Sarah Bessey’s book Jesus Feminist came out on Tuesday. I am impatiently awaiting its arrival. I spend so much time hovering near my mailbox around post time that my mail carrier might think that I have a crush on him. It’s likely that my upcoming glee at the book’s arrival will do nothing to combat this hunch.
I came to my Jesus Feminism somewhat backwards. I grew up in the church, but when I came to college, my what-Jesus-does-with-me wasn’t really defined yet. Neither was my feminism, but feminism was what I studied, so that came first. We were Riot Grrrls. We reclaimed derogatory terms as our own, to be given only the power that we chose to give them. The oft-conflicting words of Audre Lorde, bell hooks, Susan Faludi, Naomi Wolf, Gloria Steinem, Alice Walker, Eve Ensler, and Andrea Dworkin (to name a few) informed our feminism. We fought to hear the voices of the severely oppressed, the truly hindered, throughout the world.
We were also the intellectual children of the Battling Simones. We reveled in the story of de Beauvoir championing transcendence and freedom and Weil’s response that was something along the lines of, “Clearly, you’ve never been hungry.” We officially agreed with Weil, but we understood where de Beauvoir was coming from. We understood firsthand the angst of the privileged oppressed. Most of my fellow grad students and I fell into this category. We knew we had experienced personal injustices, but we were more acutely aware of the injustices visited upon others. The white female student and the white male professional working in one of the few fields that, historically, have been dominated by women, were careful not to step on the voices of the United States citizens of other races that still have it worse than others in this country, who were careful not to step on the voices of the international students, particularly the female international students, restricted in their home country, but living, studying, working, and thriving in the elite halls of American Academia, who were careful not to step on anyone’s voice.
We did combat our personal injustices. We deconstructed power, knowing that our culture’s stingy, finite view of power was short-sighted – that the fear of the empowerment of the downtrodden was based on this stifled viewpoint – and we fought it. We argued the difference between equity and equality and talked about why it isn’t just a semantic difference – it is a systemic one – and yes, it does matter, particularly to the short-end-of-the-stick folks (and, haughtily implied, to anyone who can legitimately claim to care at all about them). We railed against our country’s rape culture (or rail, rather – present tense – as it is still, incredibly, fifteen damn years later, something our culture propagates). There was room to resist.
The implied narrative, though, still insisted that you might not want to resist too loudly because sitting very near to you is probably someone who has it worse, and you don’t want to seem insensitive to that. They could speak for themselves; they didn’t need you to speak for them or give them permission. In our field, few things are as silencing as being perceived as insensitive. Irreverent is okay – even encouraged. Insensitive is social suicide. It’s a stigma that, once one is branded with it, is difficult to overcome.
It’s an easy stigma to fall into when you go to church. Without knowing me, if my classmates heard my stats – white, female, straight, middle-class, Christian, Texan, etc. – they would probably have been more likely to place me on the side of the oppressors rather than with the oppressed. Even knowing me, after hearing the stats, they weren’t shy about their surprise that I still managed to overcome it all to be a feminist.
My church leaders also didn’t try to disguise their horror that I would identify as a feminist. It didn’t help that the pastor’s mother had been a staunch, militant feminist who let her indignation make her bitter, so that’s what all feminism meant to him. It also didn’t help that I probably would have really liked her and told him so. The other elders were concerned that I had been led astray by my education. I had a lot of conversations that included the words “The Bible clearly says…” All the gentleness in the world will not help any statement that disagrees with what comes after that ellipsis sound holy. I practiced nodding a lot, stifling the urge to wonder aloud if we were reading different Bibles, because from what I’d read, my Bible wasn’t super clear about much of anything.
I fear that this post makes it sound like I had a terrible time of it. I didn’t. My experience there was mostly positive. I love them, and they loved me and fed me, and I’m glad I stayed.
They encouraged me to speak my mind. I can’t think of any other time or place in my life where I could say what I was thinking without having to cushion it with disclaimers and defend my intentions. They trusted me. One night, while I was riled up, one of the men started to chuckle. When I stopped and looked at him, he said, “Sorry, I was just thinking that if anyone else said that to me, I would want to clock them. But I love you, and I know your heart, so I can’t even be mad. Please keep going.” He heard my soul because he trusted my intentions.
They were not afraid to lay down their privilege. We had a visitor one night who, when asked how she was, really told us. She told us about her troubles and the string of boyfriends who had played a role in them, which led her into a spirited anti-male rant. When she was finished, one of my dear friends took a deep breath and said, “On behalf of men, I’m sorry. I’m sorry they treated you that way.” He could have gotten defensive. He could have let her anger ruffle him. He chose to make peace instead.
I’m not naïve enough to think that there were no problems. I know that my experience with them was not everyone’s experience with them. We didn’t have a lot in common – they were mostly Republican and mostly complementarian and a whole lot of –ists and –ians that I’m just…not. And I also know that if I were certain –ists or –ians, I might be telling a different story right now.
But this wonderful, weird group of people, most of whom would balk at the label, taught me to be a feminist in the way that Jesus would be a feminist. They gave me a glimpse of what an infinite view of power looks like when played out in reality. It looks like love and trust. They taught me that laying down privilege doesn’t sound like silence – it sounds like redemption and healing. It sounds like “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.”
It is easy to forget that you have a voice when you spend all your energy being sensitive. You learn to listen. You learn a lot. I am a big fan of listening and learning, both of which are almost impossible to do when you’re the one talking. There is value in keeping your mouth shut most of the time.
With them, I learned that there is also value in opening it.
In Fall 2009, our church stopped meeting. There were both official reasons and actual reasons for this break up, but I am not going to go into that here, because the “why” doesn’t change the result. We scattered. Some of us found new church homes where what we had to offer was helpful to the new family.
I did not. I found a lot of places to be quiet and absorb and take – places eager to take me in and take care of me. I did not get the impression that what I have to give would be useful to them, though. I think I’ve found a place now, but we’re still new, this place and I. Since 2009, I have reverted to being mostly silent, with random, startling outbursts of loud, not for lack of anything to say, but for lack of a place where what I have to say would be a help and not a hindrance.
But I cannot stay silent. This is the danger of getting a glimpse of how things could be. It makes you require it. It makes you restless until you acquire it.
We Jesus Feminists? We honor our restlessness.
I am learning to open my mouth again. I am out of practice, and I’ve been doing it alone for a long time, so what comes out when my mouth is open is often insensitive. I hate that. Every time I do that, I want to run home and cry and never go out again and never speak again, because I hate it when I don’t do it right. I know how difficult the persona of The One Who Doesn’t Do It Right is to overcome.
But I will not go back to silence.
I’m linking up with Sarah Bessey and a whole lot of other people who will not go back to silence, either. Read them all.
M. Suzanne Terry 