In most of my previous posts (few as they may be) I’ve referred a book called Under the Tree of Life: The Religion of a Feminist Christian by liturgical scholar Gail Ramshaw. I found out about this book from the Feminarian, who wrote a post that completely sold it, literally. That post sums up the enthusiasm and effusiveness I feel in reading the book. It really is that good. I second everything the Feminarian says and so will move on to some other discussion of the book.

It’s a very personal book — Ramshaw doesn’t ever write as though she’s creating the definitive feminist Christianity, but I can’t tell you how encouraging it was to read that there is at least one woman who has been successful in that endeavour. My feminism is one thing that, if it cannot be incorporated into faith, will force me to abandon Christianity for good. So it’s good to know that the two are not incompatible.

It’s so hard to grow up in a religion that negates you. This is something I felt from a young age, reading articles about how to prepare oneself for one’s future husband in Brio magazine. In the evangelical circles in which I grew up, it’s not talked about, the fact that the bible is not woman-friendly (to put it mildly) on a fundamental level. In an organization where the leadership is primarily male, this isn’t exactly surprising, I suppose. Pastors just don’t get this, I think, to a large extent. Since they’re male, they don’t readily know what it’s like to read the bible and have these masculine metaphors, vocatives, and pronouns thrown up, constantly, wearing you down and leaving a woman with a portrait of humanity and divinity both that reflect so little of her. It’s not their fault on an individual level. Most of the pastors I have personally interacted with have all been quite progressive in their view of women and their role in the church, my own father included.

Here’s how Ramshaw summarizes the woman-oppression of the Christian faith as it is practiced pretty much everywhere:

So here is the rug that women have been swept under: God is referred to as he. God is named Father and called King. We are saved by the man Jesus. Jesus chose men as apostles. Males are the thinkers and the leaders in the church. Men are essentially more human than are women, yet men can image the divine as women cannot. Eve was our evil mother, Mary an impossible goal. Women are created for sexual activity, which is unavoidably sinful. Women are to emulate Jesus by serving others. The church licenses social strictures on women, who are to obey male authority. (40)

I don’t know if other ladies will feel me on this, but all of this sums up the source of the pain that I have felt trying to latch on to Christianity. It’s like this secret pain that they don’t talk about at church. They have those Bad Girls of the Bible bible study books, but they don’t have a study book called Your Holy Text Negates Your Validity as a Human Being: Discuss. I wish they did. I wonder how many other women feel this? Maybe not that many others. I don’t know. But I’d like to try and talk about it. Not just with women, of course. I’m a firm believer that men are partners in the feminist struggle, and I think that there are plenty of men who would have the same kind of “a-ha” moment when they realize what it’s like to be a Christian woman.

Back to Ramshaw. The first half of the book is more gender-focussed, and the second half branches out into broader theological territory. One thing I loved about the book was when she outlines beliefs that would have scandalized a, say, 16-year-old me. Like, that she doesn’t believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ or in heaven. It thrilled me, for some reason, to be reading things like that, reading Christian ideas that don’t jive with the mainline interpretation. The church failed me as a child in the sense that there are only certain questions you can ask. Mainline evangelicalism claims to welcome seekers and questioners, but they really don’t; there are only a few questions you’re allowed to ask, and “What if Jesus’ physical body didn’t actually rise from the dead?” isn’t one of them. I don’t know what I believe about the bodily resurrection or heaven, but I relish the opportunity to hear a completely different, yet still Christian, viewpoint on those subjects.

Ramshaw’s theology is firmly rooted in the community ethic that’s resonated so strongly with me over the past couple of years, and that informs her ideas about the body — the body as self and the body of Christ and the body as sexual. She writes about metaphor, and how it’s OK to toss out some of the old ones, and make some new ones, too.

Some biblical metaphors I will pick up, hold in my hands, and see that the silverplate has worn off, the base metal is showing through. These I shut away in the drawer, or throw away altogether. But others, I discover, are sterling. (38)

I came to the realization earlier this year that I personally cannot worship a male God. I think most people in my faith community would agree that God is neither male nor female, but if that’s the case, why are all our prayers to Father God in invocation of his wisdom? Why is this masculine pronoun so freaking omnipresent? Why is “Lord” so freaking omnipresent? In my own personal religious life (as I practice it outside the faith community), there are no gendered pronouns or vocatives. It’s a matter of what metaphors are right for me. Father God may work for you, and I wouldn’t dream of denying your right to use it (OK, actually, I might dream of a day when no one used gendered vocatives, but it would just be a daydream). All I know is that if I’m going to be Christian, there has to be some give in that area. I have to find some new metaphors,

As the title suggests, a favourite of Ramshaw’s is the tree of life. There are so many trees in the bible, and each of them illuminates, however dimly, a facet of God. Some criticize Ramshaw for too easily giving up the cross (which she doesn’t — she just loosens her grip a little). She says that she needs both the cross, and the tree. I imagine the image of a great tree which, when you squint a little, reveals the axes of the cross within its trunk and branches.

The shared symbol system doesn’t beam down from God, offering immediate fruits and granting peaceful shade. No, we have to tend it, prune it, prop it up here and there, protect it from tree-eating beetles. (143)

I find myself clinging to this idea a bit. The idea that we can change, the idea that the religion can change and still be alive and strong and true to its roots. Maybe its a bit of a pipe dream, but what isn’t?

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 18th, 2005 at 9:15 pm and is filed under church, feminism, books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.