more humane and caring perspective they usually bring is great. And I hope the same takes place in corporate America and politics.
Having said that, there are some Republican women who aren't much better than Republican men, unfortunately.
2
Perhaps religions reflect the cultures from which they arise as much as the inspired doctrines and representation of absolute truths. In the ancient and prehistoric Fertile Crescent region, the dominant divinity was the mother goddess and religious practices to which subsequent cultures that were based upon strictly male dominated traditions reacted. The Hebrew and Christian and Muslim religions all can be seen as rejecting the mother goddess centered religions and practices as evil.
But there is another motive for constraining the freedom of women, the need of the groups with which people identified to persist across generations, to assure ample children were born and raised over humans’ long childhoods. Birthing took many lives and child raising distracted caregivers from all other endeavors. These responsibilities were concentrated upon women in male dominated societies and accomplished by cultural means. It freed males to focus upon other social responsibilities.
In terms of spiritual concerns, women came to be objectified as being less capable of transcending worldly preoccupations as well as distracting males from spiritual pursuits. They lived as tied to the temporal world more than males because of child bearing and childrearing, thus tying their mates to the world by sex and basic needs and providing security for dependents. Prophets and holy men found enlightenment by leaving their dependents and going into the wilderness, alone.
2
I've never seen any reason - except for the perpetuation of patriarchy - to assign a human gender designation to the Divine. Most faiths don't regard God as embodied, so why and how could gender enter the imagery?
4
Religion is simply tribalism - our human need to belong. Religion is no different than the bowling club, Rotary, a sorrority, or volunteer group. Each group has rituals, ceremonies, and mythologies (hero stories).
The problem is that human nature is competitive. Every civilization was built on conquest, slavery, genocide, and replacing the old myths with new ones.
Religion simply reflects human nature. We will always be in conflict trying to impose our mythologies on others. It's pretty ugly, but unavoidble.
6
Religion is a tool, a path, sooner or later we have to transcend it.
1
That a woman religious leader must allow that, “there are always going to be things in your religion that make you uncomfortable,” is a sign of progress? Isn’t this ignoring the elephant in the room?
It seems to me this argument is based on a revealing flaw: the perspective common to nearly every religion that “we’re right, they’re wrong,” a point of view that demonstrates the pervasive subjectivity masquerading as eternal truth which pollutes nearly every religious creed.
Religions arising in male dominated societies have pretty consistently reflected that male domination. It’s impossible to “reform” those foundational perspectives without doing irreparable damage to the perspectives themselves. That leads inescapably to a questioning of the sources of the perspectives themselves. Many (maybe most) of these creeds claim to be divinely inspired. But what this misogynistic flaw exposes is the obvious reality that they are a reflection of a misogynistic human society and are not of divine origin.
You can’t have it both ways. Either the creator who handed down one of these purportedly inerrant scriptures is male and men are thus superior, or the scriptures themselves are human in origin and thus filled with human flaws which ought not to be taken literally.
3
Today is Easter which is the holiest time in the Christian calendar. Millions around the world will be attending Easter services with their families. There are comments written here that are very critical towards Christianity which is outrageous. This is showing disrespect for those of us who believe and still practice our faith. As a Catholic, I am offended especially on such an important holy day as today.
This behavior would not be directed towards other faiths such as Judaism or the Muslim faith. There would be a loud outcry if it occurred. Why is it accepted towards Christians? As practicing Christians, we must not accept this behavior and speak up when it occurs. I plan on doing so.
There are never articles written here about atheism which many readers profess to practice. Why not? It would be interesting to read an article about this and it would allow Christians a chance to respond in the way atheists do to our Christianity. We are patiently waiting.
1
In Hindu and Yoga traditions Divine Mother is very important and given many names. That is one of my favorite things about Hindus; they give a name and a face to every one of God's traits, good and bad.
Last week I sang at an old friend's funeral. The woman pastor who officiated told me later that she had never led a funeral where a man in a kilt sang Bob Dylan songs and got a chapel full of Mormons to sing along.
Bless the Women and Girls. And the men too.
1
"the men who claim to speak on behalf of God have routinely disparaged women or discriminated against them." This continues today with the Catholic church who doesn't allow women priests. No wonder most millennials have turned against religion.
4
Now, if only there could be gender parity in each and every legislature, courthouse, and executive body across America, be it on a local, state, or federal level! Amen.
1
Throughout history, cultures have created their own gods in their own images. For a lot of these cultures, the most powerful deity was female. Indo-European cultures were aggressive and chose a male war god. These cultures then declared that he chose them for his special subjects. Look where that has brought us--constant war fought with ever more deadly weapons, perpetual self-aggrandizement, subjugation of women and people of other cultures and races, extinction of many animal species, millennia of crimes small and large that believers forgive themselves for in the name of that god who looks just like them. What is it that we are celebrating again?
5
Jesus spoke of God as a Spirit. This , of course, implies no material or body, let alone sex. There is no place in the whole of the universe where some God lives as the Zeus of old.
I go with Jesus as far as the Spirit goes. All human hocus pocus is really silly if it was not so serious in causing so much horrible grief over the millennia. I wish that the forces that bring hydrogen and oxygen together to form water would also imprint the "Golden Rule" in the brain of all humans at birth.
2
There is certainly discrimination against women, however, citing only the biblical passages that call for the punishment of women who commit certain acts doesn't tell the whole story. The bible also restricts and calls for punishing (by death) acts by men: masturbation, homosexual sex, certain types of rape, not getting circumcised, etc. Focussing on how the bible restricts women makes it seem that all men take part in the discrimination of women. Rather, it is the powerful - (mostly men) - through their institutions - the church, corporate capitalism, to name only two - that proscribe behaviors in order to disempower the majority, men and women alike.
18
Religions are for not exactly smart people, so why should we care if any particular religion welcomes members of all sexes. Whoever doesn’t like the system, should form their own religion.
Don't you thing that being "smart" includes first studying an issue you want to comment on before commenting?
Most scientists winning a Nobel Prize were Christians. Most of the West's greatest philosophers have been and are Christians. Most artists were.
So as soon as you study religions a little bit, you cannot but conclude that there are obviously a lot of "very smart" people who at the same time are deeply religious.
The reason for this is that religions deal with questions where there's no scientific proof possible. God's existence cannot be proven to be true, for instance, but you also cannot prove that he doesn't exist. That means that each of us has to take a "leap of faith" and decide to believe, in the absence of any proven evidence, either that he exists or doesn't exist. There's nothing particularly "smart" or stupid about any of these choices. All depends on how and why you choose option A or B.
As to not liking a "system": for many people, the systems they've grown up in (democracy as a political system, a specific kind of education, healthcare, or religious system, etc.) have advantages and disadvantages, which is why changing them from within is the only viable option.
And if you know that Christianity is part of our culture today, you cannot separate yourself from its way of thinking simply by no longer practicing it. You have to study its philosophies before you can now how it's still determining who you are and how to get rid of it of what part...
1
Women should not have to "persist" simply to partake of what is, has been, and shall ever be rightfully theirs in equal measure.
I will continue to refuse support to any dogma that requires the subjugation of 51% of the human population.
May everyone enjoy the rebirth of the season.
3
One small correction to an otherwise thoughtful essay. The origin of the origin on the seder plate comes from Dr. Susannah Heschel, who read in an Oberlin student created Haggadah a story about a young girl who asks a Rebbe what room there is in Judaism for a lesbian. was told by an irate "There's as much room for a lesbian in Judaism as there is for a crust of bread on the seder plate." Placing bread on the seder plate was both inappropriate for Passover and inferred that lesbians were damaging to Judaism. Heschel placed an orange on her plate as a way of showing inclusion, saying that "I chose an orange because it suggests the fruitfulness for all Jews when lesbians and gay men are contributing and active members of Jewish life." (Jewish United Fund of Chicago)
5
Thanks so much Nicholas Kristof for this thought-provoking piece.
Many feminist writers and scholars including Erich Neumann, Joseph Campbell, Merlin Stone, Starhawk, Barbara Walker and others theorize that patriarchy was preceded by matriarchy and that matriarchy--including the notion that the divine is female--is reemerging. This may or may not be true but it certainly appears that patriarchal systems have led to catastrophic conditions and that people are demanding a more loving paradigm to arise. This shift moves towards a view of interconnectedness, an understanding that the individual is only a self in relation others and that therefore in order to survive, we need to not only each other but the planet we depend on.
5
Our insatiable need to assign a label to identify everything, including gender, gets in the way of the truth. One can't be spiritual and be dualistic, regardless of one's spiritual path. People struggle to understand what or who God is, but we can't through our own intellect. There are qualities that we can infer through consciousness, of which God is the Supreme Consciousness.
That said, women have been mostly woven into the background in the scriptures. But becoming a "Nazirite", one (male or female) becomes unto likeness of a high priest. The Pentateuch (Torah) explains in detail the process and it is believed some women such as Mary of Bethany, who was ordained by Jesus as the first Bishop at her anointing where upon she anointed the feet of Jesus.
1
Lesbians in the clergy is not the same as women in the clergy. Until women filling traditionally female roles, if they want to fill that role, can participate in The clergy there is no equality. Women dressed as men is not the same thing as women free to be women.
3
So enjoyed this Easter Gift today!I'm a boomer,and attended a Catholic school till eighth grade. As a third grader, I asked the nuns, why they had to stand when a priest walked in.While a fourth grader, I petitioned to be an Alter Girl.Guess I was lucky on many counts,that fight was unsuccessful.As a seventh grader,stunned to win the parish's award, Religious Youth of the Year. I wrote an essay on the culture of anti-semitism in the Catholic Church.I have very good memories of some incredibly wonderful nuns, great educators!But had to leave in HS.Just is not OK to treat women, the way the Catholic Church does.Everyone needs to stop with the Abortion fight. Let it be legal and safe. No woman is thrilled to get an abortion.I hope to live for another 30 years, and maybe I will rejoin some religion in the future, if they really do live the New Testament, and treat women as equals.Happy Easter!
60
The Episcopal Church welcomes you!
5
We can thank the Catholic Church for starting the campaign against abortion which has only grown to include all faiths. Abortion is a scourge against humanity and must be abolished. There have been close to 60 million lives lost to this evil and we must not forget this fact. We have made tremendous strides but are far from finished.
I and thousands around the world have just completed a 40 Days for Life campaign which was the most successful to date. We saw many women decide to have their babies due to our efforts. Contrary to what pro abortion folks say, we do not stop supporting them once these women give birth. We are there for the mothers and babies before, during and after birth. We assist in housing, employment, and job training if necessary. The Sisters for Life, a Catholic Order of nuns, are phenomenal in assisting these women. I was so impressed with their kindness and care that I intend to volunteer with these wonderful women. This is what the Catholic Church does. It helps those in need.
2
@WPLMMT
Stopping abortion is simple.
Get women birth control.
That was what Planned Parenthood was founded for.
Go look it up and see for yourself.
I was so relieved the day I woke up to find that my belief in God was completely gone.
It was such a relief because it removed the God factor from the senseless equation of human barbarism.
I no longer had to ask God unanswerable questions:
"Why did you allow the murder of these innocent people?"
"How could you let (fill in the blank) happen?"
And so on.
God is a convenient way for men (mostly) to explain away the barbaric behavior of other men (mostly), and to control less powerful people and groups.
God is a way to dupe and control the ignorant.
What a relief, to no longer believe in this invisible, powerless, uncaring construct that men call "God".
The world makes SO MUCH MORE SENSE without the "God" factor.
"Why
10
Real progress can never be made as long as we continue to believe in or seriously discuss things religious. Religions, every one of them, pull us down and back, down and back.
I wish, instead, that women had seen the uselessness and danger of religion. Reason, critical thinking, and science are our true, best friends. Religion remains what it's always been: a problem, a dead-weight around our necks.
10
Just more proof that these ancient texts were written, not by God, but by men.
9
Folks on the left don't seem to understand becoming a Christian binds men to rules and roles just as much as it does women. Progressive values and Christianity are like oil and water, they don't mix well.
1
Wasn't there something about...as you do unto the least of them you do unto me? That's a progressive value. Maybe we should all be re-reading the New Testament.
3
And who is making the rules? Men? Consider that a number of Christian traditions are including women in clergy and leadership. Consider that Jesus chose to speak first to the women, including one who later was called a prostitute (by men leading the church) despite there being no such evidence in the bible. Women should learn their place, as defined by men. Right? Otherwise up it's just liberals or secularists speaking?
2
She talks back! She’s feisty! Nice! It's way past time for the ritual foolishness of male suppression to end. And I'm a male!
2
There is no doubt that the Roman Catholic nuns accomplished great things in the world and, in particular, in the American and African continents, educating children and illiterate adults, founding hospitals, creating loving, holy communities of hope for all.
2
God is still male in most religions and one can infer that women who cling to the ultimate symbol of male supremacy are like women who cling to abusers.
Robert Graves makes the best case for a Godess and Matriarchy in his “White Godess” and for the equality of women in the New Testament.
Which of these arguments will prevail may contribute to the most important battle confronting the world: equality. Democracy is being dismembered by Putin, by oligarchs around the world. what do they offer? Stagnation!
3
Now the churches are under attack because in accordance with their first amendment rights they won't allow women to wear the clerical collar. Women's "empowerment," as ordained by the liberal media, is now the latest thing. Why don't we just throw out the Bible and the Koran and let the NYT dictate what we should believe?
Thank you Kent for your scholarly comment. And thank you NYT for recommending it, when no one else had.
1
@ Keith
Bad read, IMO. This column is not a knock on religion, but more an observation of how the traditional subservient role of women in organized religions is changing. That is a good thing, I think. As much of Kristof's commentary is directed at Judaism as Catholicism, and he does not comment about abortion. He is addressing the future, and how the ascension of women in the organized hierarchy of religion stands to change religious viewpoints. Women not only deserve a higher place in religion; religious observers throughout the world deserve a stronger feminine voice to lead them.
6
From a Catholic perspective, it's puzzling why women would want to endure eight years of seminary study only to infltrate a patriarchal institution that has marginalized them for twenty centuries, and would likely effect more change on them than they might impart on it.
It would seem far more sensible to simply align oneself with a sect that already embraces feminine ministry.
What's more, the co-mingling of bread and wine that Catholics celebrate as the core of their faith was actually only a small facet of Jesus' earthly ministry--alluded to in conjunction with the Sermon on the Mount and final Passover meal.
The true essence of Christ's commitment--spiritual healing, working with society's poor, downtrodden and oppressed--is now often downplayed or relegated to nuns and lay deacons on track to becoming true agents of change within the church. Remember, even the Vatican had to recently backpedal disciplinary actions it had lodged against an order of nuns.
1
Knowing a Catholic woman who felt called by the Spirit to be a priest, serving today despite being excommunicated by Rome, your question is foolish. Folks called to ministry don't just "decide" to enter. They are called by God and will do everything to answer that call. Look at the disciples. Who would give up everything to follow Jesus? Why would Paul give up his position and life of privilege? The answers are in scripture. As the answer to your question.
The fact that your friend has answered her calling from God by service with another denomination is precisely my point.
What difference does it make that the Vatican excommunicated her? No doubt she anticipated that anyway, and made her 'decision' through a higher authority.
What is not mentioned in the article is that membership in the mainline Protestant denominations has been steadily declining for years. Ordaining women has not brought a revival to those denominations. I think the more interesting column would be a examination of why ordaining women has not renewed and revived the mainline Protestant denominations.
4
History is written by the winners. Scripture of various religions. was written mostly by men. Nuff said. Even the relatively neutral Taoist texts have parables dominated by men.
11
And your point is.....?
2
Men are winners?
When I first came to Oregon, just a few miles from your hometown, a woman pastor could not find a full-time call. We directed education programs, called on members of church who were feeling neglected, sat in hospitals on innumerable nights with gravely ill believers. That is changing, thank God!! Too late for
me but not for all my sisters who come after me.
5
The status of the sexes is crystal clear in the Bible. Women had a place, but there was no doubt about who was in charge. In some respects the religions based on the Bible are a step back from pagan religions which had many powerful female godesses such as Athena of the Greeks. Actual morality on the whole in the more advanced countries is getting further and further from what is actually in the Bible and other sacred books. Did God or Moses or Jesus not really say the things they did in the Bible or did they not mean them? Is it time for new religions, which would presumably be polytheistic - how else to get around the question of the sex of the main God(dess)? Maybe new religions would actually be centered on the godhead and authority of temporal leaders such as the Pharaohs - the cult of personality which is a feature of many dictatorships is not too far removed from this. This is a handy way to make morality conform to what is best for those in power.
Or should we just admit that morality does not come from religion? It is based on instinct, custom, and hopefully reasoning on what would be best for the majority. If reason is to play a role it is hard to justify constant revision and reinterpretation of sacred books, piling myth on myth.
9
The role of women and their place in the Church is orthodox Christianity's original sin.
The Gnostic tradition----which evolved contemporaneously---holds a very different and much healthier view of women. These writings were repressed and outlawed by the Church authorities.
In the Gnostic accounts of creation, Eve was not the sinful woman, but the person who attempted to bring consciousness to Adam by eating the apple from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Also in this tradition, Mary Magdalene is not seen as the prostitute but rather as the disciple Jesus loved the most. She became his major follower and a teacher of his wisdom after his death.
65
Jesus had a pure natural human mother and a supernatural father. The role of women in human reproduction has never left maternity in doubt. Until the advent of DNA paternity was always a mystery.
5
...and sex with Gods is another.
3
Rather than condemning our poor, confused branch of hominidia for its millennia of discriminating against women, you should be celebrating the emergence among us (finally!) of a sense of every individual's worth. We are a dimorphic species, as were our common ancestors with our near kin the gorillas, the chimpanzees and the orangutans, and our females ALWAYS suffered from male aggression and violence, sexual and otherwise.
But now we're finally emerging from that Edenic fog. These are the best times ever for women (though mostly only in the republics). And things will only get better, maybe even in more places.
Our religions, however, are relics of the past and are tainted, maybe even fatally, by its primitive interpretations of reality. Female clergy will surely improve them, but so would throwing out the "wisdom" of the ancients and replacing it with something more worthy of our current awareness of the facts of physics and biology.
8
That is a real danger. I knew a female Rabbi like that. She didn't like the Torah.
We need to understand that traditional religions are mixed bags. They are garbage mixed with wisdom. But to think we can do better in this God forsaken era is just idiotic.
1
Will physics or biology teach you anything about morality? Here is a scientific challenge for you: please try to prove scientifically, using your vaunted physics and biology, that stealing (or child abuse or abuse of subjects in scientific experiments ) is wrong.
PE,
Steven Pinker has well documented that we are doing FAR better in this god forsaking era. Worldwide violence is far lower per capita than at any time, more people have rights, including (in some places) even those blessed with 2 X chromosomes, and representative government has taken firm hold in 20 or so countries and is trying to do so in 40 more.
And Joseph,
Theft reduces the utility of work (and thrift), reducing its value leading to less of it and thus less collective supply of necessities, or at least delights. Child abuse, in addition to inflicting suffering, is well-known to result in its victims maturing with damaged abilities to treat others with kindness.
I never said religion got EVERYTHING wrong, btw, of course stealing is bad. As for child abuse, I believe it's sanctioned by the Bible (Judges chap 11, Noah's cursing of Canaan, the slaughter of Job's sons, and even God's refusal of Cain's offering are examples of needless cruelties perpetrated either in God's name or by him himself).
"If I was giving advice to women who wanted to be clergy, I’d say, ‘Be O.K. with being uncomfortable, because there are always going to be things in your religion that make you uncomfortable,’ ” Barton said. ”Sometimes you just have to live with your discomfort.”
This makes me so sad. It certainly doesn't have to be that way, unless your "religion" is tied to several-thousand-year-old stories and legends written down entirely by men and then transcribed and translated dozens and dozens of times over the millenia by more men.
I have no doubt Rabbi Barton is a lovely woman and dedicated to her mission. A good start would be to branch out (how about "branch up," to paraphrase a currently-popular slogan) and embrace the Perennial Philosophy; the transcendental essence of the world's great religions--minus the myth. It has been held by men and women who report the same insights and teach the same essential doctrine whether living today or six thousand years ago.
At its core is the notion of "advaita" or "advaya"--"nonduality," which means that reality is neither one nor many, neither separate nor unified, neither pluralistic nor holistic. It is entirely and radically above and prior to any form of conceptual elaboration; it is strictly unqualifiable--transcendent and immanent.
I have no discomfort there. What a gift (on Easter and every day) to be liberated from the misogyny, myth, bigotry, and violence that perfuses so much of organized religion. Peace be with you.
5
The classic “In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins” by Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza remains the definitive work showing how important women were to the Jesus movement. Timeless classic.
4
The Southern Baptist Convention, in a local congregation, holds that scripture prohibits women from assuming leadership roles. This from a denomination founded to preserve Confederate values including white supremacy and slavery. That’s my definition of a corrupt and evil institution that, for starters, should not enjoy tax exemption. Is organized religion the last bastion of blatant discrimination?
16
Konrad C. King,
When my husband and I were relocated to the south I experienced a question I was never asked anywhere else we were lived, “who is your church family? “ I soon realized this was a screening question from mainly Southern Baptists. At first I answered I was raised Catholic what I got back “oh, you’re a cat-lick.” They moved on...eventually I just started responding “I’m a heathen.” The bewildered looks I received were very satisfying.
8
We inherited the written words of people who tried to make sense of their worlds thousands of years ago. Prior to the written word, people handed down what they knew verbally. Back then and today, the written word is taken as - pardon my circular pun - gospel. If there is an orderly and perhaps moral purpose to the universe, it can only be experienced individually and, in the present. Back then and unfortunately in patriarchal religions today, religious males sit around analyzing ancient texts amid current events while women are forced to avoid the male gaze and then submit to male attention giving birth to children legitimized by male writ. It's been a good gig for some of the guys...not all...but for some.
4
I like Bill Maher’s interpretation of religion. I’m not following any edict from the Bronze Age.
The Bible’s been written and rewritten over 1500 years. And by only men. Why should a bible have a version?
Fear has caused religion. Fear of both life and death.
7
By the blessed Eve of the Earth, we are all born good. By the patriarchal myth of evil we are cast as fallen. I'll find my salvation with the native seeds, in the womb of eternal life on earth. And cherish and respect all the mothers of man and beast, all the Eves of the garden. Lets get real about this from which we have fallen. And to our real only hope of salvation -- our saving of the wild earth.
5
Is certainly important, for religious people that "god" should not be "controlled by exclusive male clergy. However, the notion of "god" as female is just as questionable as the notion of "god" as male. The mystics, from the "Areopagite" to Eriugena to Eckhart, have better answers!
3
Actually Nicholas, Esther was the wife of Cyrus . She asked him to free the Jews and scholars write this... Over twenty-five centuries ago, Cyrus II, founder and ruler of the Persian Empire, freed the Jews who had been transported forcibly to Babylon and facilitated the reconstruction of their Temple in Jerusalem. Without the intervention of Cyrus, the Jewish People and Judaism as we know it (if that is not redundant) would not exist today. In short, no Cyrus, no Jews.?
1
Nice subtle (not) shot at Catholicism on Easter morning. Funny no mention of the Virgin Mary, who has been venerated at the heart of Catholicism, and rejected by most "progressive" sects, since the beginning. Catholics have statues of Mary everywhere and many of its finest saints, mystics and scholars have been women. But that wouldn't fit the narrative.
And unlike many progressive sects, Catholics have stood against abortion. which has saved and allowed the lives of millions of baby girls over the years.
17
Keith,
You said, “Catholics have stood against abortion. which has saved and allowed the lives of millions of baby girls over the years.”
You mention the lives of baby girls saved but don’t say anything about women. The Catholic Church’s stand on abortion has sent many women to their deaths. A few years ago in Ireland, a country that prohibits abortion for any reason, a young woman died of systemic sepsis following a spontaneous abortion, known as a miscarriage in lay terms. Doctors decided that retained products of conception were more valuable than an actual living woman. This will occur here in the US if draconian abortion laws are instituted.
You also said the Virgin Mary is revered by Catholics, I agree. And as a recovering Catholic I think this reverence is more about her supposed virginity than her womanhood.
25
Great assessment- no mention of the Theresas, Cecilia, Catherine, etc. And the poster below who reduces Mary to virginity unfortunately misunderstands her.
Zach Hardy,
As someone raised Catholic it’s not a matter of misunderstanding Mary, it’s a matter of rejecting the importance the Church patriarchy places on the “virgin” birth and by extension women. It reduces women to vessels. Catholicism does not reduce the intrinsic value of men to whether or not they are virgins. This is something I and my female peers were very aware of from a young age. As early as third grade girls were forbidden, by nuns, the wearing of patent leather shoes because boys might see our underwear. The messages this sent were 1. Boys are more important than girls. 2. Girls were responsible for the behavior of boys. Neither is true.
Religions pretty much track society at large when it comes to acknowledging gender equality. One statistic mentioned here: women are 60% of the student body at a major theological seminary and about the same ratio at secular colleges.
Since we seem to have stopped stoning women not sporting an intact hymen on their wedding night, the sacred texts appear subject to reinterpretation or outright disposal as our understanding of women's equal dignity broadens and deepens.
It seems inexorable, this march to universal acknowledgement of women as the equal of men. The taste of equality is sweet indeed, and modern women have drunk deeply. The gall of submission and "keeping quiet," in Church or in the well of the US Senate chamber, is far too bitter.
As more and more women spit it out, we will finally enter a new land of milk and honey. Side by side with Aaron, a woman will lead the way.
4
Another problem I have with religious organizations is that they receive substantial tax breaks despite their discrimination against women. I'm sick & tired of having my tax dollars wasted on these organizations. If their members are so devoted to these churches, let them pay the taxes.
11
This is islam’s understanding of God. Learn about the understanding of God in Islam, Allah, and you will be amazed at you will find. If you are curious, start with the 99 beautiful names of Allah and their interpretation and you will be able to view both sides of Him, the stern father and the maternal healer and nurturer.
1
That is precisely why it is so baffling that others will allow her sons to go blow themselves up, as martyrs, and take others with them. It just doesn't make any sense. World religions misleads adherents to believe heaven and hell exist in outside realms, to be visited after they die. How strange, when after we die, all of us return to the same consciousness we are composed of, unconditionally and without exceptions. At the most, we suffer when we view our life review, in a panoramic views, but alongside a most compassionate being who is both our father and mother, and most beloved. To that parent consciousness, we each are its golden child. This parent intimately knows us, our each and every thought gesture motive and compassionately allows us to make mistakes. If we are open enough we will listen to its guidance but if we are closed and deaf and blind to its presence, we keep flailing in the dark. Yet the compassionate benevolent one, never wavers its its love for us. It is right here within us, our every cell and being, we do not have to go anywhere anyplace any time.
3
From the perspective of reproductive human biology maternity has always been essentially known as a female aka ovaries, uterus, placenta and mammary glands affair.
From a prehistoric civilization faith perspective powerful female deities were prevalent over time and place.
From a pagan faith perspective female deities were and are common.
From the perspective of one of the most ancient extant faiths Hinduism female deities are essential.
From a Christian perspective God could be a depressed homeless bisexual black welfare dependent single mother drug addict with AIDS. See Matthew 25:31-46 where Jesus identifies himself with the despairing poor, hungry, thirsty, sick, naked and imprisoned.
3
It was very refreshing to read your article. It has brought to my mind answer to some questions. Why have God (Men) been so rough on Goddess (Women) since Eve (Humanity) took a bite into the apple? Because the apple is the allegory to knowledge. Even today men, especially those in power, are afraid of intelligent women; lest they may loose their hierarchy in this bloody dominated male world.
I disagree with Ribbi Emily Barton. When “things” in your religion make you uncomfortable, it’s not ok. It’s time to re-write the Bible, the Koran and all those male-chauvinistic manifestos.
Like Robert Wright states in his book “The Evolution of God”: “If we could...replace the Koran... and the Bible with a book of our choosing, we could probably make Muslims, Jews, and Christians better people.” So, I am sure that if women decide to re-write religion, not only may there be a Goddess instead of a God; there might not be none. And therefore, a less bloodied World.
5
Paul's supposed subordination of women is widely seen in scholarly theological academics as an insertion by a "helpful" later scribe with an axe to grind. Paul did *not* write the women being submissive claptrap.
3
Haven't been to church in years. Gave it up to become an adult.
Can you imagine where the Mormons would be if only Mrs Smith had had the good sense to reveal that she, too, had been commanded by god to take additional spouses?
10
One of the sad encumbrances in the Mormon tradition (whose pure theology is rather fascinating and egalitarian) is the stranglehold of a tradition-bound-and-wound male gerontocracy.
The current “prophet“ is a 93-year-old. And next in line is a nearly-as-old male who thunders, like a Wizard of Oz head, that “the priesthood is for men only”. The sad thing is he used to be a respected lawyer at the University of Chicago.
4
The evils contained in the Bible as recounted by Kristof show just how bad religion is.
7
While it is a good thing that women gain rights, respect and positions of authority generally, delusional belief in imaginary beings and biblical fairy tales is not something to be proud of for either sex.
5
From the words of Christ himself- "Our Father, who art in Heaven...". Take it up with Jesus, Kristof.
1
How great that there were tapes of Jesus' teachings, Gary, when the "New" Testament was written in Greek in the 2nd century about 100 years after he died.
14
"It’s a disgrace to humanity that for millenniums we’ve placed a divine stamp on discrimination against women,"
Much of what is done in the name of God is a disgrace to humanity.
13
Nicholas
You are uninformed. It is a complete sin and banned by the Bible for a woman to be a priest. Tough if you don’t like it. That’s God’s rule.
As a Christian any woman presiding is committing a great sin, and is in complete rebellion, an enemy of God
You must be a bible scholar of high esteem. Ergo, please cite the words in you good book about women in the clergy being enemies of God.
5
In Christian Science, God is referred to as "father-mother God" Mary Baker Eddy does not use the pronoun "He".
2
A large factor in my decision to leave the Roman Catholic Church--besides the woeful mishandling of the pedophilia crimes--was its refusal to ordain women. It is so wonderful now to hear a woman's voice from the altar and pulpit!
34
HOORAY!
2
As long as you ignore about 20% of the “perfect word of God” book, women are fine with blindly following the words in the Bible. You have to “selectively read and selectively interpret” the “perfect word of God”. Just remember that the King James Bible was really written 300 years after Christ’s death, has had many versions, entire books deleted, and all editing was done by powerful white European men. Someone needs to declare a new “word of God” has been divinely given to them. We need a new book!
5
Muslims also need to wake up and elect women as religious and spiritual leaders. Too many mosques are filled with male chauvinists posing as Imams who are beholden to dogma and don't have any progressive ideas to share. O yes, they will mouth nice words about equality and respect for women in sermons but when it comes to leadership roles, it's always men, men, and men, with no accountability and transparency. It's time Muslim women challenge male domination in mosques and contest for leadership roles. Muslim nations around the world are looking at Muslim-Americans to show the way.
3
George Carlin saw through religion years ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVVo036N9OY
3
Oh how pleasant. Women, gather round! Your persecution has come to an end. Now you too can equally participate in the loosely strung together book of shepherd guidelines that was used to disparage you as less than human mere centuries ago, you too can participate in the mental gymnastics that men used to control vast swathes of your kind and keep you subjugated, you too can be equally deluded, you have the right to be, the right to be equally invested in humankind's longest delusion, hurrah.
12
"God has been rough on women" because religion is the original fake news created and spread by mysoginist men!
11
Thank you for this thoughtful message, meaningful every day and especially on this Easter Sunday. Your dedication to liberating the way we think about human rights on so many levels works to free our better selves and help us recommit to helping work for constructive change in our world.
9
Let's get something understood up front: Religion does not represent god. Religion at its best represents its own self interest. At its worst it represents money, power over, not power with, misogyny, child rape, war and a host of other ills.
There is a world of difference between spirituality, which is about you and your god(s), and religion. That difference is why many religions are losing members at a high rate. People what a return to god, nurturing, lifting up not holding down, heaven not hell, welcoming not excluding, salvation not damnation.
When the power of love overcomes the love of power, then I will listen to someone talk to me about religion. I don't expect it to happen in my lifetime.
4
I had a thought the other day as I was driving around. Why is the sinner the one who is the focus in Christianity and the sinned on is forgotten? It seems odd that sinners get all the press and the victims are forgotten. Everyone sins but making the better choice isn't as celebrated. I have always had questions about why things are the way they are in religion since I was 6 and heard that if you are not baptized you would go to hell. I thought that was unfair because not everyone can be baptized if you die in childbirth or live in a remote place. I would like a world that is better for all, that doesn't forget the sinned on, the forgotten and the lost.
6
Many Native American cultures talk of "the Great Mother" contrasting with patriarchal views of a male all-powerful deity in Christian sects.
If an all-powerful deity exists, what harm is there in assuming it's a genderless entity?
A genderless deity may make evangelicals, Catholics and others sectarian religious faiths upset that their tradition is being blasphemed, but that's them looking out at the world, so who cares? There is no "harm", to use the legal definition, and in American the Freedom of Religion allows this conversation. Freedom of Religion being a two part right.
Every American is entitled to freedom of belief. You can believe in God, Shiva, the Man-on-the-Moon or nothing. The freedom of religion ends are the freedom to practice wherein any one citizen's practice cannot violate another citizen's freedom of belief.
2
I wonder how God feels about being addressed as "she" and "her"? Offended? How many people treat it as being disrespectful? In regard to female clergy, Kristof, of course, is ignoring about two thousand years of tradition, as well as Biblical interpretation, by most Christians in the world that allowed women clergy, deacons, at the very beginning, and that too, continued for only a short period. It has been pointed out that the deacon then did not have the same ministerial functions as the deacon today.
7
Is that the same tradition that condoned slavery? In this view God must be a white supremacist as well as a misogynist. Some role model!
18
Roy Quick,
Why is it assumed that God is male? That assumption seems self-serving and full of male empowered audacity. I posit it is because men wrote the Bible. Men picked and chose what “gospels” to include. If there is ONE true word of God why so many versions of the Bible?
6
I was one of the first 3 openly LGBT students accepted to study to be a rabbi in the Reform Jewish movement in the late 80’s. It was not always easy then nor now as it has not been easy for women. However, inclusion in religious leadership, whether based upon gender, orientation, disabilities, skin color, etc. ultimately strengthens faith, religion and the faithful. In the short term it can be very unsettling, as described in this article. In the long term it leads to a stronger sense of faith and a better world as all of us created in the divine image get to see ourselves as important and also representing God/Higher Power/The Source. And ultimately help us indeed seeing ourselves as our “siblings” keeper and thus obligated to make the world better and more inclusive.
10
Spirituality seems to be a gift from God: God almighty who created the universe. Religion seems to have muddied the water though with conflicting theologies. What is real? How can an almighty God even have, or need, a gender? Theology again. St Augustine and the Pope, Luther, etc created a mish mosh of jumbled beliefs.
I always think of Einstein's great statement: (paraphrased) "I have to believe in God. The universe cannot simply a roll of the dice". So, God may just be beyond our ability to completely comprehend. Maybe quantum physics will eventually unveil the truth.
Now women are coming out of the cupboard and asserting themselves, in religion and in politics. Good, makes be more optimistic about our future.
4
Albert Einstein also said that he didn't believe in a "personal" God. I there were such a personal God, he most certainly wouldn't forgive the sinners, money grubbers, and fake prophets, but take care of the least fortunate among us.
3
What's sad is when a huge cohort that has been suppressed by those in control of a belief in an invisible sky god try to join the religion instead of rejecting it altogether. A gay or lesbian rabbi should get used to the idea of being "uncomfortable" with passages that basically don't even dismiss them but outright condemn them?
I say the same thing to those who were conquered by the proselytizing white European Christians (or the Muslims, albeit of a slightly darker complexion). African-Americans? Africans themselves? Large swathes of Asians?
The only interesting point I find is that most Jews who survived to hand down their religion, as opposed to those who assimilated and converted for reasons of convenience or those who were martyred, never succumbed to this nonsense of adopting your oppressor's belief system. Even if there were obviously cross-cultural influences between Judaism and the majority dominant religions of Christianity and Islam.
Passover is bad enough, believing in fairy tales like the Ten Plagues, the Red Sea parting, wandering in the desert for forty years nourished by manna from the sky and a rock that supplied water for 3 million people. But Easter is a pagan holiday invented to appeal to the beliefs of European tribes who couldn't quite handle Jesus's Judaism without major dilution.
Happy Holidays though.
12
Easter was a holiday celebrated by northern Europeans whose myths celebrated male and female deities such as Odin, Thor, Frigg and Freya. Easter wasn't invented to dilute Jesus's Judaism. Easter existed before Jesus's people diminished Spring's fertility and replaced it with a celebration of Christ's resurrection after having been executed in Jerusalem by Jerusalem's Roman government. Both Christmas and Easter have "pagan" roots. So-called paganism pre-dated Christianity and coexisted with Judaism.
4
Once I realized that I can choose my thoughts. That my life is really based on the quality of my inner movie, then how can I hold solidly the bible as I was introduced in the innocence of childhood? I cannot. All this talk that God is this and Jesus is that. That it's all tight and right. Oh no not anymore! The Holy One is within me as much as anyone else. And what if I have practiced hearing this inner one now? All the wrongs we have claimed were right! If it does not meet common sense then out the door!
I claim a 3rd sex is no sex, no one above another. There is differences. And there is an ego. But it is up to me to allow my ego or another's ego superiority. And that is not the Christ Consciousness that I know! Jesus was the great equalizer. He did not turn against the oppressed and become that...It is man that wrote the bible or any holy book. And it is my inner voice that knows my truth and perhaps the Truth. I will choose what I eat on my plate. There are lots of hoodwinkers and gaslighters in life. They may take part of my wallet but not my spirit or soul.
Spirit sets one free. Religion does not.
5
The gist of Nick's essay is that, yes, women have been mistreated, and most unjustly so, over the years, centuries, millenia. But now, things are getting better.
Not a word, not a phrase, not a single sentence in this piece gives one (i.e. me) any reason whatsoever to believe in any god, let alone a supreme, one-of-a-kind and infinitely jealous one spelled with an upper case "G".
11
It is amazing how the interpretation of The Bible and God changes as a person's Standardized Test Literacy Score increases. A person who has a Brilliant IQ Score reads The Bible and God very differently than The Pope, Billy and Franklin Graham, and Orthodox Rabbis. These are just a few lower than Brilliant IQ Score people, listed for example. Actually, much lower. If they would like to improve their IQ Scores, Education Achievement, Literacy Scores.... then I suggest they do their homework, and learn the concept of Equality. Those few people that I mentioned, currently, certainly flunk the reasoning and logic required to be considered any sort of a Religious Leader, as well as Leader (in general) in my well educated, Brilliant IQ Score, Fantastic High Honors, Straight A, School Report Card, opinion. They are illiterates.
2
From your lips to Gods ears. SHE will be pleased.
3
Actually women clergy are becoming more prominent in both Reform and Conservative Judaism as numbers of congregants are declining.
And there’s some evidence the same is taking place within the Christian faiths. Islam remains firm. As do Orthodox Jewry. And the Mormon Church.
Of course both the Old and New Testaments and the Koran are unquestionably male oriented. As is the huge literatures of sages over two millennia.
Will it really make a difference ? Other than making more opportunities for those aspiring to become religious leaders. Will we see a revival of membership
just because women religious leaders emerge. After all for centuries the “word” was God invented Man and then later on invested Women. Who are we
to such different. Unless we have real doubts about a God. Which may be the far stronger story here than women clergy.
1
Equality does not exist in nature, the nature that God made. It is a purely artificial human construct.
But as master manipulators, humans will change that.
1
How does inequality play out in nature, KBronson? If you mean that predators eat prey, or that fires occur, that's not the same thing.
A bison herd doesn't hate on the members who have darker hair. A fire doesn't head straight for the snakes' dens cuz of hate.
Inequality is EXACTLY the artificial human construct. Your argument is really weak. In essence: "We gotta treat women like this cuz nature."
3
Excellent op-ed! Thanks.
If Paul did order women to “be in submission,” he also wrote in another place a verse that annihilated the importance of sexual distinctions (as well as other distinctions) and hierarchy in society: "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3: 28).
You could have also added that some of our best systematic theologians and biblical scholars today are women: e.g., Sister (Dr.) Elizabeth Johnson at Fordham and Dr. Amy-Jill Levine at Vanderbilt.
4
Nicholas, it is a beautiful writing, but still you do not tell us GOD belongs to Christians or all the people in our world, and we never said GOD he or she or it but we must say just GOD, l am a great believer GOD belongs to every religions and each religion represent by a he or she and we go to GOD separat roads but the end GOD belongs to every body and every religion, if we start to believe this there will be more peace in our world
What about the role of women in Islam? Are there equivalents of non-fundamentalist Jewish and Christian denominations that encourage women to participate equally with men in Islamic religious services?
3
Regarding your quiz question, don’t forget that Mary, the mother of Jesus, won their argument at the wedding feast of Cana. When he tried to argue that it wasn’t His problem that they ran out of wine at the wedding feast, she got Him to work His first miracle there and then by choosing not to prolong the argument with Him, and then by instructing the servants to do whatever He told them to do....which He did.
The feminine aspect of God goes all the way back to the Hebrew word “ruach,” for the spirit / Holy Spirit, which hovered over the waters of creation; and to the feminine Sophia, or Holy Wisdom, which is an aspect of God.
Look at the last lines of the poem “Pied Beauty” by the Victorian Jesuit priest and poet Gérard Manley Hopkins: “Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.” And tell me that God the Holy Spirit may not be referred to as “She.”
5
Ever since my first reading 35 years ago of Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Color Purple, I have been blown away by the response of the night club singer Shug to the formerly sexually abused, lonely, lost Celie.
Shug and Celie are black and the era is turn of the 19th century to the 20th. The location is the American South, where night clubs for blacks were rural barns in the middle of nowhere and patrons sat where they could.
I paraphrase the conversation between the girl and the woman as follows:
Celie: Shug, do you believe in God?
Shug (short for Sugar): Yes . . . Yes, I do. But I don't think God is an old white man with a white beard who wears a white gown and lives up in the sky.
"But if you want, you can find that God in any white man's church.
"I don't even think God is a man. But I don't think God is a woman, either. I think maybe . . . God is an it, and whatever it is, it sure gets ticked off if you walk through a field with the color purple and don't notice it."
58
"God is an it, and whatever it is, it sure gets ticked off if you walk through a field with the color purple and don't notice it."
What a beautiful line PB. Strikes at the heart of the matter. Thank you.
4
Lovely...and proving once again that the most profound theological concepts don't necessarily come out of seminary....and that there's often more wisdom to be gleaned from the NYT comments section than from the opinion piece itself.
5
Re: "...Or, more precisely, the men who claim to speak on behalf of God have routinely disparaged women or discriminated against them...."
I WAS a born,'N, bred Catholic; I AM a Norse_Celtic_Rite Pagan... My former, (ancestral), faith seems to miss my wallet; It DOESN'T seem to miss...ME, NOR the person I've cohabited, with since the early 1980's!
BTW: I realize my former faith thinks it is a 'mortal' sin to DARE to disagree, but I think sexism, racism, 'N, homophobia are SINS against ALL Deities, as well as crimes, against humanity!
4
Orthodox Christianity and Orthodox Judaism is highly unlikely to ever have female priests. Why that is doesn't make sense to me.
Nevertheless, she persisted.
5
The woman in the story that Kristof argues is an admirable act of persistence is not just a second class citizen. She is a Canaanite. When Jesus remarks about her faith, he is restructuring society from something tribal and clannish to something universal. This is a recurring theme throughout the New Testament. Nevertheless, she acts like a woman. She doesn’t challenge but accepts her status as a dog.
Compare this with Jesus’s encounter with a centurion:
“When he had entered Capernaum, a centurion came forward to him, appealing to him, Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly.” And he said to him, “I will come and heal him.” But the centurion replied, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who followed him, “Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness.”
If women are going to become the new ministers of the word, I can only hope women ministers won’t mangle the word of God the way Kristof does.
I find it amazing that any woman, world-wide, fails to recognize that keeping them subservient to men is the number one purpose of religion. Just ask Mike Pence's wife.
19
I'd lover to hear what our famous evangelicals have to say about this. Uh, I think they kind of like the men to be in charge.
4
From your mouth to HER ears. And thank you, Nick. You are a true Feminist. Happy Easter to you and yours.
patriarchy is surely an oppressive element in modern society...but anthropomorphic and gender specific conceptions of god are worse yet.
5
Mythology, aka Religion, can empower and inspire hope, or it can help enslave and inspire violence. However, it is still fictitious.
5
God is central to my life. The organised religions are not.
I am sustained by my faith. It enables me to drag myself out of bed every day. Without it, I should have killed myself long ago.
I grew up in the Church of England. I loved my Sunday School classes, all led by warm, motherly, comforting women. As a man who loves women, I can feel the strong, visceral, sensual appeal of churches led by warm hearted and good hearted women. But all organised religions ultimately lead to evil. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
5
Healer and nurturer has to be better than stern (and know-it-all).
4
I have long since regarded any religion that declares me unfit to serve as absolutely ridiculous and unworthy of respect. God & I have a terrific relationship.
9
Wouldn't it just be better to admit that nobody actually has good reasons to claim to know that God exists? Everything else follows from that...
5
Let's not forget the women in the Bible with less notoriety who also challenged female disenfranchisement. I'm thinking of the daughters of Zelophohad in Numbers 27 who challenged patriarchal inheritance laws so they could keep their deceased fathers property, though there was no male heir. They petition Moses, the high priest and the elders. Moses goes straight to God in prayer, and God rules in the women's favor. I don't hear the fundamentalists quoting this chapter.
4
For millenia, throughout most of the planet, GOD was made in the image of Man, or at least those men who dominated their societies.
Now that society is gradually embracing true democracy, an acceptance of the equal value of ALL people, those who persist in believing in GOD will attempt to remake it into their new image.
The study of the human conceptions of GOD tells us vastly more about humanity than it does about a supernatural being.
3
Changing how we view God could be advantageous, for maybe then women won't be routinely defined as inferior, dangerous, or just objects for men's physical gratification. Maybe then millions of girl babies won't be routinely murdered in countries that define boys as valuable and girls as dispensable. Maybe then rape women, girls, and low status men/boys will actually enjoy the same human rights as powerful men.
Maybe then even men will be encouraged and allowed to possess/display the characteristics of gentleness, kindness, and nurturance--characteristics that all humans are capable of, but which are currently only stereotypically defined as female qualities (note--there are no inherent human attributes that can accurately be defined as either masculine or feminine--those values are socially constructed and not inborn biological traits).
If we can conceive of God as having such positive attributes that all humans can possess, not just women, and perhaps come to believe that possessing such qualities is actually a good thing for all beings in the world, maybe then being able to believe in such a God would occur because there will finally be gender (and racial, economic, age...) equality.
4
The Catholic Church teaches that women cannot be ordained because Jesus was a male, but they also teach the 'hypostatic union', Jesus as fully man and fully God. As God transcends gender one cannot necessarily decide that women cannot be ordained because of the maleness of Jesus, it is a false argument and one we should give up. And soon! Thank you Mr. Kristof.
24
No, women cannot be priests because it was the apostles who were male. Women have many positions open to them in Catholicism. Men cannot be religious sisters, just as there are no male midwives.
1
There are male midwives just as there are male obstetrician-gynecologists...as it should be.
https://nursing.vanderbilt.edu/msn/pdf/nmw_midwiferyformen.pdf
2
Dave, interesting perspective that I find compelling: that just as God transcends the mortality of Jesus, God surely transcends the gender of Jesus.
Thomas, male midwives may be rare (unless you count Ob-Gyn MDs who deliver babies in the count) but they are hardly non existent, nor should they be. Despite sexist stereotypes, men are capable of nurturing, coaching with gentleness, and taking non-sexual joy in human interaction. Try Googling "male midwives" ... this hit is interesting for its history: http://www.menstuff.org/issues/byissue/malemidwives.html
3
You poor souls. I'm a Unitarian. We covered that issue eons ago. Have you ever noticed that many of the "revolutionary" women in American history, who made history, were Unitarians?
5
The idea that God is a man is such a limiting idea of a power and intelligence that is beyond human understanding that it cripples all the faiths that insist upon it.
8
When our son was four, we were at confirmation services at our Episcopal parish, led by Barbara Harris, our bishop, our woman rector and some young girls serving as acolytes. Our son tugged at my sleeve and asked "Is it ok to be a boy on the altar?" True story.....
2
The moment the Catholic Church recognizes the equality of women the world will change. No longer will Catholic men have an excuse for the abuse of their equals, poor treatment of families, children, and their own transgressions against those who are equal in the eyes of God. It is only in the eyes of men that women are unworthy. Male Priests can talk all they want about "holding women on a pedestal" but we all know that that pedestal is well below the power of men.
2
The motherhood of God is one of the dominant themes in the most ancient Hindu religion.
Women are still worshipped as Devis an incarnation of the Goddess!
Christianity and Other religions often portray God as a Father but times are changing
Empowering women clergy is aright step in our spiritual evolution and growth!
3
Happy Easter, Nicholas Kristof! Thank you for this! And thank you, everyone at the NYT, for publishing this lyric, whether this day is a holy day for you, or not. Having lived close to 22222 days now (not quite, but I'm getting there fast), I have come around to the idea that each day & every hour & every moment is Holy. Enjoy yours! For Christians, of course, the place of the human mother of Jesus, who knew it was Her Baby being tortured, maligned, abused & finally executed -- wrongly -- in the most unjust, cruel & vicious way possible, is a place that every single woman recognizes as one she can identify with, whether she herself believes in Jesus, or not; whether she herself is a mother, or not. At the most visceral, biological level, women understand the ordeals of Life as well as the miracles of Renewal. We witness it each spring, all of us, if we pay attention to anything more complex than the stock markets. This Sunday, I send my love and prayers for your good health, to everyone who reads the sublime appeals to grace that flow from the pen & keyboard of Nicholas Kristof. Play the music that means something to you, enjoy your favorite foods & friendships, and remember we are all in this together, so celebrate being alive for one more day: enough time to welcome more epiphanies. Including oranges on a Seder plate -- or in a chocolate egg wrapped in colorful foil, a very modern concept.
3
The Bible for the most part is a sick book. A god of horrific judgement, club your neighbor, a god of cruelty and ignorance. Yes, there re parts that glow and may even speak the truth, but they are few and far apart.
I believe God is neither female or male, This God is full of creativity, forward thinking and planning, think evolution, and empathy and love of a magnitude toward us -now mostly hairless, the most argumentative and yet social creatures who now live on planet earth -we can only dimly perceive this eternal love. Good enough for me.
Easter morning, if Michigan weather permits, I'll sit outside under the sun, and know that all my atoms came from dying suns and that some how, some way, we are forever eternal and that I will see my loved ones once again.
3
As I read the column and the comments, I was reminded of the person who had a near death experience. He was asked if he saw God, he replied, yes. Asked to describe, he stated, First She was black....
2
I am an Episcopalian, and I have found the addition of women priests to be wonderful. The male-dominated church has had an agenda of power, so if women bring agendas, well, so be it. Christian lesbians make wonderful priests--they have suffered so much by the organized church yet understand forgiveness like many do not
48
Your church has been shrinking in attendance due to the liberalism that has occurred within your religion. Many Episcopal ministers left your faith and entered the Catholic priesthood. Your loss is our gain.
In the phraseology of the late, great Gore Vidal, I consider myself a "born-again atheist." After growing up in a religious home with a mother who taught an outside non-denominational bible-study class for years, I was well-versed in scripture as well as dogma. The church elders selected me to give the Youth Sermon on graduation Sunday, pleasing me and my mother. My 3 years of high school Latin enriched my vocabulary and my knowledge of mythology, further enriched by my study of the Iliad at university. But as I grew older I found it more and more difficult to accept those lovely biblical stories as anything but lovely stories for children. I hadn't been allowed to question, to think for myself, so as a high school student in a rather advanced school with teachers who taught us critical thinking skills and the study of evolution was honored and respected, I was quietly torn. And ultimately, my faith, like Young Goodman Brown's wife whose name was Faith, began to crumble. And recognizing that religion still holds a prominent role in American life whereas my views as a non-believer put me in a minority, doesn't worry me. No one wants to acknowledge that maybe his opinions and beliefs are wrong. And the political manifestations of this appear daily as our Congress is split down the aisle with few crossing it. And a president who courts evangelicals who support him as he flaunts traditional Christian values. Pope Francis may not believe in an actual Hell. Go figure.
4
Women have been gatekeepers of relationships and kinships, for ever. As mothers sisters aunts wives cousins friends and in laws, women have held the family foundation, together. It is only natural that the ones who stayed with Jesus through his final moments , were women. Persistence and patience is their endowment, their adornment. We are surviving as a human race today, largely because of the kindness compassion of women. Not to be underestimated, women are not the weaker physical sex, they actually outlive men, year by year. Our sons today are getting quite the beating today, in classrooms all over the schools, with girls outperforming boys, on the academic and intellectual front.
As soon as we, today in 2018, realize that women are "persons", they possess and embody the same consciousness men and all creatures have, people will look at us differently. Religions have misled humanity to believe that you find God outside of yourself, through a messiah, or by performing rituals or scriptures, when the truth is, God is in each and everyone. Read Eugenia Bone, Decomposition: An Easter Story, its marvelous and speaks the truth.
4
Hard to understand why any intelligent and self-respecting woman remains Catholic. The church’s ridiculous stands against female clergy and birth control should be enough to make women flee the pews.
5
I guess it’s encouraging that women are finally getting proper representation in these Bronze Age institutions and I expect their involvement will increase their charitable and nurturing aspects that are their only redeeming feature, but part of me wishes they would just start something better
6
I was born into Catholicism and then my mom took us, her daughters, to a very anti-woman church obsessed with the apostle Paul where we were required to wear skirts. A few years ago I attended a Catholic service, wondering if I should go back to my roots. But it was the same old—a male priest. Why was I allowing myself to be a silent, second class citizen? Would I be OK with racial segregation? Nope. I walked out.
61
As a Catholic with 5 daughters, the refusal of the church to treat women equally and accept them as priests is a problem in m y home. It is a cause of one of my daughters to leave the Church. It is particularly galling since the church readily accepts them to do most of the work in parishes and missions.,
I know this will change some day and I pray it is soon.
In the meantime I take hope in an increasingly liberal church tht does much good in the world.
6
Tom,
The Catholic Church does a lot of good around the world. Have you heard of Catholic Relief Services? They are often the first volunteer organization to enter a country after a natural disaster. I give to this wonderful organization frequently as most of their money goes to the relief efforts. We have Catholic schools, hospitals and nursing homes (Little Sisters of the Poor) that devote their time to the needy and destitute. If it were not for these wonderful institutions, many people would be in a terrible way. The priests and nuns also do tremendous works in their parishes and communities. Many people would be suffering if not for these good priests and nuns giving of themselves to the needs of the people.
At my Catholic Church on the upper east side of Manhattan during Holy Week this year, it was filled to capacity at the Holy Thursday and Good Friday services. These are not holy days of obligation so people come of their own free will. Obviously, they are there because they believe and God plays a major role in their lives. Religion is still relevant to many people today as my Church proved this week. I am positive that the Easter Mass which I will be attending this evening will also be filled to capacity.
I wish all who observe a Happy Easter. This is one of the most important Church celebrations on the Christian calendar.
2
Mr. Kristof,
Thank you for this wonderful, inspiring read on an Eastern Morning. (Easter, as you know, is a Pagan celebration of the Goddess of Fertility and Renewal.)
Thank You,
Nick Hardaker, PhD (Philosophy & Religion)
27
Easter: a pagan holiday that was co-opted to subjugate the “non-believers”!
5
A parable of Jesus of Nazareth that expanded my thought about God was a brief meditation on the Kingdom of Heaven. What shall we compare the Kingdom of Heaven to. It is like a hen gathering in her chicks. There is no doubt in this parable that God's maternal instincts are identified. Another metaphor describing God is also from the birds and found in Exodus. On eagles wings I carried you out of Egypt. A mother eagle would fly under her young, teaching it to fly, but also being the flying safety net. Again, we love because God first loved us is cast as maternal love for her brood. This Easter, when so many are dying from senseless gunfire shots to the backs of innocents, and others are quick to insult the victims of gun violence, it would be better to realize these expressions of a mother's love and be the arms of God. Like the sign said, "Arms should be for hugging".
6
A good column for Easter -- and the story of the Syrophoenician women, showing Jesus accepting a rebuke and learning from it, is another example of a gospel story that more people might meditate on. Women played a key role in the first generations of Christianity.
Since the Quakers arose in the 1650s, women have always been accepted, with gratitude, as equal partners in the ministry. It has always seemed to us an obvious consequence of Jesus' teaching — and is not unrelated to our not having"clergy," either.
8
The growing trend of women as clergy is a good thing for many reasons. I suspect as any good minister will acknowledge, that the mere fact one is female does not necessarily mean one is a more effective leader, nor less prone to human frailty, sin and in need of mercy.
1
An ode to Women. Women world-wide, who are not having an easy time of it. Some are being used as beasts of burden; others have less value in the eyes of men than a water-buffalo.
Saint Paul has never been favored by this once fervent believer in Christ, and he sounds more in tune with Moses who for some reason remains the only figure I remember in the Old Testament.
Jamaica and I share a spiritual tie. Africa is loved for her quiet but strong being, and reminds me that her Religion is one of Love and not Hatred. Austria is in the midst of celebrating Passover, and sent Easter Greetings my way.
It is possible the only person that truly reached my heart is an American, and we went on a long Life Journey together where she now is resting in a state of grace in MA.
A calendar dated 1979 proclaimed by the UN and UNICEF, the International Year of The Child, centers around "The Curse", as it was known in Ireland, and less about my spouse's play on Stephens Crock of Gold.
This monthly pain was first explained by my parent and occurred at age 10 in Spain where it was cause for a celebration by the women in the village. The coming of age, but why Adam was foolish enough to bite into the apple proffered by Eve, well, it is reminiscent of my encouraging the husband of a friend to eat a red hot pepper from a plant.
We settled for an uneasy friendship.
Greetings to all Women in Spring, we walk in the light of the day, so says The Book of The Dead.
7
In the mid 80's I read about an art exhibit portraying Jesus on the cross as a woman. I was in Catholic high school and thought this idea of a woman on the cross was powerful. I discussed it at dinner with my family. My parents disagreed. Jesus couldn't be portrayed as a woman to them. I was shocked that they couldn't see what I saw. Would they have a problem if Jesus was portrayed as African or Chinese for African or Chinese churches? That was fine by them. Then why couldn't they see the Christ as a woman? I explained that the historical Jesus looked only one way (male, middle Eastern) but the immortal Christ, the Savior could look/be any way including female. I don't remember their answer. Sadly, they never came around. The leap was too great for them. As it is too great for so many Christians still.
14
The problem with Jesus being depicted as a woman, Jay, is that he was in fact a historical person who was in fact male.
2
Historically yes....reality? Unlikely. The bible has multiple human authorship designed to make white men feel better about themselves.
1
The title is unnecessarily provocative.
Many churches are trying to be more inclusive - one example is that many churches have been rewriting their hymnals to make the wording gender-neutral. Many well-loved hymns have changed in this understandable pursuit.
Yet this title does the opposite, and was written in bad faith. It is mocking and irreverent to those of faith. And on Easter Sunday no less.
4
Anything relating to religion would be moot if we redirected our energies towards morality and ethics as atheists do.
Women give birth, not men, so even if one is religious why isn't god a female. That is where creation, as we physically understand it, started.
23
Jim Gordon, in Catholicism before branching out, we are told that Eve was created from Adam's rib.
To this lapsed believer, Atheists do not have a monopoly on morality and ethics. Some of us are born with an innate sense of goodness and you have reminded this person to watch again 'What's Eating Gilbert Grape', a portrayal of America in the times we live; an ongoing and often forgotten one where angels often fear to tread and take flight.
1
Shakti, the Supreme Mother represents the Cosmic Energy of the entire Universe and is regarded as the Supreme Divine by many Hindus.
2
Until men are capable of giving birth, I am afraid that the Catholic model of male priest and female nun will have to remain as it is, as a representation of a family that hews to certain biological realities. But that is okay. The Catholic Church does not have to conform to changing social norms or ideals, and if you do not want to be Catholic, you do not have to be Catholic. Might I point out that men cannot become nuns either. Is that unfair and unjust? Do qualitative differences equate to differences in value? I do not think so, at least not in this case. Not everything must or should conform to capitalist logic and the desires of the corporation where, I might add, the inequality observed across multiple categories, gender included, is grosser than in any Catholic institution I have known.
1
Monks are male nuns.
I used nun in the colloquial sense, assuming that most people would not be familiar with Catholic terminology. You are correct in saying that monastics may be of either gender. Men, of course, cannot become religious sisters, who work in and run medical and educational institutions.
My church is currently in the midst of a minister search. I was appalled when the committee noted to me that it would not consider a woman or a Person of Color as a candidate.
When I asked why, one person replied that we’d lose too many parishioners.
This article is much too optimistic. The Midwest is mired in the 1950’s.
98
Were you appalled enough to leave?
13
Time to find another church... that's appalling
7
The last white church I attended was in 1964. I was a teenager. It was Presbyterian. Los Angeles. My mother was the choir conductor, so I attended both services and rehearsals on Wednesday nights. One day, after the last service, she said to me, "We won't be coming back here, ever." The reason, it turned out, was a black family who joined and the minister who welcomed them, had been driven out by an all white congregation of blatant ugly Republican-voting racists. Shocked. We drove across town where she got another gig in a mostly black Baptist church co-directing a gospel choir with Chester Harrison. My life got a whole lot better then for a lot of reasons. Thanks, Mom. She would have been 100 this year.
I agree. This article is too rosy. White people have a big problem that needs to be addressed. Now.
19
Many civilizations had female deities thousands of years before Christ. The first sculptures of "God" were women figures dated from 25,000 BC. Early agricultural societies & hunter/gatherer societies worshipped the mother/god & were matriarchal (Dr Amanda Foreman, historian). It was not until the church organized around Christian Papacies in 100 AD in Rome & Mohammed & Confucianism did such patriarchal systems develop to exclude, suppress & oppress women.
59
Even the earth is a goddess in the pagan world.
5
There is a correlation between the neolithic revolution, patriarchy, monotheism and the unfortunate anthropocene.
3
It's extremely difficult to know how pre-historic societies were organized (precisely because we have no written records). Since the beginning of history though, there have always been matriarchal and patriarchal societies everywhere around the globe.
So men clearly didn't need Popes or Muhammed to invent it ... ;-)
And Kristof is perfectly right here: as soon as you put Biblical stories into their historical context, you cannot but notice that Jesus and Muhammed, for instance, actually treated women in a revolutionary way, promoting equality on many issues where local societies strongly rejected it for centuries and centuries already.
What do is true is that over time, matriarchal systems more and more disappeared. But as it happened almost everywhere, it's difficult to point to one single cause explaining this evolution.
What is certain is that within each monotheism, there have always been exegetical methods accentuating the anti-discrimination passages in sacred texts, and others that accentuate those passages that contain elements showing that certain habits of discrimination still continued and then use those passages in order to justify inequality as a norm or even "ideal" today.
Conclusion: the history of religions is a scientific field that is far too complex to reduce its results to black and white narratives, as you're doing here.
2
Reader X,
I love how you atheists love to focus on all the bad stuff religion has done. Yes, it has done a ton of bad things. But it has also done a ton of good things. If all the Muslim, Jewish and Christian mosques, synagogues and churches suddenly ended their food banks, shelters, outreach programs, health clinics etc, tens of thousands of people in North America would be in trouble. In fact, where I live, the city has finally figured out that religious organizations are much more efficient at delivering services to the poor and disenfranchised than the city is. So they help fund them.
One last thing. Jesus was the first feminist. But you'd have to actually read and understand the Gospels to get that.
12
It's not "religion" that has done good or bad things. It is PEOPLE who do good or bad things. ALL the temples, churches and mosques could disappear and good people would still go out of their way to help those in need.
We don't need the threat of eternal damnation and hellfire to motivate us to do good. It is in our essential nature to do good. It is part of who we evolved to be as a species.
And yes, to do bad is part of our nature too. We need to resist that. We are learning, as a society, that ALL humans are our family and we need to care for ALL our brothers and sisters. We are learning that our survival as a species depends on caring for all the human race, in fact, on all the planet. As our grasp, through science, of the order of Nature deepens and broadens, we learn that we are all intimately interconnected.
As far as Jesus being the first feminist (if indeed he existed at all), it could also be argued that Queen Nefertiti was the first feminist, or at least a feminist 1300 years before Jesus was born. But then one would have to read up on world history from before the Gospels to get that.
42
We atheists don’t need to be lectured about how many good things religions have done. Any reasonable observer with a working knowledge of history would acknowledge that good AND they would also say that the bad - all of the wars, the killing, mutilation, slavery, sexual abuse, misogyny, and discrimination in the name of religion- far outweighs the good.
11
Mr. Pynenburg:
I urge you to read Mr. Kristof's column more often. Judging from your remarks, it appears you're not well acquainted with his work.
I don't whether or not Mr. Kristof is an atheist. I do know he has a deep respect for religion and those who are committed to their religion. I'm pretty sure he has written at least one column in the last year that closely echoes what you've written here.
I wish you the best at this holiday season.
4
Many earlier religions were matriarchal, recognizing the importance and strength of women in society. Men have used modern religion to suppress and marginalize women, which makes religion of tool of power, rather than of good. The same tool has been and is used to suppress minorities of all sorts. Until religious groups recognize the equality of all human beings they have no moral legitimacy.
As for referring to god as he, she, it, or whatever, it's all in the mind of the beholder and really shouldn't matter to anyone else.
9
I'm an atheist so I have no emotional investment in the mythology of religion. I find religious text and the Bible interesting in the same way, for example, The Iliad is interesting. But what good has ever come from any religion? Ever? I'd truly like to know. Because there are myriad examples of the harm religions have done. And it's pretty clear that religious texts were written by men for men as a way to control women and the masses. It's pathological. We see politicians and provocateurs twist religion into the propaganda of their messages as a way to deflect from the fact that their actions and behaviors are anything but moral, ethical or righteous.
That said, I do understand that people feel profoundly identified with their religion on a personal level. I'm not attacking anyone for their personal beliefs or experiences. I don't begrudge anyone's individual spirituality or relationship with their religion. But I just can't understand why religious people feel they can and should try to convert me. Why do religious people think I should respect and agree with their philosophy but they disrespect mine? I would never try to convert anyone to atheism. I wish people would keep religion personal and stop forcing religion into every conversation and facet of society and public life. And especially keep religion out of women's health and our government.
129
Perhaps this rings true, and yet this once fervent Catholic remembers a bright red Bible in soft-calf leather, gifted in childhood by her father who took up the cause against 'The Troubles'. If somebody has it, please send it this way.
Her father was a man in love with Life itself, a self-proclaimed hedonist, who showed passion when injustice was to be seen, and took a whole village up the lane, shouting 'No More Apartheid!', while never attempting to convert anyone to his way of thinking on the matter of Religion.
When our pocket is light in adverse times, Religion often comes to the fore, and if it is a source of solace to some of us and food for the soul, 'Let It Be', to quote John Lennon.
3
Because when religion is personal, one encounters the true and living God, and after such an experience, one cannot but help to want to share it with others.
1
While religion has indeed been used as a pretext for war and other horrors, the United States and the freedoms we hold dear were founded based on Judeo-Christian values.
4
The increased role of women is Judaism is certainly positive. Even Orthodox Judaism (which is far from monolithic ) has seen such positive developments.
What was missing in Mr. Kristof's op-ed though was Roman Catholicism.
When will a woman become a full-fledged priest? The same might be asked of Othodox Christianity. When will thre be a female Pope or a female "Patriarch" (sic!- I.e. The terminology will have to be changed).?
Also missing was Islam. Mr. Kristof might have made some mention of th controversies regarding women as imams.
As for the language used to describe the divinity, one should remember that there are other languages out there, besides English with their own gender rules re the divine.
14
I moved from Roman Catholicism to the Episcopal church for a number of reasons, and remember walking into an Episcopal church and thinking, "How will I deal with a female priest?" Then the service started . . . and I honestly forgot anything at all about the gender of the person in the pulpit. Such a trivial issue that was! I've been privileged now to know a number of women priests and deacons, and all have been excellent. Churches that refuse to consider the ordination of women are really missing out on some excellent clergy!
57
The idea of God as "the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth" accords with a monogenetic theory of human reproduction underlying patriarchy: that the father is the sole contributor to the heredity of the child, with the mother being merely the soil that incubates the "seed." Thus people could talk about the Father and His only-begotten Son without any awareness of an embarrassing gap left by the absence of a mother. This also fits with genealogical tables in which A begat B and B begat C, etc; no need to mention the soil.
Now that we know otherwise about genetics, we ought to feel different also about the male-centered language of so many religious texts. But religious language is slow to change. Furthermore, there is much more to religion than the language and stories in which it comes clothed. Religious experience--especially feeling a divine Presence--is both shaped by the past, and is a source for renewed and altered religious language. (I myself have had an enormously powerful experience of an all-nurturing divine Mother/Goddess.) We have good reason to hope that in time the increased female presence in religious leadership, fed by the springs of such experiences, will lead to more balanced religious manifestations, less vulnerable to the central point of atheism, namely, the problem of evil in the world of a loving God. Perhaps supposed total power of God is primarily a carryover from patriarchal conceptions.
18
Great analysis except it totally overlooks the worship of the Mother of God by around a billion people
1
There is no such thing as "monogenetic" - except in flatworms.
1
As a Catholic woman, I can not express enough how I would love to have women as our priests, deacons, and bishops. For some reason, I still go to Mass and consider myself a member of this church. Call it The Big C Guilt or cultural connection, or both. But I have to say I look at our sister Christian churches as well as Jewish congregations with a bit of envy. Here are individuals of my sex as rabbis and ministers. To add to my dismay, my church has been plagued by recent scandals of the worse kind...by priests who must remain unmarried. So much wrong that must be changed..
The title of this fine piece tells of God as female. I have always held that God, if there is one, is neither strictly female nor male. I feel a Spirit is the most accurate description of this phenomenon. Yet I for many years do have that tendency to personify this Being. For me, of course, it is The Compassionate, The Nurturer, The Loving. Who else fits those life giving and life saving attributes?
26
Isn’t it fascinating about the human being that in all three monotheistic religions that notions of God are inextricably intertwined with our own notions of human sexuality? In my mind, all three have been quite wrong about sexuality. And that doesn’t bode so well then for our understanding of God.
18
I love the last sentence- gave me a good chuckle
1
Nicholas Kristof, forgets, if he ever knew, that images of Jesus as a woman have cropped up for millennia, including the last century. I've studied women's spirituality and imagery for decades.There have been sculpture exhibits in "Christa," as the sacred feminine, hung on a cross in churches and universities.
Among the comments were those by both women and men, how their eyes were open by seeing a woman twisting in agony, dying on a cross. For the first time people saw the the ocean of suffering in women worldwide.
Indeed, without much googling you can find images of naked women being executed on a cross by the Turks against Armenian women in WWI: with long rows of girls and women nailed there alive and then left hanging as corpses, left there to demoralize the Armenians.
I recommend also, "Does God Hate Women?" by humanist author and columnist by Ophelia Benson and Jeremy Stangland. It would seem that male hatred and animosity toward women does stem from religious and cultural forces.
In much of the world women get little or no medical care and no reproductive healthcare, have little or no access to birth control and abortion, even here in the USA, is seriously under attack by the Religious Right. Women are imprisoned for miscarriages and accused of self-aborting, usually wrongfully. There is much to do to change this culture of women blaming and persecutions, even just in our homes.
77
If Jesus was the product of a Virgin birth then the sex would be female. Makes sense in terms of how mammalian genes work.
10
One semantic point: The word used for "dogs" here is the diminutive form -- kunaria. These were the little pet dogs of the household, not the wild, savage, diseased street curs. Softens the tone greatly and focuses the reader's attention all the more closely on the woman's quick wit and the skill with which she seized on the analogy, drew it to its natural conclusion, and deftly turned it in her favor.
14
Thanks Nick.
Please note that the fruit in the garden was more than likely a pomegranate.
Also the woman who won't take a refusal from Jesus was a mother. no one messes with a mother whose child needs help.
The male disciples abandon, deny, and betray their friend; not so the women.
Please also note that many women prefer a male boss to a female. Women have their own issues; no one is perfect.
Greg
8
I am progressive in the sense that I believe something new is always worth a consideration for just being new seeking an opportunity for ditching old ones. I know people tend to cherish a book or two (with some intention in mind); finding inconvenience prompts them give twisted new interpretations to old passages thus making a simple story complex (which always happens when interpreting Sutra from Buddhism and Chinese classics in Japan). Some people apparently enjoy making contradictory statements being proud of their intelligence but I do not think we have to mind them.
2
Aki, of interest to this reader, one might add that History has often been mangled, distorted and abused for our perception changes with the Now and the Future, while one can always take an I.Q. test to measure the amount of one's brain cells.
Not unlike the evolution in medicine to more women as physicians than men. And this is considered perfectly reasonable.
So imagine a country, if not a world, in which leaders in all major religions might be women!! HOORAY, and we need to salute their bravery and commitment to such a future.
22
Dogma Vat, your comments really bemoan the possibility of female 'dominance' of society. You despise what exactly? If Jesus commanded us to love one another, care for and uplift one another, what's your beef?
Is it so wrong that I still want to understand why, just, _why_ has the world been so complacent and content with being so inhospitable to half of the human population for millenia? I don't buy the arguments about women being so physically meek that they just automatically gravitated toward the so-called "domestic sphere." We can today see photos of women in rural villages and communities cut off from much of the world do manual labor with babies strapped to their backs without a second thought... It just doesn't sit right with me that the patriarchy will fade out for good if we can't pinpoint the reasons why it was allowed and able to ascend for so long, in so many places, while historical accounts of the many gender-equitable societies that have existed have been snuffed out or just extremely downplayed.
We desperately need a viable counter-narrative to the—in my opinion, garbage—mainstream beliefs around evolutionary psychology that somehow are seen as credible despite the "men need sex all the time because something something macho hunting while women are complacent aspiring mothers who could never want more than one partner because something something ancient times" narrative is so absurdly a byproduct of Western Christian beliefs it'd be laughable if people didn't believe in it so strongly.
In other words, I'm uneasy with pretending like the last few thousand years of patriarchy were somehow "natural" within the grand scheme of human history. I hope that makes sense.
60
It makes absolute sense. Change demands that we first acknowledge inequity is deliberate.
31
It eventually dawned on me that the reality of what is has no relationship to what I buy, what makes sense to me, what sits right with me or otherwise makes me comfortable. And I am okay with that.
4
Second class status of women is just one of many an extremely nasty non-sequitur found in all of the multitude variations of an Iron Age sacred text. This text works neither literally nor as metaphor. We need to ditch all of this nonsense.
I know I am trespassing the taboo of criticizing religious beliefs.
No worldview should be structured around an Iron Age sacred text. The 1500 word comment limit is not enough to make a case. Read Sam Harris' book "The End of Faith", it makes an extremely strong case for this position.
We do not need middle men/women - clergy. We do not need an imaginary supreme leader. We need to pass the ERA.
32
Mr. Kristof, in recent columns you've asked a few people if you are a Christian (in a very Pharisee-like manner). If you really are a Christian, you would know that Easter is not about stirring the pot on some gender controversy, but is about God's salvation for those who believe in him. Happy Easter to you and to all who feel that this controversy trumps the real meaning of Easter.
6
He’s pointing to a positive development toward gender equality in religious leadership.... how is that controversial? Isn’t that in and of itself a sort of rebirth which we might celebrate?
35
No. The genders are equivalent. Not equal. Men and women complete each other.
5
Glad you stirred the pot Mr. Kristoff. Religion is based on mythology and superstition. Nothing more. Except, of course, putting women in their place.
6
It should be obvious to anyone observing her/his own experiential history that God, male or female, does not create human persons in the womb. But that human personhood is an achievement of the human brain/mind that occurs long after birth. And the additional truth is that this awareness of self does not occur automatically but only in relation to already existing human persons that give the infant the experiences needed to structure that brain/mind.
Since throughout history this creation of human persons was done by women, the very first act of religious misogyny is to take away the credit for this from women. And lie that it is done in the womb.
Recognizing this does not deny the existence of gods and their powers; it just recognizes and honors the real creative powers of women.
17
"...a woman who, er, persisted."
For many Roman Catholic women (Latin rite and mostly Western ) "persistence" has been our middle name. If we ever decided to go on strike parishes would come to a grinding halt.
The persistant woman of scripture was as smart as we are, was a "mother bear", as many of us are for our children and grandchildren, and was strategically clever. She was successful because of all her gifts and because the Jesus of that Gospel story was willing to learn and change!
The clock is ticking. What is at stake is the Eucharistic center of our faith and the quality of our pastoral care. Many womem have already left the institution if not physically then psychically and emotionally.
But this is separate from their spirituality and faith, which cannot be contained by an institution whose leaders too often helplessly shrug away when women with a calling to serve in a publically authorized way try to get their attention.
But let me add my one proviso to all of this. As other posters have made clear : the pastoral world calls for servant leadership, education and a maturity of care that not everyone--male or female-- has.
Many women bring relational socialization and a mature spiritualty, but not all women do!! Those who don't feed right into and continue the clericalism and patriarchy we have found so damaging. to all of us.
Something different has to emerge and I hope women and men in my church can make it happen!
11
So, I urge you to go on strike. Isn't 2018 years long enough to wait?
2
As an ordained Presbyterian minister, I recently co-presided at a community Ash Wednesday worship service with 3 other pastors -- all women. In my 23 years of ordained ministry, it was the first time I have ever been in the minority. Not only was that overdue, it was joyous. Church members and denominations hung up on female ordination, need to read Galatians 3:28, which -- among other things -- says: "In Jesus Christ there is neither male nor female..." In other words, sexual differences (like the rest of our human differences) are irrelevant. Thank heavens that that irrelevancy continues to pass away. Who knows what glad, God-filled things await as the church finally begins to be led not only by its sons, but finally by its daughters?
34
Perhaps you’ve forgotten...
1 Tim 3
3 This is a true saying, if a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.
2 A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach;
3 Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous;
4 One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity;
5 (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)
6 Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil.
7 Moreover he must have a good report of them which are without; lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.
8 Likewise must the deacons be grave, not doubletongued, not given to much wine, not greedy of filthy lucre;
9 Holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience.
10 And let these also first be proved; then let them use the office of a deacon, being found blameless.
11 Even so must their wives be grave, not slanderers, sober, faithful in all things.
12 Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well.
13 For they that have used the office of a deacon well purchase to themselves a good degree, and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus.
"Be O.K. with being uncomfortable" doesn't sound like a ringing endorsement of the faith or of the calling. The texts constituting the Bible were composed by men who believed that God was a male like them and women, belatedly created and culpable for the Fall. Turn and twist scripture as one might, the patriarchal orientation will not drain off, and however close to the godhead female rabbis and preachers and pastors might get, they are fated by the so-called Word of God to remain "uncomfortable." Indeed, the sacred takes many forms, male and female; so why embrace a faith that doesn't entirely embrace one back?
18
Women embrace an entire male-dominated WORLD that doesn't entirely embrace them back. What are we supposed to do if we long for something but can't have it in equal measure? We take what is available and press on.
Your general thesis is good. But early in this piece, you assert “a revolution is unfolding across America and the world.” But after that reference, it’s all about the U.S. I wonder (I don’t know) whether a similar “revolution” is really unfolding in Africa, the Muslim world, or among Asian religions.
18
The answer to your question is “no”.
Well, women are finally speaking up to their tormentors, all men, the latter trying to control them and their behavior by arguing the Bible's indisputable authority saying that men must be in charge, supposedly coming from God himself...when the sad reality is that the Bible was written by primitive, ignorant and prejudiced men that, being deeply insecure themselves, found ways to muzzle the women usually in control of most things that make our world go around. Monotheistic religion, likely no older than some four millennia, was created by humankind to explain natural phenomena and,as important, the wish to avoid our mortality from being the end of our existence. Of note, religions are usually dogmatic, so no discussion is allowed as to it's merits. Faith (not knowing) takes for granted that what is advertised is the truth, facts exempted. It is now women's job to carry things along and hope it will work. Feisty? Perhaps.
12
Applause to Mr. Kristof.
This article of his supports the idea of the Quadrinity -- the Trinity with the inclusion of Mary. The men theologians have excluded her from divine hierarchy like a broken eggshell left on the edge of the field, after the chick had hatched. But, as the mother of half-divine, half-human Being, she must have been imbued in divine spirit after her Conception.
For disclosure, I find the idea of the Trinity or Quadrinity incompatible with the First Commandment. If I were a voting member of the Council of Nicea in the year 325 CE, I would have probably voted with the Arians and Antitrinitarians. Despite this, my favorite geometric models are a vertical triangle for the Trinity and a tetrahedron for the Quadrinity.
3
Thank you Mr. Kristof.
Men have oppressed women throughout ages. And that is one reason the world is in such sorry state.
As far as I know, there is a new, Abrahamic faith that has expressly said that men and women are equal. It compares that equality to the two wings of a bird. One wing is the man and the other wing is the woman. It says that it is impossible for the bird to fly without both wings being equal. That new faith is called the Baha'i Faith.
17
Reading articles of this nature continue to reinforce my happiness that my wife and I did not raise our daughters in the church. Life is tough enough for women (and men) without these fictional conflicts.
75
As an Episcopalian which started ordaining women over 40 years ago, I have some experience with women priests. A few have been wonderful, but many have been strident and anything on earth but "maternal and nurturing". When one throws in that many, many are also vocally lesbian, it can certainly be off-putting to older members, male or female.
When I think of God as my "Heavenly Father", I don't really think of him as being "male" in the way my husband was. I only think of myself as being subservient to him as I am a sinner and, as it says in the Book of Common Prayer in the Prayer of Humble Access where we say, "We are not worthy to so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table".
The last thing I want in the pulpit on Sunday morning is someone who is a feminist and has an agenda. I just want to hear God's word.
9
The status quo is not an agenda?
5
Guess what, part of "God's word" is inclusivity and loving our neighbor as ourselves.
1
The United Church of Christ has had ordained female pastors since 1853. We also ordained the first openly gay pastor in 1972 and the first openly lesbian pastor in 1981 (I'm lucky to call her my pastor). I've had good and not so good female pastors, but I've also dealt with men that were good and not so good.
My favorite theologians to read/follow are women. Most, if not all, of them have walked the rough and rocky road that many of us have traveled and they're not afraid to share that brokenness - it is truly what draws me to them.
18
The essay is spot on. As a retired Presbyterian pastor, I have experienced much acceptance from many in the church; I have also experienced rejection - folks who left a church because they couldn't 'stand the voice of a woman coming from the pulpit. Like women in the secular world, most female clergy have stories of being denigrated, dismissed, and talked down to by both congregants and colleagues (I once had a colleague, with whom I was going to lunch to learn about the organization he ran, tell me up front that he was raised up to treat "a lady" in a certain way - hold my coat, hold the door, pull out my chair - and that though he knew I wouldn't like it, he was going to treat me that way - I seethed through lunch).
Still, progress is being made. Gradually the powers that be as well as the folks in the pew are beginning to learn that Scripture can be read and theology presented in perspectives other than those of white Euro-American males.
58
So agree with you. There is one picky flaw in so many young women today that would prevent me from being able to listen to them from the pulpit. What is it with this younger female generation that induces them to use this high, baby-ish, nasal voice? Even some TV female announcers have this voice - it's awful, and unbearable to listen to. Women past 35 or 40 don't seem to be afflicted. Or maybe my hearing aids just can't handle it!!
9
It's not the courtesy that rankles, but the imperious insistence on it. The acts themselves can be and often are performed considerately by both woman and men.
13
Pat, I used to be a TVNews anchor here in Orlando and I totally agree about the voice issue with many young women . Remember the "valley girl" affected way of speaking? They remind me of that but these days they swallow their word and sentence endings into the back of their throats. I guess no one teaches voice articulation in Broadcasting classes anymore! It is annoying, with or without hearing aids.
4
I would argue that any evolution in these patriarchal religions benefitting women emanate from secular issues. Equal pay, voting, jobs, etc. Religions adapt because pressing cultural problems force them to adapt and women start demanding changes (and for men to make a series of concessions).
I find it interesting that the same religions that promote misogyny will be used to empower women. We can then re-interpret all that text to fit our new enlightened stance. There will be some serious twisting of scripture. Ultimately we have to think for ourselves, and not rely on an ancient script to figure out how we treat each other.
16
Mary Daly started out as a Christian feminist theologian but on her way to leaving the church behind she stated, "People say Jesus was a feminist and I say, even if he wasn't, I am." That is true liberation...
25
So true...the Enlightenment softened the church with humanistic values. Why not just go with the enlightened ways of thinking and discard the wretched past?
12
"Saint Paul orders women to “be in submission” and adds, “It is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church” (some scholars believe that Paul didn’t write that passage, and that it was added later)."
When I read those lines of yours, Nicolas, I immediately thought of the two Mary's at the cross when Christ's body was brought down for wrapping and burial. His mother, of course, but also his most-loved disciple, Mary of Magdala.
Who says the fair sex can't speak to Jesus, to God, in God's house or one's humble hearth?
I loved your accounting of the "unnamed Gentile woman" who "persisted."
Apparently Jesus did too.
Even in a church that so reveres the mother of God, I'm not sure I'll ever see female Catholic priests in my lifetime. Not when takes so long to effectuate any change, even such a common-sense change such as allowing divorced Catholics to receive Communion.
Of course, God does work in mysterious ways, whatever form He or She takes so I won't give up hope.
After all, isn't that in keeping with the spirit of Easter, which is to give hope to a world in sore need of it?
36
Unfortunately, most of the Protestant denominations that do not include women as equals of men in ordained leadership are firmly in the Trump camp for this and many other reasons. Fortunately, I serve in one that has celebrated men and women in ordained ministry since the 1950's; slowly at first, but now represented at every level of church life. In seminary in the early 1980's half of my classmates were women. It seemed like "critical mass" had been reached even then, though a lot of more work is needed.
21
Fifteen years ago, a Swedish scientist used "she" & "her" for his whole two & a half hour lecture. No fuss, no 'he or she,' just as if it were ordinary. It was shocking, viscerally shocking to be recognized. You didn't realize how left out you'd been until you weren't. Try using 'she' for a month and see how it jolts both you and your audience and friends.
Another time in the '80s, I was selling stained glass supplies in a store in CA. It was a Saturday morning and there were about ten people in line. Customer One said something to which I replied jocularly, "God alone knows!" From back down the line came a clarion, "Maybe She does or maybe She doesn't!" Again, it was shocking to realize, to 'feel' how casually, how carelessly the female is diminished or dismissed -- until She isn't.
119
The Roman Catholic Womenpriest movement is standing up to the sexism in Catholicism. Their ordinations and services hearken back to the early church, which had many female leaders and gathered for prayer in private homes. They claim legitimate apostolic succession through a secret ordination performed by a Roman Catholic Bishop in a boat on the Danube.
23
That’s wonderful to hear. Unfortunately, Catholicism’s patriarchy lost me decades ago. I regained hope with the papacy of Pope Francis. I highly doubt the ordination of women will ever be sanctioned by Rome. The open recruitment of married priests from away from the Episcopalian Church demonstrates they’re willing to compromise on celibacy. However, I think it will take a schism in the Church before women are ordained.
An acquaintance was telling me that he read that Church attendance was way down today. You would never have known this was occurring by the attendance of the Holy Thursday and Good Friday services at my Catholic Church on the upper east side of Manhattan this Easter season. It was even more crowded than last year with an equal number of men and women young and old in the pews. I guess religion still plays an important role for many today.
12
I had the same experience this week. At the evening Mass of the Lord's Supper on Holy Thursday, the church was packed. On Good Friday, the line of people venerating the cross seemed endless. Then there was an enormous crowd during last night's bilingual Easter Vigil/Vigilia Pascual, which lasted two and a half hours. I also noted increased attendance at dairy Masses during Lent.
1
Check back in for the other 50 weeks and see how it is going.
3
No offense intended, but your comment is a prime example of faulty logic.
The number of fellow worshippers you see in your church, especially today, is just that.
Your personal observation is not proof of anything, and has no bearing on the number of worshippers in the community, culture, country at large.
In this era of "fake news," it seems necessary to challenge statements that substitute feelings for facts.
"Granted, an enormous distance remains to achieve equity, especially in Catholic, evangelical and Mormon churches and in Orthodox synagogues."
How odd that Kristof does not mention Islam in his criticism, where female imams are either vanishingly rare or unheard of.
65
A female Imam = a unicorn.
1
It couldn't be that today is Easter, right upon the heels of Passover, and that Islam doesn't have a festival at this time of year?
5
Absolutely on target as both commentary and analysis. Thank you for that.
13
Reformation is here! Independent, female-led churches that are not affiliated with mainstream organized religion are growing and networking with each other. More on that please!
13
We concern ourselves far too much with the impossible task of defining God and not nearly enough with the much more manageable task of how we should behave toward God - and of course toward our fellow humans. The reason is obvious: humans much prefer looking outward for solutions to our inward problems. And so throughout human history, men have manufactured extensive volumes about who or what God is, while women busied themselves with the business of protecting themselves and their offspring from the insanity of male aggression and dominance.
When we alter our focus - outward to inward - the gender of the Almighty becomes irrelevant. What is abundantly important at that point becomes clear and simple: the daily practice of surrendering to this Higher Power, asking for grace and wisdom, and thinking about the ways that we can be part of the overall solution to human suffering, as opposed to a perpetrator.
Like so many things, this truth is so simple that most of us don't even consider it.
10
Super-easy for you to say, Sir.
1
The Bible’ Old Testament clearly and unequivocally requires women be subservient to men.
While this fact may be good, bad or irrelevant, there can be no legitimate argument that is so.
I personally don’t care whether ministers or priests are male, female, or as appears to be the current rage, chose to “identify” as male or female each day as their mood requires.
3
If you you think people who are transgender simply "chose to “identify” as male or female each day as their mood requires," you need to change your handle, because your opinion is not actually well informed at all.
2
I am a practicing Christian but I have to admit not being able to find God in the old testament where we learn, among other things that if my daughter displeases me, I can sell her into slavery. If my neighbor works on Sunday, I am obligated to stone him. If my mother wears garments consisting of two or more fibesr: death sentence. No word on whether nylon and other synthetics count. And, of course, DO NOT plant two different crops side by side. You are right: when women are not left out of the Bible entirely, they are cast as demons, unclean and unworthy. Without the new testament, I would be lost. The NT embraces and practices mercy, humility, compassion, empathy and redemption---all traditionally considered undesirable female traits. Perhaps this is another reason that women are increasingly leading the flock.
18
The American Baptist Church accepts women deacons and pastors. We need to constantly examine our faith to determine what is truly doctrinal as opposed to cultural tradition that has been elevated into doctrine. The church is a living organism which is constantly changing and not some relic of the past. As far as the Sex of God goes, obviously He( you have to use a pronoun) is not a physical being unless He desires to take on that form at any given time. The advent of the computer years ago enabled me to more fully understand what God is. He can do all things and perform many tasks at the same time and is too complicated for our limited IQs to comprehend. But I do know that He is real.
2
I have often wondered what it must be like for a woman of faith--any faith--Christian, Jewish, Muslim or other--to acknowledge a male creator while realizing that she, as a woman, has been slotted into the second position.
The man is always first; always preferred; always consulted; always obeyed; always feared. The woman is an afterthought. I see that in my religion (Catholic) and in my Bible; then I admire these women their great faith (greater than mine, perhaps) because, in spite of the culture of male superiority in every religion, women express faith on (it seems to me) a much deeper level than men do. It speaks to women's faith empowering them to overlook (?) (ignore?) their supposedly subservient status in their zeal to witness the deeper spiritual truth that guides their lives.
I've always wondered why a woman can't (or has never, anyway) been a Pope; been allowed to be a priest(ess). I would hazard a guess that the erotic component in a woman's physical make-up contributes to the male anger and angst about women, especially in leadership roles in service. (The dreaded Temptress) But, heavens! Who was responsible for the child molestations that exposed the hypocrisy off celibacy? Women didn't commit these atrocities yet they are consigned to assistive functions: deacons, greeters, lectors, etc. Eve may have sinned, but wasn't Adam's the greater? He, too, swallowed Satan's prideful message: "you'll be like gods."
Bathsheba is reviled but David is praised. Why?
69
That is a very thoughtful post, and this woman wishes she had a more satisfying answer about how women feel as second-class citizens in faith groups.
My best response would be to think about a friend of mine from work, who is African-American and has always been very active in the Baptist Church in which she was raised. I think that her religious affiliation means more to her than simply a faith group, and that she identifies beyond her gender. Churchgoing has been important in her family for generations, as a source of solace and dignity in the face of racism. She is proud to dress in her “Sunday best,” and to have done the same with her daughter. And she has found a great community and support structure among other congregants.
So maybe the ultimate conclusion is that religion means different things to different people. We each bring something of ourselves to a faith and can likewise take what is meaningful to us.
Thank you so much for what you wrote. Happy Easter to you and yours.
17
Two things.
(1) In the Bible itself, Bathsheba is not reviled. She is basically a cipher -- she is done to as the powerful men around her wish. Her views of it all are not depicted at all. But neither is she reviled. David, on the other hand, is roundly condemned by the prophet Nathan, speaking on behalf of God. What subsequent preachers may have done with her (and his) story is a different matter.
(2) Many devout women throughout history have felt positively drawn to a masculine God, as Father or even as Spouse or Bridegroom. The Christian spiritual tradition is full of metaphors in which the archetypal believer is feminine, and is represented in a deeply intimate, not to say even erotic, relationship with the masculine Deity or masculine Jesus. "Soul" is grammatically feminine in Hebrew, Greek and Latin; Jerusalem, or the people of God, is represented as feminine in the Hebrew Bible, and The Church is a feminine figure -- the Bride of Christ -- in the New Testament. And then there is all the veneration of the Virgin Mary in Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christianity.
There are reasons why more women than men, historically have filled most Christian churches. Christianity's emphasis on love, peace, forgiveness, mercy, and humility has often been quite distasteful to many men.
1
In this time of renewal, why don't we contemplate a thorough spring cleaning of the whole shebang? Dispense with old and dying belief systems that no longer serve us. Why are we fighting so hard for truth within them, when the truth already is within us? We can simply walk away and be what we have been and always will be, powerful knowing beings, connected to the the great spirit that is available to all without corruption. Leave those ancient crumbling edifices. We don't need them right now. Maybe later when we are strong in ourselves and our connection to the divine, we can build new ones on better foundations.
27
The Church is a human institution that is wedded to Christ. Like all human institutions it suffers the sins and mores of its time. But the Church also has a Divine Spirit that forgives the sins and moves our mores into closer alignment with the teaching of Christ. If we just commit ourselves to love God and love our neighbor as we would ourselves, then we too would say, "who are we to judge?" and many of the intractable issues and injustices of the day would yield a compassionate solution. And if the pace of change in the Church is disappointingly slow for some people, I would point out that the compassion that is at the heart of Christ's words is relentless in its power to make us better people and the Church a better and more human institution.
4
I attended a Catholic high school and had a nun teacher give us an exercise in which we were to think of God as "mother," rather than "father." Sure enough, we expressed ideas of more acceptance and encouragement, less judgment and sternness. This Sister also explained that the Bible (like other holy books) can't be taken as a literal guide for our lives, since the Old and New Testament were written in ancient times, and social mores have inevitably changed, and still would.
Incidentally, she (as did some other nuns) said that she entered her sisterhood because she wanted to be a priest and had thought that the Church would have come around to changing that, as they have changed in other ways. Well, that was lamented on over 20 years ago...
97
I went to Catholic grade school and had a similar experience. Mine was a priest who had us deconstruct the Bible to isolate and extract what was more than likely the opinions of man. It was an excellent exercise but as a girl I recognized that women were subordinates to men in both the Bible and the church patriarchy. When I graduated from grade school I also “graduated” from the church.
4
What a tragic waste of time! I feel so sad for her.
2
Actually all explanations about God come from sacred narratives related by people who claim to have received that knowledge from God. The philosopher, Spinoza, devoted much of his life to studying the Bible, Torah, and other crucial sacred texts and concluded all were works of men, not God. It upset a lot of people but in all fairness given the lack of proof of any divine presence at work, it was a reasonable conclusion. Accordingly, the notion that inequities towards women being God’s fault may just deflect the blame from the real culprits, people leading the religions.
30
Dear not so casual observer: Men run religions. Do you think that if there really were a god there might always have been equal treatment?
1
What we call God is really Light. Pure Light that speaks through Spirit. That's why Jesus prayed so much. And why some many people meditate. To hear the inner voice of Spirit in their lives. Sometimes, in my life, it comes in, unbidden, with knowledge and "instruction". And it takes courage to pray/meditate and listen to Spirit speaking. It's definitely not always what I want--speaking from personal experience.
Physicists have discovered and shown that at the most fundamental level, everything in the Universe is Light, including so-called 'Black Holes'. The entire earth and every physical thing in and on it is Light (in wave or particle form, depending on the observer).
So, Nicholas, I propose that we replace everywhere the name God appears with the name Light. After all, there are many names for God in human existence but there is only one "Light", be it particle or wave. What say you?
16
You may be on to something. Didn't Genesis quote god as saying, "Let there be light?".
Paul, so glad you are rediscovering for yourself what was known to early humans.
"The human body is the temple of God.
One who kindles the light of awareness within
gets true light.
The sacred flame of your inner shrine
is constantly bright.
The experience of unity
is the fulfillment of human endeavors.
The mysteries of life are revealed.
(Rig Veda)"
2
The best way to evolve to the new realities of the modern world is to stop relying on texts that were written between 400BC and 200AD, and instead focus on those excellent and far superior ones written in the past 200-300 years. There's a lot more to learn from Karl Popper than from Matthew the Apostle.
89
It appears you need to spend more time with the texts and perhaps have their value explained to you. Or we could throw them out along with Plato, Socrates, Cicero, etc.
Rick Papin
Watertown, NY
1
Nick, while the Catholic church has been slow to ordain women as priests, they do hold a unique role for Mary, the mother of Jesus. And on Easter Sunday, the gospel says that 2 women are the first to see the risen Lord. I've been to Lutheran and Episcopalian churches with female clergy, and they do a wonderful job. If the Catholic church would join the club, it would certainly help the shortage of priests, and bring a different (and welcome) perspective to Sunday service. Alas, change in Rome comes VERY slowly.
43
The Catholic Church does not "join clubs." The Catholic Church is preeminent in the evaluation of it's theological interests and practices. It changes at exactly the right pace for it's self-defined role. If expediency and gain trumped allegiance to ethical consistency, Henry VIII would have been given his divorce and the history of Europe and America would be free of protestant religious bumbling as the Reformation would have been suppressed.
As for "do a good job" a Lutheran or Episcopal mass is a secular joke compared to a Catholic service. Refusing to be intellectually bought is a cornerstone of Roman Catholicism, even if Popes and clergy themselves have always been given to corruption.
8
Have you ever attended an Episcopal service? Or a Lutheran service? Both denominations use the same lectionary as the RC church. Services at my Episcopal parish are reverent, inclusive, and inspiring.
1
I was an Episcopalian before rejoining the Catholic Church and I will tell you that God abides in each house. Protestant theology may be too quick to conform to secular mores (as you say) and the Catholic Church more orthodox and deliberate, but these differences are overwhelmed by the power of the apostolic mission that both embrace.
2
Please tell me if I grasp the story from Matthew correctly. The woman is being treated like a second-class citizen. She persists in asking for what she wants, and is praised for her "great faith." But nowhere in the story is there ever any criticism of the basic presupposition that the woman, as a non-Jew, is second class. Have I got that much right?
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The woman is not just a second class citizen. She is a Canaanite. When Jesus remarks about her faith, he is restructuring society from something tribal and clannish to something universal. This is a recurring theme throughout the New Testament. If you’re going to pass judgement on the New Testament, you should have some understanding of it.
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My understanding of the situation is that originally the belief among the followers of Jesus was that he was sent to and for the Jews. That would explain that presupposition. As time passed and not enough Jews pulled away from their faith to follow him, followers decided one need not be Jewish to follow him. This is greatly over-simplified but portrays an evolving situation over time. Studying that time period can be fascinating.
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The woman was away from her homeland, approaching the Messiah sent to the Jews. Jesus first calling was to the Jewish people, who rejected him. This opened the door later to the expansion of his mission. I believe that God expected exactly what happened. This passage, along with countless others, has been debated for centuries. My take: Jesus was either speaking according the the thought of his culture and time or was testing the woman. Keep in mind that this was a time when women had absolutely no legal rights without the approval of her husband or the men in her family.
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I could not belong to a synagogue that did treat women equally (though in truth we are only almost equal in actual practice). I cannot accept the Ultra-Orthodox response that men and women have equal but different places in religion.
Much depends not only on the gender of a rabbi, but also on his or her sensibilities. My young Ultra-Orthodox Chabad rabbi from several years ago is in some ways more tolerant and accepting than my current middle-aged Conservative Rabbi. Both are male, but they couldn't be more different in how they approach issues I bring them.
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Barbara, I would replace the word sensibilities with the word Education. As education increases, so does the understanding of Equality. Those that have Higher Education, promote Equality.
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Kim, while there is validity in your response, we have many highly educated people in the current administration and in Congress who do not adhere to ideals leading to equality.
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Chag Pesach Sameach! And thank you Mr Kristof for acknowledging Passover (which tends to get "passed over" this time of the year by Christians).
Having been affiliated with the Conservative movement since childhood (I was brought to and named in my safta's Sephardic synagogue a month after I was born so I got a later start) I have seen it grow and evolve to becoming fully egalitarian (except for brit milah :) . We have two female rabbis and no chazan (yes, I belong to that synagogue) and are LGBTQ friendly. All truly are welcome here.
As far as God's supposed gender (how about both as an answer?), we don't mess with the liturgical text (because Hebrew, like most languages, is not gender neutral) but transliterations and discussions stay in the neutral pronoun or just call Hashem/Hamakon (both masculine words) God. Also although the text was supposedly divinely inspired, it was written down by men during a certain period of history and reflects their pronoun and wording bias.
I belong to a Christian church that believes that there is both a Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother, that believes Eve did not sin in the Garden of Eden, but rather was rewarded by God for her courage and wisdom in bringing about the Fortunate Fall. I belong to a Christian church that believes that men and women stand before God and before each others as equals, and that does not preach the submission of wives to husbands, but instead preaches marriage is a sincerely equal partnership.
What is this Christian church? The Mormon church, which Mr. Kristof believes is somehow retrograde on these issues. Mr. Kristof, I challenge you to learn more about this religion before issuing sweeping generalizations.
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My great grandfather walked across the plains with Brigham Young, his first wife left him because of polygamy. My grandmother wife number 4. So, I have 4 generations of knowledge. I know more than sweeping generalizations about this Christian church. I ask you: How many women are in the leadership? Quorum of Twelve? Bishops? Elders? Do any women perform any rituals in the church? In the equality of marriage, if there is a disagreement, who has the final say? I'm told, "Someone has to decide. That is a man's role." This church may have many virtues, the patriarchy is not one of them.
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I am sorry for your experiences, but they are not mine. No one is saying anything about men getting the final say in marriage--that was an old time cultural attitude, an echo of our American culture. That is not the church now, at all.
And as for the church hierarchy itself, we are already seeing an increasing co-presidency between men and women in all councils of the church. If you stayed in the church, you would now see a time of negotiating what that co-presidency will look like. Yes, men have certain primary responsibilities and women have certain primary responsibilities (that is why there are men and women), but we always help each other as equal partners--just as our Heavenly Mother and Heavenly Father do.
I am sorry for your experience, Lynn Geri, but the Church is far beyond this. No one who practices polygamy, even in lands where it is legal, can be baptized. No husband is taught he has the right to a final say in marriage--in fact, the ideal taught is unanimity between husbands and wives on all matters.
The doctrine of the Church is profoundly feminist. The practices of the Church are moving steadfastly in the direction of co-presidency. While there are differences in primary responsibilities (which is why there are men and women), the government of Heaven is founded on the partnership between our Heavenly Parents. Come meet the Church of 2018, Lynn Geri.
As one of God’s (female) clergy, I am happy to have this attention. In twenty years in the pulpit, there has been a lot of discrimination. But it’s improving—in part because it’s us or nothing for many churches. Women have always done the bulk of the work in churches, but now it’s not just behind the scenes. And yet it is still the male clergy (primarily from conservative churches) yacking away in the media about supporting war, tax cuts, trump, etc.? I am hopeful that a predominance of female clergy will keep the emphasis of churches more in line with the radical counter-culturism that Jesus lived and taught—feeding the hunger, welcoming the outsider, breaking down the walls that divide.
Happy Easter.
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Thank you!
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Which Christian God are you clergy for while female?
Catholic? Orthodox? Protestant? Mormon? Seventh Day Adventist? Quaker?
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Amen! Our husband and wife co-pastors for 28 years recently retired. We have had mostly female applicants for the position and our biggest problem is choosing which one to hire because each is uniquely and wonderfully qualified.
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A little over 40 years ago in seminary we had a number of presentations on empowerment of women in the (RC) Church. We discussed whether we should be ordained or wait until women were accepted into priesthood.
I and others came to conclusion we could be agents of change from within the church rather than outside. I myself came up with the date of 2012 as the time it would happen. How wrong I was. Now some 40 years later--having ministered with wonderful spirit filled women in many places--I am getting ready to celebrate the Easter Vigil tonight--My homily will focus on the 3 women mentioned in Mark's gospel after the resurrection: Mary, Mary Magdalene and Salome---who were sent to proclaim the resurrection to Peter and others---Am I happy with the limited progress in my denomination? --No. Should I have waited my ordination until equality? --I don't know. Maybe I'll get a clearer answer when I meet the divine in eternity....Maybe I'll never know. But I do believe the Spirit will bring the belief that we are all made in the image and likeness of God into reality in the faith I have been part of my entire life.
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Great article!
FYI readers, the Episcopal Church was one of the first churches internationally to ordain women beginning in 1976. We now have several female bishops and our past Presiding Bishop, Katherine Jefferts Schori, a Stanford Alumni, lead the USA Episcopal Church for 9 years.
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Yes, and she is also an oceanographer and mightily interested in climate change and protecting Earth "our island home" for all creatures great and small.
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Episcopal Presiding Bishop at Stanford....
https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=32742
She is a scientist and was also the Baccaulaurette speaker in 2016.https://news.stanford.edu/2016/06/11/let-passion-lead-speaker-tells-grad...
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The metaphor by which we view ourselves has been changed, by seeing a blue speck of dust (earth) against a black void, swirling around a minor star (our sun). We no longer see the organization of reality as an organizational chart with one being, with supervision, manipulating all below him. This new metaphor is nested worlds, caring for the whole, interrelatedness. It is a more systemic view of existence. Not
necessarily the feminine, but certainly what has traditionally been assigned to women. This new metaphor will change all our institutions and the way we live.
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From your keyboard to God's....
It is certainly necessary that women should have equal rights in everything, including religion. But aside from standing up for themselves I don't see that women have used their new power to make any particular improvements.
No religion that I know of is meeting the unprecedented moral challenges of our time. It is clear that climate change will soon lead to hundreds of millions or billions of death if there are no drastic changes. If the ensuing chaos leads to nuclear war it is likely that everyone will die. If any religion took itself seriously it would confront these threats. I think the Pope would like to do it but his power is limited. I don't know of any other religious leader, female or male, who is serious.
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The United Church of Christ, among others, has taken clear stances on every issue you mention. It's leadership and many of the laity (both female and male) are actively involved at many levels in trying to make a difference. This does not your negative and doubtful generalities.
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I would argue that Reform Judaism is certainly confronting the most pressing issues of our time. It is a most progressive and tolerant culture and is not afraid to question current dogma, beliefs or practices. Check it out.
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And how many do you actually know? Rev. Dr. Jones, referred to in this article is a prophetic voice for progressive religion and its ability to lead on economic justice, climate change, violence, and white supremacy. Rev. Dr. William Barber founded the Moral Monday movement and is now leading a renewal of Dr. King's Poor People's Campaign. Here in Brooklyn where I live, congregations are leading the fight against deportations, housing those at risk, accompanying others to their INS check-ins, and participating in weekly Jericho Walks at the Federal Immigration detention center. In the past decade, it was the faith communities here that led the Living Wage campaign and the campaigns against police violence. Are these, in your word, "serious?'
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I hope that among the many fundamental contributions women can to the evolution of religion is to imbibe its definitions of God with a gender neutral, more spiritual and less anthropomorphic belief system. We aren't born with the previous generations' definition of God but we may very well be born with a sense of the awe and compassion in all humans.
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Funny. I'm reading "Whose Freedom" by George Lakoff at the moment. According to him, the entire conservative / progressive divide boils down to a strict parent, nurturing parent view of the family. And here we have organized religion finally catching up with us humanists and shifting towards the nurturing parent view! Maybe civilization isn't lost after all, despite Trump, Ryan, et. al.
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In my experience, priest that were women were great. Women who happened to be priests, not so much.
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The largest growing religious denomination today is not an organized religion at all; it is that which is routinely referred to as the “unchurched.” A spiritual revolution is occurring of which organized religions plays only a part. Within its ranks, women lead most often and attend most often. Given that most organized religion is an extension of the patriarchy to some extent, speaking of the current spiritual uprising only in terms of organized religious institutions is simply more of the same. Religious doctrine and dogma is part of what’s falling away, and simply having women pronounce it will not of itself change the fundamental landscape. From a spiritual and social perspective, a gender change within clergy leaves an incomplete picture of what is really going on.
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Thank you, Marianne, for articulating an essential point that needed to be made - both in response to this column and in the larger world.
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Yes, thank you, Marianne. I was raised Catholic and realized I was atheist after thoroughly reading the bible. I could not accept it as being any different from any other ancient mythology. I respect others' belief in some type of higher power, but I can't share it.
I get frustrated when I see people trying to twist around ancient Bible passages to make them more compatible with modern sensibilities. It's almost as convoluted as Sarah Huckabee Sanders trying to twist Trump's words into something reasonable.
There is slavery, there is misogyny, and there is quite a bit of animal cruelty (especially in the OT). There are scientific absurdities. Basically, it is a product of the Bronze Age. To use an example from the column, yes, one woman did argue with Jesus. That doesn't really change the status of women in that time, or in the rest of the Bible. Sorry, but it just doesn't fix the darn thing.
The Bible was very important to our history, and is worth reading for that reason alone ... but not as a guide for life today.
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The same can be said of science. That the vast number of people that believe in it do so on their terms and are not part of any scientific institution. And while believing yourself to be competent enough to read and understand a science books is reasonable (to a point), it doesn’t qualify you to judge what is true or not true science. Similarly, while reading the Bible does give the individual some sense of the relationship between God and humanity, it doesn’t qualify the lay person to dismiss it as an arcane bronze Age artifact.
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Ha! Nice ending. And the tone is one of inevitability. I would agree. Thank you for highlighting this slow-moving change. Your suggestion that the nature of God will change is a positive interpretation. A negative interpretation would be that men (of the Trumpian sort) would downgrade organized religion and reshape and relocate God by their side.
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Interesting thought that the perspective of God would or could change by becoming accustomed to a woman in a pastoral role. Seems to suggest that perhaps God is a figment of the imagination to some degree, and subject to change. Rabbi Barton's acknowledgment that she had to accept being "uncomfortable" with certain passages in the Bible says a lot - certainly the Pentateuch, or Torah, has way too much that is more than "uncomfortable" and is fodder for the Dominionists in our midst.
I was brought up in a Seventh-day Adventist family, and my father was a pastor - a wonderful man. But he never was able to give me an answer that satisfied my child's inquiry about God instructing Abraham to kill his child Isaac - it just never made any sense to me.
Years later my entire family, including my father, left the church entirely, with no regrets. My father remarked to me one day, after having left the church, that "it is wonderful to be a member of the human race."
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After my belief in God completely withered away, I felt such relief.
Everything makes so much more sense now that this impetuous, irrational, invisible and wholly silent "God" is out of the picture.
God is a tool to control the ignorant and gullible. It's is too bad our American culture is riddled with the people who know this and exploit it.
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The human race is happy to have more rational people. Welcome!
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As the first-born child to a Lutheran Pastor in 1979, my parents wanted to give me a name that would inspire me to be a leader in the Christian faith. They chose the name Damaris - one of the few women mentioned by name in the early days after the death of Jesus (Acts 17:34). Though not a Pastor myself, I do attend a church that has had and continues to have women as the senior pastor. And I have been the president of our congregation council.
Acts 32 When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some scoffed; but others said, “We will hear you again about this.” 33 At that point Paul left them. 34 But some of them joined him and became believers, including Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.
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Mahalo for this column, Nicholas! Yes, God is definitely a Mother as well as a Father. I'm a retired UMC pastor (although we are never fully retired), currently an Assoc. Professor, and still a woman! I use your "Half the Sky" videos and book every semester in my Women's Studies classes and I love your attitude toward the women of the world.
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