Of Power, Women, Voting, and Prayer

Rev. Bebb Wheeler Stone, PhD

Polit­i­cal rhetoric is always about power. As a woman lis­ten­ing to cur­rent polit­i­cal rhetoric, I am con­vinced that the polit­i­cal con­test among some has been framed to gain power over Amer­i­can women. The gains for Amer­i­can women to full cit­i­zen­ship and full moral agency made through great strug­gle over the past 90 years are threatened.

My Repub­li­can grand­mother and great-grandmother were suf­frag­ists from cen­tral New York. In the early 20^th cen­tury, the two of them—dressed in their best dresses, hats, and gloves, and armed with call­ing cards—knocked on doors, cir­cu­lated peti­tions, and argued for their right to vote. They and their suf­frag­ist allies orga­nized from the base­ment of the local Pres­by­ter­ian Church. My grand­fa­ther fully sup­ported their efforts.

Orga­niz­ing for the right to vote in a place of prayer makes per­fect sense when one con­sid­ers the ety­mol­ogy of the word “suf­frage,” which means both “to vote” and “to pray.”[1] Indeed, in a rep­re­sen­ta­tive democ­racy when cit­i­zens vote, they are in a very real sense pray­ing for their val­ues to be car­ried for­ward as poli­cies by the indi­vid­u­als for whom they vote. The demo­c­ra­tic process has a spir­i­tual com­po­nent. The effort to sup­press vot­ing in some states is, to my mind, a much greater threat to reli­gious free­dom than the state requir­ing insur­ance cov­er­age from all insti­tu­tions that accept pub­lic funding.

At the moment, women vot­ers are being asked to pray for their own return to silence and cer­tainly more fre­quent preg­nan­cies. One is tempted to ask whether the next sug­ges­tion will be for women to cover their heads as well? It’s bib­li­cal, after all: see Paul’s first let­ter to the church in Corinth, chap­ter 14. One won­ders whether a cer­tain seg­ment of the Amer­i­can male pop­u­la­tion has become secretly envi­ous of those cul­tures where women are veiled, or can’t drive, or are excluded from civic power.[2] Per­haps it’s sim­ply racist: based on fear that white women are not hav­ing enough babies?

___________________________________________

Polit­i­cal rhetoric is always about power. As a woman lis­ten­ing to cur­rent polit­i­cal rhetoric, I am con­vinced that the polit­i­cal con­test among some has been framed
to gain power over Amer­i­can women.
___________________________________________

On the first day of sem­i­nary, I was taught that “a text out of con­text is a pre­text,” par­tic­u­larly when inter­pret­ing the Bible. Over three years the sem­i­nary fac­ulty worked dili­gently to teach sem­i­nar­i­ans how to inter­pret the scrip­tures in their orig­i­nal lan­guages of Hebrew and Greek in order to pre­serve the com­plex­ity of the text in its con­texts, first and suc­ceed­ing. At the least, much cur­rent polit­i­cal rhetoric makes use of inad­e­quate bib­li­cal inter­pre­ta­tion; e.g. abor­tion is never explic­itly men­tioned in the Bible. Other “texts” must also be inter­preted within their con­texts: each preg­nancy is unique, just as each woman is, and none should be taken out of a con­text of women’s healthcare.

Are reli­gious peo­ple, par­tic­u­larly from my faith tra­di­tion as a Chris­t­ian, taught to seek and exer­cise power over? Not by the one to whom the gospels point. He returned to Jerusalem to con­front the ones who had power over him. And he lost, even as he pointed to the One who, as the source of power, wants power used for neigh­bor love and jus­tice. As a mat­ter of faith, that Holy One who wants love and jus­tice for all made sure Jesus’ pres­ence returned as a cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of the divine vote.

We all vote our val­ues; that is, every­one votes their “faith.” We also “pray” our val­ues. Amer­i­can women and men need to honor women’s his­tory as cit­i­zens and moral agents in their vot­ing and their pray­ing dur­ing this elec­tion season.

Get Involved

• Pres­by­te­ri­ans Affirm­ing Repro­duc­tive Options (PARO), a net­work of PHEWA
• The Advo­cacy Com­mit­tee for Women’s Con­cerns (ACWC), Pres­by­ter­ian Church (U.S.A.)
• Unite­Women: Equal­ity for All
• National Orga­ni­za­tion for Women (NOW)