Let Justice Roll Down

March 1, 2013 By Caryn Riswold

Rev. Jann Aldredge-Clanton has shared a new recording and video of her song “Let Justice Like Waters Roll Down,” performed by the Chancel Choir and congregation of Pullen Memorial Baptist Church in Raleigh, North Carolina, conducted by Rev. Larry E. Schultz. The words of course are from the book of Amos in the Hebrew Bible, and the tune is one familiar to many Christians (listen!).

Here are a few of Jann’s words about this song and its intentional words toward justice:

Worship and social justice cannot be separated. Without justice, our worship rings hollow. The prophet Amos denounces those who offer sacrifices and songs in worship while oppressing people. God will not accept the offerings of those who “push aside the needy in the gate” (Amos 5:12, 22-23). Neither could She be pleased with hymns and other worship rituals that by their very language oppress by excluding or devaluing people.

Many traditional hymns sanction and perpetuate injustice through exclusively masculine references and symbolism of darkness as evil. “Christ-Sophia” is the central divine symbol in “Let Justice Roll Down Like Waters.” This symbol holds promise for inspiring social justice through shared power. “Christ-Sophia” reclaims a lost biblical image and offers new possibilities for wholeness by overcoming dualisms and making equal connections between male and female, black and white, Jewish and Christian traditions, thus providing a foundation for communities based on partnership instead of domination.

Take a few minutes, listen and watch:

Here are some of the lyrics:

Let justice like waters roll down on our land;

help us, Christ-Sophia, to join in your plan.

Let righteousness like everflowing streams rise;

come fill and anoint us, O Spirit most wise.

Pure wisdom and justice flow forth from your hand;

with you as our guide evil forces disband.

Give us, Christ-Sophia, the grace to prevail

O’er systems and powers that keep captives held.

For more, head over to Jann’s blog for lyrics and other creative inclusive work.

“Streams” image via Stacy Boorn.

A Healing Priestess, ‘Changing Church’

January 21, 2013 By Caryn Riswold

Around Christmas, I shared some of the creative work that Jann Aldredge-Clanton has done with Christian hymns and inclusive, female-centered language and images for the divine. I also want to share one in her series of profiles of remarkable faith leaders who are, in her words, “changing church.” In her book of the same name, and now on her blog, she talks about why she chose to profile ordained leaders working to include the divine feminine as part of a broader struggle for justice and equality:

“I chose ordained ministers not because I believe they are more important to the church than laypeople, but because they have the most to lose in advocating for change within the institutional church. Ordained clergy depend upon the church for their livelihood. So when clergy advocate for change, especially change that might not be popular, they take risks with their careers. As we see in these stories, clergy who work to change the institutional church risk sanction by denominational authorities, loss of opportunities for promotion to larger congregations or to prestigious denominational jobs, and often even loss of their jobs.”

A recent profile is of Rev. Alice Martin, Healing Priestess at Ebenezer/herchurch in San Francisco. I first met Alice several years ago when I spoke at the Faith and Feminism conference at herchurch, and knew immediately that this was an amazing woman in the process of a powerful and creative transformation.

Some of her story:

Alice grew up in the Catholic Church until at the age of fourteen she “renounced Christianity.” She explains: “Because of the hypocritical nature of the church and its violent history, I grew despondent and wary of the preaching from the male clergy.” But she continued to find “the gospels of the New Testament inspiring.” The inclusivity, tolerance, and forgiveness she found in Jesus’ preaching and parables “resonated and spoke truth” to her. “As I got older, I remembered and admired those things about the Bible, while wanting nothing to do with a Christian church.”

Four years ago Alice started feeling drawn to images of Mother Mary. “I didn’t understand this as I felt I wasn’t a part of the Christian religion anymore, but as things in my life became rougher I felt a yearning for a Mother image,” she continues. “Most of the time, I would ignore this calling, but every once in a while I would pause by a statue of Mary or pay more attention to Goddess imagery and information that came my way. When things got worse for me, I would have mental image pictures pop up of the Mother holding me for comfort and healing.”

Alice describes her healing from an “emotional breakdown” through images of the Divine Feminine in her meditation and through finding Ebenezer/herchurch Lutheran. “Images of the Feminine Divine grew stronger, and finally I went to a Goddess Rosary at herchurch. When I walked into the sanctuary for the first time, I could immediately feel a presence of ‘mother’ energy that was warm, nurturing, compassionate and healing. Soon after that, I started attending herchurch on a regular basis and became an involved council member. Herchurch has been critical in providing me a place of worship of the Feminine Divine that still has a familiar structure of Christianity without the patriarchal baggage.”

The work that she does as part of ‘changing church’ now involves expanding language for and images of the divine:

Multicultural Feminine Divine names and images in worship also help everyone connect to the Divine, Rev. Martin continues. “I feel that a wider variety of divine symbols and names gives a greater access to people when the traditional names do not feel appropriate for them. Exposing people to a multitude of images gives them a choice and a way to connect to the Feminine Divine that feels appropriate for them. It also helps in bringing up a dialog of diversity and understanding of different cultures. It is part of the inclusiveness trait that is inherently connected to opening oneself to the Feminine Divine and validating the feminine energy that runs through each of us.” Including multicultural female divine imagery in church offers people expanded symbolism, giving “them a deeper understanding of the divinity within themselves and around them.”

For more of Alice’s story, and other profiles of faith leaders who truly are changing the church, head over to Jann’s blog.

Learning and Unlearning with Stellarella

August 5, 2013 By Caryn Riswold

Passing on the faith to the next generation has to involve learning as well as un-learning. As long as Christian formation takes place in a white racist patriarchal culture, we have to pay attention to those things that children learn that we want to help them unlearn.

The dominance of male language and images for God is just one of the things that needs to be unlearned. (If you don’t know why, read Elizabeth A. Johnson, Joan Chittister, and these posts.) To this end, Deborah (Debo) Dykes has launched a new series of children’s books illustrated by Christina Mattison Ebert-Klaven featuring Stellarella, a “feisty frizzy-headed five year old” with “an indomitable spirit, sassy style, and creative imagination.” Knowing that the book grew out of Dykes’ own background as an Episcopal priest wrestling against what she calls “the tyranny of patriarchy,” I opened Stellarella! It’s Saturday! expecting to see theological treatise and feminist manifesto on every page.

I didn’t find it.

What I found was more important.

You see, God only comes up a couple of times during Stellarella’s imaginary advenure at the market with her bulldog, Tank. Once while they are shopping for strawberries, she proclaims:

“Tank, did you know God makes strawberries? She grows them from seeds she plants in the dirt. … God makes rainbows and rabbitts, bubbles and brown bears – she’s as busy as Mama!”

And at the end, Stellarella concludes:

“Did you know God makes rain too, Tank? She’s very clever.”

The rest of the book has the trappings of a typical children’s tale of a trip to the market. It actually reminds me of the book Mr. Greedy Goes Shopping, a little book that my husband picked up for me twenty years ago when we were dating and he was in Canada for a conference … he thought I would find it cute and clever. (I did.)

And if you pay attention, Dykes does something atypical within the tale: Each of the adult women in Stellarella’s adventure, from her mother to Ms Thibodeaux to Ms Sadie and others, are independent, talented, resourceful, and decidedly unstereotypical. They play the banjo and wear tropical pink muumuus and speak Italian. They are of varying ethnicities and remain outrageously positive. Even when it rains (oops, spoiler alert!) and Stellarella and Tank can’t actually go to the market, Mama happily puts on her own swimsuit and creates a fantastically fun day nonetheless. No mother-of-two worried about her body size and shape here.

There’s no manifesto here. No theological treatise. No lecture from a five year old frizzy-headed girl about God or girls or the meaning of life. But there is a bulldog who wears a collar with sparkles.

And this is how so much learning takes place. It’s socialization 101, the small messages we continually get and give about who women are, who girls should be, what we should look like and care about and do, and certainly how we talk about God. Those of us who grew up using male-exclusive language for God probably never once got a lecture or read a manifesto on why we have to say “he” and “him.” We just noticed that this is what everyone around us did, what our childrens’ books did, and what our prayers and pastors did. And many of us eventually learned that we needed to unlearn the assumption that God is male (because then, well, the male is justified in playing God.)

Imagine what would happen if that all changed. Stellarella is part of that change. She can help those us of who want to pass on the faith with many and varied images of the divine and her daughters.

Check out the book trailer here:

For more conversation on Stellarella!, visit the Patheos Book Club here.