My Red Couch, and Other Stories on Seeking a Feminist Faith
Edited by Claire Bischoff and Rachel Gaffron
The Pilgrim Press
This title on the bookshelf was a magnet to my hand. I'm glad it was.
The world Council of Churches' 1994 Re-imagining Conference spawned a movement, but Claire Bischoff and Rachel Gaffron became conscious of the absence of young women's voices there. They therefore conceived this book.
Their feminism “is based on a core belief that women and men were created in the image of God … [and is] a wholistic category that influences all life, including religion.” By “faith” they mean “reliance on or trust in a transcendent being or power,” something that is “about where our heart is, what gives our life meaning, and what impels us to action.”
The writers, 21-35 years old, represent almost a dozen denominations, including Baptist, Presbyterian and Roman Catholic, as well as some who no longer associate with a traditional faith community.
One is an English professor whose church decided not to hire a female minister. She tells the story of a woman who rejected church and faith when her studies opened her up to the concept of patriarchalism. She speaks of how she struggles with how she feels in her heart and finds herself in joy on Jesus' lap when she prays.
Another finds the idea of God as Mother intuitively right, but has more problems with herself as mother and the surrender it involves. And another explores the complexity of being a middle-class Korean-Canadian feminist Christian in a multicultural democracy where she still experiences marginalization as a Korean woman. She follows the Jesus who came for the marginalized, and embraces her multiple identities to share with all.
And, of course, there is Sara Irwin's My Red Couch, an Episcopal priest's hilarious account of hiring a mover to hoist a fluffy red couch to her apartment. when the mover found out what Irwin did for a living, he poured out his personal religious story as if he'd been waiting for years. “None of us can be ourselves alone,” she writes. “As feminists or Christians or Jews or lawyers, we are all ourselves in relation to one another … we are inscribed in larger and larger contexts, ultimately in God … when I stifle my truth as a feminist in church, i'm betraying other feminists … we can only labour in faith and hope for God's promise of justice and peace.”
Amidst the diverse dilemmas of these young women, two themes are constant. One is how deeply they love their faith tradition; the other, how deeply they mourn narrow patriarchal handcuffs. Their pain is so great because their love is so great.
The editors close their introduction by noting: “Storytelling is both an empowering and educational activity. By sharing our stories, we validate our experience [and] give witness to personal truths.”
