Breaking from Religions to Discuss Sexy Soviet Nudes

I went to the Russian Museum last Saturday. First things first, should you ever find yourself in Petersburg, set aside a day and go to the Russian Museum. Just do it. Maybe even two days, it’s a bit overwhelming – particularly if one is from an art-poor backwater (I love you Memphis, but...)

So, after salivating over the portion of the icon collection that is on display, the less interesting portraits of dead tsars and Russian nobility, and the absolutely amazing late 19^th/early 20^th art, I walked through the two temporary displays up at the Russian Museum.

One titled the Soviet Venus, the other a collection of nude works by a Soviet painter whose name I have forgotten. The latter was a rather banal collection of nude females, several of which were allegories for “exotic” countries such as Turkey and India. Yeah...okay, I wasn’t impressed.

The Soviet Venus exhibit had a little more meat for gnawing on. It was a bit of an awkward experience, in part because a very decent percentage of Saint Petersburg was there to see it, and the gallery it was crammed into had very little space to begin with. Then there was the factor that I couldn’t quite decide whether I was looking at Soviet art or Soviet soft porn.

Female athletes losing their clothing while competing – while a young man with a gleeful smile looks on. Bit of an awkward ideology there. The piece doesn’t just assume an audience, but actually supplies the prototype of the ideal audience. Also, not exactly a good piece of art to begin with, but I’m not a fan of Soviet Realism to begin with. I preferred the female machinists in varying degrees of jumpsuitedness, but that could just be me.

Oddly enough, I found that the best art pieces in the exhibit were the ones that were furthest into the boundary zone between art and pornography. There were two photographs from a series titled Romance with the Theater. They were beautifully composed and dramatically lit, with a great sense of tension and plot even. The two figures were a young, artsy, fully clothed young man, and a completely naked woman, depicted as tied up in one of the photos. It was certainly art. Sex was an element. And, yeah, I was slightly disturbed by the photos, but disturbed in same way I would be by a good Chuck Palahniuk novel or David Foster Wallace.

The setting might have had something to do with my indecision. The good photos were surrounded by bland, disembodied breasts, and the like – no where nearly as compelling. Philosophically, I don’t know why allegorical figures are almost always nude females, but at least this one was intriguing rather than the “exotic nations” in the other exhibit.

I’m still processing.

However, it seems that classic art does teach that all heroic acts should be performed in the nude.

Am I a Christian? Part 2

Your Own Personal Jesus

“The vision of Christ that thou dost see,

is mine vision’s greatest enemy.”

William Blake

What was it that one of my professors said in class the other day: When you try to look at reality closely, you lose the ability to describe it.

I’m fond of Jesus. And I’m most certainly culturally a Christian – it’s the symbol set I’m best acquainted with. I can proof-text with all but the best (and give me a crack at the best, and I’ll take up the challenge). Christianity is the main force that shaped the lense through which I view the world. Not feminism, not libertarianism, not even my beloved Dostoevsky – Christianity. I’ll even admit that I’m very strongly marked by the Restoration Movement. Everything went downhill from Constantine on. Augustine – please, must we? Are you really certain you need an ecclesiastic hierarchy? But I’m a bad Church of Christ girl, because I don’t believe the Bible is the full, complete, and inerrant Word of God.

A chorus of voices in my head are asking right now just how I’m going to know Jesus, if not through the Bible. Welcome to my skull.

Is it enough to think that J.C. ain’t a bad example of the Divine incarnated in humanity? (Russian has a word for this: bogochelovechestvo -- Godmanhood/Divine Humanity/the translators are still playing to get the nuances into English.) Can you be a Christian if you happen to believe that even if J.C. is an extremely good example of bogochelovechestvo, he isn’t sufficient on his own? That we need other images the Divine within the human.

I’m also someone who has a tendency to be fond of various Hindu deities and the Buddha. And I’m developing a strong belief that all churches should have icons and lots of them, because one image of divine humanity just isn’t enough. Not even Jesus. My first remembered instance of religious-themed sarcasm was when I giggled to myself at the preacher talking about how J.C. had experienced all possible forms of human suffering. Jesus PMSing and cramping? Yeah. Right. Sure, he got much more acute physical suffering – but was he ever really trapped in his body the way I am? Trapped in a body dubbed the weaker vessel that revolts on a regular basis?

(I’d be a bad Hindu too, by the way. Karma, reincarnation – yes. Dharma – not so much.)

Can I be a Christian and take offerings of fruit to Sarasvatti? Can I be a Christian if I prefer other images of the Divine? If I light candles for Mary of Egypt and ask her to guide me? If I burn incense before an image of Sophia? If my soul has never wanted to dance more than before an image of Vishnu called by the drums and bells? Not to the exclusion of Jesus, but . . . you get the picture. If Christ is in the name, does Christ have to be the main image?

Maybe the reverse is more important. Can I be anything but a Christian when ultimately Christianity is the dominant force that has shaped my thinking?

Perhaps, I’ll start telling people that I’m an Origenist and see how that goes over.

Am I a Christian? Part 1

I’m filling out school applications again! Oh joy! For graduate school. Religious studies. Yes, I will have a lovely cardboard box one of these days. All kinds of fun questions. (Why are male and female the only choices for gender? Can’t we get past that already? Especially at liberal/progressive schools!) And, among them, we have this kicker.

Religious Affiliation: ________________

Okay, Metra, don’t panic. You’re going into academia, not ministry. It isn’t a big deal. Right. You can, after all, be an agnostic or an atheist and be a scholar of religion.

But it’s a good question. How should I describe my religious beliefs? N/A doesn’t quite seem to work. Half-crazed Mystic seems rather pretentious, as does Cosmic Lesbian Relationship with the Divine Sophia. Citizen of the Republic of Heaven – maybe I should save references to children’s novels for later – like, when I have tenure somewhere. Four years ago my mother got mad because I refused to describe myself as a member of the Church of Christ on college applications. I wrote in Christian at the time.

I read somewhere that the Cathars described themselves as Good Christians. This didn’t mean that they weren’t considered heretics.

Since I’m not going into ministry, I decided to write a sermon on the matter. Which I’m breaking up into four parts, because no blog entry should be 2800 words long.

Dear Family Members who have found this blog, although, in all but one case, I’m not sure how – please, don’t panic. And anyone who comments in anyway about my father – well, I’m not sure what I’ll do – but you do not have the right to do so.

Recovering Church of Christ

“That’s me in the corner, that’s me in the spotlight, losing my religion.

Trying to keep a few, and I don’t know if I can do it.

Oh no, I’ve said too much. I haven’t said enough.”

R.E.M., ‘Losing My Religion’

“Blessed is the church service makes me nervous.”

Paul Simon

I’m not comfortable with using the word Christian to describe myself. I’m from the buckle of the Bible Belt. Christian is carrying a lot of baggage that I don’t want. And the fundamentalist part of my life has been over for a long time. I don’t want to be associated with the religious right and the Southern Baptist Convention and so on and so forth. Or with that 80 some percent of Tennesseans who voted a year ago to enshrine their homophobia in the state constitution.

Put it this way. I’m not an evangelical. I don’t think Christians, much less the CofC or the SBC, has a monopoly on salvation – however you would like to define it. And if I have to think that to be a Christian – well then, I’m not one. And in the neck of the woods I’m from, the evangelicals have a hegemony of representation.

What is a Christian anyway? There are plenty of people I recognize as Christians who wouldn’t recognize me as such? There are several people who call themselves Christians, but I can’t for the life of me figure out how they are. (James Dobson for instance. Distorting science for the purpose of libel, actively promoting the stripping of basic secular rights from persons – yes, that’s what Jesus was all about!) And no, you don’t need to agree with me on every issue for me to recognize you as a Christian. But I’m happy to tell you that from where I’m standing, your actions are dead wrong.

And maybe I should do more to break the evangelical hegemony of representation. In the real world, that is, not just poking badgers with spoons on the internets. I was silent about too many things too often. Sure I made a feeble effort here and there, questioning the doctrine of baptism as necessary for salvation, refusing to hand out certain pieces of literature, playing devil’s advocate in class. Occasionally, when I think people will get the joke, I’ll respond to an inquiry about my religion with “I’m Satanic.” And by Satanic, I do not refer to black masses, but simply to the role of questioning the authority. Nor is this incompatible with being “Christ-like.” One way or the other, the gospel call is a challenge to the established balance.

But more frequently than doing something, I also failed to do something. Senior of high school, I should have gone to the college girl who was teaching a class to middle/early high school girls with the theme: How to be the Perfect Woman for Your Future Husband, and asked her to reconsider her choice of a topic that denied the ability of women to be complete individuals on their own. If she didn’t listen, I should have gone on up the chain. Heck, I should have taken it to the elders, if it came to it. I wouldn’t even have needed to draw on feminist theory for my argument. Instead, I just told my little sister than was a load of BS, and she shouldn’t believe a word of it. I should have questioned the one youth minister who preached a whole lesson on how he had to accept that his Methodist family members were going to hell in order to be a TRUE Christian. But I just ranted with my little sister. But these are times that I failed. When I didn’t try because I didn’t believe that anything could come of it.

I like the title of Kelly Fryer’s blog: Reclaiming the F Word. I love that Soulforce exists – I’m even more pleased that a CofC college was one of the ones that welcomed them for dialogue. I admire that there are people who are far more optimistic than me, who want to reclaim their religion from the Religious Right. I hear my CofC feminist cousin, trying to encourage me to stay in, to try to change things, saying that my generation. But I can’t. There’s too much anger in me. I don’t have the privilege my father did – I’ve been written off too many times. I wish these people the best, but I can’t do it.

God the Father

So, here's a confession. In all my twisted dealings with
fundamentalist Christianity; all my raging that I might have to be
silent, but I didn't have to like it; all my adoration for Sophia,
Divine Wisdom, I've never actually had a personal problem the metaphor
of God the Father. Sure, I don't care for the hegemony of said
metaphor, and I have plenty of first hand knowledge of the fucked up
scenarios created by said hegemony – but the image of God as Father
isn't problematic for me, at least not in any way that would be
considered feminist.

It's probably because my own father was not the representative of the
forces of the patriarchy. He's the one who told me that maybe who day
we'd go to a church where they let women have a role. He's the one
who interfered when they started pushing the marriage and children
agenda down the girls' throats before most of us had our periods.
Yes, he had the privilege of being able to stay in the church because
he was male and therefore had a place. He had the privilege to just
be able to disagree but to not be directly affected. But he didn't
represent the patriarchy.

God the Father conjures up a patient being. One who'll let me keep
asking why questions well past my bedtime. One who won't actually
damn me to hell for not accepting much of anything at face value.
This is God who will be pleased if I wander up and demand an answer.
Someone who's a refuge from all the people trying to shove me into one
box or another. God the Father is the kind face of the Divine in my
personal theology land. If I don't use the image that much it's
because it's painful. My father is both the reason why I can think of
God as Father, and his absence makes it almost too painful to draw on
that image.

I don't believe that any one image of the Divine should have a
hegemony. I believe that there are an infinite number of legitimate
images of the Divine. And I think they're highly personal.

This feminist theologian doesn't need a God the Mother image. The
closest I can get is an appreciation of Kali, but it's her ferocity I
adore, not so much her mothering aspects. Sophia is my Lady, not my
Divine Mother. Again, I can intellectually understand the appeal,
but at a personal level God the Mother is just not useful for me.

There. My confession.

An Update on my Amusements

So remember the CofC Facebook group where I was generally being a
satanic figure (in the Jobian sense) and poking badgers with spoons.
Anyway I thought I'd spin by and see what "developments" have taken
place.

The answer to the question appears to be none. People are still up in
arms over the meaning of wine in the Bible. Yeah, going on six
monthes of proof-texting each other.

Curiousity satisfied. Back to queer theology. And happy gnostic land.

Foriegn Country or High School

So, I keep having this strange feeling that I'm back in high school, and all the pretty girls are laughing at jokes in a language I don't understand.

That, and the library keeps running out of printing paper.

St. Petersburg is gloomy, St. Petersburg is bleak...

To everyone who just finished that off in your head -- congratulations, you are roughly the same age as I and infected with historically mangled, song and dance, animated versions of the Russian revolution.

Fortunately, my underwear is not frozen, because I am a smart young thing who put it on the radiator to dry rather than hanging it out on the enclosed balcony after doing laundry in the bathroom sink because my host mom is gone for the week and neither I nor my host grandmother knows how to operate the washing machine. Laundry is further complicated by everything on the machine being labeled in German.

And actually, the weather isn't too bleak to day. There is some sunshine and one of the fabulously blue Petersburg skies.

But lets talk about some other than the weather. Let's talk about something Russia and the US have in common, shall we? Entirely, f'ing disturbing advertising for feminine hygiene products, or whatever they should be called. Because, they do in fact have most anything you could possibly desire in the way of products to deal with your period now.

Of course, recently in the US we had Always' enlightened "have a happy period!" campaign. And I've seen tampon commercials that just make me think, what on earth? No, I'm just not that happy on my period -- I'm cramping and cranky.

Russian tampon/maxi pad advertising is a little different. Always is a generation or two behind, declaring that they are now "with gel action!" Gel action? What is that? Do I really want gel taking action next to my vagina? The bathrooms at the institute were recently invaded by ads for Tampax tampons, relying on the old trope of a woman on her period being unclean, but Tampax tampons will give you a clean feelings every day. Oh yes, my friends. Sprinked over the poster were little declarations: Я чиста! I'm clean! (Sarcastically, I think to myself that increased access to toilet paper would be nice as well.)

So, here's the question: Which type of advertising annoys me more? The upbeat US marketing that ignores the actual problems that many women experience from their periods. Or "the use our product to clean yourself up because you're dirty" marketing.