Tag: Marriage

June 2018 Poetry Selection
If Jesus were married
it would help explain why
he valued women higher than his contemporaries
and risked his life to go against church teachings

Very Married, by Katherine Willis Pershey, is aptly described by its subtitle, “Field Notes on Love and Fidelity.” The author, an ordained minister, draws primarily from her nearly fifteen-year marriage, with additions from her pastoral experiences, to reflect on a broad range of topics related to marriage.

Tucker’s hermeneutics are thoughtful and thought provoking. She questions why a husband would beat and terrorize his wife, and answers, regarding her ex-husband, “his perspective on male supremacy and on female submission was front and center.”

"Wallace begins with a very important question: why is the Religious Right so upset by gay marriage rather than by child poverty, or handgun violence, or military spending? She then proceeds to build evidence for her thesis: while “Christianity slowly separated from its Jewish origins, sexual renunciation took the place of kosher dietary restrictions and purity rituals as a boundary maker for Christian community.”

God bless Tim Otto for writing this book in the hope that each Christian will “go through the difficulty of relating to people who are not like us” (p. 118). But his failure to envision freedom, individualism, rights, and equality in the light of the Golden Rule tragically weakens the power of this book.

[Anderson] suggests a new sexual ethic could include the motto of doing no harm and seeking the good of others. It is an attitude that honors the other person or persons in our lives, and is honest with them about the pleasure and shared responsibility of sexual experience.

In the end, "Embodying the Sacred" allowed me to dream of a time when we go a step further yet and see gathered believers together embracing Conway’s wise insights into pregnancy and laboring, letting God speak through flesh and blood women and their partners who are experiencing it rather than talking about it abstractly and poetically every once in a while.

What Kerr has done is exactly what the original authors of the New Testament Gospels have done: Assembled a variety of sources and traditions, rearranged and rewritten them in a pattern that makes sense to them, and filled in the blanks in such a way as to address burning contemporary questions.

Overall, this is a challenging story that is told with vulnerability and a bit of humor in beautiful, lyrical language. For those who grew up in this subculture and experienced similar challenges in adulthood, this is likely to provide a great deal of comfort in knowing that you are not alone. For those who did not grow up in this subculture, it is a good introduction to the mindset and emotional drives of those who did experience it, which may provide a new level of understanding for those who struggle with the after effects.

Where the problem is objectification of the female, restoration comes in knowing the divinity of the female. Where the problem is profanity and commodification of our sexual selves, restoration comes in knowing sex as a sacred union: a mystical union between two expressions of God's presence in the world.

While his final conclusions wind up on the "revisionist' side of the debate, he reached that point via the construction of a carefully considered moral logic that frames a sexual ethic from all of Scripture. He claims that by grounding his approach to same-sex relationships in this way, he provides a rationale that was previously missing.

"... the overarching message of Jesus throughout the New Testament is a call for those in power to give it up or lay it aside for the sake of the powerless or for the greater good of the community. The theme of “little ones” being greatest in God’s kin-dom saturates the Synoptic Gospels. Jesus flees popularity, risks his life to defy rigid structures that oppress “little ones,” and finally endures the shame of crucifixion as a rebel against Roman domination."

Providing the evidence of how this narrative functions not only among groups of Christian readers but also among groups with no Christian underpinnings, the authors offer a convincing illustration of the dynamic nature of texts.

Women who stayed home and raised their families and yet did not feel the corresponding presumed bliss were grateful to Friedan for enabling them to see beyond their self-imposed guilt and their anxieties that 'something was wrong' with them.

The kind of man who would marry a feminist is a man who believes in social justice and “playing fair.” If the woman he loves supports and encourages his interests and career, he realizes that he is just as responsible to support and encourage her interests and career.

Lesson 7 - "After the creation stories of two necessary genders, the biblical record that follows is rife with polygamy, adultery, rape, and prostitution—mostly perpetuated by powerful men in patriarchal cultures. Heroes like Abraham, Jacob, David, and Solomon seem little concerned to exemplify “biblical marriage.”

Like Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen, author of the newly released Sword Between the Sexes?, I’ve remained a fan of Lewis’s works in spite of his blind spots; still, before I read her book, I had never really looked in any comprehensive way at Lewis’s view of gender.

One day I profoundly needed comforting by God, and I needed to be sung a lullaby like a mother and child. So I started strumming around with lullabies in three-quarter time, and then I was thinking of images of God as my Mother, caring for me.

What I probably liked best were her efforts to provide a sympathetic portrait of women whose religious views differ from my own. Gallagher adopts a very even-handed and respectful view towards both gender "progressives" and conservatives.

Dear Kim, It was wonderful to see you at the EEWC-Christian Feminism Today Gathering in Indianapolis a few weeks ago and to continue these intergenerational conversations before...

Dear Letha, When I go back and read our letters these past few weeks about parenting and gender roles, I realize again how difficult these...

Dear Kimberly, It was great reading your personal "observational study" of fathers and children delighting in their time together!   And thank you for sharing your...