Religion Reflection Essay

Many people often acknowledge the men that contributed to establishing the foundation of the Church. There have been great men such as Peter and Paul, whom will never be forgotten in the Church’s history. Meanwhile, the women who helped the church become a whole are often overlooked. It is not only men who build the church, for women also play a role in establishing it as well. While men indeed play a very significant part in spreading the Good News, women should also be recognized more often for their faith and courage to follow Christ.

Religion is universal. Although people may have different ideologies and practices, everyone believes in something, whether they deem it their religion or not. In this way, religion is a powerful connection between all of humanity; thus, it is important to understand the people behind religion and how their unique characteristics correlates with and influences religion—whether that be their social class, ethnicity, gender, or politics. However, ethnicity and gender, along with the closely linked topics of sexuality and politics, are the most significant concepts to understand religion in our modern world.

From the earliest starting point of the early Christian church, beginning with Jesus, women were important to the movement. When Paul started his preacher development, women were essential in communities. The various leveled religious philosophy has put women under the man's power in the congregation, in marriage, and somewhere else. Truly, it has barred ladies

The author of each article is a feminist scholar and female practitioner of the represented faith. The result is a refreshing and insightful collection of actual women’s experiences as both members of their chosen faith and as devout feminist scholars. Thus, Her Voice, Her Faith is an eloquent contribution of the “proper” religious scholarship Gross advocates.

Throughout our Women and Religion Course, we have analyzed how women’s lives have been shaped by religious affiliation, or lack thereof. Religious obligations and ideals have historically placed women in a patriarchal box that has required the submission or obedience of women in order to be a true follower. This ideology has created a movement within different religions for a more progressive understanding of the modern woman and her ability to increase participation and visibility for similar women; who may be experiencing the same plight. Women, who speak out about the emotional, sexual, and physical abuse that pervades certain religions, as well as the lack of respect, provide a voice for woman who may otherwise never have their stories

Today, the loss of a strong female presence in Judeo-Christian beliefs has prompted believers to look to other sources that celebrate the role of women. Men and women have increasingly embraced goddess

Professor Karina Martin Hogan talked to us about her experiences with the Roman Catholic church. She explained to us that she was raised Roman Catholic but is now a member of the Episcopalian church. Her reasoning was because she felt that the Catholic Church did not treat women equal to men. The primary example being women can’t be ordained priests. She talked to us about how she believes that when women are able to take larger roles in Church, it will lead to greater protection of children in our

Women in religion are so often swept away by the more prominent achievements of the male members of their order. This does not mean that these women did not play a formative role in their religion, but their stories are often unrecorded or ignored and their contributions are devalued. It is easy to believe that this is isolated to one religion that we might feel particularly uncharitable towards, however my research has shown that this happens in almost all religions around the world.

In the book Women and Spiritual Equality in Christian Tradition, by Patricia Ranft, a new and innovative look at the role of women in the sphere of Christianity is examined. In a total of twelve chapters, the Central Michigan University professor discusses the role that women played in the first fifteen hundred years of Christianity and she disputes the contention that the church was traditionally misogynistic. She writes in her introduction, “that within Christianity there exists a strong and enduring tradition that maintains the spiritual equality of women," (xi) and she takes this idea a step further to support her thesis by writing that there is no foundation to the argument that “Christianity was largely responsible for western misogynism,” (ix). Instead, she tries to show that these misogynistic tendencies stemmed not from Christianity, but from the surrounding secular cultures. Throughout the text, Ranft will be attempting to show the reader that women maintained more spiritual equality with men before the modern era. However, it is the author’s intention in the book "merely to document the presence of a tradition of women 's spiritual equality throughout the centuries," (xii) not to provide analysis of this presence.

Women have been repressed for a long period of history. Only recently have women started to gain respect as equals and individuals. While women’s rights have advanced in many ways in the past 50 years alone, it is obvious that there is a significant disconnect in the advancement of women in the church. The promotion of gender equality is a slow and painful process, and has barely begun to progress worldwide. Attitudes towards women as leaders in the church, and in religion in general, are rooted in Biblical interpretations of women’s involvement, not only in leadership in the church, but also in marriage, society, and government. The role of gender in religion is one that is often ignored; yet the issue should be addressed in that most religions, particularly Christianity and Catholicism, place women in submissive roles. This encourages the gender gap in society as a whole.

As I thought about all the topics we have read and studied in this class there was one topic that I really did enjoy and changed the way I thought about the topic and gave me a whole new perspective on how I look at religion now. I chose the topic of feminism and Christianity and how the authority of the women gender role in religion has been a struggle for many years. I think Lynn Japinga did a very good job in writing about this topic in her book, “Feminism and Christianity: An Essential Guide”. Japinga includes in her book the use of the male dominated language in the Bible, the blame for the original sin, and the lack of women gender clerical role authority within the religion world.

When talking about religion and gender, sociologists are interested in how the roles of both men and women differ from one another across many different religions. As with many aspects of the world, women generally are at a disadvantage, especially in the religious realm. Sex segregation plays a role in religion and gender. Women and men often hold positions of very different amounts of power.

Feminist theory and Christian worldview can be integrated but to what extent? Too much emphasis on the abstract, detached mind leads us astray. To be fully human does not require sex or gender but it does require God’s image. That, it seems, does not disappear with gender or sex, for both God and the angels are personal yet without sex or gender. As such, the thin essential properties of humanity, being rooted in God’s creative work, remain forever whereas the human cultural creations of gender and sex do not. In the beginning we are sexed and gendered (Genesis). In the end, we are neither (Galatians), hence the solution to the apparent contradiction of the Christian scriptures on gender.

As an avid seeker of knowledge and understanding, women's rights activist, Christian, scholar, and woman -- I enrolled in Women and Religion at Spelman College to further extenuate my intellectual and spiritual capacity in the context of the relationship between women and religion. On a daily basis I strive to uncover the true interpretation of what God desires for me, and other women and men in the world; in the interest that "every time we liberate a woman, we liberate a man." Considering this, before I enrolled in this class I already held some beliefs and ideas about women and religion, women’s leadership in various religious traditions, and women’s activism in different religious traditions. However, exposure to religious scholar’s

Growing up in a Christian and multicultural family, the role of gender has always played a vital role in my life. Growing up, my father was the breadwinner in the family, although my mother had a higher income than him. My mother has always told me to stay true to the Bible, although there might be confusion due to society. As a sociology major, I have come to develop a better understanding of how gender as affected society and myself. As a Christian, gender differences are classified as the province of God and one is taught that, “God had created man and women for different purposes” (Kimmel 2013, 22). Instead, I have learned that both men and women are capable of the same duties and one should not be judged based on their sex. Sex is biological and should be used to determine what one is capable of doing. For instance, Kimmel argues that many writers argued that women’s efforts to enter the public sphere–to seek employment, to vote, to enter colleges–were misguided because the placed women’s social and political aspirations over the purposes for which their bodies had been designed” (Kimmel 2013, 23). As a result, the sexist beliefs held in regards to women are both socially and culturally constructed. These beliefs are also lead to be seen as natural differences, which are the main “sources of the social and political arrangements we observe today” (Kimmel 2013, 25). For example, I have been led to believe that it is impossible for a woman to become the President of the