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Book Launch of Broken Bodies: The Eucharist, Mary, and the Body in Trauma Theology

by Karen O'Donnell on

Thirty seconds before I was due to take the podium, I opened my copy of my new book and realised that my carefully prepared notes were on my desk in my office halfway across the building. And that was how I winged my first ever book launch. Best laid plans…

On a cold Tuesday January evening at Sarum College in Salisbury, I was delighted to celebrate the launch of my new book Broken Bodies: The Eucharist, Mary and the Body in Trauma Theology (SCM Press, 2018) with colleagues, friends, family, and members of the public. Despite leaving my notes in my office in my haste to get to the launch on time, it was a real privilege to share my research (a project I’ve been working on since 2013!) with so many interested people. I shared some of the inspiration for the project with those gathered; my frustration at the eliding of bodies in theology and my sense that the concept and experience of trauma offered real potential for doing something creative and fresh in theological scholarship.

A short section from the middle of the book entitled ‘Rupture’ sets out the task I am undertaking in Broken Bodies.

The experience of trauma is a rupturing event. Like an earthquake rolls through a landscape and radically alters the topographical features, so does trauma roll through lives, stories, memories and bodies, leaving them radically altered. Allowing the traumatic memory of the Body of Christ to be framed in terms of the Annunciation-Incarnation event and moving it away from the destructive power of the Cross causes a rupture in traditional Christian narratives. The way in which the Christ-event has been understood, along with the intertwined narratives of priesthood, sacrifice, and the Eucharist, are radically altered in the light of this traumatic reframing. It is from this rupture that new, fresh, life-giving theological narratives come forth. They blossom in the space cleared by the rupture of trauma. Like a forest awakening in the aftermath of a fire, or a trauma survivor stirring up a survivor’s gift in the aftermath of trauma, some stories can only be told in the wake of the rupture. These are those narratives.

Highlighting the way in which my reading of trauma through and against traditional Christian narratives of death and destruction brought to light a theology that was full of generativity and flourishing, this sense of traumatic rupture captures something of what this book is about.

The discussion afterwards ranged from questions about caring for those who had been in war zones, self-care when supporting people who had been traumatised, and the responsibility of the church to be a place where trauma was acknowledged and where liturgy and ritual for post-traumatic remaking was offered. It was a rich conversation that helped make the connections between theological work and praxis. I was reminded once again of the words of Michelle Gonzalez Maldonado who urged me to do my theology from the place where it hurts. Broken Bodies is theology from a hurting place and I’m really delighted it is available for people to read.

You can buy it from SCM Press in hardback or if you can wait until late March you can buy it in paperback!

Karen O’Donnell

Coordinator, Centre for Contemporary Spirituality and Programme Leader for MA in Christian Spirituality, Sarum College.

[email protected]

@kmrodonnell

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Interview with Professor Mercy Oduyoye

by Johanna Stiebert on

While on our WUN-funded research trip to Ghana, Shiloh Project co-director Johanna Stiebert interviewed veteran academic and activist Prof Mercy Oduyoye and gender educationalist Joyce Boham. Mercy is the founder of the Circle for Concerned African Women Theologians and of the Talitha Qumi Centre Institute of Women in Religion and Culture in Legon, Ghana, where this interview was conducted. The short version of this interview links to a much longer conversation with both women. Enjoy!

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ANNOUNCEMENT: Routledge Focus Book Series on ‘Rape Culture, Religion, and the Bible’

by Shiloh Project on

We are delighted to announce our new Routledge Focus book series ‘Rape Culture, Religion, and the Bible’, edited by The Shiloh Project co-directors Caroline Blyth, Katie Edwards and Johanna Stiebert.

Titles are peer-reviewed, short form publications between 20,000-50,000 words, published within 12 weeks of submission.

If you would like to discuss a potential proposal, contact the series editors at [email protected]

Look out for exciting titles coming later this year!

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UN 16 Days of Activism – Day 16: Susannah Cornwall

by Susannah Cornwall on

Today’s activist is Susannah Cornwall.

Tell us about yourself! Who are you and what do you do?

I’m Susannah Cornwall, Senior Lecturer in Constructive Theologies at the University of Exeter, UK, where I also direct EXCEPT, the Exeter Centre for Ethics and Practical Theology. In my current research project I’m working in partnership with the West of England National Health Service (NHS) Specialist Gender Identity Clinic on spiritual care for people transitioning gender.

Lots of people who transition find faith is a source of support for them, but others might face opposition from religiously-conservative family and friends, or worry that God will be angry with them for ‘rejecting’ their bodies. Trans and non-binary people frequently experience physical, emotional, spiritual and conceptual violence, including erasure in religious traditions that find it hard to conceive of gender as fluid.

My theological work on variant sex and gender also extends to intersex (variant sex characteristics), and I recently contributed to and hosted the first UK screening of a new documentary film, Stories of Intersex and Faith, produced by Megan DeFranza, Lianne Simon and Paul Van Ness, which follows intersex people of faith in the USA as they negotiate living in and educating their communities. This formed part of a series of events bringing together faith practitioners, academics, advocates and activists from groups such as Intersex UK, Liberal Judaism,  the Gender Identity Research and Education Society (GIRES) Sibyls, and OneBodyOneFaith to network and make new plans for co-created research on sex, gender, sexuality and religion.

I’m also currently contributing to the Church of England’s major new project on sexuality, Living in Love and Faith, which is due to publish its findings in 2020. I regularly provide teaching and training on gender, sex and faith in schools, churches, and activist conferences, and through professional training for groups such as teachers, clergy and medics.

In the year ahead, how will you contribute to advancing the aims and goals of The Shiloh Project?  

In the coming year I will be doing further work on religion and transphobia, exploring how religious communities might interrogate their own traditions and recognize the diversities of accounts of human sex and gender that are within them. I’ll be working on a new book project on trans and Christian ethics and continuing to work with activist and advocacy groups. I’ll also be speaking on the importance of spiritual care for people going through transition at the forthcoming conference of EPATH, the European Professional Association for Transgender Health.

Religious traditions have enormous resources for overcoming homophobia, transphobia and gender-based violence, but need to get their own houses in order and recognize that they have often been part of the problem.

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UN 16 Days of Activism – Day 15: Mathew Guest

by Mathew Guest on

On the penultimate day of the UN 16 Days of Activism, we speak to Professor Mathew Guest.

Tell us about yourself. Who are you and what do you do? 

I am a professor in the sociology of religion at Durham University, and have been on the teaching staff there for the past 14 years. Working in a department of Theology and Religion has meant I have several colleagues whose work engages with issues of ethical significance, but my own research has for the most part remained fairly dispassionate, focusing on a range of institutional contexts that frame religious identities within contemporary western cultures, especially families, congregations and universities. This changed in 2013 when I co-wrote (with my colleagues Sonya Sharma and Robert Song) a report on gender imbalance within departments of Theology and Religious Studies in UK universities. Researching the experience of women working as academics or as students within my own discipline opened my eyes to how embedded gendered disadvantage is within the academy. It’s one thing to appreciate this on an intellectual level; it’s quite another to hear the stories first hand. The report mapped patterns of disengagement by gender among students at undergraduate and postgraduate level, tracing experiences of alienation to structural problems that continue to inform the professional lives of women in Theology and Religious Studies as they progress from early career fellowships, to being a full-time lecturer, through to more senior appointments. It’s the work I’m most proud of, and has had real impact on challenging practices that disadvantage women in my subject area, although there’s a lot more work to be done.

It was listening to women’s testimonies about their experiences that led me to get involved in a campaign against gendered violence. Alongside my academic work, in recent years I have become more engaged in activist networks, driven chiefly by my convictions as a Quaker and a pacifist. A couple of years ago I became involved in the establishment of Tyne and Wear Citizens, an alliance of organizations in the north east affiliated with the national organisation Citizens UK. We use broad-based community organizing to identify challenges facing local residents and pool our resources to exert influence on those in power in order to bring about positive change. Two of our most vibrant and committed organizational members are Newcastle Central Mosque and the Islamic Diversity Centre, based in multi-cultural Fenham, in the west end of Newcastle. Religious-based hate crime is a serious problem in the north east, often targeted at Muslims or others presumed to be Muslims but who are simply dark skinned or cover their heads in public. This highlights how colour prejudice is a big part of the problem. Another major dimension is misogyny, as this is largely gender-based violence. In researching religious-based hate crime in the north east region, we learnt that many of its victims were Muslim women, especially those wearing the hijab or niqab, a common act of assault being the forceful removal of the face veil, although others had also been physically hit, spat upon and verbally abused, often on public transport. Whether driven by the cowardice of racist men too afraid to confront male Muslims, or by a perverse sense of entitlement to have dominion over women’s appearance, the experiences we heard about were unsettling and abhorrent. Unfortunately, they are not uncommon, and recent comments by public figures like Boris Johnson, presenting the veil as a dubious cultural oddity, risk validating existing prejudice and ignorance. In response, we launched a campaign to get hate crime addressed more seriously, particularly on public transport, where many incidents take place.

The testimonies I heard from Muslim women were truly shocking, recounting acts of disrespect, verbal abuse and physical violence. In some cases victims were too afraid to go to the police; in others, their reports were dismissed. Some felt supported by the authorities, but our campaign group felt too little was being done to address acts of religious-based hate on the region’s buses and on the Metro network.  So we arranged a meeting with representatives of the region’s main transport companies, and they too were faced with the testimonies of the Muslim sisters who had experienced some of the abuse we hoped they would want to address. They spoke with passion and conviction, and it was inspiring to see these two women – who I can now call friends – tell their stories to a row of white men in suits in a city centre boardroom. They spoke truth to power, and were visibly empowered as a consequence.

We were asking these representatives of the transport companies to work with us in devising a hate crime policy for the region, and they agreed. I believe the testimonies of the Muslim sisters were too powerful to ignore. That’s not to say our corporate colleagues didn’t need a little more encouragement, and so we organized a public demonstration – a celebration of our diverse Tyne and Wear community – in order to raise awareness of hate crime and demystify the hijab for those unfamiliar with Muslim traditions and what they signify.  This demo took place on 13th October. Entitled ‘Reclaim the Metro’, around 160 of us gathered at the Grey’s Monument in central Newcastle and listened again to the testimonies of our Muslim friends. In solidarity, we then all boarded the Metro and took a trip to Whitley Bay, where we enjoyed together a fine British tradition: fish and chips on the seafront. We also deployed an activist tradition very much at the heart of the Citizens method: we invited the media and got the event covered on BBC Look North. We also informed our colleagues from the public transport companies that the media would be covering the event, and that we could tell a story about how wonderful it is that they have responded to our concerns with a change in policy, or we could tell a story about how awful it is that they hadn’t. Their charter on hate crime on public transport – clarifying reporting processes, committing to training staff, and to working further with voluntary groups to tackle this urgent issue – was published just before the demo.

How do you think the Shiloh Project’s work on religion and rape culture can add to and enrich discussion and action on the topic of gender activism today? Is there more we can do? What else should we post?

Given my work with the local Muslim community, as well as current research I am undertaking about the experiences of Muslim students, I would really like to see more work done on engaging British Muslim women. Their voices often go unheard and their experiences are often grossly misunderstood. Unfortunately, secular feminist commentators do not always help, and the common equation of the hijab with gendered oppression is symptomatic of how certain women’s voices are often privileged over others. Let’s hear more from the testimonies of Muslim women.

In the year ahead, how will you contribute to advancing the aims and goals of The Shiloh Project?  

Well the hate crime campaign still has a lot of work to do. Our success in securing a hate crime charter does not solve the problem, although it was a pragmatic step towards creating safer public spaces in the region. We at Tyne and Wear Citizens need to ensure that the hate crime charter is adhered to and translates into practical solutions, like improved training for bus drivers, publicity to inform the public on what is religion-based hate crime and why it is not acceptable, and a system of accountability that joins up public transport providers with local police so that all incidents are properly followed up. I know that my fellow citizens at Newcastle Central Mosque and the Islamic Diversity Centre will be at the heart of this, and hope that Muslim women will feel safer and more secure in their communities as a result of the campaign.

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UN 16 Days of Activism – Day 13: Rosie Dawson

by Rosie Dawson on

Today’s activist is award-winning journalist Rosie Dawson.

Tell us about yourself! Who are you and what do you do?

I’m Rosie Dawson, a journalist with a particular interest and expertise in Religion. Most of my career has been spent in radio and television for the BBC. Since going freelance earlier this year I’ve been able to diversify into print, podcasting and training. My specialism in Religion led to membership of the Religion and Theology panel for the Higher Education Funding Council for England’s (HEFCE) Research Excellence Framework (REF) and I’m enjoying seeing the exciting range of research being undertaken in UK universities. I’m also an Associate Research Fellow with the William Temple Foundation which seeks, through action and research, to understand the role that Religion plays in public life.  

I studied Theology at university – many years ago, and before Feminist Theology had made it onto any syllabus anywhere! But one summer afternoon I attended an extra-curricular lecture on it and it’s no exaggeration to say that that was life-changing.

How do you think the Shiloh Project’s work on religion and rape culture can add to and enrich discussion and action on the topic of gender activism today? Is there more we can do? What else should we post?

Like many others I have been energized and excited by the work that the Shiloh Project is doing. It seems to have been ready and waiting for the #MeToo movement to explode. I read Phyllis Trible’s Texts of Terror when it came out in the 80s but it seems that there’s an opportunity now to spread insights about the Bible and rape culture beyond academia in a way that hasn’t beenpossible before. The conference organized by Emma Nagouse in July 2018 succeeded in bringing together academic and practical responses to rape culture. It was a wonderful day in which a community of women from a generous range of perspectives listened to and encouraged each other.

In the year ahead, how will you contribute to advancing the aims and goals of The Shiloh Project?  

I am working with members of the Shiloh Project and others  to see how its insights can be shared more widely in broadcasts, podcasts and print. That there is public appetite to hear these perspectives was demonstrated by the response to Dr Katie Edwards’ talk for BBC Radio 4 (The Silence of the Lamb) which won an award from the Jerusalem Trust. Other plans are afoot. Shiloh Project academics  are among those contributing to a podcast  series I have produced about the Texts of Terror which should be published early in Spring 2019. Do watch this space – and then please share, share, share!

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UN 16 Days of Activism – Day 12: Gerald West

by Gerald West on
Tell us about yourself. Who are you and what do you do? 

 I am Gerald West, from Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. Since 1989 I have worked within the Ujamaa Centre for Community Development and Research, a project which facilitates collaboration for systemic change between socially engaged and contextually ‘converted’biblical scholars and theologians, community-based organic intellectuals, and their local communities of the poor and marginalized. The Bible resides in the intersections of these sectors as a site of struggle (both death dealing and life facilitating). As a biblical scholar, ‘by day’ (as we say here), much of my contribution is in forging potentially liberative community-based participatory resources from biblical scholarship.

 Since 1996 we have worked explicitly in local African contexts on gender-based violence. Invited by a group of women to facilitate a series of ‘Contextual Bible Studies’ (CBS) on a range of gender-related contextual struggles, including gender-based violence, we began to develop a CBS on gender-based violence using the story of the rape of Tamar in 2 Samuel 13. We drew on the biblical studies work of Phyllis Trible, integrating it into the methodological processes of CBS. This ‘Tamar’ CBS has been used extensively ever since, within various South African contexts, across the African continent, and in many other contexts, wherever gender-based violence intersects with religious faith. This CBS also gave rise, again at the request of a local community, to the Tamar Campaign (in 2000), which in turn gave rise to a series of CBS on ‘Redemptive masculinities’. In 2007 the Ujamaa Centre began working with a version of the ‘Tamar’ CBS that focused on masculinity.

 Allied to and generated by this gender-based violence CBS work have been an array of CBS on HIV and most recently sexuality. Just as the formative work of the Ujamaa Centre on race and class (in the context of the struggle against apartheid) generated systemic analysis and action in the context of gender-based violence, so our gender work in turn generated systemic analysis and action in the context of the intersections between economic and hetero-patriarchal systems that perpetrate HIV infection and discrimination against LGBTIQ sexualities. An analysis of systemic injustices shapes CBS work. We work within the intersectional entanglements of systemic injustice.

 In was from within this trajectory of the Ujamaa Centre’s work that I became familiar with the Shiloh Project.

 How do you think the Shiloh Project’s work on religion and rape culture can add to and enrich discussion and action on the topic of gender activism today? Is there more we can do? What else should we post?

 An important contribution of the Shiloh project has been the notion of ‘rape culture’. Rape has always been systemic, but the prevailing individualized and moralized understandings of religious faith have tended to represent rape in these terms. Most legal systems tend to adopt the same orientation. The notion of ‘rape culture’ makes it clear that rape is a system. The rape of Tamar is a good example of this, with each of the male characters in the narrative constituting a ‘rape culture’. In our work on this narrative we offer resources that facilitate reflection on rape as systemic, so the Shiloh Project’s notion of ‘rape culture’ is a useful conceptual tool.

 Significantly, the Ujamaa Centre has used the notion of ‘rape culture’ (though not this particular phrase) for our work on Genesis 19. This text is the primary biblical proof-text for condemning ‘homosexuality’ in many African contexts, and so we have done a series of CBS work on Genesis 18-19. An aspect of our CBS work recognizes the ‘rape culture’ of Sodom, in which strangers were subjected to violent assault by other men. By recognizing and naming the ‘rape culture’ of Sodom our CBS has enabled participants to construct a counter discourse in which ‘the story of Sodom’ is not about ‘homosexuality’ but about Sodom’s inhospitable attitude to strangers, violently expressed through the (heterosexual) rape culture of the men of Sodom.

 In the year ahead, how will you contribute to advancing the aims and goals of The Shiloh Project?

 The work of the Ujamaa Centre is forged from within our day-to-day work with particular organized formations of the poor and marginalized. We work ‘from below’, and so will come to the Shiloh Project from this perspective, collaborating with the Shiloh Project from the emerging contours of African local contexts in the year ahead.

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UN 16 Days of Activism – Day 12: Jayme Reaves

by Jayme Reaves on
Tell us about yourself. Who are you and what do you do? 

My name is Jayme Reaves (www.jaymereaves.com) and I am a public theologian, scholar, and activist working on the intersections between theology and public issues such as gender, race, peace/conflict, interfaith cooperation, and culture using the disciplines of feminist and liberation theologies.  I am also the newly appointed Coordinator for the Centre for Encountering the Bible and Short Course Programme at Sarum College, starting in December 2018.

In the earlier years of my professional career, I lived and worked in both the Former Yugoslavia and in Northern Ireland, seeking to ground my theology and commitment to peace and justice to practical application by working to support peacebuilding, conflict transformation, and reconciliation processes. In both the Northern Ireland and FRY contexts, I was struck by the interplay between hospitality and hostility, where both profound welcome and violent exclusion simultaneously co-exist, and where the project of a mixed society does not necessarily lead to living together well. That observation led to my PhD research which built a framework for understanding an interfaith theology and ethic of protective hospitality through providing sanctuary or refuge for the threatened other based on Hebrew Bible and Qur’anic textual studies as well as case studies based in Bosnia during the 1990s conflict.  That research was published in 2016 by Wipf & Stock and is titled Safeguarding the Stranger: An Abrahamic Theology and Ethic of Protective Hospitality. (www.jaymereaves.com/safeguarding-the-stranger).

Because of my research around hospitality and activism towards more peaceful and just communities, I do regular workshops on hospitality as political practice, taking it from the realm of tea and biscuits and more in the realm of loving revolution where it belongs.  For me, hospitality is strong, brave, and fierce in its love and dedication to welcome; it is not weak and mousy, deferring and demure as it is so often portrayed.  I work with communities in both the US and UK on exploring the practice of providing sanctuary, equipping communities of privilege to understand their obligations to care for the stranger, to use their privilege to speak for and provide justice, and to understand that a ultimately a life of faith is a life of risk rather than comfort.  The Sanctuary Movement in the US – with those at risk of deportation taking refuge in religious and community buildings – is different than it is here in the UK at the moment, but the potential in the UK for direct, non-violent, life-saving action in resistance to state oppression towards immigrants is growing.  My activism, research, and experience calls me to support this movement in whatever way I can.

My work is driven by my activism, and I continue to be captivated and dedicated to the idea that a healthy, peaceful society is one that is proactive about the “other” (whoever that “other” is), caring about their needs, rights, suffering, and celebrations as our own and being willing to put ourselves and own wellbeing at risk for them.  My research, experiences, and faith has taught me the value of hospitality as a prevailing ethic for everything (or “ethic par excellance” in the words of Jacques Derrida), and I know communities who make that pro-activity towards hospitality for others a priority and see the difference it makes in their lives and in the world around them.  

In addition, my primary work with The Shiloh Project to date has centered around research being led by my colleague David Tombs at The University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand.  For years, his research has focused on the crucifixion and sexual violence, and in our project we are conducting workshops called “When Did We See You Naked?”(www.jaymereaves.com/naked) with churches and communities who wish to explore the Mark 15 text of Jesus’ trial, torture, and crucifixion in more detail, considering the ways in which Jesus is sexually abused by the multiple public strippings as well as understanding more fully the context of crucifixion practice within the context of Roman political oppression.  We know this work is important because it shifts the paradigm of the conversation in terms of victimization, blame, stigma, silencing, and guilt.  In this era of #MeToo, the time is ripe for interrogating our theology and liturgical practices to uncover the ways in which we have enabled and turned a blind eye to sexual abuse and sexualised violence in our religious traditions.

As part of my public theology work, I also co-host the Outlander Soul podcast (www.outlandersoul.com), which looks at reading the contemporary fiction Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon through the lenses of theology, religion and spirituality, and engages with its fans about the role it plays in their lives as a sacred text. Part of this work is driven by my own love and joy as a fan, but also by my dedication to making feminist and liberation theological methods more accessible.  In many ways, the podcast has served as “theology by the back door,” giving listeners a taste of particular approaches and perspectives that they don’t hear in their own religious communities, and the feedback we have received from some listeners saying how much it means to them that we are able to connect their love of Outlander to their spiritual/religious lives.

How do you think the Shiloh Project’s work on religion and rape culture can add to and enrich discussion and action on the topic of gender activism today? Is there more we can do? What else should we post?

I think the work of The Shiloh Project is invaluable as I don’t know of anyone else in the UK who has both the same level of scholarship, activism, dedication to public outreach, and independence from religious structures that Shiloh does.  The Shiloh Project is, in many ways, a sum of its parts and all of us who are involved with its work are doing great work, but it helps to have a larger body to amplify our voices as one calling for gender justice and more inclusive, responsible religious communities and readings of sacred texts.  

Lately in my own personal journey and in smaller writing/research projects, I have been working to identify and address whiteness in my own feminism and the ways in which my activism may have inadvertently perpetuated white supremacy or silencing of women of colour.  In light of that – and because of my own need – I’d love for The Shiloh Project to provide more attention and resources for addressing the blind spots and assumptions of white feminism, supporting difficult conversations that need to happen around the intersections between race and gender justice.

In the year ahead, how will you contribute to advancing the aims and goals of The Shiloh Project?  

In the year ahead, I have a few collaborative projects fueled by my own activism that I think will contribute to advancing the aims and goals of The Shiloh Project.  First, David Tombs, other colleagues, and I are planning to continue conducting “When Did We See You Naked” workshops in New Zealand, Australia, US, UK, Peru, and South Africa, and also expanding them to run in the Former Yugoslavia, where a context of systematized sexual abuse as an instrument of war was a reality for many.

Second, my colleague, Terry Menefee Gau, and I at the Outlander Soul podcast continue to be committed to using the Outlander series as a vehicle for teaching feminist theology and hermeneutics, while making dedicated efforts to name and discuss sexual violence, gender issues, and rape culture both in the series as well as in religious and secular culture.

Third, I have been in conversation with several feminist theologians, clergy, and activists recently about putting together a one-off or series of women’s events that speaks to their experiences and offers space for reflection around themes related to women’s bodies as well as the stories they read and tell.  I have no idea what shape that might take in the end – as it’s not just up to me – but it’s important for me to make sure that the work I’m doing is accessible and applicable to women’s lives both inside and outside of the academy and church.

Fourth, I am working in partnership with several organisations around training, equipping, and supporting networks dedicated to providing hospitality and working toward justice and reconciliation in their local areas.  My role as tutor and mentor is to ensure the needs and particular concerns of women and most vulnerable to abuse and exploitation are highlighted, as well as encouraging those networks to provide space for those same people to speak for themselves.

Lastly, in my role at Sarum College, I very much look forward to working with internal and external colleagues to expand its reputation for innovation and supporting theological development that works toward gender justice and the common good. And, let’s be honest, I don’t really know how to operate any other way!  It’s great to finally have a supportive home for my work and an institution that is also dedicated to ensuring that learning goes beyond the walls of the academy to impact lives and communities in real, life-sustaining ways.

Website: www.jaymereaves.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/JaymeRReaves

Twitter: @jaymereaves

 

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UN 16 Days of Activism – Day 11: Tat-siong Benny Liew

by Tat-siong Benny Liew on

Tell us about yourself. Who are you and what do you do?

My name is Tat-siong Benny Liew, and I am currently Class of 1956 Professor in New Testament Studies at the College of Holy Cross.  Holy Cross is a Jesuit liberal arts college located in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA; however, I am not a Catholic.  

Although I have been living in North America for over 30 years, I was born in Hong Kong.  Since my father passed away when I was relatively young, my mother, who was strong and wise despite of having only an elementary education, basically raised me and my five siblings all by herself.  For both of my primary and secondary education in Hong Kong, I attended an Anglican school that is only for boys.  During most of those years and in that particular environment, I am sad to say that I had bought into many of the dominant and pervasive gender ideologies. When my eldest sister became a pastor of a local church, she experienced many discriminatory treatments that were based on gender; for instance, her district superintendent tried to tell her that the denomination would not provide housing for her because she could live with her family as a single and unmarried woman.  While homophobia was and is by no means absent in Hong Kong, I only witnessed it first hand after I moved to the USA to continue my studies.  

Besides learning from my own mother and my eldest sister, I am fortunate to have many wise and powerful female or queer teachers and colleagues who helped me gain a better sense and sensibility about various matters pertaining to gender.  My teaching and scholarship about religion in general and the Bible in particular have, as a result, always attended to gender-based dynamics and violence, as well as how they intersect with other identity factors and power differentials.  Both of the Bible courses I am teaching this semester, for instance, are cross-listed for the College’s Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies program.  Without implying that my academic work is separable from activism, I have found it more and more important to become personally involved in public movements and protestsagainst discrimination and violence on the basis of gender.

How do you think the Shiloh Project’s work on religion and rape culture can add to and enrich discussion and action on the topic of gender activism today? Is there more we can do? What else should we post?

I like the term being used by the Shiloh Project: rape culture.  The word “culture” implies that one cannot look at the act of rape by itself; we must understand that a lot of things have happened before and around rape to enable the act.  Because of this, I would like to see more explicit and more intentional research and work being done on sexual invective and harassment.

I am thinking here of the recent work by David Shepherd.  Instead of focusing on the blatant horror against women in the book of Judges (such as the rape and dismemberment of the Levite’s concubine in Judges 19, or the violent capturing of women in Judges 21), Shepherd uses the explicit mention of Judges in the beginning of Ruth (Ruth 1:1) to point to the subtlerpresence of sexual harassment against a foreign, female worker such as Ruth in the fields of Boaz.  The fact that Boaz has to tell Ruth to always keep company with other women workers and to glean so only after the male workers are done, even though he has already told his men not to bother Ruth (Ruth 2:8-9), signifies that Boaz is cognizant of the pervasive danger and widespread threat against women workers and this is further confirmed by Naomi (Ruth 2:22).  Although Shepherd uses explicit violence against women to inform his reading of implicit harassment, one may see explicit violence and implicit harassment against women as mutually reinforcing phenomena.

Since we are talking about a culture that enables and condones rapes and other kinds of gender-based violence, I wonder if the Shiloh Project can develop an instrument (such as a survey) that can help institutions (such as faith communities and schools) to get a sense of its climate and culture regarding gender-based discrimination and violence.  (Note: I owe this idea to Sarah Shectman and Seth Sanders of SBAllies.)

In the year ahead, how will you contribute to advancing the aims and goals of The Shiloh Project?  

In the coming year, I plan to be involved in campus activism that seeks to address sexual harassment and violence within my ownCollege community, including emphasis on preventive measures (such as campus-wide education to increase awareness) and institutional accountability.  These important efforts are once again about changing a culture: institutional culture.  I also plan to teach again a course on “Sex, Money, Power, and the Bible” to help students explore how our readings of the Bible may figure and reconfigure our understandings and practices of sex, money, and power in both helpful and harming ways. Finally, I will continue to research and write about gender violence as a biblical studies scholar.

   

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UN 16 Days of Activism – Day 9: Adriaan van Klinken

by Adriaan van Klinken on
Tell us about yourself! Who are you and what do you do? 

Hello you all! Thanks for the invitation to be part of the Sixteen Days of Activism campaign on the Shiloh blog! The Shiloh project addresses critical issues I’m deeply concerned and care about, so I’m really excited to be associated with it. My name is Adriaan van Klinken and I teach Religion and African Studies at the University of Leeds. Much of my work focuses on issues that speak to the interests of the Shiloh project: religion, gender and sexuality in contemporary Africa.

In recent years, my research has focused on the role of religion in the politics of sexuality in Africa, addressing the violence that is exercised – often in the name of religion – on sexual minorities. Much of that violence is discursive: through language and verbal expressions, LGBT people are demonised, denied their citizenship and human rights, and excluded from the families, communities and societies they are part of. Violent speech is deeply harmful in itself, and it is particularly painful when such speech comes from believers and religious leaders who claim to speak on behalf of God. Yet violent speech has severe consequences, not only for the mental wellbeing of the people subjected to it, but also for their social, economic and material wellbeing. Most recently in Tanzania, the governor of Dar es Salaam called upon citizens to report LGBT people to the authorities – referring to the country’s Christian and Islamic moral values. Ten alleged gay men on the island of Zanzibar were subsequently arrested and subjected to anal examinations – a direct violation of their bodily integrity – while many other members of the community live in fear. Obviously, such violence against sexual minorities is informed by socio-cultural and religious norms of gender, in particular masculinity (a theme I’ve worked on extensively in the past), and the patriarchal and heteronormative ideologies underpinning it.

It’s important to keep in mind that in as much as religion is a source of violence against sexual minorities in Africa, it also appears as a site of empowerment. I have just completed writing a book about the use of Christian language, imagery and symbols in LGBT activism in Kenya. As part of that project, I conducted fieldwork with a Christian LGBT community in Nairobi – an African “gay church” – and it was fascinating to observe how they creatively engage Christian belief as a source of affirmation, liberation and transformation.

Although I’m hardly able to make time for volunteering work, I do believe in the value of critical and engaged scholarship as a form of activism. Much of my work has been with local LGBT communities in Kenya and some other parts of Africa, and I try to take seriously the participatory nature of that ethnographic research method called “participant observation”. That comes with its own challenges, but it means that I try to build long-term relationships that are based on trust, friendship and reciprocity. The biggest compliment I received from one of my Kenyan research participants was that through my research I had become an “ambassador” of his community. He then commissioned me to not only share the struggles he and his community members are going through, but also their achievements so far and hopes for the future. In my book I write about the power of storytelling – both for the people and communities telling their stories, and for those hearing them. Indeed I hope that through research and writing I can help African LGBT stories of sexual violence and sexual empowerment (in the broad sense of both words) to be documented and shared.

How do you think the Shiloh Project’s work on religion and rape culture can add to and enrich discussion and action on the topic of gender activism today? Is there more we can do? What else should we post?

The Shiloh Project is already doing an amazing job in carving out a space for discussion and thinking about the problem of violence in relation to gender and sexuality, and as often driven by religious thought and practice. I’m genuinely impressed by the vision of the project and the energy that you have put in it – kudos to everyone involved, in particular to my wonderful colleagues and friends Johanna Stiebert and Katie Edwards! With the risk of broadening the scope of the project too much, I would like to see a broad conception of sexual violence to be explored and engaged in the project. I’m glad that recently the blog has paid attention to the question of male rape, foregrounding how not only women but also men can be violated by toxic forms of masculinity. Yet violence in the area of sexuality also comes in many subtle ways, and having real life effects on a wide range of people, including within LGBT communities. As a gay man myself, I’m personally concerned about, and affected by, the salience of heteronormative and hegemonic notions of masculinity within the male gay community – a community in which men of colour, so-called “effeminate” men, and men living with HIV often encounter discriminatory and stigmatising behaviours. These issues are not usually incorporated under the term “rape culture” narrowly defined, but they reflect deeply rooted violent modes of thought and practice in the area of sexuality.

In the year ahead, how will you contribute to advancing the aims and goals of The Shiloh Project?  

In the year ahead, I hope to make use of the publication of my earlier-mentioned book in order to break the silence on some of the issues I have just touched upon. I am also in a process of developing new research: one project with Ugandan LGBT refugees based in Kenya, and another project addressing questions of sex work, religion and activism in Africa. Both projects have the potential to explore new terrains of sexuality and violence, and to foreground the importance of intersectionality (an approach that acknowledges that sexuality is intersected with other categories and structures of power, such as gender, refugee status, social class, etc). I really look forward to working with some of my colleagues at Leeds, such as Johanna Stiebert and Caroline Starkey, on these projects, and to sharing it with members of the Shiloh project. As my research participants in Kenya keep reminding me, another world – a world that is not misogynistic, patriarchal, homophobic and transphobic – is possible. I’m excited to be associated with the Shiloh project that is based on the notion that academic scholarship, in collaboration with other communities of practice, can help advocate that cause for a more just, respectful and humane world.

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