Rev. Gene Robinson connects sexism and heterosexism.

Our mole at Timbercrest, Dorothy Rice, recommends this speech given by the awesome Episcopal Rev. Gene Robinson: click here to go to the C-Span page with the speech for free viewing.

Here’s Dorothy’s recommendation of the speech:

“I happened upon Bishop Robinson’address on C-Span. It so nicely ties together the issues we’ve been working on-patriarchy,women, and gays. He lays out clearly how he sees the Holy Spirit working through these issues.”

Watch it and grow wise!

Rupert Murdoch gets religion. For profit.

The owner of Fox “News” has reportedly purchased Beliefnet.com. Ekklesia reports,

Rupert Murdoch’s global media organization News Corporation has announced it has acquired Beliefnet, said to be the largest faith and spirituality information site on the World Wide Web, for an undisclosed sum.

As if Murdoch didn’t control enough of the media reaching people’s minds through popular media like Fox and the Wall Street Journal, now he’s trying to reach people’s souls, too.

Name Discriminatory?

Is the name Church of the Brethren discriminatory?  Well, yes.  It’s easy to say that race isn’t important if your race is the one that’s dominant.  It’s easy to say that sex and gender unimportant if yours are the dominant ones.

There is a common question by White people about race.  “Why do they always have to make such a big deal about it?”  The answer is that they are not the ones that make a big deal about it.  They are not the ones who have created systematic oppression of anyone who does not fit a White ideal.  They are not the ones who wrote anti-miscegenation laws.  The Whites are the ones who have made it a big deal.  What the Blacks are doing is pointing out the unfairness, the injustice, even the unrighteousness of the situation.

So, why would women make a big deal about a church name?  Why would women object to having their own church called the Church of the Brothers?  Well, it might just have something to do with the oppression of women by men for thousands of years.  It might even have to do with the oppression of women within Christianity.

Men in the church should not be upset by the discussion of a name change. Instead, they should be glad that the women do not simply abandon this church that does not include them in its name.  There may be some who thinks brothers or brethren includes sisters, but this is not the general view of the English speaking world.  In Spanish there has not been enough feminist effort into language to force general fairness when it comes to labels.  Because of that, hermanos can be thought of as including men and women more than brothers can.  Still, when I say Church of the Brethren to someone who has not heard of it the common expectation is a church with no women.

Josie Tolton

Change the Name?

Should we change the name of the Church of the Brethren to be more inclusive, or do we want to stick with what we’ve had for 1/3 our denomination’s history?

Discuss.

For some resources to get your mind going (beyond the activity on the VOS listserv), see these two links:

Womaen’s Caucus YouTube site

Past blog discussion.