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Sunshine for
Women Reader Responses | Home |
>> The notion of feminism is not from God. It is from a self centered and not God oriented approach to "christianity".
>Are you a Christian?
>> To change the language of the bible to suit your taste and agenda is most un-christian. To call God sexist, also is to show your true colors.
>> Feminists are true man haters. Anything that smacks of "maleness" is decried as sexist. You deny what God has made as special and important.
>> I am a Roman Catholic Christian. Jesus never preached any feminist doctrine as we hear from feminists today. Jesus is God. Thus God never preached or intended His word to be doctored by different belief systems especially ones with political agendas such as the feminist movement.
Well, Scott FAnders, I suppose I will have to address both of your messages.
When I received your first post, I thought you were probably a Southern Baptist, but you tell me that you are a Roman Catholic. Doesn't much matter to me, but I will try to tailor my argument around RC dogma and theology, not fundamentalist Protestant dogma and theology. I'm not sure what kind of a Catholic you are: the kind of Catholic who believes that the Pope is God's Vicar on earth and unquestioningly accepts everything the Pope says, or the Cafeteria Catholic who picks and chooses whatever Catholic theology suits him. So, not knowing which kind of Catholic you are, I suppose I'll have to respond to both kinds of Catholicism. Forgive me if I tell you things about official Catholic dogma that you already know, but I have met many Catholics who do not know what their church officially teaches, so I usually have to explain to them the official dogma of their own church. I am afraid that I will also wind up discussing the history of the Christian church and the Christian religion. I am a Protestant, so my responses will be flavored by my Protestant upbringing. As you will see, whether one is Catholic or Protestant has a large bearing on what you think of feminist theology.
Perhaps the most important question Martin Luther raised when he posted his 95 Thesis to the church door in Wittenburg, Germany in 1517 was the question "who is the keeper of the keys to heaven?" The Catholic church had long maintained that the Pope, and the ecclesiastics to whom he delegate his authority, held the keys to heaven. The Pope and the priests of the Catholic church, and them alone, had the power "to loose and to bind," the power to declare a sin forgiven or to condemn an impenitent sinner to hell for all eternity. The Pope had used his power to sell forgiveness in the form of indulgences. Priests had used their power to extort obedience, among other things like sex and money, from the faithful. Indeed, when Luther posted his 95 Thesis the church was constantly railing against the corruption in it's own ranks. But fearing a loss of power, the church would not take the decisive steps needed to reform itself, setting the stage for the success of the Protestant Reformation. Luther, in contradiction to the Pope, held that on the day of judgment each sinner stood alone before God, to be judged by God and God alone. No earthly minister had the power to loose or to bind, destroying the power of the RC sacraments. No longer would men fear being condemned to hell for eternity for disobeying the Pope.
Now, this issue may seem quite off-topic to you, but it is really very relevant. Protestants came to believe in sola scripture, by scripture alone: each person had the right, indeed the obligation, to read the Bible and to interpret for herself. The Catholic church went in another direction. The Pope, God's Vicar on Earth (God's spokesman on earth), was the final authority on all theological matters. Catholics were taught, not to read scripture and interpret it for themselves, but to believe whatever the church taught. To a faithful Catholic, thinking about religious matters was a heresy. Indeed, the Bible in the vernacular was long on the Index of Forbidden Books - to possess, even without reading, a book on the Index was suspicion of heresy. Someone accused of suspicion of heresy was liable to imprisonment for life on bread and water or a trip to the stake. At a minimum, the accused had his possessions confiscated and was tortured, often resulting in the victim being crippled for life or enduring a lifetime of physical agony from the damage resulting from the torture. In short, the inherited Protestant tradition is a rampant individualism in regard to interpretation of Holy Writ, for faithful Catholics, unquestioning faith in the teachings of the church. So if you are a faithful Catholic, you must believe, unquestioningly, all of the teachings of the church. If you are a Cafeteria Catholic, you are in reality a Protestant who thinks of the Pope as a particularly wise man regarding Christian theology. To a Protestant, the Pope's interpretation of the Bible is not one bit better than anyone else. Indeed, in some areas, official Catholic dogma is inherently inferior to the dogma of many competing Christian sects. If Protestants didn't disagree with the Pope on issues of theology, then Protestants would become Catholics.
Now, in your first post, you made the statement, "To change the language of the bible (sic) to suit your taste and agenda is most un-christian.(sic)" According to my Protestant upbringing, interpreting the Bible as I see fit is my obligation and is in no way un-Christian. Do you call men who interpret the Bible to mean that the blood and body of Christ are not present at communion, but that the wine and the wafer are only symbolic of Christ's presence, a distinct area of disagreement with the Pope, un-Christian? If not, why am I un-Christian when I choose to interpret other Bible passages as I see fit? Either I am free to interpret the entire Bible as I see fit, or I am not free to interpret any portion of the Bible as I see fit and still remain a Christian in good standing. Can I interpret the Bible as I see fit and still remain a good Christian? To a Protestant or a Cafeteria Catholic who isn't a complete hypocrit, the answer is "Yes, I can interpret the Bible as I see fit and remain a faithful follower". To a faithful Catholic, the answer is "No. Only the Pope is free to interpret scripture." So are you a Cafeteria Catholic or a real Catholic?
Let us now examine your earlier statements. "The notion of feminism is not from God." Should I take this to mean that you think God is a patriarchal God, that women were not created equal in God's eyes? If you believe that woman was created inferior to man, then you are guilty of a great blasphemy and you should repent of your sin of pride before you condemn your immortal soul to hell. In the words of Christine de Pizan, Book of the City of Ladies (1405)
"But, sweet friend, don't you see the overweening madness, the irrational blindness which prompt such observations? Is Nature, the chambermaid of God, a greater mistress than her master, almighty God from whom comes such authority, who, when He willed, took the form of man and woman from His thought when it came to His holy will to form Adam from the mud of the ground in the field of Damascus and, once created, brought him into the Terrestrial Paradise which was and is the most worthy place in this world here below? There Adam slept, and God formed the body of woman from one of this ribs, signifying that she should stand at his side as a companion and never lie at his feet like a slave, and also that he should love her as his own flesh. If the Supreme Craftsman was not ashamed to create and form the feminine body, would nature have been ashamed? It is the height of folly to say this! Indeed, how was she formed? I don't know if you have already noted this: she was created in the image of God. How can any mouth dare to slander the vessel which bears such a noble imprint? But some men are foolish enough to think, when they hear that God made man in His image, that this refers to the material body. This was not the case, for God had not yet take a human body. The soul is meant, the intellectual spirit which lasts eternally just like the Deity. God created the soul and placed wholly similar souls, equally good and noble in the feminine and in the masculine bodies. Now, to turn to the question of the creation of the body, woman was made by the Supreme Craftsman. In what place was she created? In the Terrestrial Paradise. From what substance? Was it vile matter? No, it was the noblest substance which had ever been created: it was from the body of man from which God made woman."
You say, "The notion of feminism is not from God. It is from a self centered and not God oriented approach to "christianity (sic)"." Feminism is very much from God, God created man and woman equal and gave them joint dominion over all the earth. Jesus himself says that the greatest commands are to Love the Lord, thy God, with all thy heart and all thy soul and all thy mind and to love thy neighbor as thyself. How can men doubt that God commands men to treat women as they would have themselves be treated? In many ways, the essence of feminism is to give women the same rights and responsibilities as men, the same opportunities as men have taken for themselves. So why is it un-Christian for women to seek to have the same social, political, and economic equality which men have taken for themselves? If these things are right for man, why are they wrong for women? Does not Jesus himself say, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you?" Would you have that others deprive you of professional opportunity or of educational opportunity or of political equality? Indeed, if you don't support the equality of men and women in all aspects of human endeavor, I think you are being quite un-Christian.
You say, "To call God sexist, also is to show your true colors." I never called God sexist. I do, however, consider many malestream interpretations of the Bible to be quite sexist. But as you can see from the last paragraph, God is very egalitarian, although at times, the Bible seems to show women in a very positive light. Take for instance the episode of Pilate trying Jesus. Who were the people demanding Jesus' death? Men. Who was the only person to defend Jesus? Pilate's wife. Who were the people who stood by Jesus in his hour of need as he hung on the cross? Women. Who were the first to believe in the resurrection? Women. Where were the men? Hiding in fear of their lives. And you want me to think that God views women as inferior. Hogwash.
You say, "Feminists are true man haters." Yet, it is men who thought up the concept of original sin. According to RC theologians, man was conceived in sin and is born sinful and unclean. According to Saint Augustine, the sin of sex resides in men's semen. No semen. No sin. According to over a thousand years of RC church teachings, any sex that is not intended for procreation was a sin. Only on October 29, 1951 when Pius XII spoke to the Italian Catholic Society of Midwives on the permissibility of the use of the rhythm method as a contraceptive did the RC church relent and permit married couples to engage in sexual intercourse without incurring the guilt of sin on the condition that the marital act be used as a means of cementing the marital relationship. One of the reasons the RC church gives for opposing birth control is that it claims that men are fundamentally sex-crazed animals and by eliminating the possibility of pregnancy, birth control enables men to show their true natures by raping women and by engaging in incest with their daughters, mothers, and sisters. The RC church outdoes every feminist writer that I have ever read in the man hating department. But don't think that I am picking on Catholics, the Southern Baptists aren't all that different from the RC church on those issues.
You say, "Anything that smacks of "maleness" is decried as sexist. You deny what God has made as special and important." Feminists object to special privileges for men merely because they are men. But to your point, I interpret what you write as meaning, "You deny what God made, (exactly what God made that I deny you don't say, so I will fill in the blank with 'men') men, [is] special and important." That statement is blasphemous for it places men in an intermediate position between women and God and encourages men to worship their own maleness in lieu of worshipping the one true God. The Bible is full of injunctions against the worship of false idols, and for the sake of your immortal soul, I think you should stop worshipping your maleness and begin to worship the one true God who loves all of his creation, man and woman alike.
You say, "Jesus never preached any feminist doctrine as we hear from feminists today." True, but he did teach a radical equality of all humanity and a love of one another. The Bible also says absolutely nothing about abortion in either the Old Testament or the New Testament, yet somehow Protestant and Catholic ministers manage to read references into the Bible on the topic in the most ludicrous places. If it is acceptable to find non-existent texts in the Bible about abortion, why should a feminist have to find a quote from Jesus's teachings supporting radical feminism? Is it not enough to judge Jesus by his actions and the words of his follower, such as Saint Paul who profusely thanked several women for increasing his understanding of Jesus and God? Why the double standard? Jesus also did not teach the virgin birth, the infallibility of the pope, the inherent sinfulness of sex, or the doctrine of original sin, among other doctrines which are now commonplace in Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox Christian churches. Jesus said nothing about the Pope being God's Vicar on earth, the keeper of the keys to heaven, transubstantiation, or censorship of books. Jesus did preach about rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's and rendering unto God what is God's, clear support for the separation of church and state, a doctrine which the RC church still doesn't support. It views the Pope as a superior earthly lord to all civil governments.
You say, "Thus God never preached or intended His word to be doctored by different belief systems especially ones with political agendas such as the feminist movement." Have you ever heard of the Donation of Constantine or the False Decretals? Do you know some of the crimes for which the RC church sent men to the stake? Let me teach you some history. The crime of suspicion of heresy could send a man to the stake. Now suspicion of heresy differs from heresy in that in heresy there is some evidence that the crime was committed; in suspicion of heresy, the crime is that the Inquisitor believes that you have improper thoughts about the church or God or that you have done something that might one day lead you to some heretical action. The alleged thought is the crime; the action which might someday lead to heresy is the crime. Here is a short list of things that could get one accused (and the burden of proof was on the accused to prove his innocence, and the church very, very rarely found itself in the position of falsely accusing a man), convicted, and sent to the stake or imprisoned on the bread and water of penitence.
Crimes which fell in the category of Suspicion of Heresy
Some categories are very broad and include
Actual Heresy included
For an exercise to the student, I will allow you to find out what ipso facto excommunication means and what actions a man could or can take to be ipso facto excommunicated. You will be amazed at the answer. Now, can you repeat the statement "Thus God never preached or intended His word to be doctored by different belief systems especially ones with political agendas . . ." without driving me into paroxysms of laughter.
Learn your history. Give up your bigotry. Find out what feminism is really about. Study the actual teachings of your church. Then maybe we can have an intelligent conversation. If you reply, please do me the courtesy of addressing all of my points. I addressed every point you made, I expect the same courtesy in return.
Sunny