Chapters Discussion (Reflection)

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Chapter 10

Religion

Introduction

In the summer of 2012, gender, sex, and religion entered the public consciousness from a rather surprising source: Catholic nuns.

Nuns on the Bus: http://nunsonthebus.com/

Colbert June 11, 2012: link

Colbert December 13, 2012: link

Why Study Religion, Gender, and Communication

Spivak (2004) explains: “Religion in this sense is the ritual markers of how we worship and how we inscribe ourselves in sexual difference” (p. 104).

What can you study to understand ritual markers?

Religions of the US

Religion in the World

Examples for Study

religious experiences: witnessing, callings

texts: Letters to the Bishops

transcriptions of interviews: ethnographic research

personal accounts: conversion stories

rituals: marriage, death, birth

religious communities: monasteries

images of divinity: icons, Buddhas, or non-images (e.g. Muhammad)

documents declared definitive by church leaders: Bible, Qur’an, Talmud

(Thie, 1994, p. 232)

Origin Stories

Christian Genesis
The Lilith story
Lakota creation story
Creation stories from around the world

Institutionalized Religion and Spirituality

Institutionalized religion: the institutions that mediate people’s relations with a higher power or divinity

Spirituality: a person’s personal relationship with a higher power or divinity

Gender, Sex and Religiosity

Studies are an example of research bias based on a sex differences approach

Gender, not sex, is more determinative of religiosity

Sex and Institutional Religious Power

Most often men are in the official positions of power.

Jimmy Carter. (2009, July 15). “Losing my religion for equality.” The Age.

Carter severed his ties with the Southern Baptist Convention because of its call for women to be subservient to men. In this essay, he concludes:

“The truth is that male religious leaders have had - and still have - an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter. Their continuing choice provides the foundation or justification for much of the pervasive persecution and abuse of women throughout the world. This is in clear violation not just of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but also the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul, Moses and the prophets, Muhammad, and founders of other great religions - all of whom have called for proper and equitable treatment of all the children of God. It is time we had the courage to challenge these views.”

Complementarian

“Complementarians believe the Bible establishes male authority over women, making male leadership the biblical standard. According to this view, God calls women to submit to male leadership and take up supportive roles to their husbands and to male leaders in the church. The complementarian jury is split over whether this includes the public sphere.”

Carolyn James, 2011, p. 154-155

Complementarianism for Dummies

Egalitarians

“Egalitarians believe that leadership is not determined by gender but by the gifting and calling of the Holy Spirit, and that God calls all believers to submit to one another. At the heart of the debate is whether or not God has placed limits on what women can or cannot do in the home and in the church, although the discussion inevitably bleeds into other spheres of life.”

Carolyn James, 2011, p. 154-155

Muscular Christianity

“ . . . a Christian commitment to health and manliness” (Putney, 2001, p. 11) premised on the belief that an association existed between “physical strength, religious certainty, and the ability to shape and control the world around oneself.”

(Hall, 1994, p 7)

Aimee Semple McPherson, 1935

Billy Sunday, 1917

Paul Rader, 1922

Religion and Sexuality

As religions structure understandings of gender/sex, they also grapple with sexuality, of what is and is not acceptable.
Many people’s condemnation of homosexuality is informed by religious beliefs.
Many people of faith struggle to find ways to reconcile their faith and their sexuality. Examples: Catholics, Muslims

Religion as Liberation and Empowerment

“religions and divinities are more than a source of violence. . . . religions are also a source of resistance, hope, and struggle.”

Thie, 1994, p. 232

African Americans and Religion

Maria Miller Stewart

Lecture at the Franklin Hall, 1832, Boston

“Why sit ye here and die? If we say we will go to a foreign land, the famine and the pestilence are there, and there we shall die. If we sit here, we shall die. Come let us plead our cause before the whites: if they save us alive, we shall live -- and if they kill us, we shall but die. Methinks I hear a spiritual interrogation -- 'Who shall go forward, and take off the reproach that is cast upon the people of color? Shall it be a woman? And my heart made this reply -- 'If it is thy will, be it even so, Lord Jesus!’”

Sojourner Truth

Library of Congress, 1864 LC-USZ62-119343

“Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them."

1851 Aren’t I a Woman speech delivered to Women’s Convention, Akron, Ohio

Harriet Tubman

Library of Congress, circa 1860-1875, H.B. Lindsley

"I always tole God . . . 'I'm gwine [going] to hole stiddy on you, an' you've got to see me through.'"

Fannie Lou Hamer

Library of Congress, testifying to congress, 1964, Warren K. Leffler

“A house divided against itself cannot stand; America is divided against itself and without their considering us human beings, one day America will crumble. Because God is not pleased. God is not pleased at all the murdering, and all of the brutality, and all the killings for no reason at all. God is not pleased at the Negro children in the state of Mississippi suffering from malnutrition. God is not pleased because we have to go raggedy each day. God is not pleased because we have to go to the field and work from ten to eleven hours for three lousy dollars.”

FANNIE LOU HAMER, “WE’RE ON OUR WAY,” SPEECH BEFORE A MASS MEETING HELD AT THE NEGRO BAPTIST SCHOOL IN INDIANOLA, MISSISSIPPI (SEPTEMBER 1964)

Veiling Practices

Fadwa El Guindi (1999), an anthropologist who revolutionized the study of covering practices, explains:

“veiling is . . . a language that communicates social and cultural messages” (p. xii).

Examples of Veiling Cultural Practices for Women & Men:

Rereading the History of Women Religious

The Bible is not sexist, but society’s sexism has led to interpretations of the Bible that ignore women’s presence in the Bible (Sterk, 1989).

Despite cultural constraints, women have been drawn to religious traditions and found locations of resistance within them.

Conclusion

Religion is not solely an institution of constraint; it empowers. In religion’s celebration of grace and the inherent worth of humanity, it reassures those whose humanity has been denied by others that they are blessed.

Sterk’s 7 Areas of Future Research

1) Where do gender constructions intersect with particular faith communities?

2) What gendered communication principles, practices, and structures do various religious groups bring to life?

3) How do various uses of language either empower or constrain people’s full humanity within religious traditions?

4) What sorts of constructions of masculinity and masculine communication practices are enhanced by various religious traditions?

5) How do race, gender, and faith come together?

6) How do faith, sexual identity, and communication come together?

7) How do race, sexual identity and faith come together?

(2010, p. 212-213)