Ruth Krall, "Persephone’s Journey into the Underworld: Lessons for Our Time"

Ancient portrayal of Demeter and Persephone, Apulian red-figure loutrophoro, ca. 4th century BCE, from the J. Paul Getty Museum, at the Theoi Project website

When I announced at the start of this year that I've decided no longer to maintain Bilgrimage, I also noted that if readers have something they'd like me to consider for posting here down the road, I'll gladly do that. Ruth Krall has kindly offered the following essay for publication here, and I'm delighted to share it. 

Snapshots of Intersection of Religion and Politics, American Style, as Indicators Point to Biden Win

Moi on Twitter, pointing to an AP Report by Elana Schor and David Crary, 6 November

On this day when the worm may be turning (if at sloth's pace) in the US presidential election, when many folks are expressing baffled surprise that four years of that person in the White House have resulted in even more exultation of "religious" people in his rule over us, a few snapshots. These are who we are, and we need not to unsee what they show us.

A Valuable Opportunity Tomorrow, April 25: "American Heretics: The Politics of the Gospel" — "In Oklahoma, You Can Be a Democrat or You Can Be a Christian. But You Can't Be Both"

In Oklahoma, you can be a Democrat or you can be a Christian. But you can't be both. 

~ Rev. Robin Meyers, Mayflower United Church of Christ, Oklahoma City

I'd like to draw your attention to this promising-looking resource. Tomorrow at 3 P.M. CST / 4 P.M. EST, there will be a live online screening of the award-winning film "American Heretics: The Politics of the Gospel," directed and produced by Jeanine Butler and Catherine Lynn Butler. Information — including information about how you can log in and watch — is at this link.

Jeff Chu on Meeting the Woman Who Fired Him Because He Was Gay: Valuable Twitter Thread for #RiseUpOct8

The US Supreme Court will hear arguments this week on whether LGBTQ people are protected by existing anti-discrimination law. I've been thinking about this topic. On Saturday at #EvolvingFaith19, I came face-to-face with a woman who fired me from a freelance gig because I'm gay.

— Jeff Chu (@jeffchu) October 7, 2019

The Twitter thread Jeff Chu shared yesterday, which begins with the tweet above, is very important to read today, as the Supreme Court hears more arguments about the "right" of people to appeal to religious belief as their basis for discriminating against LGBTQ citizens in the workplace, in schools, in public services, in housing, in the marketplace, etc.

Ruth Krall, Looking Slant: Oppressive Ideologies and Belief Systems

Ebola: Transporting a Sick Child to a Care Facility (1)

The essay by Ruth Krall that follows below is the fourth in a series of essays entitled "Recapitulation: Affinity Sexual Violence in a Religious Voice," which I've had the honor to publish on Bilgrimage in the past weeks. The first essay in this series appeared in two installments, here and here. The second appeared in another two installments, here and here. The third essay is here. As Ruth's introduction to the essay below notes, it follows on her three preceding essays, which hypothesize the endemic natural of religious and spiritual leader sexual abuse of followers by asking what might be the role played by various ideologies in establishing institutional climates that faciliate abuse and then cover it up. As with some of Ruth's previous essays in this series, I'm posting this one in two parts: part one is below.

Ruth Krall, Religious Leader Sexual Abuse — What Language Shall We Use?

Citrus Trees Ready for Harvest (1)

This essay is the third in a series Ruth Krall has written with the title "Recapitulation: Affinity Sexual Violence in a Religious Voice." The first essay in the series was published in two parts (here and here), and was followed by another two-part essay (here and here). As Ruth notes below, "In the first two essays, I utilized the language of public health to explore issues of prevention, containment and treatment. In this essay I have raised questions about how we begin to study these issues. I have raised the question of our research language as essential."

As she further states, "Vis-à-vis the current clergy sexual abuse issue in multiple world religions, we need, I believe, an enhanced vocabulary. We need this enhanced and more precise vocabulary in order to comprehend the complex institutional forces at work in today's religious communities as they experience and/or demonstrate the affinity sexual violence phenomena." Here's Ruth's valuable essay:

Ruth Krall, Religious Leader Sexual Abuse: A Pan-Denominational Approach

Transferring an Ebola Patient for Transport to a Care Facility  

I recently had the privilege of publishing an essay by Ruth Krall entitled "Prolegomena: An Act of Re-Thinking" (here and here). That essay challenged readers to re-think how we've come to view the phenomenon of sexual abuse of minors and vulnerable people in religious contexts, and to consider applying terms and concepts from the realm of public health (e.g., epidemic, endemic, or pandemic) to this phenomenon.

"Prolegomena" is the first in a multi-part set of essasys on which Ruth has been working, with the title (for the entire series), "Recapitulation: Affinity Sexual Violence in a Religious Voice." In her manuscript gathering essays together under that title, Ruth includes a dedicatory note acknowleding the influence of her father Carl S. Krall on her life, work, and thought. It reads,

Ruth Krall, "In a Roman Catholic Voice: Clergy and Religious Leader Sexual Abuse of the Laity — A Study Bibliography of Resources" (2)

As I stated yesterday in introducing this two-part posting in which Ruth Krall offers us a valuable new resource for studying sexual abuse of minors in religious settings, all of us concerned with this issue owe Ruth a debt of immense gratitude for her generosity. She has made available to us resources that reflect her years of intensive study of the topic of sexual violence, rape, and abuse of minors in religious settings. What follows is the bibliography of resources Ruth is offering with this latest contribution to this research field; yesterday's posting featured Ruth's introductory essay for this important resource.

Miriam Toews' Irma Voth and Tara Westover's Educated: On Patriarchal Religion and Misogynistic Violence

It's by accident — or synchronicity — that I happen to have read Miriam Toews' novel Irma Voth at the same time that I'm reading Tara Westover's Educated. Toews' book explores the lives of several young women and girls in a Mennonite family in Mexico, which previously had roots in Manitoba (and before that in Russia). Westover focuses on her experiences growing up in a survivalist Mormon family in Idaho.

Police Shooting of Stephon Clark and Exoneration of Mark Anthony Conditt: Two Stories We Need to Read Side by Side

Again, how the police chief talks about a young white man who terrorizes a city. Remember how they talked about innocent Black children like Trayvon, Tamir or young men like Freddy Gray. Police: Austin bomber left 25-minute confession on phone @CNN https://t.co/Kvoetv9V13 pic.twitter.com/k0MjK6Dl59

— Sherrilyn Ifill (@Sifill_LDF) March 22, 2018

There are two stories here. These stories unfolded more or less simultaneously in the past several days. We need to read these stories side by side. They are two stories that are part of one story.

Religion and Poltics in News: From Passion of Southern Christians to Walk-Out in Italian Catholic Parish

Because of the intersection of Jewish Passover and Christian Holy Week, the news is chock-full of religion stories and religious commentary today in the nation with the soul of a church — which made Donald Trump president. Here's are some of my own picks from articles/commentary I've read this morning, whose only common thread is that they're about matters of religion (and, usually, politics):

Tired Old "Discussion" of Democrats As Anti-Religious after 2016 Elections: Valuable Recent Commentary

I've never seen a group of people so happy to do such evil as take healthcare away from 30 million Americans. pic.twitter.com/kJJv5vdTNt

— CoryBooker2020 (@CBooker2020) January 5, 2017

Following a presidential election in which 4 in 5 white evangelicals and 3 in 5 white Catholics and Mormons placed Donald Trump in the White House, claiming "pro-life" intent as they did so, there is a predictable "conversation" now in the mainstream media about the purported tone-deafness of the Democratic party and liberals to religion. This "conversation" takes place repeatedly in the mainstream media following Republican political victories. It reinforces the assumptions that 1) Republicans own religion, 2) religion is to be equated with its right-wing iterations, 3) the religious views and practices of people who do not equate religion with its right-wing iterations should be ignored as the media discuss religion in American politics, and 4) non-right-wing iterations of religion are to be kept in check by the mainstream media.

#NotNormal: Choosing Normalcy As the Not-Normal Prevails

This is what the end of democracy looks like pic.twitter.com/MmnUHE56AE

— CJ Werleman (@cjwerleman) December 1, 2016

In what is becoming an increasingly dark moment of global history, due to the determination of economic elites to pick one last time over the carcass of a defunct late-capitalist economic system built on the exploitation of the many to put more wealth into the pockets of the already grossly rich, what do we who believe (whether in any formal religious sense or not — this matters not a whit) in the possibility of a more humane world do? Those rapacious economic elites are crashing democratic systems of government everywhere in the world. They're doing so deliberately, since their rapacious picking over the carcass of late-capitalism — which is to say, over the carcasses of all of us — depends on their having total control of the mechanisms of national and international government, so that there will be no checks and balances on their rapacity and cruelty.

On Wrecking of Online Conversation Spaces by Trolls: Recent Commentary

Because I happen to have run across two very good pieces of commentary in the past day or so, about how trolls are trashing open discussion spaces online and causing some news sites to shut down their commentary threads, I commented on this topic on Facebook today. I thought some readers of Bilgrimage might be interested in what I had to say.