Chapter 13 Exam Prep ReligionReligion Chapter 13 Exam Prep

Chapter 13 Religion

Chapter Introduction

The 2008 U.S. Presidential election found Christian conservatives navigating new terrain. The Republican Party, closely identified with Christian conservativism beginning in the 1980s, had nominated John McCain as the party’s official candidate, and he selected Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. Though Palin supported many platforms popular with her party’s Evangelicals, her campaign caused anguish for conservative religious spokespersons who wrestled with the question of whether her candidacy, as a woman, was something they could endorse. The Southern Baptist Convention, for instance, opposes women’s ordination and cites men as the only appropriate leaders of churches and families. Baptist leaders were finally able to endorse Palin, however, reconciling their faith and support for their party by observing that the Bible does not discuss, and therefore does not explicitly prohibit, women’s political leadership.

Religion as an Institution

As do other social institutions, religion plays contradictory roles in society as a vehicle of social control and social change. The Promise Keepers group seeks to control behavior and maintain gender inequality, but religions have also provided resources supporting challenges to inequality.

Importance of Religion across the Globe

Religion is important across the globe and is especially important in contemporary the United States – the most religious wealthy nation in the world. Seventy-one percent of Americans identify themselves as Christian, making the U.S. more Christian than Israel is Jewish, India is Hindu, and Egypt is Muslim.

By the Numbers

Americans mostly belong to the world’s largest religious group, Christianity. Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism are the religions with the most adherents worldwide. Of the four largest religions in the world, Hinduism is the oldest. (It is also older than Judaism, the oldest of the Abrahamic religions.) Hindus worship many deities, some masculine, some feminine, and some non-gender binary. Buddhists do not believe in a deity. They believe godliness is possible for all people, regardless of gender, who work to achieve that status. Gender is a part of the ideas, rituals, activities, and organization of all these religions.

Religion and Gender: Contested Terrain

Abrahamic Religions. Gender can be part of religion in two ways: in teaching that women and men are different kinds of people and in teaching that one group is lesser than another. In the creation story of the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam), God created men to rule over women. Nonetheless, many churches, synagogues, and mosques assert the equality of all human beings and adopt a second version of the Genesis story in which God created Adam and Eve simultaneously. Even so, all three of these religions worship a masculine god, recognize only men as prophets, and tell stories that place men in positions of authority.

Catholicism. Catholicism holds that men are superior to women because men are more like God. Catholic women cannot become priests, bishops, archbishops, or popes. Sixty percent of American Catholics disagree and think the ordination of women would be a good thing.

Islam. When Islam was founded around 600 A.D. it promoted women’s legal rights of inheritance and divorce. Two major sources of Muslim law are the Qur’an and the hadiths (reports about Mohammed’s personal traditions and lifestyles). In some areas, these documents impose inferior status on women, but many restrictions on women are not part of Muslim sacred texts. Nothing in the Qur’an requires seclusion of women or forbids education or paid work for women. The Qu’ran in fact prescribes that all Muslims learn to read and study religious texts.

The Practice of Wearing a Hijab. According to the Qu’ran, both women and men should dress modestly. It was not until three centuries after Mohammed’s death that wearing a hijab or seclusion in harems emerged, as Muslims began to copy the practices of upper-class Christian women in their community. Nineteenth-century colonialists believed it was important to “liberate” Middle Eastern women from wearing the hijab. In response, hijabs became a sign of resistance to colonial powers. In the 1950s in South Africa, Muslim women began to wear long shirts and scarves on their heads as a sign of solidarity with the Iranian people against the Shah. This form of dress, then, did not represent women’s oppression, but rather a form of resistance.

Women and the Hijab in the United States. A Texas study showed that American Muslim women who wear the hijab do not necessarily believe women are inferior to men. Along with non-hijabbed women, they held strong opinions in favor of marital equality and women’s rights in public life. Muslim women have various opinions and rationales for covering or not covering their hair. Some see covering as political. Some see covering as liberating from unwanted attention. Some who do not cover argue that the hijab represents oppressive social hierarchies and male domination. Some women argue that covering their hair and head is a cultural practice, not a religious necessity. Most women who do not cover support the rights of other women to wear the hijab.

Perspectives on Islam in France. Islam in France and some other European nations has had a controversial contemporary history. French legislators have proposed public bans on the hijab in the past and, more recently, on the Burkini. A Burkini is a modest bathing suit which covers the legs and arms and is often hooded to cover the hair. These bans have not withstood legal challenges. They illustrate both long-standing and contemporary tensions.

Buddhism

Buddhists believe that women and men are equally able to achieve the highest levels of enlightenment. Once gender-neutral, Buddhism now emphasizes the masculine qualities of the Buddha. Men monks have higher status than women monks and many Buddhists now emphasize the subordination of wives to their husbands. Japanese and Chinese Buddhists immigrants to the United States have established temples that support the idea that men should be the teachers and leaders. Convert temples are more likely to support gender equality.

Religion and Gender: Fundamentalism

The most conservative views of gender come from religions that are fundamentalist. Fundamentalists are characterized by belief in the original teachings and writings of their holy texts in regard to at least some aspects of their religious practice. Fundamentalist Christians in the U.S., Muslims in Egypt, and Hindus in India all believe that 1) the ideal woman is submissive, asexual, and selfless; 2) motherhood is the core of women’s identity; and 3) family is the center of women’s lives. However, by making these issues central in political debates, fundamentalists have encouraged women to read sacred texts and to produce alternative interpretations of them from women’s perspectives.

Muslim Fundamentalism. The Muslim Brotherhood, a Muslim fundamentalist group, resembles fundamentalist Christians in their beliefs that women should be wives and mothers only and should not be permitted to work outside the home. A survey of women in Kuwait found they support many fundamentalist beliefs and are highly religious, but also that they had liberal views on women’s rights in the workforce and in family law.

Christian Fundamentalism. Christian fundamentalists are the most conservative wing of Evangelicals. Evangelicals claim that the Bible is literally true and that it can and should serve as a practical guide to everyday living. Christian fundamentalism includes 1) a deep personal relationship with Jesus, 2) a commitment to spreading the word, and 3) a belief in the literal truth of the Bible. Fundamentalists believe that women and men are equal but that wives should submit to their husbands, husbands should lovingly lead their families, only men can lead the church, and that women’s calling is to care for their families.

Fundamentalist Views of Masculinity. Fundamentalists of many religions promote a militaristic masculinity. They believe that the breakdown in families and in society results from the feminization and “sissification” of American men. They also believe that men must control their naturally strong sex drive and women must help them to do so.

The Promise Keepers. In 1990, the Promise Keepers, a conservative Christian organization for men, was founded by the head football coach at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The Promise Keepers group supports distinct roles for women and men and urge men to reclaim the “traditional” male role of leadership of their families and communities. They believe that women dominate American society and that our “effeminate society” is destroying the country. Godly men, men who take back the reins of their families, must supplant women leaders as well as the “sissified men” who have abdicated their responsibilities to lead. The Promise Keepers group is among a growing international fundamentalist movement around the world that is gendered at its core.

Fundamentalist Fathers. Fundamentalist fathers supervise their children’s television exposure more closely than Catholics, liberal Protestants, and those with no religion. So too do African American fathers. Conservative Protestant fathers and frequent church attendees were more likely to hug and praise their children when they were good. But fundamentalist fathers were not more likely than other fathers to spend time having meals with their children, helping them with homework, and having private talks with them.

Evangelical Feminists. Evangelical feminists share beliefs with fundamentalists about the literal truth of the Bible, their personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and sharing their faith with others. They also claim the right of women to be leaders in the Christian community, that husbands and wives must be mutually submissive to each other, and that an unequal marriage is an un-Christian one.

Hindu Fundamentalism. Hindus do not believe that women have a lesser standing in relationship to the deities, but conservative Hindus believe that a woman should be a good wife, bear sons, and facilitate a husband’s spiritual journey. Hindu fundamentalists advocate highly restrictive codes of conduct for women, including submitting to husbands and treating husbands as gods. Hindu men’s obligations are to marry a good woman in order to have sons.

Women in the Pulpit

By the end of the 19th century, several thousand women had been ordained in a dozen Christian denominations. A backlash in the early 20th century reduced these numbers until the time of the Women’s Liberation Movement, when women became ministers in nearly all Protestant denominations and rabbis in all the branches of Judaism. Most Americans favor opening up the clergy to women. The Roman Catholic Church, the Southern Baptists, and the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, oppose women’s ordination. In response to the severe shortage of Catholic priests, laypeople are taking over paid positions in parish ministry. The women who hold these positions are not allowed to administer last rites and perform other rituals.

Even when religions allow women to train as priests and ministers, there can be additional barriers, called the “stained glass ceiling.” Women in the ministry have difficulty getting hired and often remain in lower-level and mid-level jobs despite interests and qualifications similar to men who rise more quickly through the ranks. Men and women clergy also have different career trajectories. Men move from smaller to larger and wealthier congregations, and from supervised to solo roles. Women are tracked into less prestigious positions. Despite these limitations on women, women are the lifeblood of churches, numerically dominating congregations and participating at higher rates than men.

“The DaVinci Code” and Ancient Religious Views of Women

Artifacts of pre-Christian Europeans show they worshipped women’s ability to reproduce human life. The earliest creation stories describe a goddess mother as the source of all life. In Greek and Roman societies, female gods were prevalent. The idea of a single masculine god first appeared about 6,000 years ago with the emergence of Judaism. Today religions are centered on men. Some people are reaching back to these ancient polytheist roots for a religion that is more gender-equitable and consistent with their beliefs in the sanctity of the natural world. Wicca arose in Britain the middle of the 20th century. Wiccans focus on the connection among humans, spirits, and the natural world. A mother goddess is a key character in the Wiccan religion.

Ecofeminism is another 20th-century spirituality movement that celebrates women’s biology and claims that women’s skills can free us from the environmentally destructive features of contemporary societies. Many ecofeminists believe that women are closer to the Earth and closer to life because of their reproductive and nurturing roles and better suited, therefore, to provide spiritual and practical guidance. Some ecofeminists maintain that the capacity for caring is part of women’s social experience rather than biologically determined.

Religion as a Free Space in Oppressive Cultures

Despite religion’s devaluation and restriction of women, many women are involved in their religious communities and find them places of support and expression. For example, in Pakistan, a highly religious society dominated by Muslim fundamentalists, women viewed religion as an arena in which they could find freedom in an otherwise restricted world.

Religion as a Base of Resistance

Women Activists in Sri Lanka. Women have also used religious rituals to resist. In Sri Lanka, the “Mother’s Front” challenged the repressive government, which they blamed for the deaths of family members, by using religiously based grieving for the dead. The government could not deny women’s expected role of weeping and cursing over their losses. The women received wide media coverage that alerted the public to state crimes.

Religion in the American Civil Rights Movement. Christian churches were an important resource for the black women who participated in the Civil Rights Movement. In churches, women learned how to run meetings, manage treasuries, keep minutes, and elect officers. Churches also helped members to build social connections and gave women courage to confront bosses, police, public officials, and racism. Women in these religious organizations continue to press for change today.

Challenging Religion from Within

Some Catholic women and men have organized to support legalized abortion and women’s ordination, the right of priests to marry, and the rights of gay and lesbian church members. Conservative Muslim women in Syria have formed groups called Qubaisiate to educate girls and women about religious texts. Jewish women have struggled to become rabbis within the Orthodox tradition. Reform Judaism accepts women and men as equals. Feminist rituals and feminist interpretations of theology are practiced in Reform synagogues.

What Difference Would More Gender Equal Religions Make?

Most words for God are masculine. Would feminine words and a feminine view of God change religious behavior and thinking? The text suggests that changing the language to designate a more “feminine” view of God and increasing the numbers of women clergy and leadership in religious groups could change our view of God, create a less authoritarian style of worship, and support greater democracy.

Feminist Theoretical Models

Revisionist feminists argue that contemporary religions don’t inherently discriminate against women and could help to promote progressive change, as they did in the Civil Rights Movement. Renovationists want to change current religious beliefs, images, and rituals, such as the creation of Bat Mitzvah by Jewish feminists, to allow girls as well as boys to come of age religiously. Revolutionary feminists reach back to pre-Christian ideas about women in religious belief to add to the conventional contemporary views of Christianity. Feminist rejectionists leave traditional religions to construct spiritual traditions of their own, such as Wicca.

Gender Matters

Gender permeates religion, but the gendered aspects of religion are all contested domains.

Short-Answer Essay Questions

1. How does religion differ from other institutions?
2. Name the most predominant religions in the world.
3. How do Muslim women interpret the hijab?
4. Describe varying perspectives on Islam in the United Kingdom.
5. What is fundamentalism and how does it vary across religions?
6. How have women fared in attempts to become religious leaders in different religions in the U.S.?
7. What is ecofeminism?
8. What is the “Mother’s Front” in Sri Lanka?
9. What part did religion play in the American Civil Rights Movement?
10. Briefly describe the revisionist, revonationist, revolutionary, and rejectionist feminist perspectives on religion.

Long-Answer Essay Questions

1. Discuss the tenets of religious fundamentalisms. Is feminist fundamentalism possible? Explain.

2. Describe the three feminist approaches to religion cited in the text. Apply each theory to a religious tradition with which you are familiar. For example, if you are Catholic, how would you apply revisionist, renovationist, and rejectionist thinking to Catholicism and what would be the outcomes?

3. Alternatively, if you are not familiar with a specific religious tradition, think about the ways religion enters into your everyday life as a gendered person. Perhaps you have friends who speak about their religious beliefs. Certainly there are religious holidays that have an impact on you, such as Easter and Christmas. How do revisionist, renovationist, and rejectionist ideas help to explain your non-religious stance within a religiously oriented society?

4. According to the text, most contemporary religions are patriarchal or are built on the assumption that women are not the equals of men in religious practice. Wicca and ecofeminism are two forms of feminist spirituality that reach back to a woman-dominant or egalitarian ancient past. Use the web to research these two feminist religions and write an essay that explores the differences and similarities between feminist spirituality and the world religions described in the text.

5. Visit a shopping mall or other consumer space, attend a musical performance or play, go to a field site seemingly unrelated to religion, or analyze the proceedings of a city council meeting or political event for gendered religious content. What explicit and implicit references to religion and gender can you find in these sites? This assignment may test your powers of observation and your ability to see beneath surface appearances. Write a paper about what you found.

6. Visit a religious community or religious service outside your own religious tradition. Prepare a paper based on your visit. What did you learn/see relating to gender and religion? (Adapted from Religion and Society, taught by Elfriede Wedam, Loyola University Chicago [ewedam@luc.edu])

7. The text claims that religion and churches were an important resource for the black women who participated in the Civil Rights Movement and for Sri Lankan mothers protesting their government’s human rights abuses. Find examples around the world of women’s political activity within churches and write an essay on your findings.

Critical Thinking Exercises

1. This chapter makes clear that fundamentalism can take many different forms. Compare and contrast the forms the chapter describes: What do they have in common and how do they differ? What effects do different fundamentalisms have on ideas about gender?
2. Chapter 13 introduces three feminist theoretical models of response to religion: revision, renovation, and revolution. Describe each position, then make an argument for the one you think would make the most sense in the U.S.
3. Women in the U.S. are more likely to attend church and volunteer their time to their churches. They are also more likely to pray and to rate God as very important in their lives. Why might this be the case? What about gender socialization, women’s social roles, and women’s experiences in other social institutions might make them more religious?

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is the contradictory role that religious institutions play in society?
   1. They are vehicles of social control and of social change.
   2. They invite skepticism in a higher power at the same time as they emphasize faith.
   3. They are financially entwined with the U.S. government at the same time as they are critical of some of its values.
   4. They consider women to be holy in their childbearing capacity, but they rarely allow women positions of authority.
2. How is religion different from other institutions?
   1. It is not connected to the government, so it has much more freedom to discriminate than governmental institutions do.
   2. It acknowledges and embraces intersectionality.
   3. It has historically involved more women than other institutions.
   4. It is connected to something greater than human beings or even the Earth, so challenging religious institutions takes on great significance.
3. What is the world’s largest religious group?
   1. Islam
   2. Hinduism
   3. Judaism
   4. Christianity
4. What restriction on women is required by sacred Islamic texts?
   1. Women may only marry Muslim men.
   2. Women must be secluded.
   3. Women may not seek education.
   4. Women may not enter into paid employment.
5. Why do Muslim women in the U.S. wear the hijab, according to Read and Bartowski’s study?
   1. Because they believe that women are inferior to men or should be subordinated to them
   2. Because they want to hide their fecundity from the Western world and present themselves as non-desiring entities
   3. To criticize Western colonialism and as an aspect of their religious beliefs about gender difference and of the need for women to protect their own modesty as well as control the behavior of men
   4. As a way of demonstrating their solidarity with Muslim feminist movements worldwide
6. In what way has Buddhism come to incorporate some gender inequality?
   1. It states that women may not be equals as adherents of the religion, although they may be monks.
   2. The religion now emphasizes masculine qualities of the Buddha and usually mandates that women must obey men.
   3. It allows male monks to have sexual contact but opposes any sexual activity on the part of female monks.
   4. The religion’s deity is always male in contemporary representations.
7. What is the contemporary use of the term “fundamentalism”?
   1. It is used to describe Christians who profess a belief in the literal word of the Bible as a document without error.
   2. It is used to describe religions that emphasize a conservative view of religion and of gender.
   3. Both a and b
   4. None of the above: “fundamentalism” refers to religions that promote radical, metaphorical interpretations of their sacred texts.
8. What is the largest denomination that opposes the ordination of women?
   1. The Roman Catholic Church
   2. Islam
   3. Buddhism
   4. Judaism
9. What is Wicca?
   1. A women’s religion that believes in witches, magic, spells, and necromancy
   2. An offshoot of Buddhism, in which inner peace is found through meditation, contemplation, and letting go of worldly passions
   3. A religion based on certain branches of continental philosophy, which sees God in the face of the other and asserts that responsibility to the other as paramount
   4. A religion that focuses on the connection among humans, spirits, and the natural world and has a mother goddess as a key character
10. What characterizes the revolutionary feminist approach to religion, according to Johanna Stuckey’s categorization?
    1. The argument that contemporary religions are not inherently discriminating and may in fact be an important tool in creating progressive social change
    2. The suggestion that we need to restructure established religions by blending their beliefs and practices with those of other non-masculinist religions
    3. The claim that religions must be changed if they are to serve as progressive tools
    4. The practice of leaving the traditional religions to construct spiritual traditions of their own
11. What are the world’s four largest religions?
    1. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism
    2. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism
    3. Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism
    4. Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, and Taosim
12. Which of the following is an Abrahamic religion?
    1. Judaism
    2. Islam
    3. Christianity
    4. Both a. and c.
    5. All of the above.
13. In terms of religiosity, or level or religious devotion and church attendance, the U.S. is most similar to which of the following nations:
    1. Mexico
    2. The Netherlands
    3. Japan
    4. Sweden
14. In studying Sunday school curricula, Dunnington found that Southern Baptist teaching materials refer to Eve as _______.
    1. a temptress
    2. Adam’s special helper
    3. Adam’s friend
    4. Adam’s mischievous wife
15. When it emerged around the year 600, how did Islam compare to surrounding religions and cultures in terms of its treatment of women?
    1. It was more conservative and restrictive and barred women from inheritance and divorce rights that they previously enjoyed.
    2. It was not different from surrounding groups but formalized existing laws and customs regarding women that existed in the Middle East at that time.
    3. It afforded women new rights, such as rights to inherit and divorce, that Western Christian women would not have until the 1800s.
    4. It was radical in granting women full equality in religious and social life.
16. Which of the following is a veil worn by some Muslim women which covers the hair and the lower portion of the face?
    1. Burqa
    2. Burkini
    3. Niqab
    4. Hijabi
17. Which of the following is an activist group which utilized religious settings and religious rituals to mourn murdered and missing family members and demand accountability from government?
    1. Qubaisiate
    2. The Mother’s Front
    3. Stay-at-Home Daughters
    4. The Promise Keepers
18. Which of the following best represents a revisionist approach to addressing gender inequality in religion?
    1. Identifying ways in which religion has been liberating or progressive for women, such as the important roles that religious women played in the Civil Rights Movement.
    2. Implementing some changes to religious practices to include women, such as expanding the Bar Mitzvah, the Jewish coming of age rite for boys, to include girls, known as the Bat Mitzvah.
    3. Restructuring established religions and blending in non-masculinist beliefs, such as Goddess worship.
    4. Leaving traditional religion and establishing religious communities based on gender-inclusive beliefs, such as Wicca.
19. Which of the following best represents a renovationist approach to addressing gender inequality in religion?
    1. Identifying ways in which religion has been liberating or progressive for women, such as the important roles that religious women played in the Civil Rights Movement.
    2. Implementing some changes to religious practices to include women, such as expanding the Bar Mitzvah, the Jewish coming of age rite for boys, to include girls, known as the Bat Mitzvah.
    3. Restructuring established religions and blending in non-masculinist beliefs, such as Goddess worship.
    4. Leaving traditional religion and establishing religious communities based on gender-inclusive beliefs, such as Wicca.
20. With regard to gender and religiosity trends in the United States, or how important individuals deem God and how often they attend services, which of the following is true?
    1. Women are more religious than men.
    2. Men are more religious than women.
    3. Women in liberal religions are more religious than men.
    4. Women’s and men’s levels of religiosity are about the same.