The Christmas story starts with a teenage girl, Mary, and an
angel of God.
Kelley Werner, co-host of the Woman
Being Podcast, explains: “She's portrayed as
this passive participant in her faith. There's an
edification of her. "Lord, whatever you say, I will do. So
be it." She's passively impregnated by an angel, and becomes
this side character in the narrative of Jesus.
That angle was always impressed upon us as young women:
Keeping our posture very open to whatever God or men determine is
like our best path.”
The Christmas
story, as we talk about with Kelley, Kelly Anne Carter, and Emma
Williams, has significant implications on how we, and especially
women, engage with our bodies. We talk more about:
Implications of the Idea of Mary (11:00):
Jeremiah notes how Mary’s passiveness paves the way for women
to be treated as weak and passive: "There's a parallel between God
non consensually disseminating his sperm into Mary and Mary being
like, I guess that just happened...That gets played out in the
church..women are expected to be passive people that will
just like go along with whatever is suggested.”
What About Joseph? (14:00): Emma
discusses how Christians's obsession with Mary doesn’t translate to
Joseph, because he embodies an accepting man who believes his wife:
“For men, why don't Christians also say, oh, you need to believe
your wife? Why don't we say you need to blindly follow her
path?"
Gatekeepers of Sexuality (22:00): Kelly
Anne shares how her family pressures her, not her husband, about
when she will be having a child: “I’m the one that's preventing my
husband from spreading his genes. Which is kind of interesting to
think about because we're sitting with this together." Julia adds:
“When we're talking about gatekeeping around sexuality being the
role of women, the fact that people ask you about pregnancy versus
your husband is super significant to that.”
Induced Grief (32:00): The Church is
built upon pillars of shame, and the holidays, instead of a time
for joy and being with loved ones, are centered on the idea that we
are all bad, shameful, sinful people who must repent. Kelley frames
this as induced grief: “It's built on the fact that you need to be
reminded that you are the worst, and nothing you could ever do
would be enough. And therefore, Jesus must come and save you,
right? That is why this beautiful baby had to be born. That's, to
me, an induced grief...We're talking about an added reminder of
insufficiency that doesn't relate to grief in the way that I think
of grief.”
Sensuality Around the Holidays
(40:00): Julia talks about how engaging in joyous
activities can be perceived as indulgence, thus feeding into the
Christian idea that the holidays are for loving Jesus, not
gluttonous celebration: “Because sensuality has a connotation with
indulgence and indulgence has a connotation with gluttony or
excess, all of those things can be demonized in Christian culture,
especially for women and especially around the
holidays.”
The Holidays and Healing (42:00): Kelly Anne
describes, “To me, the holidays are a sensual experience and, to
me, that is a part of the purity culture recovery. It is reclaiming
the delight of the senses. And so the holidays, if you have the
capacity, and if it's something that you're in the right place for,
can be such a beautiful healing experience.”
Christian-ish and Incorporating Former Traditions
(50:00): Kelley discusses how to incorporate former
Christian traditions that bring joy, but adjust them to fit your
current stage of life and family: “[What has] resonated most with
me is this idea of being Christian-ish and the
idea that I was raised within the Christian faith. It's built my
morals, it's built my value system, and it's very much my culture
and family history. Learning to embrace the parts of Christianity
that bring me joy or feel like a part of my tradition feels
comforting to me without necessarily having to fully believe
everything."
About the Podcast
Sexvangelicals is a podcast about the sex education the church didn't want you to have, hosted by Julia and Jeremiah, two licensed and certified sex therapists.