Anne-Marie Korte

Nuptial Symbolics beyond the Law : The Construction of Religion and Sexuality in Debates on the Legalization of Same-Sex Marriage

Since the turn of the century, a growing number of (Western) states have legalized samesex marriage (e.g. the Netherlands 2001, Belgium 2003, Spain 2005, Canada 2005, South Africa 2006, Sweden 2009, France 2013) or are about to do so. The intense public debates that often precede – and sometimes follow – these processes indicate that this is not merely an issue of granting equal rights to citizens who ‘happen’ to be non-heterosexual. For both opponents and proponents, the idea of same-sex marriage seems to be heavy with symbolism. Public debates tend to reduce this host of cultural meanings or connotations to the familiar split between ‘religion’ and ‘secularism’. This often proves to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, since the very proposition of legalizing same-sex marriage can ignite a ‘culture war’. On closer examination, however, many more than just two voices can be heard. Some religious groups (notably liberal Protestant and Jewish denominations) have solemnized same-sex relationships since the mid-1980s, whereas legalization has met with strong opposition not only in secular (e.g. post-communist) societies, but also in some more radical LGBT or queer circles. Public turmoil about this issue brings to light that even to those citizens who cherish the division of Church and State, marriage is not just a matter of rights, but of rituals. The latter bring along a host of cultural, transcendent associations, cutting across the religious-secular divide. Debates on same-sex marriage thus reveal a multitude of discursive constructions of marriage beyond the law. In order to comprehend these varied symbolic exchanges, an in-depth historical, crosscultural analysis of the discursive strategies that are being employed in the proposition of, and in opposition to, same-sex marriage is needed. This special issue – consisting of three main articles and two response articles – aims at contributing to such an analysis by zooming in into debates, past and present, in particular in the Netherlands and Sweden, and to a lesser extent in the United States. Both the Netherlands and Sweden are known for their high level of social acceptance of homosexuality, whereas in the United States social acceptance seems to be increasing as well. Moreover, these countries differ in their religious – and political – configurations. The articles in this issue aim at highlighting how in discourses on same-sex marriage, specific conceptualizations of both religion and homosexuality – notably in terms of individual vs. relational, public

Everyday Life and the Sacred: Gender Sensitive Explorations—Introduction

Feminist theologians and feminist scholars of religious studies traditionally question thinking in dichotomies, in particular, when binary distinctions capture or steer our understanding of religion and gender.1 Formative theorists of religion like Emile Durkheim, Rudolf Otto, and Mircea Eliade have enthroned the difference between the sacred and the profane in their efforts to touch the heart of religion in and for contemporary times. The need to scrutinize this common and widespread classification has been part of feminist scholarship from the beginning.2 Mary Daly already pleaded for the deconstruction of the distinction between the sacred and the profane, because both often served—where they are extremely simplified or made absolute—to exclude women from religious authority or religious rituals. Daly argued that the sacred is predominantly associated with transcendence and the masculine, while the profane is coupled with the mundane and the feminine.3 Melissa Raphael, the author of several ground-breaking books on the sacred from a feminist theological perspective, provided important new impulses to this debate. She proposes not to consider the sacred and profane as ontological or universal categories, but rather

Index of Sources

Everyday Life and the Sacred offers gender sensitive interdisciplinary perspectives from the fields of feminist theology and religious studies on the everyday and the sacred. The volume aims to re-configure the current domain of religion and gender studies.

Blasphemous Feminist Art: Incarnate Politics of Identity in Postsecular Perspective

Among the increasing number of publicly exhibited works of art that have become accused of blasphemy or sacrilege in the context of cultural identity politics in Western societies, religiously connoted feminist art works and performances seem to stand out and to fulfil a particularly provocative role. The concerned works of art have remarkable common traits in their disputed imagery. They connect almost palpable and often naked human bodies to iconic sacred scenes of Western Christian culture and art, such as the suffering Jesus Christ on the cross, the Last Supper, the Virgin Mary with the child Jesus, or the Pieta (Mater Dolorosa). Well known examples are works such as Ecce Homo by Elisabeth Ohlson (Sweden), I.N.R.I. by Serge Bramly and Bettina Rheims (France), Yo Mama’s Last Supper by Renee Cox (USA), Our Lady by Alma Lopez (USA), The Blood Ties by Katarzyna Kozyra (Poland), and Passion by Dorota Nieznalska (Poland). More recently, also songs and acts consisting of social, political, and religious critique, performed ‘provocatively’ by pop and punk artists such as Madonna, Lady Gaga, and the Russian formation Pussy Riot, have become publicly contested for comparable reasons. All these works of visual or performative art have been accused — more or less formally — of blasphemy or sacrilege, which contributed to both their notoriety and their controversiality by causing huge media attention.

Mourning for Yasmina: A Passion Narrative. Storytelling and Social Engagement in Urban Ministry

This chapter uses Pastor Moniques journal to explore the function of storytelling, and especially of narratives of pain and survival, in empowering local communities. It explores an actual example of a neighborhood pastors work: the writings of Pastor Monique. The chapter analyzes this text in three ways: as reportage, as a literary creation, and as a typical example of a specific genre, that is, the Passion narrative. Pastor Monique described in her journal how the people in her neighborhood, a mix of immigrants and indigenous Dutch, reacted to the murder of five-year old Muslim girl Yasmina in October 2000. The chapter investigates whether, and how, stories of suffering and survival can set in motion a practice of public engagement and what roles the neighborhood pastor, her theological agenda, and religious imagery and frames of reference might play in this. Keywords: Passion narrative; Pastor Monique; reportage; storytelling; Yasmina

The return of the gods. The clash between monotheism and polytheism in German Romanticism

Monotheism is supposed to be the culprit of many serious deteriorations of Western culture, such as intolerance, superiority, colonialism, racism and antifeminism. The rise of the study of religions in the nineteenth century marked the struggle of Western society with its own prejudices and feelings of superiority. There have been attempts to integrate certain polytheistic connotations into the monotheistic framework by assigning to the gods a lower place in the divine hierarchy. German Romanticism both accepts and challenges earlier solutions that view polytheism as the most primitive phase of civilization to culminate in Christian monotheism. The exploration of Romanticism utilizes two distinct moments of confrontation between monotheism and polytheism, both condensed in a literary form rather than in a theoretical discourse. The German poet Holderlin worked on his highly enigmatic poem Der Einzige (The Only One) between 1801 tot 1804. Keywords: Christian monotheism; divine hierarchy; German Romanticism; polytheism; Western culture