Response To (In Support of) Jimmy Carter on SBC and Women
In response to this article and this Digg posting, I posted the following comment:
From Mr Carter’s position paper:
“At their most repugnant, the belief that women must be subjugated to the wishes of men excuses slavery, violence, forced prostitution, genital mutilation and national laws that omit rape as a crime. But it also costs many millions of girls and women control over their own bodies and lives, and continues to deny them fair access to education, health, employment and influence within their own communities.”
Mr Carter also speaks to the abuse of the Scriptures by the Church – abuse whose sole reason for being is to cement the POWER of those committing the abuse.
I have given up speaking of it much – although those who watched me during Mr Obama’s campaign will recall that certain stories evoked infuriating (for me) memories of my work with abuse shelters during college.
I had given up speaking of it much, because where I live, joking about women being barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen is as much part of normal conversation as asking about the next Promise Keepers or Men Following Christ meeting. The old urge to grab a speaker by the scruff of a neck and drag their face along the pavement is occasionally overpowering.
I had walked away from the church (per se) on the basis of the abuse of power – especially as it manifests in the Right-wing’s attempt to use Southern Baptist-style Christianity as a means of misguided control.
Perhaps there remains reason to hope.
I will watch Mr Carter for clues as to how he handles himself, and how he chooses to “do” religion from this point forward. But at the very least, hope exists in that Mr Carter has removed one last reason for restraint in the sort of cleanse of NeoCon / Social Conservative religion that remains needed for society to move forward.
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