FLTN Mid-Year Meeting June 2024
Report on Feminist Liberation Theologians’ Network Mid-Year Meeting
June 11, 2024
Report by Mary E. Hunt
VIDEO: The video of this meeting can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCosTbQc43o&t=18s&ab_channel=WATERwomensalliance
The Mid-Year meeting of the Feminist Liberation Theologians’ Network was held online on June 11, 2024 with more than forty attendees from more than seven countries (including Ireland, Australia, Germany, Canada, the Philippines, Sweden, USA, among others). It was a chance to meet colleagues, hear two informative reports and a challenging presentation on feminism and non-violence.
We began with a land acknowledgement. WATER is situated on the land of the Piscataway and Anacostan people. Other participants’ locations were acknowledged in the chat.
We continued with introductions. This is often a favorite time at the in-person meeting when we go around a big circle. We replicated that process in small groups on Zoom. What a great way to meet colleagues!
We moved on to presentations.
PRESENTATIONS
- Michelle Eastwood from Geelong, Australia, brought us up to date on the Australian Referendum on aboriginal rights which was defeated last year. Michelle reported on this at our November 2023 meeting (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsIHy5-zvHM&t=26s).
Of late, there are some efforts to create treaties with various aboriginal groups. There has been a Truth Telling Commission with Anglican, Uniting, and Catholic Church representatives. The Catholic officials were, according to Michelle, appalling in their denial of any negative behavior by the Catholic institution against aboriginal people; the other two denominations were more honest about their complicity.
There has recently been a Reconciliation Week. This year it was themed “Now more than ever” with only more liberal people participating. There are no national holidays in Australia focused on indigenous rights despite the continued celebration of special days for the British monarchy. On the good news front, Western Australia is giving 8% of its land back to indigenous people. In sum, there is slow progress with churches no better than the rest of society when it comes to justice for indigenous people.
Suggested Actions: For those who are so inclined, pray. Learn about indigenous issues across the world. Check out NAITTS (formerly the North American Institute for Indigenous Studies) which is “dedicated to the development of increased theological capacity in the Indigenous community.”
This is an issue we will follow over time to see how progress is made, how backlash strikes, and what other countries can learn from Australia’s efforts.
Flash of Good News: The Templeton Prize for Religion in 2024 went to an esteemed colleague, South African psychologist Dr. Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, for her work on reconciliation and forgiveness in the aftermath of apartheid. Her books include the highly acclaimed A Human Being Died that Night: A South African Story of Forgiveness (2003). FLTN congratulates her!
- The second report was on the long-stalled Equal Rights Amendment in the U.S. Allyson McKinney Timm, who is trained both in law and theology and ordained as a Presbyterian Elder, is the director of Justice Revival (www.justicerevival.org/era).
The following fact sheet from Justice Revival is a useful summary of her remarks.
She concluded with remarks about #Faith4ERA and Justice Revival as part of interfaith efforts to being about equality for all.
We look forward to hearing more from Allyson as we watch this issue now in its second century without success. Her work is a good example of the nexus of feminist theological concerns with
on-the-ground political action.
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Securing Equality with
the Equal Rights Amendment
What is the ERA?
The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) is an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which states: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”
The purpose of the ERA is to ensure equality under the law, a core principle of human rights and a healthy democracy.
What impact would the ERA have?
The ERA will provide women and LGBTQ+ Americans with equal citizenship status for the first time in U.S. history, empowering Congress and the courts to uphold their rights.
The ERA will authorize Congress to pass laws to address sexual and domestic violence, pregnancy and pay discrimination, maternal mortality, and other injustices. Currently, Congress lacks the power to adequately respond to these pressing problems.
The ERA will also prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity, which will guide how courts interpret the law.
What is the status of the ERA today?
The ERA has met the rigorous requirements to become a constitutional amendment: A 2/3 majority of Congress passed the ERA in 1972 and a 3/4 majority of states have ratified it. Virginia became the final state in 2020 and the ERA became effective in 2022. But it has not yet been published by the U.S. Archivist.
Some contest the ERA’s validity based on a disputed legal memo from the Trump Administration, which deterred the Archivist from publishing the ERA in 2020. Some also claim it is too late for the ERA to be finalized, based on an arbitrary deadline set by Congress in 1972. However, legal experts have explained that Congress can change the deadline, as it has done once before, or disregard it.
In 2023, Congress introduced two resolutions to clarify that the ERA is the valid 28th Amendment. Although they are not legally necessary, they will underscore democratic support for the ERA and resolve confusion over the ERA’s status.
What is the #Faith4ERA campaign?
The #Faith4ERA campaign is a national, interfaith initiative supported by diverse religious organizations and leaders calling for equality in the U.S. Constitution through the ERA.
Launched in 2021 by Justice Revival, the #Faith4ERA campaign is part of a broader movement for the ERA and is instrumental in mobilizing religious support for equal rights. We provide public education on the ERA through workshops, published articles, and online resources, and mobilize people of faith to advocate for the ERA.
“Women possess every bit of the image of God that men possess. We are equally human and our work is equally valuable. It is time for the U.S. Constitution to agree with God. It is time to pass the ERA.”
- Lisa Sharon Harper, Justice Revival Board Memeber, Founder & President of Freedom Road
How can I help get the ERA across the finish line?
Ensure elected officials and candidates know you support the ERA and urge them to lead on this issue. Find advocacy opportunities here: bit.ly/Faith4ERAadvocacy
Encourage your faith leaders to sign and share the Interfaith Statement of Support for the ERA: bit.ly/Faith4ERAStatement
Invite Justice Revival to preach a sermon, host a workshop, or speak at an event to educate your community about the ERA and gender justice: bit.ly/JREducation
Host a book club on the ERA in your community. We recommend:
Ordinary Equality: The Fearless Women and Queer People Who Shaped the U.S. Constitution and the ERA by Kate Kelly
We the Women: The Unstoppable Mothers of the ERA by Julie C. Suk
Sign up for email updates from Justice Revival to stay in the loop about the latest ERA news and advocacy opportunities: bit.ly/JRUpdates
Visit our ERA FAQ page to learn more: bit.ly/Faith4ERAFAQs
Follow the ERA Coalition for additional updates: eracoalition.org
Justice Revival is a leading Christian voice for human rights in the United States and home to the #Faith4ERA campaign. As a diverse, inclusive community, Justice Revival inspires, educates, and mobilizes people of faith to respond to the call to justice by defending the human rights of all.
FLTN’s November 2023 Meeting in San Antonio: then the war in Gaza/Israel had just broken out, we asked where we are located, with whom we are allied. We focused on how we see the situation in all of its complexity especially with regard to women, children, and female identified persons. In light of that, we asked how we can imagine feminist liberation theologians might be useful, what tools and insights from feminisms, liberationist work, and theologies might be unique and relevant resources for developing meaningful conversations especially with people who see things differently.
It was a fruitful discussion, as inconclusive as it was informative. Unlike some of our colleagues at the AAR/SBL who were unable to continue conversations at that 2023 gathering, we were more equipped to keep the conversation going with those with whom we disagreed.
Feminism and nonviolence is a salient theme as the wars both in Gaza/Israel and in Russia/Ukraine grind on. Mary Yelenick is a retired attorney from NYC where she was a litigator in a global law firm. She is now the Main Representative for Pax Christi International at the United Nations.
She describes her work as “to share with policymakers the knowledge and global resources of PCI, explaining to them lessons learned and relayed by our many members around the globe, and to familiarize and share with UN member nations and staff (as well as with other NGOs) the demonstrable power and efficacy of nonviolence.” https://www.catholicprofiles.org/post/an-interview-with-mary-t-yelenick.
While we may not all agree on nonviolence, it is a helpful way into deeper conversation many months and many thousands deaths and injuries later.
- NONVIOLENCE: THE ONLY WAY TO A LASTING PEACE
Mary T. Yelenick
We are living in an era of what feels like constant war plaguing much of our global community.
It is a time of global reckoning – of seeking redress for decades-long unfairness and inequalities; of wreaking vengeance for historic wrongs; of resurrecting unfinished disputes.
It is a time when the bankruptcy of global violence; the tragic legacy of prior wars; and expiation for unaddressed wrongs is front and center.
And yet nations, and communities, are responding to these challenges with the same tools of violence that created these crises to begin with.
But – as we see, time and time again – violence does not, and will not end violence. It simply perpetuates and ensures the continuation of violence – if not in the short term, then in the long term.
The only way to interrupt and put an end to the madness and circularity of war – the only way to highjack violence – is through active, creative Nonviolence.
“Nonviolence” – as I am using the word here – has no hyphen. It is not a concept or construct simply derivative of violence.
Nonviolence has its own logic, its own rules, its own history.
Nonviolence is not only a strategic practice. Rather, Nonviolence is a way of living: of engaging with, interacting with, and responding to others.
And it is the only force that has been shown – time and time again, across generations, in regions all around the world – to be capable of repairing and restoring right relationships between not only people, but between people and planet. It is the only way of stopping – not just pausing – the cycle of violence that ensures that every generation’s wars will also hold subsequent generations hostage.
Nonviolence is not passivity. It is not avoidance.
It is action – action that is very purposeful, and very targeted. It is taking action thoughtfully, deliberately, creatively – mindful of the impact of that action on the recipient, and on the actor, and on the onlooker.
Nonviolence requires great discipline: far more discipline than simply lashing out, or sending in troops and dropping bombs.
It requires strategic thinking. It is playing chess, recognizing that the game will be long. It is not simply closing up the board and walking away.
Nonviolence requires courage, commitment, and steadfastness.
Nonviolence advances justice, fairness, and right relationships – without doing harm in the process. It is the only force that can break a cycle of violence.
Violence – its supposed necessity, its claimed efficacy, its purported universality – is the basis on which we in the United States have been taught to respond to others. Our settler-colonial history – and much of our domestic and foreign policy – is grounded in, sought to be justified by – and still perpetuated by – that violence. Even our public monuments extol violence.
The largest industries in the so-called “defense” sector – which profit obscenely by inculcating the belief that their weapons somehow make us safer, in a sinister world – exert inordinate influence, through their campaign contributions, on those who formulate our domestic and foreign policies. The sums that the U.S. spends annually on weapons are staggering – eclipsing the spending of the next nine-largest-weapons-spending nations combined.
And for what? Those weapons have brought nothing but misery to already-suffering people around the world. And they have generated deep anger in much of the world against the United States – anger that will be felt by, and visited upon, our children (if the world somehow avoids nuclear-weapons annihilation before then).
We all know, all too well, what triggers violence: Feeling threatened. Feeling oneself to be in physical danger. Feeling ignored, minimalized, or underestimated. Feeling publicly humiliated. Feeling unfairly treated. Jealousy. Spite. Retribution.
Yet none of these feelings or reactions will be vanquished by violence.
To the contrary, violence only exacerbates and escalates those feelings.
Witness how the national humiliations resulting from World War One gave rise to Hitler, and World War Two; and how the unaddressed wrongs, rivalries, and exclusionary alliances emerging from World War Two are made manifest today in global wars.
When you are the victim of an act of violence, you feel justified in responding in kind.
And each such violent response, in turn, serves as justification for a violent counter-response. There is no end to it.
It is an endless death spiral.
Fortunately, there are many in the world who have embarked on the journey of Nonviolence.
Spiritual and secular leaders – Mahatma Gandhi, Cory Aquino, Bayard Rustin, Nelson Mandela, Claudette Colvin, Rosa Parks, Dr. Martin Luther King, John Lewis, the Freedom Riders, and many others globally – have recognized that reciprocating violence with violence only guarantees reprisal – with the perpetrators feeling entitled to act in that manner, given the provocation.
Other historic and contemporary examples of effective global Nonviolence abound. I would strongly recommend – if you really want to be humbled by the power of Nonviolence – going online, and taking a look at the work being done by the group Parents Circle Family Forum, comprising Israelis and Palestinians who have experienced the murders of their children, yet who are committed to working together actively and peacefully to put an end to the cycle of violence. Or consider the Amish, whose remarkable forgiveness of the murderers of their community members set the greater community on a higher track. Or consider the women of Liberia, whose active, sustained, disciplined, peaceful vigiling ended the cycle of horrific violence in their country.
It is women who disproportionately bear the cost of violence. Women experience firsthand the horrific effects of violence on their families, their neighbors, their elders, their own bodies – and on their futures.
It is no accident that globally, women have been at the forefront of nonviolent struggle, and nonviolent resolution of disputes.
For all the women in the world, and for their families; for future generations; and for our beloved planet, let us each commit to studying, advocating for, and practicing creative Nonviolence.
It is the only way that we can, or will, survive.
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SMALL GROUP DISCUSSIONS ensured about how our various forms of feminist liberation theological work overlap with the issues raised by the speakers.
PLENARY DISCUSSION followed. Here is a small snippet of the conversation:
1. A colleague who works with immigrants (in Ireland) queried about how to operationalize nonviolence when working with people from a variety of religious traditions (for example, Muslim, Christian, Jewish) whose assumptions may differ widely, for example on matters of land.
2. A politically involved colleague spoke of how few people are involved with party politics (3% in her case in Canada). She affirmed connecting spiritual values with concrete action.
3. A professor (Brasilian by birth, now teaching in the U.S.) told of frustration with liberation theologies and decolonializing theory. She searches for more practical ideas and found that nonviolence in a Buddhist context was helpful for her students.
4. Another colleague wondered about the ‘tool kits’, levers of power we have given our levels of privilege. For example, Don’t Bank on the Bomb https://www.dontbankonthebomb.com/, looks at companies that profit from arms sales. There are connections between those and common pension funds in the webs of support for war.
5. A longtime colleague asked about resources on economics, the values base of feminism and nonviolence, and other issues we have discussed. These notes are a step in that direction. Bibliography is welcome and will be passed on through the FLTN Google list. One suggestion made at this meeting is Homelands: A Personal History of Europe, Timothy Garton Ash, 2023. Another is On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World, Danya Ruttenberg, 2022; Healing the Soul Wound: Counseling with American Indians and Other Native People (Multicultural Foundations of Psychology and Counseling Series), Eduardo Duran, 2006. Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World. Tyson Yunkaporta, 2021.
6. There were several people who work at the UN, no doubt interested in the work of Mary Yelenick. One suggested their getting together. If you let us know who you are, we will be happy to put you in touch. A resource worth considering is the organization Nonviolent Peaceforce, https://nonviolentpeaceforce.org/ .
7. A Canadian colleague regretted the loss of peace movements in various countries. Where does one find such now? Groups like FLTN are at least one place to look and get support.
8. A UN worker spoke of the power of Australian youth working on rights with indigenous people.
Suggestions for future topics:
- Solidarity
- Active non-violence as a way of life; an expression of integrity and creativity, a complicated way of working; saying no to war and militarism
- Refugees
- Influence of religious leader on political actors across national contexts (e.g. Australia and US)
- Cross fertilization of communities of resistance
- Enduring under autocracy
- Religion and War
- Women as leaders in peace
- A feminist theology of forgiveness
- Promoting indigenous women’s theology
- Conversations across differences -listening and speaking non-violently
Feel free to send other suggestions for future agenda.
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Thank you to our speakers, Michelle, Allyson, and Mary, and to Lisa Lauterbach for technical support. Thanks to all who participated. It is amazing to think how many people we all touch in our work.
Feel free to use the Google list to share information with one another (for information on how to join the list write to waterstaff@hers.com). Consult our website www.waterwomensalliance.org for other WATER programs.
The next meeting of the FLTN will be in San Diego, CA on Friday, November 22, 2024 from 4-6 PM in conjunction with the Annual Meetings of the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature. Watch also for Women’s Caucus sessions in the AAR/SBL Program. All are welco
