| Book Reviews Spring
2008
Not for Sale: raising
awareness, ending exploitation Editors:
Carrie Pemberton, Alison Myers, Lucy Berry
Review by Rachel Firth
DOROTHEE SOELLE, Essential
Writings Selected and introduced
by Diane L Oliver
Review by Christine McMullen
Theology by Heart: Women, the
Church and God Ellen Clark-King
Review by Miranda Threlfall-Holmes
A Woman's Place is in the Boardroom Peninah
Thomson and Jacey Graham
Review by Miranda Threlfall-Holmes
CHASTE (Churches Alert
to Sex Traffiking Across Europe) is asking
all churches to observe NOT FOR SALE Sunday on 18 May 2008. Please
do your best to get your local church to mark this Sunday in some way
so that more people can be alerted to sex trafficking.
Not for Sale: raising
awareness, ending exploitation
Editors Carrie Pemberton, Alison Myers, Lucy Berry
Pub: Inspire, 2007, £12.99, (923pp)
ISBN-10 19058110
"WHY HAS she got such a bloody great bee in her bonnet about
these prossies, d’you reckon?” So asks CID officer Ray
Carling of a female colleague in a recent episode of the BBC’s
prime time drama Ashes to Ashes. The world has come a long way it
seems when mainstream public service broadcasting juxtaposes the
misogynistic view point of the British police force in the early
80s with what is expressed as the accepted moral position of now,
viewing women in the ‘sex industry’ as worthy of equality
and justice on the basis of their humanity alone.
The question, which itself illustrates the kind of language which
allows us to objectify other human beings, could equally be addressed
to Carrie Pemberton and her colleagues at CHASTE (Churches Against
Sex Trafficking in Europe). Their book Not For
Sale will provide
you with an answer as swift, direct and uncompromising as the question
is blunt. Not For Sale is about the trafficking of human beings for
sex. As a resource book it has far reaching ambitions, to support
those who know nothing about trafficking as well as experienced activists.
It is an uncomfortable ambition too, to bring “the outrage
of rape, intimidation and the abuse of power right into your living
space” but as the book unfolds it becomes clear that some aspect
of the cycle they’re talking about is probably only a stones
throw from your living space already, whether you know it or not.
The illicit trade in human beings for sexual gratification and profit
is a painful and age old reality. Although stereotypically described
as the ‘oldest profession’, logic dictates that not prostitution
but exploitation of the vulnerable for greed and gratification is
the oldest sin, which has been rationalised by the objectification
of the exploited. Not For Sale brings to vivid life the voices of
those who have been bought and sold, beaten and broken, men and women
from all over the world, and men and women from just down the road.
The accounts it holds are frighteningly vivid. As a woman it made
me uncomfortably aware of my own vulnerability, of the things that
my nice safe background could easily have failed to protect me from.
It reminded of the solidarity I owe to sisters and brothers in chains
This is an unforgiving subject, so for me the format of an anthology
itself made the book more readable; pure prose would have allowed
me to put the book down when the subject became too uncomfortable.
The anthology provides useful resources (poetry, witness, prayer,
biblical reflection) for discussion of this issue within many contexts,
while at the same time the format allows you to breathe (without
letting you off the hook).
This book asks and answers strong questions about what it means to
be human, in relation to each other and in relation to God, and takes
the next step in demanding the action that this knowledge necessitates.
You cannot know and do nothing. Practically, though, the book does
not exclude those whose mode of action may be less dramatic or high
profile. It encourages you to do something, or to support those who
you know can. We are shown with passion a clear gospel imperative
to act, to do whatever we can to end this. If we know and do nothing,
we collude in the continuing violation and injustice of sex trafficking,
and why would we do nothing if we really have the faith to believe
that Jesus sets the prisoner free?
CHASTE argue strongly that trafficking is the slavery of our time,
which we choose to ignore, allowing it to remain unseen in the shadows.
Undoubtedly though there is a now a desire for change in our society.
I would illustrate this by contrasting childhood memories of the
murders committed by Peter Sutcliffe in the north of England with
the recent killings by Steve Wright in Suffolk. My childhood memory
is of the much greater levels of horror and revulsion when women
who were not prostitutes were killed. In the book, Ann Loades reflecting
on John 8.1-11 describes the same attitudes towards the woman caught
in adultery: “the commonly held perception that she was worthy
only of the treatment she was getting i.e. dragged along, abused,
used, accused, threatened, despised.” My memory tells me that
there was at least a sense that the prostitutes killed only had themselves
to blame, were somehow less innocent and therefore less to be mourned.
Evidence from the more recent cases in Suffolk however, shows a sea
change in public perception. In an article in The Guardian in February
this year Joan Smith reports the public backlash against initial
media reports describing victims as ‘vice girls’ and ‘prostitutes’. “The
dead women were daughters, mothers and girlfriends but their whole
lives were being defined by something they had embarked on out of
absolute desperation.” The public gave the media a strong reminder
that these victims were human beings, and CHASTE remind us that to
abuse a human being is to abuse the God in whose image they are made.
For more information on CHASTE and their campaign to end trafficking
for sexual exploitation visit www.chaste.org.uk
Rachel Firth is a final year student on the Northern Ordination
Course. When ordained Deacon in June she will take up the post of
Assistant Curate at Halifax Parish Church. She is also the Wakefield
Diocesan contact for WATCH.
back to top
DOROTHEE
SOELLE, Essential Writings
Selected and introduced by Diane L Oliver
New York 10545, Orbis Books, 2006, pbk, $18, (237pp)
ISBN 13:978-1-57075-640-5
IN THE 1980s I was a keen follower of the Kirchentag, and once
to my joy I saw the name Dorothee Soelle on the programme. I made
sure I got to the right place to hear her – fresh over from
America – and though my mastery of the German language meant
that I missed the theological nuances, it was an experience I shall
never forget. It was my fervent hope that if I concentrated hard
on her as she spoke I would understand all she was saying. I am
not sure it quite worked like that but this book goes a long way
to filling in some of the gaps in my understanding.
‘Essential Writings’ is part of the Modern Spiritual
Masters Series and it is not always easy to read but it gives a
flavour of her most important ideas. On the cover of the book it
says, ‘Dorothee Soelle (1929-2003) was one of the most creative
and prophetic German theologians of the post war period. Her work
was profoundly shaped by the memory of the war, of the holocaust
and of totalitarianism. The ‘political’ theology joined
a strong mystical dimension with a deep concern for the challenge
of history, integrating feminism, ecological awareness, a witness
for peace and global solidarity.’
She was born in Cologne in 1929 and was brought up by liberal parents
during the years of Hitler and the Nazi regime. She grew up as
a young adult with the recognition of the shame of what her nation
had done to the Jews. She also grew up to be as strongly feminist
and pacifist as only a 1980s person could be. She had four children,
was married twice and through those experiences learned that sometimes
corners have to be cut in child rearing and sometimes we need to
know that we are people in relationships whatever our marital stasis.
Dorothee Soelle wrote perceptively and engagingly on issues of
justice and spirituality. She wrote as a western feminist whose
faith in God was deeper than her love for the institution of the
church. Walter Brueggeman said, ‘Dorothee Soelle is one tough
Christian...a rare presence in the world of Christianity because
she embodies the best of classical theology, a clear grasp of our
broad social crisis, a lyrical quality of expression and a determination
to keep faith linked to political reality’.
The book is divided into three sections:
A Different Experience: power and mysticism; A Different Journey:
suffering and resistance; A Different Language; poetry and prayer.
In the first section she gives quite a broad understanding of mysticism.
She says: “The best definition of mysticism, the classical
definition is a cognitio Dei experimentalis, a perception of God
through experience. This means an awareness of God not through
the authority of religious teachings, not through the so called
priestly office, but through the life experiences of human beings...Mysticism
...almost always clashes head on with the hierarchy dominant in
its time. It is the experience of God, an experience of being one
with God, an experience that God bestows upon people.” (
p34)
I thought of Julian of Norwich.
Her writing about forgiveness and suffering in the second section,
is from the context of someone who lived through the Nazi regime.
This extract is in the form of a prose poem – a form she
often used:
He needs you
that’s all there is to it
without you he’s left hanging
goes up in dachau’s smoke
is sugar and spice in the baker’s hands
gets revalued
in next week’s stock market crash
he’s consumed and blown away
used up without you.
Help him
that’s what faith is
He can’t bring it about his kingdom
couldn’t then, couldn’t later, can’t now
not at any rate without you
and that’s his irresistible appeal
Even in translation, this is powerful.
In the third section, in a piece written to her children, she says,‘My attempts to raise you as Christians had little chance
of succeeding; the institution again and again attacked me from
behind, the Church was and is only rarely worthy of trust. But
I am very conscious of my own lack of credibly living out customs
and symbols, of making hymn and prayer part of our everyday life.
It is as if we parents had no house of religion to offer you to
live in, but a derelict age,’ (p236)
I find her writing rich and fascinating and I hope you will too!
Christine McMullen is Vice Principal of The Northern Ordination
Course, a member of General Synod and lives in Buxton.
back to top
Theology
by Heart: Women, the Church and God
Ellen Clark-King
Epworth Press, 2004, pbk, £14.99, (215pp)
ISBN 0 7162 0587 4
Ellen Clark-King (recently appointed Archdeacon of Vancouver)
wrote this book whilst living in the deprived Byker area of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
Her husband was vicar of a parish that would not accept her ministry
as a woman priest, a situation which she accepted with much patient
good humour. During their time in Byker, Ellen assisted at another
Newcastle parish and carried out the research which she presents
here, and for which she was awarded a PhD. The book represents
the results of in-depth interviews with working-class churchgoing
women from a variety of traditions. Their range of attitudes, beliefs
and opinions about God and the Church is presented and explored,
and brought into conversation with the insights of feminist theology.
Theology by Heart is a beautifully written and engaging
book. In it, Ellen Clark-King bypasses the overly jargon-ridden
and academic nature of much feminist theology, to attend to its
core task – listening to, voicing and learning from the experiences
of the marginalised. She points out that classical feminist theology
is predominantly white and middle-class, and yet in its determination
to give a voice to the marginalised it must be prepared to listen
to and engage with the views and experiences of those who do not ‘fit’ or
agree with its conclusions.
Some of what Clark-King’s interviewees say makes uncomfortable
and exasperating reading for feminists! God is almost entirely
conceived as male, for example, and when Clark-King explored this
concept further it was generally felt that female God-language ‘just
wouldn’t feel right’. Clark-King is scrupulous in admitting
her own discomfort at such findings, but also in allowing the women
of the Byker churches their voice, and in seeking to be attentive
to and learn from them rather than dismissing their insights and
experience as incorrect.
Family relationships, especially the mother-daughter relationship,
are seen to be extremely important to the women interviewed. This
applies in life and even in death, and there is a particularly
interesting chapter on death, titled with the quote ‘I didn’t
think death could be beautiful’. Clark-King discerns relationality
to be key both to the women’s lived experience and to their
conceptions of God, in ways which both challenge and chime with
the trajectory of feminist theology. In particular, the Pantheistic ‘circles
of life’ versions of theology and of conceptualising death
of some radical feminist theology are rejected, in favour of a
more traditionally Christian view of life after death. The theology
of these women is seen as a theology fit for purpose – but
fit for a different purpose to that preoccupying many feminist
academic theologians. It is a theology of survival rather than
transformation, concerned with coping now in the hope of the hereafter
rather than empowering and mandating the radical transformation
of the now.
This book is valuable both for its documentation of the views and
experiences of the women interviewed, and also for Clark-King’s
very readable and common-sense reflections on feminist theological
method. She argues for a ‘choral theology’, in which
many voices are heard and valued. She writes perceptively and persuasively
of this vision in her concluding remarks, which are worth quoting
at length:
‘The vision here is of a ‘choral theology’ – the
Church singing not with one voice, but many. Unity comes from the
fact that the Church is singing of the revelation of God via Jesus
Christ and the Holy Spirit; it is this that provides the lyrics
for our singing. However, the voices are not one but many, each
singing the lyrics to the music that their experience of God has
written into their Christian faith. This does not always add up
to a completely harmonious sound – it is often far easier
to hear the discord than recognise the basic unity of the song.
[But] Accepting the inevitable jumble of noise is a better way
forward than to insist on a uniformity that silences certain voices
altogether.’
The Revd Dr Miranda Threlfall-Holmes is Chaplain and Solway
Fellow of University College, Durham, and a church historian. She
is also a member of General Synod and of the WATCH committee
back to top
A
Woman’s Place is in the Boardroom
Peninah Thomson and Jacey Graham
Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, hbk,
£25.00, (216pp)
ISBN 1 4039 9683 0
THE AUTHORS of this book work in the fields of executive coaching
and diversity and talent management in big business. Here, they
explore the ‘glass ceiling’ between high-level management
jobs and boardroom appointments. An impressively wide range of
interested parties have been interviewed. These include current
Chairs and CEOs of FTSE 100 companies in the UK and equivalent
large firms in the US, head-hunters or executive recruitment specialists,
and women at a variety of levels. Thomson and Graham particularly
highlight the importance of women in what they call the ‘marzipan
layer’ of businesses – near the top but just underneath
the very top layer. They stress the importance of mentoring and
positive action in getting these women through to the top.
Thomson and Graham identify several factors often thought to be
behind women’s lack of representation at the highest levels
of management. These include such things as childcare responsibilities,
maternity leave, lack of interest in such jobs. However, on further
examination these are conclusively shown not to be significant
issues. Rather, they identify the real causes as inertia and lack
of imagination in making appointments, together with a certain
tendency in women not to manage actively their careers and self-promotion
but to expect that quiet good performance will be rewarded. They
make a compelling business case for the appointment of equal numbers
of female board members, and suggest mentoring strategies for businesses
to adopt. A key point to take from this book would be that organisations
need women at the top both if they are to understand and represent
their consumers, membership or target audience, and also because
diversity breeds better thinking and more creative problem solving.
In some ways of course the worlds of business and the Church are
very different, and so the book has only limited direct application
to the struggle for the appointment of women to the episcopacy.
Some of the discussion for example focuses on the particular qualities
and skills needed for boardroom level appointments – interesting
in itself for those of us outside of that world! Nevertheless,
there were definite resonances for me with the situation in the
Church, and particularly in the Church of England at the moment.
This was particularly the case in the authors’ discussions
of the importance of a ‘talent pipeline’, of identifying
and nurturing those at relatively junior levels in an organisation
who may be valuable in more senior posts at a later date. Identifying
talented individuals at an early stage and mentoring them so that
they manage their careers in such a way as to gain the necessary
portfolio of experience to be eligible for promotion later was
a key recommendation. This does of course happen informally in
the Church, but since women are ineligible for the episcopate it
seems to me that it happens less with women. To put it crudely,
they can’t become bishops so why waste a valuable training
opportunity on them? It is therefore important for bishops, CME
Officers, training incumbents and so on to be aware of this danger
and to self-consciously strive to overcome it. The formation of
mentoring schemes for women may also be worth considering.
But perhaps the most practical thing which the Church could learn
from was that the biggest driver behind women’s appointment
to boards was recruitment agencies being asked to put women on
shortlists. Without that clear expectation, it seems it is too
easy for only candidates which fit a certain preconception of ‘what
a board member looks like’ to be approached. But if it is
insisted that a shortlist include women (and often ethnic minority
candidates too), then people will look harder to find them - and
often find, to their surprise, that they turn out to be the best
candidate. It seems to me that this sort of positive action – not
discriminating against men, but ensuring that women are looked
for and considered alongside men for each senior job – could
easily be taken on board by the Church if there was only the will
to do so.
Miranda Threlfell-Holmes
back to top
|
|
