I’m the same Kay you have on your blogroll here and I’m the admin at the Handbasket.

Sorry … I think you had a great idea but at least for me, laziness got the best of me.

(We probably all know fringe groups who are much more open about “no, women are not really equal to men,” but in general, I observe the above.)

It’s refreshing and such a relief to see people actually talking about the words “Christian” and “feminist” in the same context. I live in an area that’s not friendly to the discussion.

Geoff, you originally asked about what it’s like to be a feminist in 2007, ok, 2008, and how that interplays with and informs Christian faith.

While it’s all complex to explain to someone else, it is simple in my own head: Feminism advocates the fundamental equality of men and women. I haven’t found any Christian, whether male or female, “liberal” or “conservative,” who is willing to disagree on that point. So I guess we have a lot more Christian feminists than we thought.

Where disagreements begin, of course, is on functions/roles. I observe that this is why many Christian women (and men) aren’t willing to self-identify as feminists–because they believe in traditional roles.

To me, that’s an incredibly open confession that indeed, prescribed gender roles do indicate a belief in the fundamental inequality of the sexes.

I think these “secular artists” are providing something that the religious music is not.

Much of what we (or I come across) sing in church are statements or “declarations” about ourselves and God (with the current critique being we do more of the former than the latter.)

Yet in the music I listen to I find 3 elements in greater measure: artistry, imagination and storytelling. By artistry I mean the sense of poetry and painting pictures with words rather than statements. With imagination, lyrics that paint grand ideas and pictures yet are still grounded in life. And with storytelling, these artists tell stories that we can be a part of - great songs have lines that we resonate deeply with.

Now, these elements can be lacking in pop music as much as I have suggested its lack in religious music, but I find that church music is heading more towards the mass, pop music and hence we are more seeing (and maybe engaging more?) the spirituality in the secular scene.