What?s the meaning of life? Big question. And how does modern feminism comport with that meaning?
Answered differently in different faith traditions, it?s a question which presumes a common starting point.
Taking its cue from John 3:16?s Bible verse, “God so loved the world that he sent his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life,” Catholicism?s vintage Baltimore Catechism answered the question?s first partwith, “to know, love, and serve God on earth and to be happy with him forever in heaven.”
Love, then ? not power, majesty, omniscience, or any other divine attribute ? is the creator?s preeminent divine quality, according to Christianity, and the purpose and criterion for all human activity.
A view that at least in theory rejects all other human goods ? wealth, power, comfort, individualism, security, glory, competition ? as a primary organizing principle of human activity, such a tradition would necessarily resist any social movement, including feminism or sexism, that placed anything above sacrificial, transcendent love as a criterion.
But how do other faith traditions see God and humankind?s purpose-as-paradigm, and how does it all relate to modern American feminism, whose legacy is viewed as either integral to women?s dignity and empowerment or as ego- and power-obsessed, anti-family and anti-child?
“Feminism is totally in harmony with the Bahai faith,” said Joe Aissi of the Howard County Bahai community, who nevertheless resisted feminism?s abortion rights plank as consistent with God?s purity of heart. “Our faith speaks of the unity of mankind ? and our purpose is to know God and to worship God, and we serve God by serving his humanity [in purity of heart].”
“Our purpose is to love one another and to do God?s will ? to do work of the holy,” said Baltimore?s Unitarian-Universalist Church Co-Minister Phyllis Hubbell, who, however, could not say if love is God?s primary attribute.
Hubbell, who considers herself a feminist, said, however, that even modern feminism comports well with this call to love ? if love is understood as the need to love oneself first and ensure against threats.
“To love the lord thy God and to love thy neighbor as thyself,” Rabbi Mitchell Wohlberg of Baltimore?s Beth Tfiloh Congregation said was life?s purpose. “There?s no conflict between [this] and feminism.”
Wohlberg, however, rejected any right to abortion unless the mother?s life was in danger.
