Rumors of Glory "Rumours of Glory," 3 is the title of a song written and performed by Bruce Cockb... more Rumors of Glory "Rumours of Glory," 3 is the title of a song written and performed by Bruce Cockburn, a Canadian musician and songwriter, which suggests glimpses in the natural world and in the human person of "something shining like gold but better." This chapter adopts Cockburn"s evocative phrase for a theological exploration of the presence of God. This introductory chapter will establish a context for reflecting upon the experience of transformation that Christians name redemption. Such a context will help to lay the foundation for pursuing a feminist soteriology. While a work of systematic theology, this dissertation seeks to locate the task of critical, analytical scholarship within the larger context of a spirituality which attends to ways of knowing that exceed intellection. In her work Women and Spirituality, Carol Ochs writes that the meaning the human searches for is not in life per se, but in one"s relationship to life. She explains that thinking about experience is, indeed, essential, but people also need a relationship with their experience that involves more than intellectual reflection. Such a relationship involves "accepting or rejecting, consenting or denying, 3 This phrase is the title of a song by Bruce Cockburn, Live, True North Records, 2002. I will use his phrase to capture the sense in which the divine is not perceived directly, but experienced in a mediated fashion. (The British spelling of "rumours" will be dropped in subsequent references).
Carol Christ and Judith Plaskow "became feminists together" having been involved in the Yale Wome... more Carol Christ and Judith Plaskow "became feminists together" having been involved in the Yale Women's Alliance (53). Despite their different backgrounds, both gradually came to share a similar sense of alienation. Christ became disillusioned with "Christian and Jewish theology." (87) Indeed, in her own words, Christ did "not believe in the doctrines of incarnation, original sin, or salvation through Christ." (87) Instead, Christ would eventually "celebrate the Goddess in nature." (101) Likewise, Plaskow, initially raised in a "Reform" context, (35) came to identify the "synagogue" as a place where, in her own words, she used a "prayer book with which I was unfamiliar in a language I did not understand saying words I did not believe." (109) Plaskow therefore came to reject the "transcendent and omnipotent God" of her childhood in favour of a "God(dess) all around and in me." (115) In short, Plaskow struggles with the "androcentric" elements of Jewish tradition. But despite studying "Protestant theology," (50) Plaskow maintains a "Jewish identity" grounded in not only her "experiences of feminist community," (116) but in her identification with a "network of symbols" essential to an "evolving tradition" ("Judaism") that in no way can be diminished by "the problematic nature of many images of God" in the classical texts. (269-270) These authors identify how they "developed … feminist perspectives in conversation with each other" (xii) and acknowledge agreement in "that the world is the body of Goddess or God," that the "sacred" is experienced "in our bodies," and in a shared belief in "divine immanence and inclusive monotheism." (206) The authors converge in their acceptance that "panentheism"-"God is in the world and the world is in God"-is a useful theoretical perspective that overcomes transcendence and "exclusive male monotheism." (295) The authors however openly concede: "we disagree about the nature of Goddess and God." This collection of essays by two foundational architects of Goddess and Jewish feminist theologies begins with a simple dichotomy. Christ, on the one hand, subscribes to the "Goddess as an intelligent embodied love that is in all being, a personal presence who cares about the world," (xiv) while Plaskow, on the other, "views God as an impersonal Goddess and God in the World
The Wabash Center Journal on Teaching, Apr 15, 2020
In my first year as a tenured associate professor, I experienced the worst class of my life in wh... more In my first year as a tenured associate professor, I experienced the worst class of my life in what I had expected to be a dream course, in both content and format: an upper-level seminar surveying Christian views, historical and contemporary, on the human person, sin, and salvation. While most of my teaching load is large introductory classes which students take to fulfill a core curriculum requirement, this elective course had only about a dozen students. Then, in a nightmare session, one angry student refused to follow my discussion structure and erupted in an angry, hurtful tirade, from which I was unable to keep other students in the room safe. This awful class and subsequent events have led me to a deeper understanding of what it means to embrace responsibility while at the same time recognizing and accepting that I am not in control. Course material on the human person included an overview of historical Christian teachings that women do not image God as men do, womanist critiques of racism in Christianity, and disability theology on persons with dementia. As we studied contemporary Christian diversity on gender and sexuality, the Nashville Statement, signed by evangelical leaders who assert that "a homosexual or transgender self-conception is inconsistent with God's holy purpose in creation and redemption" was required reading (Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood 2017, Article VII). The class session devoted to discussing that reading and this position was lively but respectful. The student who upended the next class did not attend this session. From the first day of the course, a traditional age male student I had never taught before regularly sought to dominate class discussion, when he was present. A pattern had quickly emerged, in which he made extraneous comments unrelated to and demonstrating no familiarity with the assigned reading, in an apparent bid simply to hold the floor. Early in the term, I spoke to him privately in the hall immediately before class, to say I would limit the number of times I acknowledged his desire to speak because I wanted to encourage discussion by some of the quieter members of the small class, which was about evenly male and female. I am a white female and the class was predominantly white, with only two students of color. He laughed and told me to go ahead if I wanted to, but that he had been in classes with many of these students before, and they never talked.
This essay describes a transformation in my experience as an adjunct teaching underprepared stude... more This essay describes a transformation in my experience as an adjunct teaching underprepared students from one of shame toward a desire to assert the value of this work. Insights from my feminist theological training helped me to affirm the importance of encouraging transformative learning in teaching the academically marginalized and prompted my analysis of student writing in an introductory World Religions course, in order to determine whether or not the course was a site of transformative learning. I argue that despite many contextual limitations, the movement toward deepening self-awareness and increasing openness to religious diversity seen in student writing demonstrates that transformative learning began in this course, and that is valuable for students' lives whether or not they are academically successful. To learn is to face transformation. – Parker Palmer In their typology of the scholarship of teaching and learning in theology and religion, Killen and Gallagher (2013) identify six genres, two of which are the " Personal/ Confessional/Vocational, " which proceeds from the assumption that " insight comes from reflection on the experience and person of the teacher " (116) and the " Show and Tell, " which " attempts to identify precisely why a particular teaching strategy did or did not work as anticipated " (115). This essay embeds elements of the " Show and Tell " genre regarding a particular world religions survey course within the larger framework of a personal narrative which sketches my adjunct identity and the challenge of teaching large lecture classes of at-risk students enrolled in a state university. 1 The " Show and Tell " aspect of the essay follows the personal narrative because my pedagogical reflection arose out of and is inseparable from an intense struggle of many years with adjunct shame. Wrestling with this shame became a transformative process for me which, eventually, empowered me to affirm the worth of my work by researching a sample course and writing this essay. I am thankful to the hundreds of students who, simply by being themselves and enrolling in classes I was fortunate to teach, were catalysts for my pedagogical and theological self-examination and growth. The transformation I went through helped me see the value of my work with these students in a different way. I explore in this essay how I reoriented my world religions course to provide opportunities for greater personal engagement by students, encouraging their 1 I thank the members of the College Theology Society (CTS) for the informal feedback many provided on my preliminary work with this material at the 2013 CTS Annual Conference. I am also indebted to anonymous reviewers and editor Tom Pearson for helping me to bring more order and clarity to these reflections.
The context: I have used this exercise to begin a course segment devoted to a particular religiou... more The context: I have used this exercise to begin a course segment devoted to a particular religious tradition in large (60-300 students) World Religions classes.
Rumors of Glory "Rumours of Glory," 3 is the title of a song written and performed by Bruce Cockb... more Rumors of Glory "Rumours of Glory," 3 is the title of a song written and performed by Bruce Cockburn, a Canadian musician and songwriter, which suggests glimpses in the natural world and in the human person of "something shining like gold but better." This chapter adopts Cockburn"s evocative phrase for a theological exploration of the presence of God. This introductory chapter will establish a context for reflecting upon the experience of transformation that Christians name redemption. Such a context will help to lay the foundation for pursuing a feminist soteriology. While a work of systematic theology, this dissertation seeks to locate the task of critical, analytical scholarship within the larger context of a spirituality which attends to ways of knowing that exceed intellection. In her work Women and Spirituality, Carol Ochs writes that the meaning the human searches for is not in life per se, but in one"s relationship to life. She explains that thinking about experience is, indeed, essential, but people also need a relationship with their experience that involves more than intellectual reflection. Such a relationship involves "accepting or rejecting, consenting or denying, 3 This phrase is the title of a song by Bruce Cockburn, Live, True North Records, 2002. I will use his phrase to capture the sense in which the divine is not perceived directly, but experienced in a mediated fashion. (The British spelling of "rumours" will be dropped in subsequent references).
Carol Christ and Judith Plaskow "became feminists together" having been involved in the Yale Wome... more Carol Christ and Judith Plaskow "became feminists together" having been involved in the Yale Women's Alliance (53). Despite their different backgrounds, both gradually came to share a similar sense of alienation. Christ became disillusioned with "Christian and Jewish theology." (87) Indeed, in her own words, Christ did "not believe in the doctrines of incarnation, original sin, or salvation through Christ." (87) Instead, Christ would eventually "celebrate the Goddess in nature." (101) Likewise, Plaskow, initially raised in a "Reform" context, (35) came to identify the "synagogue" as a place where, in her own words, she used a "prayer book with which I was unfamiliar in a language I did not understand saying words I did not believe." (109) Plaskow therefore came to reject the "transcendent and omnipotent God" of her childhood in favour of a "God(dess) all around and in me." (115) In short, Plaskow struggles with the "androcentric" elements of Jewish tradition. But despite studying "Protestant theology," (50) Plaskow maintains a "Jewish identity" grounded in not only her "experiences of feminist community," (116) but in her identification with a "network of symbols" essential to an "evolving tradition" ("Judaism") that in no way can be diminished by "the problematic nature of many images of God" in the classical texts. (269-270) These authors identify how they "developed … feminist perspectives in conversation with each other" (xii) and acknowledge agreement in "that the world is the body of Goddess or God," that the "sacred" is experienced "in our bodies," and in a shared belief in "divine immanence and inclusive monotheism." (206) The authors converge in their acceptance that "panentheism"-"God is in the world and the world is in God"-is a useful theoretical perspective that overcomes transcendence and "exclusive male monotheism." (295) The authors however openly concede: "we disagree about the nature of Goddess and God." This collection of essays by two foundational architects of Goddess and Jewish feminist theologies begins with a simple dichotomy. Christ, on the one hand, subscribes to the "Goddess as an intelligent embodied love that is in all being, a personal presence who cares about the world," (xiv) while Plaskow, on the other, "views God as an impersonal Goddess and God in the World
The Wabash Center Journal on Teaching, Apr 15, 2020
In my first year as a tenured associate professor, I experienced the worst class of my life in wh... more In my first year as a tenured associate professor, I experienced the worst class of my life in what I had expected to be a dream course, in both content and format: an upper-level seminar surveying Christian views, historical and contemporary, on the human person, sin, and salvation. While most of my teaching load is large introductory classes which students take to fulfill a core curriculum requirement, this elective course had only about a dozen students. Then, in a nightmare session, one angry student refused to follow my discussion structure and erupted in an angry, hurtful tirade, from which I was unable to keep other students in the room safe. This awful class and subsequent events have led me to a deeper understanding of what it means to embrace responsibility while at the same time recognizing and accepting that I am not in control. Course material on the human person included an overview of historical Christian teachings that women do not image God as men do, womanist critiques of racism in Christianity, and disability theology on persons with dementia. As we studied contemporary Christian diversity on gender and sexuality, the Nashville Statement, signed by evangelical leaders who assert that "a homosexual or transgender self-conception is inconsistent with God's holy purpose in creation and redemption" was required reading (Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood 2017, Article VII). The class session devoted to discussing that reading and this position was lively but respectful. The student who upended the next class did not attend this session. From the first day of the course, a traditional age male student I had never taught before regularly sought to dominate class discussion, when he was present. A pattern had quickly emerged, in which he made extraneous comments unrelated to and demonstrating no familiarity with the assigned reading, in an apparent bid simply to hold the floor. Early in the term, I spoke to him privately in the hall immediately before class, to say I would limit the number of times I acknowledged his desire to speak because I wanted to encourage discussion by some of the quieter members of the small class, which was about evenly male and female. I am a white female and the class was predominantly white, with only two students of color. He laughed and told me to go ahead if I wanted to, but that he had been in classes with many of these students before, and they never talked.
This essay describes a transformation in my experience as an adjunct teaching underprepared stude... more This essay describes a transformation in my experience as an adjunct teaching underprepared students from one of shame toward a desire to assert the value of this work. Insights from my feminist theological training helped me to affirm the importance of encouraging transformative learning in teaching the academically marginalized and prompted my analysis of student writing in an introductory World Religions course, in order to determine whether or not the course was a site of transformative learning. I argue that despite many contextual limitations, the movement toward deepening self-awareness and increasing openness to religious diversity seen in student writing demonstrates that transformative learning began in this course, and that is valuable for students' lives whether or not they are academically successful. To learn is to face transformation. – Parker Palmer In their typology of the scholarship of teaching and learning in theology and religion, Killen and Gallagher (2013) identify six genres, two of which are the " Personal/ Confessional/Vocational, " which proceeds from the assumption that " insight comes from reflection on the experience and person of the teacher " (116) and the " Show and Tell, " which " attempts to identify precisely why a particular teaching strategy did or did not work as anticipated " (115). This essay embeds elements of the " Show and Tell " genre regarding a particular world religions survey course within the larger framework of a personal narrative which sketches my adjunct identity and the challenge of teaching large lecture classes of at-risk students enrolled in a state university. 1 The " Show and Tell " aspect of the essay follows the personal narrative because my pedagogical reflection arose out of and is inseparable from an intense struggle of many years with adjunct shame. Wrestling with this shame became a transformative process for me which, eventually, empowered me to affirm the worth of my work by researching a sample course and writing this essay. I am thankful to the hundreds of students who, simply by being themselves and enrolling in classes I was fortunate to teach, were catalysts for my pedagogical and theological self-examination and growth. The transformation I went through helped me see the value of my work with these students in a different way. I explore in this essay how I reoriented my world religions course to provide opportunities for greater personal engagement by students, encouraging their 1 I thank the members of the College Theology Society (CTS) for the informal feedback many provided on my preliminary work with this material at the 2013 CTS Annual Conference. I am also indebted to anonymous reviewers and editor Tom Pearson for helping me to bring more order and clarity to these reflections.
The context: I have used this exercise to begin a course segment devoted to a particular religiou... more The context: I have used this exercise to begin a course segment devoted to a particular religious tradition in large (60-300 students) World Religions classes.
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