Table Manners for Hungry Radicals - Pamela R. Lightsey
Love is not only a christian thing to do but a subversive thing to do.
the more you go to church, the more bigotted you are.
there is a longer percentage of christians in congress than in the US population.
there are only 7 openly LGBTQ members of Congress. No known openly LGBTQ members of the Presidential Cabinet.
Audre Lourde - I need someone to manage the white house. the person I asked to cme do it doesn't want to work for another black woman.
Seats at the table are often seen as the seats of power.
sitting at the table had a very political tone
when you go to sit at the table, one ought to watch waht you eat. if there's nothing placed on your plate, you have a seat at the table but not htere to dine.
Do you have a seat at the table or are you part of the menu?!
First out lesbian african american ordained in the united methodist church.
tables remain patricartical, places of greed , places of control
the table can be a site of much pain
who's setting the table? the invitees should consider who's setting thet table to get insight into the motivation of the invitiation and what's on the menu
is it trump?
Why do you want to go? what's your motivation? what 9is pushing you to want to accept this invite? Is this about you? Carrier move or community move? About your ego or is it larger than you?
> I finally got real grown and started staying "no" to invitations.... because I recognized that being at the table was a setup and I didn't want to be at a table where I would be on the menu.
If you are going to talk about human sexuality, there must be a section on actionable items.
How stable is the table? the table is not worthy of your presence if your primary purpose there is to be the fixer uppper?
Figure out why they are inviting you! I cannot be the one to come and fix your race problems.
I don't want to be the remedy to anyone's diversity problem.
Diversity is important but if the primary purpose is to fill a diversity quota, stop it!
Does the table have an extension piece? A leaf, something that is growing. Is it growing? Do a walk around - what does the future look like at that table? Are we prepared to grow or is this table only for certain kinds of lesbians.
James Baldwin didn't bit his tongue when it came to racism, so he wasn't invited to the march on washington.
Is there room for people who will speak their mind, who won't sugar coat - who are not like us?
Don't show up empty-handed. You must always show up with something. Don't go empty-handed. An invite means you must go prepared. Don't be naive - be prepared to listen and be prepared to be subversive at that table.
Be at that table (if it meats all the other criteria) and be prepared.
Ally has the connotation of someone who comes and goes as they desire. Show up at the table with your freedom fighter card. Freedom fighters were persons who committed their lives to the sake of justice.
Most courageously, sit at the table with friends and family as a freedom figher. NOT "it's not the right moment, I just couldn't say that"
doin't think I wasn't nervious - i was nervious in the moment, but because I love humanity, my freedom figher card goes with me where ever I go.
what else can I bring?
Non-violent direct action!
You must first seak to determine if an injustice has taken place.
You want o show up iwth a willingness to negotiate.
Jfk profiles of courage - the importance of compromise.
show up as a hellraiser if necessary
other part of showing up requires a certain amb
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Telos
- a final purpose
- all things in nature move toward flourishing
any act taht "frustrates" the natural progress toward frution (telos) are sinful
---> the procreative norm: one essential purpose of sex is procreation
augustine really didn't not see any redeaming value toward sex, other than procreationship -- he started out more positive but ended up very sex negative
... for him (influenced by plato) what was good was rational -- and in a sex act, you lose rationality
only through procreation, can sex be redeamed.
sex as a destructive act
unnatural sex acts...
sex acts that do not have the potential to procreate
- sex outside of marriage
- use of contracepiton
- masturbation
- same-sex relations
if straight poeple knew how much straight sex is banned, they would never get married in the catholic church!
complementarily
- god's different design for men and women reveals that God has aidfferent purpose for men and women
- men are intended to lead and take action
- women are intended to be nurterers and servants
this is the teaching that the ban on women's ordination is based on - women aren't supposed to lead and take action
important to undrstand what we're really up against with this teaching and how deep it runs
women's issues in the church and lgbt issues in the church are the same battle!
JPII - nuptial symbolism
- the the theology of the body everything is understood according to th gendered relationship between husband an wife
not official doctrine, but it courses through AM
the way in which the hcurch thinks about relationships is all male-female
cosmic - god is husband/earth is wife
ecclesiological: christ is husband/chruch is wfie
feminine genius: basic essence of womanhood is her womb. - when you hear feminine genius, think womb. this is really woman's gift to society and church, that ability to have children and that is really our first vocation as women.
man and women in marriage - is seen the great model for god's plan for humanity.
mary is "the perfect woman" because she didn't have sex and she also had a child!
church officially teaches that mary did not have sex after Jesus, though the gospels seem to indicate otherwise.
New framework for sexual ethics by margaret farley
people are suffering grately because of the inadequate sexual ethic -- she spent so many years cousciling people who were coming out or learning their gender id or getting a divorce
who we are as human beings
plato had a division between body and soul - soul was this holy part of us that was good and just wanted to be free of the trappings of the world - real dualism of body and soul
margaret says that this dualism really doesn't world ...
we are gifted in body and psirit by all crations' speaking to us God's wordl and provindg us a home where we may find sustenenc and joy -- great idea of sacrementailyt god reavelease ogdself through nature and th world.
our spiits and our bodies are in this very dynamic relationshp with one another
we must treat one another as embodied spirits.
so this is the base of her framework on why all of our relationships must be just.
what is justice?
- to render to another what they are due.
societies where lesbians are raped to try to repair their lesbian
so what IS their due?
they are due to be loved in accordance with teh concrete reality of their liives
we are emobidied spirits, basic neleds, capacity for free choice, ability to think and feel and we are essentially relational
Autonomy we have the capacity for self-determination. we are free. we are not "means to an end" but "ends in ourselves" - we arenot objects to be treated as slaves or objects of gratification.
we all have a capacity for relationlship
we cannot exist without being in relationship
the capacity to love makes persons worthy of respect and of unconditional value
this book was so essential to each to undergrads, and officially it's banned now
gives students a framework that they can work with.
1. do no unjust harm ("unjust" because she's in medicine - sometimes you have to do harm to a body in order to promote it healing)
- each person is vulnerable (latin: "open to being wounded"). Eros makes us capable of being wounded. ... you open yourself to having your heart broken or being disappointed or hurt etc.
- because sexualty is
not to do phhsical, psych , spritial harm
2. Free concent
- have to respect the other person's freedom - the right to determine their own actions.
if I lie, there is a coercion -- if you lie or if you make a prlmis.e that you know you can't keep, then you relaly are infringing on the other person's freedom.
affects date rape etc at a very basic level
promise-keeping: if i have no intention of keeping a primise, i have decieved you.
3. mutuality
- seual relatioshis must have mutual participation , rather than one acdtive and one passive partner - a
active receptivity and receptive activity : each partner must be most active abd recpetive in the relationship
..; not "top" and "bottom" - freedom and both people being acive - that one person is not treated as an objecdt purely for theo ther's gratification.
there's a mutality of desire, action, and response.
two liberties, two bodies meeting and two hearts beet.
4. equality
- freedom and mutaulity are not enough
there must be equality of power for there to be real freedom
- pwoer inequalities - unequal vulernability, dependence and limitation of optoins
-- if the church understood this, they would not have a sexual abuse crisis -- the prist will always have power over you.
also important for student-teacher relationships
5. commitment
- some form of covenant or contract tmust characterize relationships with a sexual dimension
not necessarily marriage - some form of convenant
in time, we learn that sex itself cannot satisfy our deepist yearnings
just sex alone cannot quite fullfill those yearnings.
needs to be nutrued an sustained, but also disciplined and channeled
two ways - either move lover to lover or through relationship that incorporates sexuality into a shared life and enduring love
what contract do you need to make as a couple so that you can sustan sexuality and yet still have desire.
she never talks about marriage or monogamy in this section.
brief encounters (aka hookups): you can have a sexual encounter w/o committment - but it really cannot medidat ethe union of knowning and being known, to love and be loved.
so she doesn't just reject them, as the church would. they have value to her, just cannot be the end.
value of committment and what it means for a couple.
/// this is a framework, not a list of absolutes or even a list of norms.
6. fruitfulness
so so important in a procreation heavy church
according to the catholic church, all acts must have the possibility of procreation
this part is the most important to really develop and write about - even if you can't create a baby , there are so many ways that we are called to be fruitful
- is the loving relationship bringing greater life into the world - greater generoscity, model of faithfulness, etc.
much more impmortant reality than just being able to procreate.
so even if the church recognizes this, they still have an absolute norm of procreativity.
without it, we are strangers to one another, only serving the other's superficial needs
boredom: disciplining and channeling ... you shoud still have desire and passion and your committment shoudl promote that. there hsould not be boredom in a relationship.
ways in which we bring life into the world.
and couples that are infertle know this, but it all goes out the window for queer couples.
// and they also know this through celibacy!
compusive celibacy ! how fruitfullness works.
7 social justice
- the wider community has an objligation to those who choose to be in sexual relationships
we need to affirm them as seual beings
freedom from harm, equal protecdtion, freedom of choice --- goes back to embodied spirits.
there's always going to be a claim on us to be creating greater psychic security and protections for everyone.
margaret farley finds masterbation morally neutral because if it's used in a way that does help channel energy and promote sexual relationship health, then it can be good -- this is one of the things that the CDF didn't like.
if they decide to have female deacons, will it be more opportunities to be nurterers and servants or will it have some authority.
fruitfullness
- what is bringing about the life of god more fully in the world
does it bring arbout greater generocity, greater prescence, sacrifice, etc.
we are called to be god's visible signs in the world
more fractured, lose presence, lose ability to be generous, protective ... become less of a person in the relationship
// truly our sister - feminist theology about mary .... elizabeth johnson
sacrefice is not a bad word -- "to make something holy" .. things have to be sacrificed -- give up some flexibility ... accountable to your partner, have to make desciions together .... so that you can be in deeper, more respectful relationship.