Does Christianity Hate Women?

Somewhere along the timeline on this blog I stated something like I was looking for a new definition of God.

In a way God is not obsolete but our many perceptions of him, her, it is obsolete. My dilemma has to find comfort in being a Humanist and follower of the basic Jesus ideas without the bullshit and trimmings added layer upon layer over the centuries. I try to follow “the Way” of early spiritual travelers inspired by Jesus. The Christian word had yet to be invented.

I distain the word Christian right now. There seems to be more negative attached to it over the centuries than anything balanced in the good. This is an observation and a matter for debate. There is no definite scientific measure of a question like this yet.

I do not think that the word Christian has any value. The way it is thrown around and abused in cash politics by the tax free church parties is just a tip of an iceberg of disgust for this ancient and extinct religious classification.

I started with the title and question - does Christianity hate women? I think it is a valid question to ask. Most women don’t bother to ask the question in as severe a manner as I have framed it. I am encouraged that there are legitimately ordained Catholic Women Priests out there who only have the trolls in the Vatican to deny their legitimacy.

I have spoken for the equal rights amendment. I think that women, many women have taken on the role of self-hating women. The term "self-hating" I have heard to describe Jews who are in agreement with aspects of anti-Semitism. That it would take many generations and an Equal Rights Amendment to unto centuries of damage to the female ego from society and religion.

Do self-hating women exist? Yes. And Christianity and Judaism and Islam contribute to a negative view of the potential role of women in society. Basically a good woman in the monotheistic world just shuts up, has babies, and tends house. Nothing wrong with that role if freely chosen.

But there is a potential view that a large percentage of women are capable to sustaining a role outside the tradition stay at home model. In this God forsaken economy, women are being pushed economically to the wall like everybody else and more so in a single parent household.

I ran into this article about how it is a woman’s fault for getting raped based on her clothing.

Blame the victim: Religious leaflet claims ‘ungodly’ dressed women provoke rape

“You may have been given this leaflet because of the way you are dressed,” it begins.

“Have you thought about standing before the true and living God to be judged?”

It continues with one essential theme: The sins of men are, in part, the fault of women, specifically women in tight-fitting clothing. Yates was annoyed. Then she got to a section on page two:

“Scripture tells us that when a man looks on a woman to lust for her he has already committed adultery in his heart. If you are dressed in a way that tempts a men to do this secret (or not so secret) sin, you are a participant in the sin,” the leaflet states. “By the way, some rape victims would not have been raped if they had dressed properly. So can we really say they were innocent victims?”

The hand-out is signed “anonymous.”

It is amazing how sexual bigotry can be spread around on anonymous Xeroxed propaganda sheets and quoting “Scripture”.

I ran into that article above by chance. I also ran into the above image of sculpture entitled “Christa” by British artist Edwina Sandys. It caused a bit of a stir when it was first exhibited in the liberal Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine in NYC back in the early eighties. It now is in the Feminist’s Art Section of the Brooklyn Museum of Art.

I am not suggesting that Jesus was a woman. But what if the anointed one of God and the savior as sometimes described turned out to be a woman. Or that God was more than half female in nature in direct opposition to the all male patriarchal monotheistic religions. Or that God to balance the whole thing out sends back the Logos as a woman. Just a thought.

If decency is to survive in the new global world of tomorrow, so much baggage, bigotry and self hating has to go out the door with the past. A fresh and open way of looking at all things will make all things possible within a new outlook and a new definition for God and humankind’s relationship with that new reality of the future.

Tim Tebow - Politics of Vagina

I never heard of Tim Tebow before a few days ago. (Professional and college sports is not one of my fortes). He is a big football jock, Heisman Trophy winner, and wears biblical passages on the black grease under his eyes. Nothing wrong with that. Athletes are notoriously superstitious, not washing their socks, supporters, wearing rosary beads etc.

Tim now is the national poster boy against planned parenthood and or Abortion. Seems they want to put the Tim Tebow against Abortion story on the Super Bowl in a $2.8 million dollar thirty second commercial. People starving in Haiti. People starving in the United States too. “Brother can you spare a dime?”

That’s three plus million dollars, if you include Madison Avenue production costs. That is what the message on TV in the middle of cheer leaders, chips and beer will cost. Of course the Focus on the Family – a “non profit” religious group CEO-ed by James Dobson sees the investment of three millions dollars as a sound business venture considering it may bring in ten to fifteen million dollars in donations in these cash strapped times. It is good business.

Seems his mom, Tim’s mom, has a recollection that when she was pregnant with Tim and the prognosis for a normal healthy delivery was very negative, she fought off the doctors who told her to ABORT Tim.

Sounds like a heroic story and totally PC (far right politically correct) and RC (far right religiously correct). Seems though, that when all this took place in the Philippines twenty odd years ago where she was missionary at the time, a doctor could be imprisoned for up to six years to advocate or perform such a thing.

Memory is a poor supporter of the truth sometimes. If the truth be told, maybe Mom is riddled with guilt about considering her right to use her body as a means to save herself in a very dangerous medical situation. I don’t know. I was not there. These decisions are tough to make. They are personal decisions and should remain private.

I don’t know why politics and religion are getting mixed up in what used to be the pure entertainment of the Super Bowl – the gayest game in town. I guess politics and religion are entertainment these days for many folks, though not all.

There is a shark of a lawyer Gloria Allred who is going to watch this “pro life” commercial in the middle of chips, dip and beer. She is going to decide if it is honest – truth in advertising involved here. If it is not, then there are going to be lawsuits against CBS, depositions, publicity etc.

That is the real Politics of Vagina. These redneck preachers do these half-brained publicity stunts – that is one half of the equation. The other half is people, women, feminists having to step up to bat and defend privacy and rights of reproduction without the hand of Jesus up the you know what. Blasphemous? NO!

What is Blasphemous is that I can do a search on Google under James Dobson and Wall Street and Ethics or Morality and I cannot find anything. Nobody on the so called religious side of the God Business Equation has stood on a soap box and condemned the immorality of Bankers and Wall Street, or the immorality of killing people in Asia with Drone Robots or the Catholics which are officially against the Death Penalty, notoriuosly absent, and not protesting outside prisons on execution days.

Nobody in the expensive suits and expensive tax free executive suites want to rock their own boat. Morality is a commodity, bought and sold, like everything else on this planet.

This on top of a President that does Not put morals or ethics into any of his decisions in leading the nation forward for it’s corporate sponsors.

It would seem that these days, sad to say - The only morality left in America begins and ends with a woman’s Vagina.