Then you must have read the Discources of Meher Baba?
"Don't worry, be happy."
Posted on 01/19/2006 2:54:19 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
If church-going women floated into women's liberation groups, she said, a lot of time was spent raising their consciousness about what an oppressive institution it was: "If you started to think about your life as a woman, the first thing you would do is reject Christianity."
IN 1970, a Sydney University student, Irina Dunn, was reading a 19th-century philosophy text on atheism for her English honours course when she stumbled across a phrase: "A man needs God like a fish needs a bicycle."
Being, as she later described herself, "a bit of a smart-arse", she changed the words to "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle" and graffitied it on two toilet doors: one at Sydney University and another at a wine bar in Woolloomooloo.
From there it was telegraphed almost immediately to the rest of the Western world.
While the American feminist Gloria Steinem has frequently been credited with the now-famous phrase, she last corrected this in a letter to Time magazine in 2000, pointing out that it had in fact been Dunn, "a distinguished Australian educator, journalist and politician".
But what is most fascinating about the origins of this slogan is the anti-religious sentiment it morphed from. The women's liberation movement rebelled against the church as it did against most other male-run institutions, but it was also part of a broader cultural movement in the 1960s which decried organised religion and challenged its authority.
Today, a mere glance at political life reveals the consequences of so many liberals walking away from what was seen to be a hostile and rigid church, instead of staying, and challenging it to change.
Abortion, gay marriage, censorship and sexuality are debates still dominated by religious conservatives, particularly in Sydney.
It was in 1971 that, for the first time, the instruction "if no religion, write 'none"' was printed on the Australian census form. The number leapt from less than 1 per cent to almost 7 per cent, and has mainly increased since, only, surprisingly, sliding backwards from 17 to 16 per cent between 1996 and 2001.
It was a telling development, though, introduced after years of agitation from increasingly assertive atheists and counter-cultural activists who spurned the conservative Christian religion of their parents, and declared themselves morally independent while many explored more mystical, experiential Eastern religions.
Much of what they did and said was a necessary challenge to the blokey, stifling, dictatorial and often boring nature of the church in the 1950s and '60s.
As the self-described "Catholic atheist" Germaine Greer said of the nuns who taught her in the '50s: "I was hungry for something else - spiritual values. Just not their spiritual values."
The symbols of the church were often parodied in an attempt to strip them of their power.
When the feisty libertarian activist Wendy Bacon was called before a magistrate on obscenity charges in 1970 over issues of the University of NSW student journal Tharunka, women dressed in nuns' habits gathered outside the courtroom to hand out the allegedly obscene material. Bacon's habit read: "I have been f---ed by God's steel prick." She was arrested and spent a week in prison.
The historian Manning Clark described it as an apocryphal time: "Restraints on human behaviour were thrown aside. Nothing was sacred, nothing escaped examination. Men and women walked naked on the beaches, the stage and the screen, and they were not ashamed. Men and women no longer conceded to politicians, priests, parsons, professors, or presidents of the Returned Services League the right to draw up codes of behaviour or prescribe what could or could not be read. The people broke the Tablets of the Law. The people killed their gods."
What was the place for those who stayed in the church?
The NSW MLC Meredith Burgmann - then an anti-apartheid and anti-war activist - told the Herald: "When we had activist Christians we were more surprised than anything else. It was almost not an issue. There was an assumption that everyone was an atheist."
If church-going women floated into women's liberation groups, she said, a lot of time was spent raising their consciousness about what an oppressive institution it was: "If you started to think about your life as a woman, the first thing you would do is reject Christianity."
Church attendance began to decline, along with the number of candidates for ministry. In the 1950s, 44 per cent of all Australians attended church at least once a month. According to National Church Life Survey research, this figure fell dramatically in the 1960s, to 30 per cent in 1972.
What is increasingly obvious is that, in the midst of the excitement and turmoil, those driving the social change of the 1970s failed to seriously understand the power of religion as a social force.
Many scorned those who tried to reform the church and argued it should be rejected entirely. Comments such as those of the theologian Mary Daly were typical: "For women to seek ordination in the Christian church is as destructive as it would be for black people to seek to become leaders in the Ku Klux Klan."
Their rationale was understandable, but intellectually, this was a major stuff-up. It's not a question of what they believed, but one of whether they recognised the importance of reforming the church.
Now we are reaping the legacy of their mistakes, with the conservative wings of the evangelical and pentecostal churches gaining in size and influence, and the more progressive wings of Protestantism, like the Uniting Church, seriously diminishing in stature and voice. Weekly attendance of Uniting Church congregations plunged by 22 per cent between 1991 and 2001.
The last election placed religion on the political agenda in an unprecedented way in Australia: health, education, sexuality and morality. When Parliament resumes, we can expect heated debates about the abortion drug RU486, as well as further arguments about gay marriage now Britain has led the way.
It would be simplistic to blame a swag of 1960s activists alone for the resurgence and dominance of conservative religion in political life today. Especially when journalists have so often been dismissive of religion, and tardy to understand its potency and personal sway. Groups like Family First and Hillsong tend to be prodded and dissected after their power is revealed, not before.
But I cannot help but wonder if the "smart-arses" of the boomer activists and intellectuals had tackled the corruption and decay in the churches as well as the state, instead of simply turning on their heels, if many politicians would be singing from a different hymn sheet today.
Were it not for immigration, the Catholic Church would be in decline.
Good posts, although I can't stand your screen name. I am happy that there is an ocean between us and your declining continent.
What is your kind of literature?
What about We (by Zamyatin), Possessed/Devils or Brave New World, is it your kind of literature?
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Only in secondary correlation he refered to European muslims. since he has also angered Turks with his opposition to Turkey's proposed entry into the European Union. His opposition appears to be based more on religion than on geography. "Europe was founded not on a geography," he explained, "but on a common faith. We have to redefine what Europe is . . ."
Besides of that Benedict was the prime force behind the 2000 document "Dominus Iesus" (Latin for "Jesus the Lord"), which angered Protestants, Jews, Muslims and other non-Christians who viewed with alarm its statement that the Roman Catholic Church is the only "instrument for the salvation of all humanity." This should anger you too since your belief is a heresy from Benedicts point of view.
Pope John Paul II was distressed when the present European constitution failed to reference Europe's historic Christian roots. Look for the Catholic Church under Benedict XVI to focus on what it sees as threats to the heartland of Christian civilization and take steps to revitalize its presence and influence in Europe. The Roman Catholic Church has not written off Europe as dead. Their identity and future are closely bound together.
The Catholic Church has been historically wedded to the powers of Europe through various alliances and compacts. Though this relationship has been weakened in modern times, I am convinced that this church-state relationship will come together again and it will be not restricted to Europe. The result will be a world power unlike any seen before. We are watching history unfold before our eyes and heresies like Islam will only play underpart roles.
Europe is definitly not in danger.
BTW - Benedict never used Donald Rumsfeld's term of "old Europe".
I consumed this stuff when I was rather young. In the meantime I prefer more positive books. In the moment I read a book about Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, a important figure of the German enlightenment.
Then you must have read the Discources of Meher Baba?
"Don't worry, be happy."
Yet, the churches often show how many Christian women Have been touched by the spirit of feminism. It is hard not to breathe in the Kultursmog.
The Catholic Church isn't reliant upon majority numbers to achieve success. Take the state of Massachusetts as an example....great numbers of Catholics yet very poor adherance to Church Doctrine......ie Ted Kennedy. Catholicity seems to do better when it's not in the majority and when the dominant religion is conservative protestants or evangelicals. I'd like someone try to explain this.
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