Reverend E. Wilbur ©EW/ECCreg0909

Sexism and intolerance is only part of a greater evil in the Church. The greater evil is what killed Jesus and all the saints who followed him. It is the original sin. It is called by the theologian Walter Wink Domination: and evil he calls the Domination System. It is self-will run riot trying to order the Cosmos to our own wants- or as the “serpent” says, “to be like God.” Most men think being omnipotent is a great idea, but the results are gut-wrenchingly tragic.

The western world nurtures and cultures the masculine thinking we have come to know, but there are examples globally that show it is not by nature that men dominate. Domination thinking is the cause of slavery, spousal abuse, and persucution. Domination thinking is why corporations have gone into other nations exploited their resources and people and then shouted that they had the natural right to do so. 

The Roman empire was built on Domination System thinking, the Roman imperialism within the Church was built on Domination System thinking, and so was Nazi Germany. Domination thinking has brought the world to the brink of destruction. Pollution (due to domination thinking), drug addiction (due to wanting to escape the pain from facing the insanity of the Domination System), crime (due to wanting to get that which was not earned at the expence of another or dominating another to feel superior), wars (due to one country wanting another's resourses – yeah... taking Iraqi oil is a good example), religious intolerance (due to one faction wanting to blot out another in a ferver of persucution and being the dominant only right religious expression); all of this is bringing us to a horrible end.

Unless...

... Jesus showed us a better way. It has nothing to do with domination. Jesus showed us that the nature of God is not to dominate, but to love, and that, in turn, meant we could not dominate if we were to love. Obviously, it was not a popular idea with the leaders of his time and so they tortured Him to death: showing us that the end product of domination is evil; even evil toward innocent people who did not deserve it. Jesus was not tortured to death because God was enraged at humanity for misbehaving, as the Church would some times have us believe, but because humans were enraged at God's will.

 We have placed too much emphasis on the Atonement theory. Granted, there is good in in the idea of making “at one ment”, but that is not all of why Jesus died. Atonement was an idea to make Jesus' death acceptable to Romans. Jesus died due to the Domination system embeded in the leaders of his time -both Jewish and Roman. If the Church is truly to lead us out of this poisonous, torturing, thieving, muderous, quagmire we are in, and to lead us to safety into the Kin-dom of God we must drop all human forms of domination. Jesus taught us that God's domination was loving support.

I must break here for another Hebrew lesson! Did you know that the word Adonai in Hebrew that was translated as Lord; does not actually mean; LORD! An Adonai was a divine word meaning a divine or divinely inspired leader who lead by empowering from underneath throughout, by carrying us forward, or by drawing us on like a pillar of smoke or fire as God did during the Exodus. In Hebrew there is absolutely no understanding of God being a big shot in the sky shoving us around to do His will. That concept came out of the Roman empire not out of Jesus' teaching.
 

Jesus taught us in the Parable of the Forgiving Father (which we in our egotism call Prodigal Son) that God/ the forgiving father who in our domination ideas has the right to wait for his son to come to him, sit on his seat, put his foot on the neck of his son, assert his domination of him, and demand fealty; instead sees his son from afar, drops everything, rushes down the road, embraces his son, helps him back home and celebrates his return. That is God's way of domination. Big difference, eh? 

The imperialists in the Church made a big mistake in thinking that domination could be used for God. Domination as practiced in the world and Church is against God's nature -totally against God's nature. Women who have been victims of the domination in the Church can help move the Church away from it. What women have to offer is needed. Theologians have tried to help us see this but the dominating elements in the Church have condemned them. Now the world is in such crisis it is no longer about Church dogma but about staggering need.

We are feminists both male and female in the Church, not because of what we want, but becaue of what the world needs. As feminists we must start to rout out domination. If we see uniformity valued over Unity,it is a good clue we are facing a Domination system. When one person or system becomes so valued that excuses are made for dominating others, we must watch out - for evil is near. When lies are tolerated because it gets some one or some people what they want, evil is near.  (Scott Pecks study of evil is called 'People of the Lie').

When people are excluded, exploited, and belittled, evil is near.

When one compromises with evil in the name of God or good - evil has won.

We must use humour and turning the spot light on the evil. We must not use the tools of domination to fight it. This makes it hard because it is in the nature of evil to use evil practices when others are not. This is why we all must support each other and not give up. Some people can do some things but a lot of people can do a lot of things. We must use joy and happiness, as evil cannot stand it. Was it not a joy to see our beloved Archbishops being joyous and happy along with us instead of being grumpily and angrily trying to “keep us in line?”