There is a space in which I live, think, wonder, rage, and hope. It’s an in-between place. Sometimes a threatening chasm, other times a sheltering cleft, it’s unnerving and welcoming, frightening and beautiful all at once. It is home.

Faith and Feminism.

Neither word is benign; both conjure up images, thoughts, and emotions nearly immediately. And for me, each is laden with story.

Story #1: Faith.

Images of myself as a girl – in Sunday School, memorizing verses, singing hymns, playing the piano, going to summer camps complete with fireside chats. Later, attending a Christian college; later still, moving overseas to work for a missionary organization. Not soon after, becoming a pastor’s wife. (I know…it’s just too much. Clearly my story agreed because…) 15 years later I ended my marriage. I left his church. I abandoned my tradition.

Faith, understood as a non-negotiable of my spiritual worth, had been my heritage and the formative lens of my development, my ethics, my relational codes as a woman.

A possible sub-text to this story: Faith cannot abide strong, outspoken women. We are counterintuitive to its patriarchy and sometimes even unwelcome in the context of a church or religious structure that still holds to (and text-proofs) our silence and subservience. There’s no room for feminism.

Story #2: Feminism.

I was already in my 40s by the time I experienced my first real brush with feminism – aware for the first time in palpable, acutely felt ways the objectification of my gender, its harm, and the preponderance of misogyny. Re-reading age-old texts with a new lens, I couldn’t not see thousands of years of interpretation that had slighted, if not blatantly ignored the perspective, voice, and experience of my sex.

Feminism now became my religion; a new formative lens for my ongoing development, my ethics, my relational codes as a woman.

A possible sub-text to this story: Feminism necessitates a profound pragmatism, a critical eye watching acutely for insipid, unenlightened perspectives or unjust, ignorant words/behaviors. It is action-oriented, justice-focused, advocacy based. There’s little room for faith.

These two stories create a seeming binary; one that for myself and many women results in significant tension, angst, and forced choice. Can they coexist? At first blush (and in light of repetitively validated experiences with one subtext or the other) the answer feels like a definitive “no.” But I wonder.

Here’s what I have faith in: No story (or dogma, philosophy, theology, even Text) stands as sacred, holy writ; definitive and concrete, unmovable or un-editable. It is influenced by others’. It is constantly being written and re-written. There’s dialogue and banter that shifts and shapes the ever-forming narrative. Sometimes it’s full of compliment and other times just contradiction. Usually both.

Faith and feminism are having that dialogue – and sometimes that argument – in my head and heart. I can’t get them to shut up. They are perfectly content to keep talking and, in the process, convincing me that there might just be more story yet to tell; one that allows these seemingly odd bedfellows to be wed (with all the relational complexity therein…though not as complex or odd as me married to the pastor. Another story for another time).

This is a new story. Not yet completely formed within the texts of my own life, but definitely being crafted – themes developing, plot thickening, dialogue chattering away. No hard lines. Lots of blurred categories. Significant intrigue. It is a story that needs to be told and allowed to reside in an in-between space. Hmmm. Maybe it’s a story of cleavage.

Cleavage in which a feminist’s experiences of harm by structures and/or individuals of institutionalized faith could be healed.

Cleavage in which a woman’s faith could actually be strengthened and enhanced through the tenets of feminism.

Cleavage in which women (and men) could rest, reason, and wonder about the mutuality, compliment, and sustenance found in these seemingly polarizing perspectives.

Story #3: Faith and Feminism combined.

This is the story I’m currently telling, writing, living. Big time cleavage. Bold. Low-cut. Sassy. Generous. Potent. Powerful. Passionate. Life-giving to those who have lived exclusively with only one text or the other. Telling the truth, all the time, no matter what. Definitely not the faith of my mother’s (or father’s…to make a bad allusion to an old hymn). A hybrid feminism that invites much.

It’s also dangerous and provocative – this talking back to years of history and interpretation, talking back to my own heritage, my own upbringing, my own story. But I’m good with that.

This new story has a voice of its own. It calls to me – enticing, seducing, inviting. And as such, it requires increasingly more faith: a belief in something I can’t yet see, a trust in something not yet known. Full circle.

Faith informed and shaped by feminism. Feminism informed and shaped by faith. The space in which I live, think, wonder, rage, and hope. The space in which story, yes, even sacred text, continues to be written and told. A story, yes, a cleavage that’s seductive enough to be pursued and ample enough to be shared. I’m totally there. (Maybe I could find someone to design and sell the T-shirt.)

We women can move culture forward and create a future beyond patriarchy…This would be a new expression of the feminine, and given how essential it is for transforming our world, such an endeavor is nothing less than sacred. (Elizabeth Debold, The Divine Feminine Unveiled)

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Ronna Detrick is a writer, feminist, scholar, mama, friend, renegade, and conversation-sparker (and sustainer). She wrestles faith and feminism. She leaps tall buildings in a single bound. She does it with grace. You can find her at Renegade Conversations.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 at 1:01 am and is filed under Love, Meaning, Power. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.