Julie Clawson

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Blog Against Sexism – My Journey

Posted on March 8, 2007July 7, 2025

So today is International Women’s Day and I’m participating in the Blog Against Sexism campaign. This is similar to last year’s Gridblog to Dismantle Patriarchy, except that I think I’ve become even more of a feminist. A year ago, I supported feminist ideas, but also was very open to tolerating opposing ideas as just being part of reality (in a – he beats his kids or he hates black people, but what can I do about it, sort of way). But over the course of this past year, the hatred, fear, and desire to control women I see all around me has become more incomprehensible to me. I really just don’t get how anyone can still claim that women are inferior to men.

The more I support equality, the more disparity I see. Just yesterday, I was searching groups on Facebook. I typed in “feminist” and found more groups that opposed (or downright hated) feminists that I did groups that support equality. I’ve also been following Scot McKnight’s series on women in ministry over at Jesus Creed and am often floored by the hatred displayed by commenters there. These men have no issue telling women that they are wrong for serving God, that they should remain in positions subjugated to men, and that we are evil and unbiblical for desiring anything else. They don’t seem to realize that they are addressing real women with real lives, callings, and feelings. Do they think it doesn’t affect women to hear over and over again that – “you are not as good as me, God values me more, your opinion is not as important as mine”? This goes beyond them banging one or two misinterpreted scriptures over our heads, it displays a deep seated prejudice and fear of women. And these are the people who supposedly follow Christ’s command to love others. They are not even the ones (necessarily) who just see women as physical objects. The ones with bumper stickers on their cars that say “My Other Toy has Tits” or who don’t know how to introduce/describe a woman without referring to her physical appearance.

I am a feminist – but contrary to popular dismissive labeling techniques I don’t hate men and I don’t support a “woman’s right to choose”. I support equality and human rights – for everyone. But one thing I have learned over this past year is to use my voice. I can’t sit around and wait for things to get better or to be invited to the conversation. I’ve realize that I need to call out sexism where I see it. Call it by its true name, bring attention to it, strip it of its power. I need to just join the conversation if I want to be a part of it. I don’t need permission or an invitation, I just do it. People may not listen, but I can’t complain that nothing is being done. And this annoys people. It upsets the status quo, it forces people out of complacency, it forces people to examine their conceptions and it gets me labeled and dismissed. Julie cares about women, that’s her thing, – lets just make fun of her or tell her that’s it’s not really a big deal or just ignore her. It’s easier to laugh than to fight sexism. But this isn’t something I can go back on. It’s not like I can all of a sudden decide that women are inferior or something like that. There is always the danger or apathy or laziness, but as long as I keep seeing blatant examples of sexism around me, those seem far off.

So I blog today to fight sexism and I will continue to blog to fight sexism. Its about love, its about equality, its about supporting a full vision for the Kingdom of God. And no matter what I get labeled, I will not cower in fear, I will not shut up.

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Faith and the Environment Forum

Posted on March 6, 2007July 7, 2025

Last night our church helped sponsor a Faith and the Environment forum. This was the second Faith and Politics forum we have been involved in. The first was about immigration and it’s a chance to bring together area churches for a discussion on how our faith relates to these issues. This event was part of the Kendall Environmental Coalition’s series of activities to help heighten environmental awareness in our area. Last night we met at the Yorkville congregational Church (which Emma decided was a castle). There were three “experts” that Mike asked a series of questions and who then accepted questions from the group. The presenters from around the Chicago area included Dr. Jeff Greenberg, a geology professor at Wheaton College; David Radcliff of the New Community Project; and Sarah Spoonheim from Faith in Place. They were a fantastic group to speak on the issues of faith and our environment. I want to find out more about their organizations as well.

They spent time discussing why environmentalism is a faith/moral issue. For many of them it went beyond God’s command to be good stewards of our earth. They focused on Jesus’ command to love and serve the least of these – to help the poor and oppressed. They explained how already the harm being done to our world hurts the poorest in the world the worst. Inuit women whose breastmilk is full of toxins because of the pollution of the rest of the world, the Africans who are starving because of how climate change has destroyed their ecosystem, the farmers who are exposed to toxins so they can grow our food for 8,000 a year, and the poor who live along the world’s coasts that will take the brunt of the superstorms and rising oceans. If we are to follow Jesus’ command to love others, we have to take care of the world as well.

There was also discussion as to why people (and most Christians) don’t care about the environment. Reasons such as a twisted dispensational theology, a separatist theology that sees the “world” as including the physical planet, a conception that it distracts from more important things like getting people to say the Sinner’s Prayer, a tendency to avoid associating with people who are different from them (like Al Gore!) and a belief that God will never let us really hurt the world were all reasons that were discussed. But most of the presenters agreed that Christians, like most Westerners, ignore the environment because of laziness, economics, and politics. We are too lazy to change, we are too cheap to change, we are too in the pockets of big business to change, and we care more for a political agenda than we do God’s commands to change. These are the hurdles that need to be overcome before we can mobilize churches to follow Christ in this area.

One issue that hit home for me was that of food. The techniques of raising our meat and getting our food to us do a lot to hurt our environment. The mass cattle farms do more to harm the environment than our transportation does. So buying food that comes from places that care for the world and those animals helps reduce that impact. But the issue is held in tension with other harmful practices. If I have to drive an hour (use gas, create CO2) to get to the closest Whole Foods to get organic meat is the impact worth it? Or is creating the demand for healthy, environmentally friendly foods worth it? The idea is of course to buy as locally as possible. We buy a share in a local CSA farm during the growing season, but haven’t done much meatwise. I did get the tip last night to check out Eat Wild for local organic meat – so does anyone want to go in ($2000) to buy a whole cow?

As a take away from the evening I realized that the issues were a lot bigger and more complex than I had thought. There is a lot more that I need to do to care for God’s creation, but that my motivation shouldn’t be guilt or fear, but hope for a better world.

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Life Update

Posted on March 2, 2007July 8, 2025

Snapshot of my life at the moment…

Status quo with the heath stuff. I was back at the doctor today and they were surprised at the swelling and pain I am still having – so more and different drugs. Oh so much fun.

I’m spending most of my time working on stuff for the upcoming Emerging Women Midwest Gathering. Its coming together and we have a great group of women attending. There are a handful of spots still available if anyone is interested in attending. Registration is open through March 9.

I’ve finally got around to starting to read Peter Rollins How (not) to Speak of God (for the upcoming Emerging Women book discussion) and now I’m understanding what all the buzz has been about. This book is summarizing so many ideas I’ve explored over the past 6 years. It is one of the most clear portrayals of emerging postmodern thought that I have read yet. Highly recommended.

And on the completely fun level… can I express my frustration with American Idol and LOST. I still love Lost, but what’s up with all the false/misleading advertising? We’re still waiting to find out anything (what Jack’s tattoos say wasn’t the huge reveal I was hoping for). And I’m sick of the popularity contest parts of American Idol. Why get rid of people who can sing like AJ and Leslie and keep horrible singers like Antonella and Sanjaya?! It’s just frustrating…

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SF/Fantasy Geek Heaven

Posted on March 2, 2007July 7, 2025

So I’ve expressed by excitement at the upcoming new Harry Potter book and movie, but that’s not the only thing a sci-fi/fantasy geek such as I has to look forward to.

Jacqueline Carey posted a summary of the upcoming Kushiel’s Justice at her website – here. (don’t read the amazon summary unless you want to know a major spoiler…). Her books are always brilliant – vividly detailed alternate worlds.

And plans are still underway for a live action Star Wars TV Series. Many of the movie actors are reported to be appearing in cameos, but the series will focus on Expanded Universe characters. Will we perhaps get to see Mara Jade on screen???

Filming starts on Indiana Jones 4 this June. Rumor has it that Natalie Portman will play Indy’s daughter.

And while plans for filming The Hobbit are moving forward (albeit without Peter Jackson directing), there is other good Tolkien news. Christopher Tolkien has finally finished editing one of the unfinished tales and we will be treated to the release of The Children of Hurin next month. Now this of course may mean that I might once again embark on a LOTR binge – reading the books (and unfinished writings) multiple times in succession, but we shall see.

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Creation Care

Posted on March 1, 2007July 8, 2025

I recently came across a short article by N.T. Wright that explores why Christians should care for God’s creation. Read it here.

I like how he acknowledges that how we view the environment is often wrapt up in our eschatology. Of course political and economic leanings play a big role as well, but its easier to trash the world if the point is to leave it for the pie in the sky when we die. But Wright questions that excuse by comparing it to a view of sin. He says, “If I said, well, I find it difficult to struggle against sin – but one day God will save me and make me totally his, so why bother in the present? – if I said something like that, every pastor worth their salt would tell me that what God intends to do with me in the future must be anticipated, as best I can in the power of the Spirit, by me in the present.”

As was stated over and over again at the recent Academy Awards, caring for the environment – caring for God’s creation – is a moral, not political, issue. It is an act of worship to God, a way to show our love to him. That’s why I really don’t get the people who accuse (and hence write off) environmentalists of loving the creation more than the creator. Showing love for the creation is a way of loving the creator. Do we accuse Mother Teresa of loving the poor more than she loved God and therefore say what she did was wrong?

When our theology (be it opinions about end times or the date of creation), or politics, or our consumerism become an excuse to hurt God and his creation there is something seriously wrong.

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Lost Sheep

Posted on February 27, 2007July 7, 2025

So I’m still in the same holding pattern healthwise… spending a lot of time on the couch. I wanted to post this story that we used in church this past week. We had a reflective worship service for the first Sunday of Lent which coincided with Luke 15 in our journey through the book of Luke. So we spent time reflecting on lost sheep, lost coins, and lost sons. I fully admit that this story is a rip-off. I had read this story over at Sarah Dylan Breuer’s lectionary blog. I loved it, but decided to tweak it for a more low church setting. So with my respects to Dylan – here’s my tweaked version of “The Story of the 99”

There once was a shepherd who had a hundred sheep. One day one of those sheep went astray. This of course caused a big stir in the flock. The other 99 immediately sprang into action – or at least discussion.

The first question of the day involved what exactly does “astray” mean. Did this poor sheep lose its way. Was it too stupid to follow the other sheep back into the fold. Did it get lost by accident? Or did it deliberately and maliciously wander off? One, sheep, long with the flock, asked if this sheep had ever really been a sheep at all. If he wandered off, perhaps in reality he was a goat. Others immediately agreed that he had never really seemed like one of them in the first place. The suggestion was given that a message should be sent to the sheep that if he could stop being a goat, or at least start acting like a sheep then he could rejoin the flock. This of course caused various groups to splinter off in discussion as to what it really meant to be a sheep at all.

One group argued that the sheep must follow the historic practices of being a sheep. None of this new-fangled nonsense of progressive shearing techniques and electric fences. No sir. This stray must be willing to be a sheep in the way they have always been sheep if he wanted to return to the fold. Others argued that those cultural trappings of sheepness might have been what caused the sheep to stray in the first place. If they could just redefine sheepness in a language the sheep could understand, the language of the wilderness, then there would never have been an issue. A committee was formed to explore what language was actually being spoken out there in the wilderness (with strict instructions to be out there in the wilderness, but to never be of the wilderness).

All this talk of course upset the faction that didn’t believe in different forms of sheepness. They asserted that that lost sheep should just know how to be a sheep. A sheep exactly like them. In fact all animals should just know how to be a sheep. They decided the best course of action was to start a petition to make it a law that all animals become, or at least act like, sheep. But since they didn’t know any animals that weren’t sheep, they failed to collect the required number of signatures.

Another group found all that talk really missed the point of what sheep were created to be to begin with. They asked if it really was all that bad to be astray. The sheep was out there in the wilderness – out where it belonged. It was in its natural, authentic environment. Perhaps instead of being confined to the flock, they should go join the stray. Get back to what it really means to be a sheep and all that.

The discussion continued late into the night. At some point a few of the sheep, tired of the whole debate, noticed that the shepherd was missing. One lone sheep who had watched the shepherd hurry out in search of the stray sheep asked unheard amidst the chaos of the bleating – if we are in here and the shepherd is out there – who really are the sheep without a shepherd?

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My Crazy Weekend…

Posted on February 26, 2007July 7, 2025

So I’m a bit in la-la land at the moment. Lots of pain and lots of drugs for that pain. Friday night I was reading to Emma on the couch, somehow she managed to flop/jump onto my left side. It took my breath away and I was sore after that. Well the pain got worse. Intense pain in my side and back – I couldn’t move well or do much besides lay on the couch. By Sunday I was dizzy and nauseous as well, so my doctor told me to go to the ER. So we braved the snow and I got to spend the afternoon at the hospital getting tests run, getting a CAT Scan, and getting dosed with morphine. Apparently to find out that I have some sort of internal trauma (duh). As far as they could tell (the metal rod in my back obscured the CAT scan a bit), there is no internal bleeding. So at this point it’s a waiting game. I’ll either start feeling better soon or will develop serious symptoms. Fun times. So I’m back on the couch full of painkillers. Never really thought having a toddler would be like a contact sport, but crazy things do happen. Just thought I’d take the opportunity to complain to the world.

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Proselytizer for Satan???

Posted on February 22, 2007July 7, 2025

So its been awhile since I was called a “proselytizer for Satan” just because I had read the Harry Potter books. Perhaps that crowd turned it’s attention to the Da Vinci Code (which I read, enjoyed, and thought brought up some good questions for those who care). Anyway, I had to smile when I saw this Chick tract reposted over at Andrew Jones’ blog

So from this preacher who likes Harry Potter – may the wait until July 21 be short.

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Biblical Interpretation, Language, and the Big Picture

Posted on February 21, 2007July 7, 2025

Historical/theological rant to follow…

The books I’ve been reading recently have caused me to think about how vital the big picture is. I say this somewhat tongue-in-cheek because I fully admit that I don’t have the big picture on everything or the full picture on anything. But through reading books that take the time to give the broad historical and theological perspective, its hard not to get frustrated with arguments that don’t look at the big picture.

As some may recall there were some, shall we say, interesting discussions on this blog a few months back regarding Biblical interpretation. The anonymous critics were claiming that there is no such thing as Biblical interpretation and we who claim there was were all deceived by Satan. Good times. Recently as I was reading Hagar, Sarah, and their Children I was struck again by the absurdity of that claim. Besides the interpretive perspectives presented in the book on the story of Sarah and Hagar (from Christian Jewish, Muslim, Feminist, and Womanist viewpoints), the editors gave a brillant overview of the history of the interpretation of their story. Even though their story is a narrative (and supposedly straightforward history), there exists a wide variety of interpretations. Throughout the ages the motives of both Sarah and Hagar have been interpreted, reinterpreted, and then interpreted some more. Even by the Apostle Paul in Galatians. I’m sorry, but a “literal” (meaning here, the interpretation done by those who don’t believe in interpretation) reading of the story in Genesis does not give you Galatians 4:25 – “Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children.” – that takes interpretation. And if it was good enough for the Apostle Paul… And it didn’t stop there. There is a whole tradition of Jewish Midrash on this story (an interpretative approach that assumes the validity of multiple interpretations). Some of the early church fathers took the Hagar and Sarah story to refer to monogamy, chastity, and asceticism. Luther and Calvin had their own assumptions about what Sarah must really have felt/meant. The list goes on. It was fascinating (and at times appalling) to read those interpretations, but what really struck me was the necessity of the historical perspective. It is so easy to get stuck in one’s own tunnel vision if one refuses to engage the big picture (and yes, that is a lesson I am still learning).

On a different topic, my recent reading of Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World by Nicholas Ostler has made me even less sympathetic to the English only proponents. The idea that English needs to be made a national language or passing laws to ban the use of other languages in certain towns or businesses has its own issues (racism, classism, and fear to name a few), but such views also seriously lack a grasp of the big picture. Even if one ignores the fact that we used pre-emptive war to steal this country from people whose languages we are now trying to ban, we forget what a pitifully short history English has had. It is doubted by historians if English would have ever have developed as a language in its own right is the Plague hadn’t of wiped out most of the Norman speakers in what is now England. A coincidence of the rich who lived in towns being wiped out and the poor who cobbled a language from their combined ancestors and overlords and lived isolated on farms survived. Compared to the histories of Egyptian, Sanskrit, and Chinese, English is very new to the scene.

I personally don’t get the mentality that there is pride to be had and defended in the language one was taught in the cradle. It is one among thousands. But for an egotistical society driven by competition and the need to chant mindlessly “We’re number 1! We’re number 1!”, language is just one more thing to fight about. This is of course nothing new. The Greeks despised anyone who couldn’t speak their language. The Spanish Crown (against the advice and pleading of the Priests) insisted that the natives in the “New World” learn Castilian since they couldn’t understand matters of faith and manners of life otherwise. We’ve all heard (and laughed) at the stories of French trying to keep itself pure. I was fascinated by these quotes by Ostler regarding the French language, “In the seventeenth century, French power and influence in Europe reached their height… as all nations do when they enjoy pre-eminence, the French began to look for some particular virtues that could explain their success. Increasingly, they saw evidence of excellence in their language itself.” and “It was especially in the areas of Europe with least cultural self-confidence that the elite set a high value on fluency in French: Sweden, Poland and above all Russia.. French became established as the language of polite society.” (p.409-410). And that hubris remains to this day, and has been caught by the English speakers.

I don’t even want to get into the whole KJV only English is God’s chosen language to spread His word in the end times claim. But the ignorance of people as to the brief history of this language is absurd. People really do believe that Jesus spoke English or at least think English sprung fully formed out of God’s mouth. In a discussion in one of my liguistic/intercultutral studies/missions classes about proscriptive verses descriptive grammar in English, a man actually argued that English can never change because it has never changed. I wished I could have broken out with something like – “Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon. Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum.” (the opening to Beowulf in Old English) or “How grett glorious Godd, thurgh grace of Hym seluen, And the precyous prayere of Hys prys Modyr, Schelde vs fro schamesdede and synfull werkes, And gyffe vs grace to gye and gouerne vs here, In this wrechyd werld, thorowe vertous lywynge, That we may kayre til Hys courte, the kyngdom of Hevyne.” (our lywynge in middle English poetry). No, of course English has never changed…

If people had a bit of perspective, a glimpse of the big picture, would such hateful and hurtful programs like the English only ones ever be introduced? I know I’m naive and idealistic, but I just wish people could see how small these petty arguments are in light of the big picture.

Rant over for the moment. Or perhaps, fittingly, I should end with Caliban’s words to Prospero – “You taught me language; and my profit on’t/ Is, I know how to curse.”

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This is Sick

Posted on February 20, 2007July 7, 2025

Teens beat and kill homeless for sport.

That is just sick. This murder crosses a huge line, but it makes me ask – what are these teens being taught at home and in school that promotes their viewing the homeless as objects of entertainment instead of people? Is this how our vagrancy laws, rolling up the windows and locking our car doors, and “not in our town” debates get understood by our children? I have to wonder how those boys see minorities, women, and anyone else not like them. When equality of all people isn’t a central value, history has shown us that the “lesser” groups become objectified and used by the dominant group. How can the homeless (women, minorities, homosexuals) be despised and ridiculed in the home and us not expect those taught values to surface – often in horrific and violent forms? It isn’t an excuse, but just a call to make us examine the values of hate that are often conveyed to our children.

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Julie Clawson

Julie Clawson
[email protected]
Writer, mother, dreamer, storyteller...

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"Everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise." - Sylvia Plath

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