Christians who are feminists... Yaasss!

Women Roman Catholic priests celebrating Mass, Oct. 14, 2006, in North Hollywood

Thank you to high school student Aimee Bonar for researching and writing on Christian feminists last summer while she was an intern at the LA Times.  Her article is on the HS Insider site at WordPress.com.

So often I encounter people who have no idea that many Christians are also ardent feminists.  I appreciate her interest and her interviews of feminist young women and experts in the field.

I'm glad she found the website for Christian Feminism Today-- not hard because we come up #2 (after Wikipedia) when you do a Google search on the words "Christian feminism." 

Aimee did a good job of interviewing Dr. Katie Deaver, who works for CFT's website.  Katie and I are both members of Christian Feminism Today, founded in 1974.  Our next conference will be in July 2020 in Cincinnati. 

There's another important resource for feminist-leaning Christians called Christians for Biblical Equality. 

CFT supports LGBTQ rights and fights for women's equality within the church.  CBE doesn't support gay rights but otherwise is a great resource for inquiring young feminists in the church.   

See also the Instagram posts of  Kathy Barbini @baptizingfeminism and her tweets @BaptizeFeminism.  We're both local here in Los Angeles County.  She's making a documentary film on Christian feminism and has interviewed women all over the US.

There are feminists among Latinas, too.  I have two women friends who each started their own church in Santa Ana, not far from Trinity United Presbyterian, where Aimee interviewed three young women.   Rosy Hernandez preaches in Spanish at Iglesia Poder y Uncion de Lo Alto at 2520 N. Grand Avenue in Santa Ana.  Her sister Mirna Aguilar preaches in Spanish with English translation. 

Finally a warning to Julia Wright, who is quoted in Aimee's article as believing God gave "different" gifls to men and women but both should be respected.  

"Different but equal" is a red flag.  Christian feminists oppose the idea that God gave certain roles to men (leadership) and other roles to women (home and subordinate roles).  

There are both pro-equality for women and anti-equality passages in the Bible, reflecting a debate within the first century church  over this issue. Compare Galatians 3:28 to 1 Timothy2:11. 

Groups that argue for different but "complimentary" roles for men and women include the Southern Baptist Convention (since 2000--before that they had women pastors like the American Baptists), the Roman Catholic Church, and most Orthodox churches. 

There's much more to learn on the CFT website and CBE website.

Again, thank you, Aimee, for choosing this complex but fascinating topic for research and writing during your summer internship.

More on the snake in the White House

Hard to say whether the White House is a rats nest, hornets nest, or den of thieves.

Thank God that Steve Bannon, Sebastian Gorka, Anthony Scaramucci, Mike Flynn, and others have been kicked out.

But we have one more who needs to go: Ralph Drollinger, the wolf in pastor's clothing who prays with our leaders one minute and tells them mothers should not work outside the home the next minute.

He preys on them as well as with them.

See this article by Evan Halper in the Los Angeles Times on August 3, 2017:

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-la-pol-trump-cabinet-pastor-20170803-story.html

Halper quotes Judy Chu, then state senator from Monterey Park, as saying 
“I was a member of the California Assembly [ in 2004] when Mr. Drollinger told the women legislators with children at home that they were sinners...."

Check out this report by Halpern and Jordan Rau on May 21, 2004, when Drollinger's admonitions toward women lawmakers in Sacramento with young children was first making headlines.

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-me-pol-drollinger-archive-20170803-story.html

Thank you to my new friend Kathy Barbini for citing the LA Times stories about this guy on her Facebook page, Baptizing Feminism.

She points out that his credentials as a pastor come from Master's Seminary, a one-building affair next to Grace Community Church, which sits on Roscoe Blvd. near I-5 in the San Fernando Valley.

This mini-seminary has all of 19 instructors--compare nearby Fuller Seminary with 100 full-time professors and many adjunct and part-timers, or Dallas Theological Seminary in Texas with 91 professors.

The seminary's main distinction is that it forbids women to study there or to become pastors--a hard line not found in the ministry and teaching of Jesus.

Some of the profs at Master's Seminary are not even full-time--such as John MacArthur, whose main job is preaching and managing his 8,000-member church.  

So how does a guy who comes from such a diddly-squat religious education make it into the White House to lead Bible studies with the staff there?

He leans on his history as a basketball player for UCLA--that's how Kathy Barbini explains it.  The old boys club likes athletes.  

And boys' clubs naturally like to keep girls out of things.

It's bad enough to have a sexual predator as our president--we don't need this misogynist convincing those surrounding dt that the Bible sanctions oppression of women.

First of all, the Bible doesn't approve of sexism.  See the FAQs at my favorite Christian feminist website, www.eewc.com.

Secondly, men have used religion around the world for millennia to keep women away from education, political rights, business opportunities, and economic equality.

Men like Ralph Drollinger have to be stopped.  I'm not sure how to do it, but using the dreaded Media is one method.

Progressive evangelicals and ex-evangelicals on Twitter are onto him.  @dianabutlerbass  @ julieingersoll @pastordan @slacktivistFred @antheabutler @annelinstatter.

In addition to the LA Times, The Huffington Post, The Independent (UK), Capitol Weekly, Politicus USA, and others have exposed his presence in the White House.

Shining light on evil is one way of exposing it.  

"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it," we read in the first lines of the Gospel of John.

Nauseating News

If you want to vomit, listen to this White House "Bible study," actually a propaganda session to keep women barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.

http://www.oneplace.com/ministries/capitol-ministries-bible-study/listen/the-profound-theological-importance-of-husband-wife-marriage-582847.html

Thank you to Kathy Barbini on her Facebook page Baptizing Feminism for letting me know about this problem and providing the link.

Thanks also to the Los Angeles Times for a glimpse of who Drollinger is and how he got started at John MacArthur's Grace Community Church in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles--article by Evan Halper.

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-la-pol-trump-cabinet-pastor-20170803-story.html

See also an earlier LA Times article by Halper with Jordan Ran.

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-me-pol-drollinger-archive-20170803-story.html

And this report in The Huffington Post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trumps-cabinet-is-attending-weekly-bible-studies-led-by-a-conservative-pastor_us_5980d63be4b02b36343e8699?utm_campaign=hp_fb_pages&utm_source=main_fb&utm_medium=facebook&ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063&section=politics

Bad News sneaks in with Good News

Bad news...  and I'm not talking about our president boasting his way into atomic bombing of North Korea.

Anti-woman, anti-gay Christians have sailed into the White House on the coattails of dt.

Here's the Washington Post on Aug. 1:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trumps-cabinet-is-attending-weekly-bible-studies-led-by-a-conservative-pastor_us_5980d63be4b02b36343e8699?utm_campaign=hp_fb_pages&utm_source=main_fb&utm_medium=facebook&ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063&section=politics

Thanks to Carol Kuruvilla for investigating and reporting on the sexist & anti-gay aspects on Huffington Post on Aug. 2:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trumps-cabinet-is-attending-weekly-bible-studies-led-by-a-conservative-pastor_us_5980d63be4b02b36343e8699

The pastor who leads these studies, Ralph Drollinger, has reportedly claimed that mothers who work while leaving children at home are sinful and that Catholicism is the “world’s largest false religion.” He’s also a climate-change denier and virulently anti-queer.

His group is Capitol Ministries.  https://capmin.org/

Thank you to Kathy Barbini for telling me about this Bible study.  She's making a documentary on feminist work for equality in Christian churches.  http://www.baptizingfeminism.com/.