Welcome to the fall, 2007 edition of Web Explorations for Christian Feminists. Once again, I’m dividing Web Explorations into two parts: textual material and audio/video resources available online. Please remember that the links in Web Explorations take you to sites outside eewc.com and thus EEWC can’t be responsible for their content. Nor does the inclusion of a link mean that it necessarily represents the views of EEWC. The links simply take you to some websites that I found of interest, delight, or concern and wanted to share with you—sites that I think we, as Christian feminists, should know about and care about.

Interesting online articles from various sources

Coming to God as little children
This prayer, written by the Rev. Marsha Woolley, a United Methodist pastor in Livonia, Michigan, is one of the most beautiful statements I’ve ever read about what it means to follow Jesus’ admonition to come to God in the spirit of a little child (See Matt.18:1-6; Matt. 19:13-15). The prayer was posted on the Spirit Scholars website.

Spirit Scholars has as its tag line, “Searching for the Sacred in a Rapidly Changing World,” and describes itself as a “global web magazine,” with a special focus on material of interest to Michigan readers. It is the brainchild of David Crumm, longtime religion editor for The Detroit Free Press. I think you’ll enjoy exploring the immense array of resources provided there for people of faith.

Latest survey on female clergy in the United Methodist Church
Women have made gains but still have a long way to go in this and most other denominations.
From the official United Methodist website, UMC.org, Sept. 25, 2007

The faith of a Muggle
Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, theologian and president of Chicago Theological Seminary, talks about what we can learn from the Harry Potter series— especially with regard to children’s religious development and two contrasting approaches to moral decision making. She discusses the development of imagination and religion’s purpose and meaning. From the Washington Post “On Faith “ series, July 19, 2007

The soul of the destroying nation
In this essay, writer Nora Gallagher asks what the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima did to the soul of the United States as a nation. During her research for a new novel set in Los Alamos, New Mexico, during the time of at the development of the atomic bomb, she considered its effects on both the U.S. and Japan. She realized that thinking about the enormously high numbers of Japanese people killed is difficult to wrap our minds around, but viewing the event with an awareness that “humanity is made up of one person at a time” can make an amazing difference. She was struck by the different emphases of two museums devoted to remembering the event. “The museum in Los Alamos is dedicated to the technological: models of the two bombs that fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, photos of the labs. Very distant, detached,” Gallagher writes. “The museum at Hiroshima is another matter. There you will find, among the photos of destruction, the stories of those who managed to survive. Each one a human particular.” Ms. Gallagher wrote this essay on this past August 6, the day commemorating the 1945 dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima.
From the Washington Post “On Faith “ series, Aug. 6, 2007

Religion for adults
Theologian Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite confronts the mindset of Christopher Hitchens in his book, God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Hitchens’ book is one of three recent best-selling books that promote what some have called “militant atheism.”
From the Washington Post,“On Faith Series,” September 26, 2007

The lies we all tell
“When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared at Columbia University that “In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals, like in your country,” writes theologian Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, “most everyone in the U.S. knew he was lying. What he meant to say is that he is doing his best to commit genocide against homosexuals in Iran and/or so terrorize them that they will deny their own identities as gay people.”
From the Washington Post, “On Faith” series, October 1, 2007.

Despite denials, gays insist they exist, if quietly, in Iran
This article describes the true situation of gay men and lesbians in Iran and why it is a topic people hesitate to discuss.
From the New York Times, September 29, 2007

Homosexuality and transsexuality in Iran
According to this article about Iranian society, “While homosexuality is considered a sin, transsexuality is categorised as an illness subject to cure,” with the result that “Iran carries out more gender change operations than any other country in the world besides Thailand. “ The government of Iran provides funding for the surgeries and hormone therapy.
From Guardian Unlimited, September 25, 2007

The church’s sexual fixation
Episcopal priest, author, and Columbia University Professor Randall Balmer muses about conservative Christians’ obsession with sexual matters, particularly homosexuality. He shows how the Bible has been used repeatedly throughout history as a weapon to halt social change—especially changes that would benefit categories of people who have been denied equal rights and recognition of their human dignity.

“Frank Schaeffer goes crazy for God”
Novelist Jane Smiley comments on a new memoir by Frank Schaeffer, son of Francis and Edith Schaeffer, the founders of the L’Abri ministry in Switzerland and authors of various books published by InterVarsity Press that were quite the rage among young evangelicals in the 1970s and continue to be read by many today. The title of Frank Schaeffer’s new book is Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back. In addition to her comments on the book itself, Smiley draws upon her own brief time at L’abri while hitchhiking across Europe in the 1960s and her later reading of Frank Schaeffer’s semi-autobiographical fiction series, the Calvin Becker Trilogy, about a young boy growing up in a strict fundamentalist home. What emerges in Smiley’s review essay is a startling picture of the lives and work of Frank’s parents, Edith and Francis Schaeffer, much different from what has been imagined by many of those who virtually idolized them.
From the October 15, 2007 issue of The Nation. Posted on The Nation’s website, Sept. 27, 2007.

Related websites:

L’abri Fellowship
http://www.labri.org/index.html

Frank Schaeffer’s own website:
http://www.frankschaeffer.com/

“Fundamentalists to the Right, Fundamentalists to the Left”
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/135/story_13586_1.html

The new feminists
This article from the UK asks, “How has feminism changed? And why do we need it now?”
Guardian Unlimited, Sept. 9, 2007

Melanie Springer Mock on international adoption
A young professor at a Christian college (who also writes for EEWC’s Christian Feminism Today) wrote this moving piece about the international adoption process which made her a happy, proud, loving mother of two little boys. She wrote this essay for the Mothers Movement Online, a website that carries the tagline: “Resources and reporting for mothers and others who think about social change.”

Grey areas in China’s one-child policy
The BBC’s Michael Bristow recently did a series of articles on China’s controversial policy of keeping population down. (This one is from BBC news, September 21, 2007) See also the related articles about China’s one-child policy, including the degree to which it has or has not worked and its effect on elderly care.

How TV is empowering women in rural India
Television, even those programs that many would consider “fluff,” is opening the eyes of many educationally deprived, impoverished, and often abused rural Indian women, helping them to see beyond their constricted lives and become aware of other ways women can live.
From the online magazine, Slate, August 20, 2007.

“The women behind the men”
New York Times columnist Gail Collins reports that at the famous 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington at which Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, female civil rights activists, even the most well-known, such as Rosa Parks, Daisy Bates, and lawyer Pauli Murray, were “all assigned to march with the wives of the male civil rights leaders, far away from the cameras.” Efforts by women leaders to have at least one of the speakers that day be a woman were rebuffed, as the men insisted that “women already had participation — both Marian Anderson and Mahalia Jackson were going to sing.”
From the New York Times, September 22, 2007.

Voices rise In Egypt to shield girls from an old tradition (female genital mutilation)
As the media are now discussing a traditionally hush-hush topic, Egyptians have been startled by statistics from a health survey. Out of the thousands of married, widowed, and divorced Egyptian women interviewed, 96 percent reported having undergone female genital mutilation. The topic came out in the open in a horrifying way after a 13-year old girl died from surgery at a clinic where she had been taken to have her clitoris removed. Men in the rural community were outraged, not because of the tragedy that befell the young girl, but because the government shut down the clinic as a result. This death followed two other deaths this past summer from erroneously called “female circumcision.” Now, in a rare show of cooperation between the government, nongovernmental organizations, religious leaders, and the media, efforts are underway to halt the practice. (From the New York Times, September 19, 2007.)
For further background, see an earlier article from the 1996 New York Times archives.

A report on the horrifying rape epidemic in Eastern Congo
“We don’t know why these rapes are happening, but one thing is clear; they are done to destroy women.” (A statement by Dr. Denis Mukwege, a Congolese gynecologist, who daily sees the tragic results of the unspeakably brutal sexual violence now occurring in the Democratic Republic of Congo.)
From the New York Times, October 7, 2007.

In Saudi Arabia, a debate on women’s right to drive
Women in Saudi Arabia and some male supporters are demanding an end to the ban on female drivers. Not only is the denial of a woman’s right to drive symbolic of women’s unequal status in Saudi Arabian society, but arranging for other means of transportation is a matter of great inconvenience and expense for women and their families.
New York Times, September 27, 2007

Cosmetic surgery’s deceptive claims to be a new feminism
This article questions the “spin” that encourages cosmetic surgery to be considered a matter of “feminist choice.”
(From AlterNet, Sept. 29, 2007, excerpted from a longer article in Ms. Magazine)

Online Video and Audio

Videos

A young professor’s last lecture
I stayed up until nearly 2:30 a.m. to hear and watch this engaging video (more than an hour and a half long). I had first learned about it when the September 21 ABC evening news broadcast featured Carnegie Mellon University computer science professor Randy Pausch as the person of the week and played a brief excerpt of his lecture. Soon news of his lecture was spreading all over the Internet, as well as being featured in the print media. Randy Pausch has pancreatic cancer which has metastasized to such an extent that doctors have predicted he has only a few months to live. As part of his university’s “Journeys” lecture series (formerly called “Last Lectures”), he told students and others what it meant to follow his childhood dreams and shared his philosophy of living life to the full, while encouraging others to do likewise. In addition to this video of the entire lecture, you can watch a short video of his interview with Diane Sawyer from Good Morning America.

Related Link: Randy Pausch’s personal website provides additional links for reading about his life and work, as well as for viewing brief excerpts from the lecture. His year long battle with cancer is also described.

Video on military sexual trauma
This video from the PBS NOW program, broadcast Friday Sept. 7, 2007, features interviews with women in military service who have suffered trauma due to sexual harassment, unwanted sexual advances, and sexual coercion, including rape by fellow soldiers. One woman tells of being raped by a superior officer. Also highlighted in the video is the fear of speaking out when such incidents occur and what is being done to help survivors of sexual assault. In addition to the video, this site provides related links, including a link to the military’s sexual trauma program.

Bill and Judith Moyers are interviewed by Charlie Rose
Bill and Judith Moyers tell Charlie Rose the background of their PBS series last year on Faith and Reason, To access the interview, look at the side menu showing archives, click on “religion,” and then click on “Judith Moyers, 6/22/2006.” Or you can put “Judith Moyers” in the search box provided with the archives.

The Kennedy Center Millennial Stage
For the past several years, as part of its “Performing Arts for Everyone Initiative,” the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC has been presenting hour-long live lectures, comedy, drama, readings, children’s programs, musical concerts, and dance performances—all free of charge, 365 days a year at 6 p.m. Performers from all over the world are featured. If you can’t attend in person, you’ll find these programs available online through the Millennial Stage archives, where they are listed by month from 1998 forward. Since many people aren’t aware that this wonderful source of great performances is available, I thought I’d mention it once again, even though I called attention to it in an earlier Web Explorations. There’s music of almost every genre—including some excellent music for the upcoming winter holidays. The site is definitely worth checking out, especially at those times when you feel like just relaxing and watching something and can’t find anything worthwhile on television.

That wraps it up for this quarterly edition of Web Explorations. I hope you’ll look over our archived Web Explorations, too, and that you’ll come back in January for the winter edition. Meanwhile, happy Web surfing!

Your Web Explorations Guide
Letha Dawson Scanzoni

© 2007 Evangelical and Ecumenical Women's Caucus