Ooo...can I be a part of this agenda too?

Given my last paper was titled originally Origen and the Angry Inch, and then retitled Breaking Both the Vessels: Narrating the GenderQueer Kingdom of God, I think I'm already there.

Via Peterson Toscano (who will be in Memphis this month!), Christianity Today's take on the "Transgender Movement."

This article demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of gender identity, overlooks transgendered persons who do not feel the need for SRS, as well as genderqueer persons, gender outlaws, and any other persons floating about in the gender spectrum.

Further, anyone who is paying any attention at all when they read the Bible should be able to pick a cue here and there that gender is constructed in different ways in different times and places. Elements of gender queering remain in the New Testament -- eunuchs for the kingdom of God anyone -- even if J.C. didn't mean that statement literally, the implication of saying that in a society which considered eunuchs to be walking the line in between women and men, is certainly a striking idea. Mary of Bethany is praised for ignoring her traditional womanly gender role and taking up a studious masculine gender identity. Early church hagiography is rift with gender bending saints. The early church didn't seem to have much of a problem with "glorifying wierdos." And this is only what made it past the canon redactors.

Do a bit of digging and a lot of other stuff pops up! Joseph's "technicolor dream coat" -- yeah, the only other time that Hebrew word is used in the Bible -- it refers to the garment worn by the virgin daughters of King David.

Suggested Reading:

She's Not the Man I Married, Helen Boyd, of (en)gender -- I'm only about halfway through, but this is both clear and nuanced introduction transgenderness.
Homoerotic Narrative in Hebrew Bible, Theodore W. Jennings, Jr.
The Manly Eunuch, Matthew Kuefler
Love Between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism, Bernadette Brooten

RadHumor

Radical feminist I may not be, but damned if they don't have an amusing since of humor.

Today's exhibit: Mary Daly's Website.

Update on Columbia Mosque Arson

Three people ranging in age from 19-32 have been arrested.

Also, this article contains responses from a couple of area churches. I'm glad to see churches calling for respect for all religions. Unfortunately, the comments at the end of the article are reviving my desire to leave Tennessee and never look back.

Home Grown Terrorism

The neo-nazis in Maury County burned the Islamic Center in Columbia, TN to the ground. Thank the Divine in all the forms and faces that no one was injured.

It's a hate crime, which means the FBI is involved and hopefully the good ol' boys won't be able to sweep this under the rug if they were so inclined. I hope they catch the bastards and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. Those bastards are terrorists.

They intended to spread fear through the Muslim residents and citizens of Maury County, Tennessee, and the United States of America. They intended to reassert their sense of being powerful and being able to oppress others. To violently assert their mistaken sense of superiority and self-righteousness. To communicate what they would like to do to every person who doesn't share their skin color, religion, etc.

This is the result of the anti-Islamic rhetoric that has taken over the Republican party. This is the result of people who believe the lies that the television is feeding about Islam -- usually, without ever having met a single Muslim individual. That mindset allows the hatred and the misunderstanding to grow, until it does become violent. Words can and do support terrorism, and every slur against Islam, every misrepresentation of Islamic culture does just that. It supports and undergirds the mentality that leads people to do things like this.

I expect to see and hear a number of arguments that this doesn't reflect the actual attitudes of people in Maury County, and on a certain level it doesn't -- most of them wouldn't actually go out and commit a violent crime. However, the people of Maury County, the people of Tennessee, and the people of the United States as a whole, have to realize that incidents like these don't form ex nihilo in the mind of a racist redneck one night. They grow out of, and are supported and informed by, a cultural context and a cultural rhetoric, and when something like this happens, it's time to take a look at the social constructs that fostered and gave birth to it.

The rhetoric of hatred is a problem anywhere it is found.

Wrong number

File under things I do not have the power to do, number 100 and something.

No, I can't reinstate your driver's license.

I love my job. I get the best questions.

Dangerous Question...

At least for someone whose head has been and is infested with a rather Gnostic sense of reality. (And Gnostics and Manicheans are difficult to kick out of your head, which is why Western Christianity is infested with everything dysfunctional about Manicheanism, with none of the more interesting insights -- thank you, Augustine!)

"Are bodies and sexuality essential parts of being human--or are we, perhaps, merely souls inhabiting bodies?"

So that's this week's topic for the reading response journal thing we have for Feminist Theology. It's also one of my personal, philosophical hang-ups. The issue of embodiment. What does it mean to be embodied? Why am I embodied in the body I'm in? Why do people confuse the body I'm in with me? (Yes, I'm still mad that I'm barred from many monasteries.)

Incidentally, the accompanying reading is Dawne Moon's God, Sex, and Politics -- which is a fascinating and though-provoking study of two United Methodist Churches and their responses to gays and lesbians.

In related news -- sky burial is more awesome than I had previously thought.

This is what a Post-Feminist looks like

I think I'm disillusioned with feminism.

No, not in that way. Patriarchy is bad. Sledge hammers should be taken to it with gusto, preferably on a frequent basis. Castrate the idols, already!

Here's the sit.

I'm currently in a redux of Feminist Theology. Which means I'm reading roughly the same texts as I was two years ago when the class had a different number and was taught by a different professor. In some cases, the texts are just as delightful the second time around as they were the first. (Ada Maria Isasai-Diaz's Mujerista Theology remains highly recommended.) But coming back to intro-level Feminist discussions after having read Judith Butler is somewhat painful. (We're talking very intro-level here. Rhodents can apparently make it to their junior or senior year, not know the first thing about feminism, and be "concerned" about taking a feminist theology class.)

For instance, during a class discussion of creating feminist religious rituals to embrace womanhood and womanliness, I was sitting in the back corner of the room (in a gray vest and a matching gray fedora of gloriousness!) twitching a bit, and wanting to throw out the question -- does it really do any good to create feminist rituals, if the only thing you are accomplishing is reinforcing the boundaries between the constructed categories of gender? Couldn't this just be adding to the problem and continuing to force individuals into categories that are not based in their experience and so not adequately describe them? Does this lead to liberation?

I did not do this. I felt it would be rude (this was a student led discussion). Also, it would have been completely unproductive. I might have managed to engage three people out of the class of 25 or so. The rest would have been staring at me, thinking, "constructed categories of gender, buh?"

See, I wouldn't mind reading texts that I find to be outdated and essentialize the idea of some essential (non-biological) difference between the sexes, if I felt I could actually pull off getting a discussion going about possible critiques and so on and so forth. But I'm in a class that may very well suggest that Womanist and Mujerista theologies are excluding (silencing might even make an appearance, who knows?) white women. I mean, the class did decide that a feminist rereading of Genesis 2-3 was too anti-male in tone. (The exegete, Phyllis Trible, was using narrative theory and analyzing the characterization of Adam and Eve. She argued that the narrative presents Eve as far more curious than Adam, who's far more passive in the text. At no point did she suggest that this was a reflection on the male portion of the population -- her point was that traditional readings have not paid attention to the actual narrative, because they were too busy reading in the patriarchy.)

Murr.

So, I have both an example of why feminism remains a necessary movement, and an example of why I may well be post feminist at this point.

Or not.

Darned categories. If I had a hammer, I'd smash the categories. And then the patriarchy would fall into the abyss.