#women theologians

[buggie-hagen]

I was struck during this part of the work by the frequency with which Jesus refers to Leviticus and Deuteronomy, Daniel, Psalms, and Proverbs. The Gospel writers cannot imagine Jesus without the Old Testament; it is the way they see Jesus and tell his story. ~Gracia M. Grindal, Jesus the Harmony: Gospel Sonnets for 366 Days, xvii.

[theragamuffininitiative]

I see I have officially stayed up too late and read yet another disappointing (but at this point hardly surprising) thing about John MacArthur so yay another dumpster fire for the national/global church to maneuver around. 🙃🙃🙃🙃

[lungfuls]

I'm going to reread/skim back through some of my favorite medieval women/feminist perspectives of medieval Christianity-related books & articles then try to make a masterlist of my favorites in a month or so

[oh-dear-so-queer]

The playwright Catherine Cockburn, née Trotter, a philosopher and moral theologian, was deeply involved with women and maintained a passionate relationship with her patron Lady Sarah Piers.

"Normal Women: 900 Years of Making History" - Philippa Gregory

[whats-in-a-sentence]

The theologian John Knox wrote:

For who can denie but it repugneth to nature, that the blind shal be appointed to leade and conduct such as do and see? That the weake, the sicke, and impotent persones shall norishe and kepe the hole and strong, and finallie, that the foolishe, madde and phrenetike shall gouerne the discrete, and giue counsel to such as be sober of mind? And such be al women, compared vnto man in bearing of authoritie. For their sight in ciuile regiment, is but blindnes: their strength, weaknes: their counsel, foolishenes: and judgement, phrenesie, if it be rightlie considered.

"Normal Women: 900 Years of Making History" - Philippa Gregory

[tenth-sentence]

Some enclosed women became famous scholars, musicians, theologians, mystics, philosophers or saints.

"Normal Women: 900 Years of Making History" - Philippa Gregory

[misespinas]

“As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active power of the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the mnasculine sex; while the production of a woman comes from defect in the active power.”

—St. Thomas Aquinas

"[A] veil put on the head designates the power of another over the head of a person existing in the order of nature. Therefore, the man existing under God should not have a covering over his to show he is immediately subject to God; but the woman should wear a covering to show that besides God she is naturally subject to another."

—St. Thomas Aquinas

“[I]f it were not for some power that wanted the feminine sex to exist, the birth of a woman would be just another accident, such as that of other monsters.”

—St. Thomas Aquinas

“In the first state of mankind the body was subject to the soul and nothing could happen in the body which would be contrary to the good of the soul, neither as to its being nor as to its operation; nor is this precluded by the fact that even then there was a diverse dignity of souls according to the diversity of bodies, since it is necessary for the soul to be proportioned to the body, as form to matter, and as mover to moved: and therefore woman, even as to her soul, was more imperfect than man.”

—St. Thomas Aquinas

[chthonic-sorcery]

🚩🚩"Witch/Pagan" community PSA 🚩🚩

Goêteia is not evil, you dipshits.

I'm so sick of these neo-pagans getting all their information from Tumblr, Pinterest and TikTok.

Goêteia is literally just the Greek term for magic, for sorcery, which were one and the same.

Ancient Greece didn't have the word "witchcraft" it had Goêteia, and then later mageia, where we get our modern term magic from, although mageia was a misappropriated term from Zoroastrian priests or Magi.

It's so funny seeing baby witches claim Goêteia to be evil on one hand, then on the other worshipping Hekate, literally the goddess of Goêteia. The goddess of sorcerers and necromancy.

It screams puritanical morality policing. It's such a christian-centered way of looking at ancient religion.

Y'all need to open a damn book.

Goêteia was described as a "lesser" form of magic (mainly in the later Medieval period, roughly starting around the 8th century,) not meaning any less powerful, just simply the easiest or "closest" thus "lower" magic to achieve. This ability to more easily achieve success in magic was later taken and used by christian theologians to paint goêteia and Goêtes as "lesser practitioners."

There does seem to be little difference between Theurgy and goêteia as well,

Surprise!

Both Goêteia and Theurgy sharing the same goddamn workings through evocations of gods, the animation of statues, mediumship or what could be considered "divine possession" having a god or spirit speak through you, the use of iynx wheels / iynges, and mystery rites.

The only 'real' difference Theurgists claim, is that they "don't practice secularly/for selfish reasons" but supposedly rather to become closer to the divine. It's a nice sentiment, but total bullshit, because even in the Theurgic doctrine the Chaldean Oracles they bind the goddess Hekate to do their will.

Additionally, Theurgists had a more Neoplatonic belief, they essentially viewed a singular Oneness as supreme, the emanation from which all things return, a concept which was picked up by early christian theologians and is likely why while Goêtes were demonized in the later centuries mainly by early christians and christian philosophers, Theurgists on the other hand were seen as "pure" and "holier" despite Theurgical and Goêteic practices being pretty much exactly the same down to the tools and incantations.

(Agustine of Hippo for an example of these theologians, who wrote in "De civitate Dei contra Paganos", or "On the City of God Against the Pagans" how all "pagan" (non christian) gods and beliefs were secretly agents of Satan and evil, here to trick humanity into sin and that paganism, essentially any non christian faith, must be stopped–

He also wrote about how sorcerers/magicians (Goêtes) were charlatans, tricksters, that magic and sorcery were merely tricks of an invisible opposition to the divine and how only god could hold such supreme power. These ideas still seem to be deeply embedded into christian faith, particularly Orthodox and Evangelical, today.)

Practitioners of goêteia, the Goēs, was also understood to have the ability to initiate souls into mystery religions, or, in other words, to ensure through his superior knowledge of the Underworld and its workings that the souls under his care would receive preferential treatment after death, an easier way to paradise, such as the Orphic Hymns.

This likely also helped "other" the Goēs, as most practitioners of magic, of goêteia, of these mystery cults were made up of societies "unwanted" or marginalized people, such as women, foreigners, immigrants, the poor, the disabled, and the elderly. Early goêtes were described as being Thessalian (primarily women, particularly described as "old or decrepid") or. ethnically, not considered "fully Greek" to many of the era. Many critiques and fears of goêteia come from this "otherness," the fear the ruling classes of Greece had of groups they continued to harm, they feared the power they held within these mystery rites and practices.

With reliable accuracy from these critics, goêtes were (perceived to be) moral transgressors, who operated from the fringe of society in a private mago-mystical setting, offering their service for coin.

Or, in simpler terms, the Greeks were just really fucking racist

which is nothing new.

In fact, because goêteia itself is a synchronization of mainly Egyptian and Jewish magic, the Greeks and later christians went extra-hard into villifying it because they saw these people as lesser, as barbaric.

We have to understand where the fears and judgements of these critics were coming from, and continue to remain impartial. The ruling elite feared these practices because they feared losing their power, especially rich Greek men, and those early christian philosophers who saw everything outside their own faith as lies, manipulations, or tricks from "the Opposition" as well as the extremely racist and ethnocentric beliefs they held.

[probablyasocialecologist]

We come alongside fellow Christians in condemning all attacks on civilians, especially defenseless families and children. Yet, we are disturbed by the silence of many church leaders and theologians when it is Palestinian civilians who are killed. We are also horrified by the refusal of some western Christians to condemn the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestine, and, in some instances, their justification of and support for the occupation. Further, we are appalled by how some Christians have legitimized Israel’s ongoing indiscriminate attacks on Gaza, which have, so far, claimed the lives of more than 3,700 Palestinians, the majority of whom are women and children. These attacks have resulted in the wholesale destruction of entire neighborhoods and the forced displacement of over one million Palestinians. The Israeli military has utilized tactics that target civilians such as the use of white phosphorus, the cutting off of water, fuel, and electricity, and the bombardment of schools, hospitals, and places of worship—including the heinous massacre at the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyrios which wiped out entire Palestinian Christian families. Moreover, we categorically reject the myopic and distorted Christian responses that ignore the wider context and the root causes of this war: Israel’s systemic oppression of the Palestinians over the last 75 years since the Nakba, the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine, and the oppressive and racist military occupation that constitutes the crime of apartheid. This is precisely the horrific context of oppression that many western Christian theologians and leaders have persistently ignored, and even worse, have occasionally legitimized using a wide range of Zionist theologies and interpretations. Moreover, Israel’s cruel blockade of Gaza for the last 17 years has turned the 365-square-kilometer Strip into an open-air prison for more than two million Palestinians—70% of whom belong to families displaced during the Nakba—who are denied their basic human rights. The brutal and hopeless living conditions in Gaza under Israel’s iron fist have regrettably emboldened extreme voices of some Palestinian groups to resort to militancy and violence as a response to oppression and despair. Sadly, Palestinian non-violent resistance, which we remain wholeheartedly committed to, is met with rejection, with some western Christian leaders even prohibiting the discussion of Israeli apartheid as reported by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and B’Tselem, and as long asserted by both Palestinians and South Africans.

An Open Letter from Palestinian Christians to Western Church Leaders and Theologians

[buggie-hagen]

Sarah Hinlicky Wilson, one of the living theologians and pastors I admire, and dare I say at this point--a friend of mine...has a Kickstarter for a book on the Transfiguration. Check it out:

[bobemajses]

Jewish woman from the Kiev region, Ukraine (then Russian Empire), 1866

Earrings are a common decoration of Jewish girls and women. In the Middle Ages, they were a mandatory mark of distinction for Jewesses in many European countries. Theologians likened the wearing of earrings and circumcision, since ear piercing also was related to some mutilation of the flesh.

[headspace-hotel]

like 80% of evangelicalism is banking hard on the idea that there is spiritually some completely unambiguous and distinct difference between men and women, that this somehow reflects the nature of God, and that men and women adhering to Proper Gender Roles preserves some crucial reflection of divinity

no one has been able to break down what this difference is or why gender existing somehow reflects God (the christian God, who famously is two things that do not overlap, instead of the single deity of a monotheistic religion). Otherwise intelligent and thoughtful theologians will black out and say shit like "you know how boys naturally like trucks and girls naturally like dolls? yeah. that means uhh. God"

and if you're like "well I'm a girl and I never really liked dolls but my brother did" no one can read suddenly

Strangely I bet if you were like "ohhhh so the Trinity is a little bit like gender, where there is one single nature like the whole human species, but there are multiple distinct natures within it, but each of those individual natures fully contains the one original, and they can also be both at once, neither at once, or an intermediate, just like you can be a guy who's a girl who is some kind of man in a feminine way." people would get mad.

[talonabraxas]

Sun in Gemini II (5/30 – 6/10 2024) The middle decan of Gemini is called the Hermaphrodite, after a child of Hermes and Aphrodite, who bore the external and internal genitalia of both men and women in their own body.

According to one story of Hermaphrodite, found in Ovid, he was a remarkable beautiful young man of extraordinary gracefulness and easiness of manner. A naiad, or water-spirit named Salamis observed him bathing one day, and jumped into the pool to fondle the youth who was too young to understand or consent to these advances. She tried to have her way with him, either through rape or seduction; yet the boy resisted, and Salmacis cried aloud her wish — to be united with this boy forever. A passing god, hearing her prayer, solemnly knitted them into one being — and Hermaphrodite became a god in themselves, a god of the unified masculine and feminine. They blessed — or cursed? — the spring in such a way that anyone else who bathed there would be similarly transformed.

Other accounts suggest that Hermaphrodite was an androgynous figure from birth. Roman theologians attributed the birth of human hermaphrodites to the influence of Hermaphrodite and their father Hermes’ influence. “Serious” scholars of natural history noted that hermaphroditic births were rare but regarded as significant omens of the future, while satirical authors made hermaphrodites into funny figures worthy of derision. Whether by alchemical change in a pool or divine birth, the Greeks and Romans depicted Hermaphrodite with both female breasts as well as penis and scrotum in naked depictions; I’m not aware of a statue that also shows a vagina — but it’s possible. Despite Ovid’s account connecting Hermaphrodite’s origins to female-on-male sexual assault, this boy-girl deity was highly sensualized and sexualized in Roman fresco and statuary, and was considered to be the patron of marriage. Since they united in themselves both the masculine and feminine, their feast day (the fourth of every month) was considered highly auspicious for weddings in many community around the Roman Mediterranean.

And Hermaphrodite stood in contrast to another figure, far more terrifying to the ancient Romans — that of Magna Mater, the Great Mother Cybele. She had been carried into Rome in procession in the form of a Black Stone that was said to have fallen from heaven — and she was placed in the porch of the temple of Capitoline Jupiter in the heart of the city during the Second Punic War, and spiritually married to Jupiter as the principal god of the Romans, an extra consort to be recognized alongside Juno. Her high priestess and priestesses were not scions of Rome, either, but foreigners from Phrygia in what is now Turkey — and there is symbolic evidence that Cybele had been worshipped there in some form since at least 6000 BCE. Even more than the women priestesses wielding significant power in the cult of the Great Mother, though, were the strange and androgyne priests of Cybele — eunuchs all — who had voluntarily allowed themselves to be castrated in service to the Mother. The Roman Senate, with the same kind of shrill horror that some modern US senators reserve for anti-immigration screeds, forbade any Roman man from joining the cult of Cybele as anything other than an observer.

So, here, in miniature, echoing from twenty-two centuries before our own time, we find some of the same kinds of strange dismay and fear of foreign customs, alchemical-medical recreations of the mortal frame, and ancient powers that do not seem to belong to “the modern rational world” —and yet do. Public officials have no trouble vilifying transgender people, and comedians satirize them, and preachers sermonize about the way they warn us that dire changes are coming. And yet, the presence of transgender people in the world is unnecessarily sexualized, their romance is celebrated (both their actual relationship lives and the fantasies we spin about their lives), and their presence in a community is a remarkable signpost (and perhaps talisman) that points to tolerance, diversity, and healthy community norms.

And maybe we react with such a strange mix of hope, unease, joy, and concern around transgender persons today, for the same reasons the Romans did — they’re proof that Mother Nature can bring forth a far vaster range of possibilities and potentials into the world, than our allegedly rational minds can understand. The Great Mother is truly greater, and more awe-inspiring, than we can conceive — and patriarchy has little choice but to bow down to her revelation.

Maybe that’s one of the key messages of Gemini more generally, and of The Hermaphrodite specifically. We humans want to control a lot of things: the wind, Mother Nature, the structure of sex and gender, what are the acceptable desires of flesh and heart — and Cybele and Hermaphrodite both say, “Terribly sorry, but those are not in your power to rule.”

The Dodeks of Gemini II are Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, and Capricorn — and they also tell this complex story of dualities turning into uncontrollable multiplicities. Libra indicates a balance between two — this exactly equals that. But Scorpio is the many-handed monster of desire, carrying both healing and poison in its stinger. Sagittarius is the human, the divine, the technical, the feral and animalistic, all wrapped up in a strange hybridized package. Capricorn is the fish caught in the moment of chan into a goat — a reminder that evolution is ongoing, for sure; but also suggesting the Egyptian crocodile, 250 million years old and counting, reminding us that there are forms of nature far more enduring and steady than ourselves. --Wanderings in the Labyrinth

Hermaphrodite in Dreams Johfra Bosschart

[haggishlyhagging]

Part of the reason that we don't tend to think of medieval women as workers is that the major expectation for them was that they would be wives and, crucially, mothers. A young woman, no matter her place in society, spent much of her time preparing for her eventual role as wife and mother in the household of her husband's family. Her parents wanted to ensure that they brought up their daughter in such a way that she would not "be a sore vexation to her bridegroom," as the Church father and theologian John of Chrysostom (347-407) put it. So when a young unmarried woman did receive, say, an education, it was largely tied to investing in her theoretical value as a bride. Well-educated women made for good wives since they could later educate their own children, as we will see. They would also be expected to run their own households, a job that involved fiscal acumen, and in the case of larger households, to manage staff. When a medieval girl was educated, it wasn't necessarily an altruistic activity to better her for her own good. It was a calculated marketing strategy and a means of marking her as an excellent potential mother.

The focus on motherhood and the getting of heirs existed for a number of reasons. As discussed in Chapter 3, for the rich, it was a way of ensuring that the property that a family had amassed would be passed down to a younger generation and their interests would be protected. Poor families needed children not necessarily to safeguard property but to have help on it. In an agricultural society, extra hands to help on the farm were in demand, especially when they didn't have to be paid wages. But regardless of whether you wanted kids to carry on your legacy or to help on the farm, you had to contend with one significant barrier: infant mortality. Children died at an incredibly high rate, not only in the medieval period but up until the twentieth century. At the very lowest, somewhere between 20 and 30 percent of all medieval children under seven died, though some put the mark as high as 50 percent. As a result, families required many more births of children than we are accustomed to in order to ensure viable heirs.

Producing all the heirs that their male relatives demanded put women's lives in real danger, but this danger was an accepted part of their position and calling as wives. The Hali Meidhad or Letter on Virginity, which was written in the English Midlands, acknowledged the pain, danger, and worry of mothers, stating that "in carrying [a child] there is heaviness and constant discomfort; in giving birth to it, the cruelest of all pains, and sometimes death; in bringing it up many weary hours. . . . By God, woman, . . . you should avoid this act above all things, for the integrity of your flesh, for the sake of your body, and for your physical health." The danger and pain—the real labor of childbirth and child rearing—were thus not lost of medieval commentators. This was the job that medieval women were expected to carry out, and it sucked.

Beyond childbirth and -rearing, the position of wife in and or itself implied work. According to Jerome, "Men marry, indeed, so as to get a manager for the house, to solace weariness, to banish solitude." The Letter on Virginity likewise directly challenges the idea that women benefit from subsuming themselves into marriage and motherhood. When a submissive would-be wife states that men's strength is needed for help with work and to secure adequate food, and that wealth is the result of marriage and several healthy children, the Letter asserts that such a picture of marriage deliberately misleads women, and that any advantages that they experience from marriage and motherhood come at too high a personal cost. Marriage, the Letter insists, is not a way of forming a team and enjoying a family but is "servitude to a man." Sugarcoat it one might, but marriage was not a romantic partnership but a contract, in which women signed themselves up for a life of grinding maternal labor as well as work alongside their husbands, for which they would not be acknowledged in historical records.

Medieval women appear as parts of households, or “wives of” named men in historical records. But wives were expected to take on the role of helpmeet and coworker alongside their husbands. Even those who heeded the warnings of the Church and turned from a life of motherhood toward God would find themselves working away inside nunneries. Similarly, single laywomen had to work to get by, and society marked out positions specifically for women who, for whatever reason, were not attached to a household. All these women are worth seeing as workers.

-Eleanor Janega, The Once and Future Sex: Going Medieval on Women’s Roles in Society

[hadesoftheladies]

"you are killing a baby"

i am killing a fetus, not an infant. an egg is not a chicken. potential is not actuality.

"you are murdering an innocent."

it doesn't matter who is innocent. a hungry lion may be innocent in wanting to eat me only because it is hungry and may not have the cognitive capacities to exercise something like restraint or conscience. that does not mean i should not defend myself from harm. it is still self-defense. all animals are expected to protect themselves first and foremost. you are just so used to the idea that women (especially mothers) are supposed to sacrifice their lives for their children in order to be good people--like they aren't human beings with self-preservation instincts.

harm equals anything that threatens the life or health of a person and pregnancy does both.

"your body was meant/designed to do this"

miscarriages are as natural as pregnancies. why do you think the placenta exists? pregnancy sickness? the female body can grow a person, yet also has resistance mechanisms for a pregnancy.

also, just because i have genes that make me a good runner doesn't mean i have to become a marathoner. like think for a second.

"what will the father think?"

women don't owe men or society themselves. i know that's very hard for you to grasp but there's no time like the present to start. there is no ethical way to make a woman a commodity or government assigned asset for reproduction or sex.

"the baby is conscious"

so is the lion in the hypothetical. also, that's debatable. also, what are your thoughts on veganism? since you care so much about the suffering of conscious beings (that is beings with selves)

"but animals aren't humans. they don't deserve the same rights as humans because of their lower cognitive capacities"

great. now apply this ethic to babies and mentally disabled people and then try to explain to me why that has to be different without mentioning how you feel or your religion. :)

"a baby has more potential than an animal."

okay, and why does that potential automatically mean better or more valuable? higher cognitive capacities haven't stopped wars and mass murders have they? (and i would argue that bringing a child into a violent world increases their chance of becoming unhealthy or complicit persons, so you can almost know what the character of your child will be like for certain based on where you're raising them).

"a baby has a soul"

there are two kinds of dualisms within christianity: thomistic and cartesian. cartesian dualism has gone out of fashion even amongst christian theologians and philosophers.

Substance dualism, or Cartesian dualism, most famously defended by René Descartes, argues that there are two kinds of foundation: mental and physical. Descartes states that the mental can exist outside of the body, and the body cannot think.

'Thomistic substance dualism' (TSD) centers around two beliefs: 1) the rational soul is an immaterial substance, and 2) this immaterial substance is the human person.

aside from the fact that both of these philosophies are rife with problems, I think thomistic dualism is the stronger of the two. the rational soul is, in a way, a word for the self.

regardless, both of these describe a self as a soul. so i'm just going to define a self.

The psychology of self is the study of either the cognitive and affective representation of one's identity or the subject of experience. The earliest formulation of the self in modern psychology forms the distinction between two elements I and me. The self as I, is the subjective knower. While, the self as Me, is the subject that is known.

a self is a centralized consciousness with their own memories, introspection and reflections. we know through neuroscience, psychology, behavioural science and sociology that a person or self is formed via experiences (where memories and impressions are gathered, how people learn), language and socialization (economy, history, family, culture) and possibly some genetic expressions (although i think this is more about capacity than actualization).

this is why things like dementia or alzheimer's are so scary and difficult. when a person loses memories, they lose aspects of themselves. when a person changes their environment, they also become different people (even while maintaining some similarities with their past selves).

this is mirrored in popular media, characters that lose their memories lose versions of themselves. this is also why, when you look at stories that feature a multiverse, the same character becomes a different person in different lives. in short, you are not born a person. you become one, and although your self remains singular and centralized (even with age), that self still changes. both the self and the people around the self create the self.

this is also why socially isolated individuals devolve and become mindless or sick (and even have reduced lifespan). certain higher human capacities like "conscience" or "empathy" can be socialized out of a human being, as well. i'd even go so far as to say that children begin conceptualizing themselves as individuals only when they begin to sense the presence of other human beings. they cannot conceptualize their own identity without the presence of other people. they probably don't know they are a self until they recognize other people and then realize they themselves are also people, and people are individuals.

legally a person is:

. . . an entity that the law recognises as having its own distinct personality. This usually means one that is able to act in its own right, and capable of possessing legal rights and liabilities, including individuals (or "natural persons") and corporate organisations.

my point is, how can a fetus with virtually no experiences (which born animals have), no language or skill (learned) to introspect or reflect (or abstract), possibly have a self? when they are not exposed to the outside world? certainly they have the capacity to develop a self, but as established earlier on, potential is not actuality. so legally and psychologically, a fetus is very likely not a person.

but we do not need this to be true to justify abortion regardless, because an innocent person is still causing harm, whether directly or indirectly. so the woman/girl has every right to resist.

[a-queer-seminarian]

Today is Easter Sunday. Today is Trans Day of Visibility. Today is day 176 of genocide.

This year the lectionary gives us Mark's account of the Resurrection, with its fearful cliffhanger ending — an empty tomb, but Jesus's body missing. And isn't that unresolved note fitting?

In the face of so much suffering across the world, it feels right to be compelled to sit — even on this most jubilant of days — with the poor and disenfranchised in their continued suffering.

Mark's account:

Just days before, the women closest to Jesus witnessed him slowly suffocate to death on a Roman cross. Now, now trudge to his tomb to anoint his corpse — and find the stone rolled away, his body gone. A strange figure inside tells them that Jesus is has risen, and will reunite with them in Galilee.

They respond not with joy, but trembling ekstasis — a sense of being beside yourself, taken out of your own mind with shock. They flee.

The women keep what they've seen and heard to themselves — because their beloved friend outliving execution is just too good to be true. When does fortune ever favor those who languish under Empire's shadow?

Love wins, yet hate still holds us captive.

I'm grateful that Mark's resurrection story is the one many of us are hearing in church this year. His version emphasizes the "already but not yet" experience of God's liberation of which theologians write: Christians believe that in Christ's incarnation — his life, death, and resurrection — all of humanity, all of Creation is already redeemed... and yet, we still experience suffering. The Kin(g)dom is already incoming, but not yet fully manifested.

Like Mark's Gospel with its Easter joy overshadowed by ongoing fear, Trans Day of Visibility is fraught with the tension of, on the one hand, needing to be seen, to be known, to move society from awareness into acceptance into celebration; and, on the other hand, grappling with the increased violence and bigotry that a larger spotlight brings.

The trans community intimately understands the intermingling of life and death, joy and pain.

When we manage to roll back the stones on our tombs of silence and shame, self-loathing and social death, and stride boldly into new, transforming and transformative life — into trans joy! — death still stalks us.

We are blessedly, audaciously free — and we are in constant danger. There are many who would shove us back into our tombs.

And of course, the trans community is by no means alone in experiencing the not-yet-ness of God's Kin(g)dom.

Empire's violence continues to overshadow God's liberation.

The women who came to tend to their beloved dead initially experienced the loss of his body as one more indignity heaped upon them by Empire. Was his torture, their terror, not enough, that even their grief must be trampled upon, his corpse stolen away from them?

The people of Gaza are undergoing such horrors now. Indignity is heaped on indignity as they are bombed, assaulted, terrorized, starved, mocked. They are not given a moment's rest to tend to their dead. They are not permitted to celebrate Easter's joy as they deserve. They are forced to break their Ramadan fasts with little more than grass.

Those of us who reside in the imperial core — as I do as a white Christian in the United States — must not look away from the violence our leaders are funding, enabling, justifying.

We must not celebrate God's all-encompassing redemption without also bearing witness to the ways that liberation is not yet experienced by so many across the world.

This Easter, I pray for a free Palestine. I pray for an end to Western Empire, the severing of all its toxic tendrils holding the whole earth in a death grip.

I pray that faith communities will commit and recommit themselves to helping roll the stones of hate and fear away — and to eroding those stones into nothing, so they cannot be used to crush us once we've stepped into new life.

I pray for joy so vibrant it washes fear away, disintegrates all hatred into awe.

In the meantime, I pray for the energy and courage to bear witness to suffering; for the wisdom for each of us to discern our part in easing pain; for God's Spirit to reveal Xirself to and among the world's despised, over and over — till God's Kin(g)dom comes in full at last.

"The Empty Tomb" by artist He Qi.