Академический Документы
Профессиональный Документы
Культура Документы
com/2011/12/06/reformer-revolutionaryor-rationalist-three-types-of-feminism-by-kile-jones/
One of my liberal Catholic friends once compared the Church to a family. He said, Just because your family has problems doesnt mean you should abandon them. I thought about this for a while, considering its merits, and finally got up the courage to ask, What if your family is abusive? I knew at this point we would ultimately disagree, but at least the point became obvious. We had different takes on the negative vs. positive impact that the Roman Catholic Church has on the world. We also had different criteria for what abusive means. Another problem I had with the family analogy (we can call it the prosapia analogy) is that, to the average Catholic, the Magisterium, the Episcopacy, the College of Cardinals, and the Roman Curia are generally more distant than the individuals own family (You may be able to cal the authorities to report abuse by a family member, but try getting the Pope arrested!). Certainly it is easier to hold your family accountable than an institution as large as the Roman Catholic Church. Despite these differences, I felt I understood the overall point of his analogy: we may be born into structures (e.g. the Church, the State, and humanity) that have oppressive tendencies, but we have a responsibility to reform these structures from the inside out. Finally, there is a third category understood as secular feminists who find principled objections to the content of religious symbolism and the ways in which institutionalized religion has translated them into practice. The works of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Annie Laurie Gaylor, and Ophelia Benson are just a few examples of this type of feminism. These feminists think that organized religion not only promotes sexism and patriarchy, but that the spiritual or mystical beliefs espoused by these institutions serve to keep women in a state of permanent subjugation. Although critical of spiritual beliefs, it can be said with some confidence that the primary target of their frustrations is organized religion. Ali, primarily known for her strong criticisms of Islam, expresses her views quite clearly: A womans lack of social equality and freedom is a direct consequence of the teachings of Islam. Gaylor, the co-founder of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, unabashedly asserts that, Organized religion always has been and remains the greatest enemy of womens rights. While sorting out ones own views on which method is best, one has to keep a few questions in mind. Firstly, does Christianity have an essentially misogynistic core? Can Christianity be Christianity without its patriarchal characters (e.g. the Trinity, or as Mary Daly refers to them, the Supreme All Male Cast)? Secondly, is the institutional character of Christianity worth saving? Finally, which method is most likely to bring about genuine change for women? Which method will bring change about quickest and with the most beneficial long-lasting consequences? To answer these questions is to answer the main question of this article: reformer, revolutionary, or rationalist? Although I agree with the rationalist and revolutionary over the reformer, I applaud much of the work done by women to change the misogynistic tones of their religion. I cannot help but find it hard to believe that Christianity can eventually be morphed into something non-patriarchal. If one were to act like Thomas Jefferson and cut out all of the misogynistic passages in the biblical text, I believe we would have a very small bible! If somebody started a tradition based on this new bible I would be less averse to it than to traditional Christianity. This, of course, is highly unlikely, and is the reason I choose to promote the social critiques of the revolutionary and the logical critiques of the rationalist. See Rosalind Hinton, A Legacy of Inclusion: An Interview with Rosemary Radford Ruether, Cross Currents, Spring 2002, Vol. 52, No 1.
This article was originally posted on State of Formation. Kile Jones is a Ph.D. in Religion student at Claremont Lincoln University working on the intersections between secularism, atheism, and religious belief.