Editorial

As I write this, I have just learnt that the Home Secretary has declared Extinction Rebellion to be a terrorist group, granted not a top priority one, but one that she nevertheless says may offer a threat to national security. I had to take this in and after some consideration could still not believe the perversion of logic needed for such a statement and, more importantly, the implication for the lives of people if this is indeed taken seriously by law enforcement in its various guises.

So what is my problem here? My mind and heart cannot understand how people attempting to address the threats that climate change poses to the entire planet and places them on the political and social agenda can in any way be seen as terrorists. Rebellion, yes of course, but against the wanton way in which we conduct our lives – genocidal consumerism and rampant pollution; when we have done with it, we dump it and buy more. This pollution as we know now even extends to outer space which is littered with the detritus of man’s excessive need to conquer and exploit. Now I think I see children marching for their futures, and adults joining them, is indeed a threat to security but not in the commonly understood sense. But certainly to the billionaire’s paradise built largely on this disregard for the awesome beauty of our planet. An editorial does not provide the space needed to fully develop my assertion, but in a world where even green investment is not all it seems I do believe that the case for capital and its continual growth, in the hands of just a few, is central to this latest piece of legislation as to many. As a short explanation regarding green investment, I was horrified to learn that tigers, lions and many other wonderful species are now traded as commodities on the stock markets. A problem I think, but further, as with mortgages some years back, the investors gain the most if it fails. In this case, if the species becomes extinct, they make massive profits. How this works or why it should be allowed to is beyond my understanding, but it makes me weep. If you have some time, please watch this: https://urlprotection-ams.global.sonicwall.com/click?PV=1&MSGID=201912021131160000533&URLID=1&ESV=10.0.2.1713&IV=5603D5BC765ED7C58265201320298BDC&TT=1575286279143&ESN=vkBVG1uePBZhS%2BiBQA%2FDZkbycfyz6Pt7B2Fs7ZjNIlk%3D&KV=1536961729279&ENCODED_URL=https%3A%2F%2Fyoutu.be%2Fy1EdZeRHgbM&HK=96A24FCAB27D52E80EF2F78D4AA58D296A82249E3E70302284074C806B110DFC. It is unbelievable, but we need to know and stand against – wear your Extinction Rebellion badges with pride!!

And now to this issue which as ever has fascinating reading within it. Perhaps the place to start is with Jennifer Buck who writes about a feminist philosophical theology of atonement. She rightly says that not a great deal of feminist writing has been explicitly aimed at the notion of atonement, although I would say it does figure in many aspects of feminist work. She shows that much early feminist theology felt more than slightly uneasy with the notion of a punishing Father figure looming large in any concept of atonement and more than one feminist theologian proclaimed God the father to be an utter b*****d if the point was to send his son to be tortured and killed. Some softened this criticism of the almighty by saying that God suffered along with Jesus and indeed suffers with us – a notion that womanist theologians, while criticising the concept, also conceded that many of their grandmothers and great grandmothers who were in oppressive situations within the United States and were perhaps even slaves found comfort in. The idea that Jesus and along with him the Godhead itself knew their suffering and took part in it in many cases gave them the will to go on. Buck examines many possibilities for a feminist understanding of atonement and concludes that atonement and redemption do not come through death but through resistance to evil by all of us. I would argue, an understanding and call to action are needed in this day and age.

There are a couple of articles in this issue that to my mind demonstrate the need for this call to action. Autumn Reinhardt-Simson presents us with an intersectional reading of the Genesis texts concerning Sarah, Hagar, Leah and Rachel in which she highlights the issues of racism, classism and reproductive rights. She points out that the way these texts have been interpreted over the years have fed into an existing system in which many women are still under the thumb of overarching story of real womanhood meaning motherhood, which in many cases is still viewed as necessary for the family name to continue. I was shocked to read of the Quiverfull Movement in the United States, a Christian movement which encourages White Christians to outbreed people of colour. She demonstrates how power games are then, as now, set in places between women with status and those without and how those without can be used to keep the privileged in place. This is clear in the stories in Genesis, but again we read that women using surrogates today often dictate the food to be eaten, the work to be done and indeed every aspect of the surrogates’ life for the entire 9 months that they ‘own’ her. Reinhardt-Simpson reminds us that third- and fourth-wave feminism tells us that the position of the reader of any text interacts with the text itself, placing to one side any fondly held solidified readings and opening the text to the spirit of the day. She is sure that such reading can enable the reawakening of solidarity with our sisters and put on one side the patriarchally underpinned female rivalries so useful in maintaining an unequal society.

Rebeka Anic and Zilke Spahik-Sijac ask us to consider the split between the secular and the religious and how both sides have found it difficult to communicate with each other. From an Islamic and Christian perspective, they demonstrate how through non-religious influences in the course of history, this split has come to be seen as inevitable, and they also demonstrate that it need not be. This is a closely argued part of their article and clearly shows the falseness of the position and the impact such a position has had on gender roles within religion. It also demonstrates how even the secular states with communist underpinnings which declare themselves to have gender equality really do not, and the stereotypes of woman so deeply engrained in religions do not easily depart with the secular. For me, a striking part of the article is talk of the anti-gender movement which in the view of the authors had its beginnings in the International Conference in Beijing in 1995 where the idea of gender rights was challenged based on the notion that gender as such is not a ‘thing’ but rather a natural phenomenon which cannot be displaced by talk of rights. The authors argue that from here the coalition between the Roman Catholic Church and Muslims took shape, a coalition which sets itself against gender, believing discourses around it undermine society through a challenge to the complementarity arguments that continue to underpin gender inequality in all areas of life, secular and religious.

If we need just one practical example of how complementarity arguments can affect women in the everyday, we need to look no further than the next article by Hannah Stammers on the theological language of anorexia. While Stammers is clear that the causes of anorexia are complex and cannot be attributed to one thing alone, her research demonstrates how the language of religion used around women has a link to how we see our bodies and interact with them. She argues that chaplains and physicians need to work more closely on the issue of eating disorders if the full picture is to emerge and, I would say, if women are to be helped to understand just how awesome their embodiment is. Stammers examines the work already done in this area and agrees that the language of sin and guilt plays a huge part in how women understand their own eating patterns and the foods they allow themselves. Some food is sinful, while some may not be. An interesting aspect of her research is to do with the role that ritual plays in the patterns of anorexics. They can receive much of the ‘advice’ on how to starve oneself from online sites such as Pro Ana. They are advised to cut food into small pieces, eat with a spoon, keep the day’s food in a special box, drink water before eating and eat at exactly the same time every day. Stammers argues that these activities can be viewed as quasi-religious and as such can be replaced by healthier rituals enabling the person to overcome their almost compulsive behaviour. I believe here we see another example of how the patriarchally driven narratives about women’s bodies, in both secular and religious arenas, have caused women to turn in on their own bodies and believe the size of their bodies need controlling, as once they were told so did their sexuality. Another site for resistance sisters!!!

It is to the matter of active and passive sexual desire that we now turn with the article of Luke Devine which addresses the Shekinah in Zohar al Shir-ha-Shirim (The Song of Songs). He argues that she has traditionally and most often been placed in the passive role with stimulation of her desire depending on either the phallus of the Godhead (Yesod) from above or the men engaging in Torah or marital intercourse from below. Once her womb is full through these actions, she becomes responsible for creation. Devine argues it is more than possible to read beyond the androcentric ideology of the authors and find Shekinah alive to her own sexuality and desire, indeed enticing others in. This he demonstrates through a close reading of Zohar al Shir-ha-Shirim through a non-patriarchal lens. His suggestion is that the original meaning of the text is clouded in mystery to some extent and it has been in the hands of androcentric reading in both mystical and non-mystical Judaism for too long, time now to set her free. Devine believes these texts to be too useful to leave within adrocentric readings and shows there is much to be gained from reading differently. Not least an interpretation of fluid gender which would resonate with contemporary concerns and may surprise readers to find it in ancient texts. Devine puts before us a very different image of the Shekinah, one which can encourage women who embrace her to have a positive and active embodiment of sexuality.

Moving from the metaphysical realm to the physical, Jonathan Kangwa brings to our attention Peggy Hiscock, a Methodist missionary to Zambia, who in his view resisted patriarchal and imperialistic understandings of the time. Born in 1922, she went to Zambia in her 30s and set about learning Bemba, the language of the people she would minister to. Her work there was extraordinary, but Kangwa points out that while her male contemporaries are well known within Methodist circles, her name has been somewhat forgotten and should never be. Strange things come to light in this story that reflect badly on the United Kingdom – Peggy was ordained in 1968 but could only be called Reverend in Zambia, while in the United Kingdom she was still a deaconess and called Sister – a blatant double standard that seems to have no justification, and perhaps even smacks slightly of colonialism. Her ordination did open the way for African women whom she had always supported to work in the church, and in 1974 she started a formal Order of Deaconesses for women on their way to ordination. She was a keen supporter of African independence, and in the many offices she held in the church, she always advocated for the place of women and the independence of African countries.

This issue demonstrates multiple ways in which to read beyond the patriarchal, to see differently and by so doing to embody resistance. Who knew that theologians were rebels at heart!!!!