Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Trust Women: A Progressive Christian Argument for Reproductive Justice
WORK NOTES:
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BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: https://rebeccatoddpeters.com/
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RESEARCHER NOTES:
| LC control no.: | n 2004095990 |
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| LCCN Permalink: | https://lccn.loc.gov/n2004095990 |
| HEADING: | Peters, Rebecca Todd |
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| 670 | __ |a Peters, Rebecca Todd. In search of the good life, 2004: |b ECIP t.p. (Rebecca Todd Peters) |
| 670 | __ |a Justice in a global economy, 2006: |b CIP t.p. (Rebecca Todd Peters) galley (distinguised emerging scholar and asst. prof., religious studies, Elon U., North Carolina) |
| 670 | __ |a Trust women, 2018: |b eCIP t.p. (Rebecca Todd Peters) data view screen (b. 10/13/1967; Professor of Religious Studies at Elon University; her work as a feminist social ethicist is focused on globalization, economic, environmental, and reproductive justice; past President of the American Academy of Religion, Southeast Region and was Elon University’s 2011-12 Distinguished Scholar; ordained in the Presbyterian Church (USA), she has been active denominationally and ecumenically for more than twenty-five years and currently represents the PC(USA) as a member of the Faith and Order Standing Commission of the World Council of Churches; graduate of Rhodes College and Union Theological Seminary in New York) |
PERSONAL
Born October 13, 1967.
EDUCATION:Rhodes College, B.A.; Union Theological Seminary, M. Div., Ph.D.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, ordained minister, and educator. Elon University, Elon, NC, Tom Mould Professor of Religious Studies. Ordained in the Presbyterian Church. Member of Faith and Order Standing Commission of Presbyterian World Council of Churches; consultant to World Communion of Reformed Churches.
MEMBER:American Academy of Religion (former president, Southeast Region).
AWARDS:Trinity Book Prize, 2003, for In Search of the Good Life; Distinguished Scholar award, 2011-12, and Senior Faculty Research Fellowship, 2018-20, both from Elon University.
WRITINGS
Maintains the blog, To Do Justice. Contributor to academic journals.
SIDELIGHTS
Rebecca Todd Peters is a writer, ordained minister, and educator. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Rhodes College and both a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from Union Theological Seminary. Peters is ordained in the Presbyterian Church and has served as a member of the organization’s Faith and Order Standing Commission in the World Council of Churches. She has also worked as a consultant to the World Communion of Reformed Churches. Peters is the Tom Mould Professor of Religious Studies at Elon University. She has written articles that have appeared in academic journals and also maintains the blog, To Do Justice.
In Search of the Good Life, Justice in a Global Economy, and To Do Justice
In Search of the Good Life: The Ethics of Globalization is Peters’s first book. It was released in 2004. In this volume, she presents four theories on the topic of globalization and analyzes all of them. Peters focuses on the ethical implications of each globalization model. She examines the work and ideals of economists and politicians, including Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Milton Friedman, Harry Truman, and Thomas Berry. Peters concludes by offering her own opinion on how to move forward in a globalized world. Rowland Croucher, writer on the John Mark Ministries website, commented: “This book is not an easy read for two reasons: the ‘shame factor’ of course, and also it’s probably too close to ‘academic dissertation language’. Someone like David Suzuki or E.F. Schumacher or Ralph Nader might have made it more palatable for the general reader. It’s a theoretical approach, so there are few if any suggestions about how ordinary folks like us can engage in the battle for community and justice and the survival of the planet.” Croucher continued: “There is also no coherent exposition of a paradigm of Biblical/Christian ethics: we have to pick up clues scattered throughout the book. But Rebecca Todd Peters is nothing if not passionate. She is another prophet who might just be on to something, and we’d better ‘listen up’ (as the Americans put it) before global catastrophe strikes.”
Peters collaborated with Pamela K. Brubaker and Laura A. Stivers to edit the 2006 volume, Justice in a Global Economy: Strategies for Home, Community, and World. The book contains essays from twelve authors on how Christians should behave with regard to the economy, their communities, and in their daily lives. Robin Lovin, reviewer in the Christian Century, described Justice in a Global Economy as “far more than a how-to manual.” Another critic in the Christian Century, Kathryn Blanchard, commented: “This book may be helpful to the motivated individual, but it will prove especially fruitful in the context of groups or congregations willing to put some time and effort into communal ethical discernment. Those who do so … will surely find themselves able to gradually shake off their privileged paralysis and then, little by little, courageously change their economic and political habits.”
Peters and Elizabeth Hinson-Hasty are the editors of To Do Justice: A Guide for Progressive Christians. The book contains essays from contributors on topics, including labor unions, world peace, immigration, drugs, and prison. The authors analyze what the Bible states in regard to each topic. Linda Beck, critic in ForeWord, described the book as “an excellent way to begin to understand the social, economic, and political issues facing this country.”
Trust Women
In Trust Women: A Progressive Christian Argument for Reproductive Justice, Peters argues that women should be allowed to have the opportunity to make choices that are right for themselves and that women’s lives and health should be valued more than they are. She notes that women have historically been pressured to offer justification for choosing to have an abortion and suggests that that is unacceptable. Peters also mentions that she has had an abortion herself.
In an interview with Stephanie Russell-Kraft, contributor to the Nation website, Peters discussed including information about her own abortion in the book. She stated: “I’ve been working on this project for twenty-five years, but when I began specifically writing this book in my sabbatical two years ago, it was an open question about whether or not I was going to talk about my personal experience. And for me, figuring out whether or not to do that was really about what I’m trying to do in the book.” Peters also told Russell-Kraft: “In the book, the whole argument is oriented around shifting the conversation from a justification framework to a reproductive-justice framework. And the point of a reproductive-justice framework is to say, abortions are events in the larger lives of women’s reproductive experiences, and we can only understand them within the history of those lives. And women’s stories are absent. The sort of ordinary abortions, those stories are absent.” Peters continued: “So it felt important to have those stories, to normalize those stories, and to say, abortion is a normal part of women’s lives. That was absolutely the case for me, and telling my story in a landscape where those stories are so silent seemed very important to me. Once I decided it was important to tell my story, opening with it was just an editorial decision, in terms of the effectiveness of starting with a story as a way of confronting that silence.”
Reviewers were divided in their assessments of Trust Women. Micaiah Bilger, critic on the Life News website, suggested: “There seems to be a concerted effort among abortion activists to pervert Christian teachings by using religious arguments to justify killing unborn babies. A new book by Presbyterian minister Rebecca Todd Peters pushes the notion that killing an unborn baby is not wrong.” Similarly, Dave Andrusko, contributor to the National Right to Life News website, remarked: “Peters is one of those all-too-familiar ‘progressive’ ministers [in this case Presbyterian] who has persuaded herself that ‘justice’ requires abortion, which requires overturning the patriarchy.” Andrusko added: “Perhaps she is so ideologically driven that she cannot understand that being a ‘feminist’ and being pro-life are not incompatible but rather two sides of the same coin.” However, a Publishers Weekly writer described Trust Women as a “courageous, personal book” and a “theologically astute and social justice-minded book.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Christian Century, May 1, 2007, Robin Lovin, review of Justice in a Global Economy: Strategies for Home, Community, and World, p. 25; November 13, 2007, Kathryn Blanchard, review of Justice in a Global Economy, p. 45.
Ecumenical Review, December, 2014, Tatha Wiley, review of Solidarity Ethics: Transformation in a Globalized World, p. 510.
ForeWord, July-August, 2008, Linda Beck, review of To Do Justice: A Guide for Progressive Christians; August 19, 2009, review of To Do Justice.
Interpretation, April, 2007, review of Justice in a Global Economy, p. 239; July, 2009, Peter Boeve, review of To Do Justice, p. 330.
Publishers Weekly, February 26, 2018, review of Trust Women: A Progressive Christian Argument for Reproductive Justice, p. 83.
Utopian Studies, winter, 2005, Bernard S. Morris, review of In Search of the Good Life, p. 506.
ONLINE
Elon University website, http://www.elon.edu/ (September 4, 2018), author faculty profile.
Huffington Post, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/ (September 4, 2018), author profile.
John Mark Ministries, http://www.jmm.org.au/ (March 18, 2005), Rowland Croucher, review of In Search of the Good Life.
Life News, http://www.lifenews.com/ (February 23, 2018), Micaiah Bilger, review of Trust Women.
Nation Online, https://www.thenation.com/ (April 11, 2018), Stephanie Russell-Kraft, author interview and review of Trust Women.
National Right to Life News, https://www.nationalrighttolifenews.org/ (February 26, 2018), Dave Andrusko, review of Trust Women.
Rebecca Todd Peters website, https://rebeccatoddpeters.com/ (September 4, 2018).
Department of Religious Studies
Rebecca Todd Peters
Tom Mould Professor of Religious Studies
(336) 278-5247
rpeters@elon.edu
Full Profile
Areas of Expertise
As a feminist and Christian social ethicist, Rebecca Todd Peters’ scholarship focuses on questions of social ethics as they relate to economics, the environmental crisis, globalization, poverty and women’s access to reproductive health care. Peters addresses issues of conflict and social injustice in the world with the recognition that religion plays a significant role in shaping people’s worldviews and moral ideas. Her most recent work is developing a Christian ethic of reproductive justice as the framework for thinking about women’s whole reproductive lives, including everything from access to contraception to fertility treatments to unplanned pregnancies. She is examining many different sources, including history, social science, philosophy and Christian tradition. This new project also focuses on helping people think in more sophisticated ways about how pregnancy challenges our existing moral categories of personhood and life. In addition, Peters writes about current events, theology, justice and social change on her blog, “To Do Justice,” which is featured on Patheos, an online site that hosts conversations on faith.
Education
Ph.D. and M.Div. in Christian Social Ethics from Union Theological Seminary in New York
B.A. from Rhodes College
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In focus
The Rev. Dr. Rebecca Todd Peters is Professor of Religious Studies and Director of the Poverty and Social Justice Program at Elon University.
Her work as a feminist social ethicist is focused on globalization, economic, environmental, and reproductive justice. Her first book, In Search of the Good Life: The Ethics of Globalization (Continuum, 2004), won the 2003 Trinity Book Prize and her second monograph, Solidarity Ethics: Transformation in a Globalized World, was published in January 2014 with Fortress Press. She has published 22 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters and co-edited five books including Justice in a Global Economy: Strategies for Home, Community and World (Westminster/John Knox, 2006) and To Do Justice: A Guide for Progressive Christians (Westminster/John Knox, 2008). Her latest co-edited book Encountering the Sacred: Feminist Reflections on Women’s Lives is scheduled to be released from T & T Clark in the fall of 2018.
She is the past President of the American Academy of Religion, Southeast Region, was Elon University’s 2011-12 Distinguished Scholar, and currently holds a Senior Faculty Research Fellowship from Elon (2018-2020). She represents Elon on the Shepherd Higher Education Consortium on Poverty Council where she was elected to serve as the Chair of the SHECP Council and the SHECP Governing Board.
Ordained in the Presbyterian Church (USA), she has been active denominationally and ecumenically for over twenty-five years and currently represents the PCUSA as a member of the Faith and Order Standing Commission of the World Council of Churches. She served as co-moderator of the Faith and Order study on Moral Discernment in the Churches and has also worked extensively on many justice initiatives of the WCC, including Alternative Globalization Addressing People and the Earth (AGAPE); Poverty, Wealth, and Ecology (PWE) and the Economy of Life program. In November 2017, she served as a consultant to the World Communion of Reformed Churches to plan and co-lead a Consultation on Human Sexuality.
She is a graduate of Rhodes College (B.A.), and Union Theological Seminary in New York (M.Div., Ph.D., Christian Social Ethics).
In her most recent book, Trust Women: A Progressive Christian Argument for Reproductive Justice (Beacon, 2018, distributed by Penguin/Random House), Peters outlines how the justification framework shaping current American discussion of abortion is fatally flawed and argues that the framework of Reproductive Justice offers a more ethically robust opportunity for public dialogue.
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Rebecca Todd Peters
Christian Social Ethicist, Feminist Theologian, and Professor of Religious Studies at Elon University
Rebecca Todd Peters is Professor of Religious Studies at Elon University. As a feminist social ethicist her work focuses on globalization, economic, environmental, and reproductive justice. Her book, In Search of the Good Life: The Ethics of Globalization (Continuum, 2004), won the 2003 Trinity Book Prize. She has published 22 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters and co-edited four books including Justice in a Global Economy: Strategies for Home, Community and World (Westminster/John Knox, 2006) and To Do Justice: A Guide for Progressive Christians (Westminster/John Knox, 2008). She is the past President of the American Academy of Religion, Southeast Region and was Elon University’s 2011-12 Distinguished Scholar. She started the Poverty and Social Justice program at Elon and served as its founding Director, she now represents Elon on the Board of Directors of the Shepherd Higher Education Consortium on Poverty. Ordained in the Presbyterian Church (USA), she has been active denominationally and ecumenically for over twenty years and currently represents the PCUSA as a member of the Faith and Order Standing Commission of the World Council of Churches. She served as co-moderator of the Faith and Order study on Moral Discernment in the Churches and has also worked extensively on many justice initiatives of the WCC, including Alternative Globalization Addressing People and the Earth (AGAPE); Poverty, Wealth, and Ecology (PWE); and most recently she attended the Theological Consultation on Economy of Life in India in October 2014. She is a graduate of Rhodes College (B.A.), and Union Theological Seminary in New York (M.Div., Ph.D., Christian Social Ethics). Her latest book Solidarity Ethics: Transformation in a Globalized World was published in January 2014 with Fortress Press. She is completing a book on abortion and reproductive justice that will be published by Beacon Press in January 2018.
QUOTED: "courageous, personal book" "theologically astute and social justice-minded book."
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Print Marked Items
Trust Women: A Progressive
Christian Argument for Reproductive
Justice
Publishers Weekly.
265.9 (Feb. 26, 2018): p83. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
* Trust Women: A Progressive Christian Argument for Reproductive Justice Rebecca Todd Peters. Beacon, $27.95 (240p) ISBN 978-0-8070-6998-1
In this courageous, personal book, Peters, a Presbyterian minister and religious studies professor at Elon University, argues that abortion is used to shame women, control their bodies, and manipulate their choices. "The starting point of our ethical conversation should be women's lives," writes Peters, yet "the problem that we face in this country is our failure to trust women to act as rational, capable, responsible moral agents." For Peters, who is open about having had abortions, there are big problems with the way Christians and Catholics frame moral questions around abortion and women. She writes that they employ a "justification paradigm" in which the default expectation is for women to bear children if they get pregnant, and they must "justify their moral decision" to do otherwise. Peters's book is dense with the history of women's rights, as well as analysis of patriarchal oppression and the ways the church, legislators, and businesses have tried to control and govern women's bodies. This theologically astute and social justice-minded book will appeal to progressive Christians who are interested in reclaiming abortion as an issue of women's health and could easily become part of the required reading for an array of university courses. (Apr.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Trust Women: A Progressive Christian Argument for Reproductive Justice." Publishers Weekly,
26 Feb. 2018, p. 83. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc /A530637495/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=cbf84ff7. Accessed 12 Aug. 2018.
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QUOTED: "an excellent way to begin to understand the social, economic, and political issues facing this country."
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To Do Justice: A Guide For
Progressive Christians
Linda Beck
ForeWord.
(July-August 2008): From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2008 ForeWord http://www.forewordmagazine.com
Full Text:
Work Title: To Do Justice: A Guide For Progressive Christians
Work Author(s): Rebecca Todd Peters and Elizabeth Hinson-Hasty, editors Westminster John Knox
192 pages, Softcover $19.95
Religion
ISBN: 9780664232825
Reviewer: Linda Beck
"Change" has become the now-tired buzzword of 2008, as voters bounce from sound bite to sound bite via TV, radio, and the Net. Americans on all sides are seeking answers to the enormous social, political, and economic woes facing the country. But, instead of coining a cute phrase or pat answer, editors Peters and Hinson-Hasty begin this book by asking, "What does it mean to be faithful in times of crisis?" How can communities understand and do something about the problems we're now facing?
From the beginning, To Do Justice answers that there is no single solution. From there, it presents twelve essays by well-known social ethicists on justice and change---specifically, issues of immigration, prison, drug abuse, family life, public education, labor and unions, militarism, peace, and more. Each chapter defines an issue, then asks "What now?" or "What can be done?" There are questions for discussion in each chapter, a bibliography of books and Web resources, and extensive notes. The chapters assume that communities are responsible for public life, setting aside the notion that in America, one's individual freedom and do-what-I-want-to-do power are supreme. Instead, the authors hearken back to God's covenant with His people, citing a Christian's duty to seek justice and offer hospitality to the least of one's neighbors.
An excellent way to begin to understand the social, economic, and political issues facing this country, whether as a read-alone, or, even better, among adult discussion groups at church or in
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one's neighborhood. (June) Linda Beck
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Beck, Linda. "To Do Justice: A Guide For Progressive Christians." ForeWord, July-Aug. 2008.
Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A199208174 /GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=1f4f495b. Accessed 12 Aug. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A199208174
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To Do Justice: A Guide For Progressive Christians
ForeWord.
(Aug. 19, 2009): From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2009 ForeWord http://www.forewordmagazine.com
Full Text:
Rebecca Todd Peters and Elizabeth Hinson-Hasty editors; TO DO JUSTICE: A GUIDE FOR PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIANS; Westminster John Knox $19.95 ISBN: 9780664232825
"Change" has become the now-tired buzzword of 2008 as voters bounce from sound bite to sound bite via TV radio and the Net. Americans on all sides are seeking answers to the enormous social political and economic woes facing the country. But instead of coining a cute phrase or pat answer editors Peters and Hinson-Hasty begin this book by asking "What does it mean to be faithful in times of crisis?" How can communities understand and do something about the problems we're now facing?
From the beginning To Do Justice answers that there is no single solution. From there it presents twelve essays by well-known social ethicists on justice and change--specifically issues of immigration prison drug abuse family life public education labor and unions militarism peace and more. Each chapter defines an issue then asks "What now?" or "What can be done?" There are questions for discussion in each chapter a bibliography of books and Web resources and extensive notes. The chapters assume that communities are responsible for public life setting aside the notion that in America one's individual freedom and do-what-I-want-to-do power are supreme. Instead the authors hearken back to God's covenant with His people citing a Christian's duty to seek justice and offer hospitality to the least of one's neighbors.
An excellent way to begin to understand the social economic and political issues facing this country whether as a read-alone or even better among adult discussion groups at church or in one's neighborhood. (June)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"To Do Justice: A Guide For Progressive Christians." ForeWord, 19 Aug. 2009. Book Review
Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A236034572/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=1f1c4a29. Accessed 12 Aug. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A236034572
QUOTED: "This book may be helpful to the motivated individual, but it will prove especially fruitful in the context of groups or congregations willing to put some time and effort into communal ethical discernment. Those who do so ... will surely find themselves able to gradually shake off their privileged paralysis and then, little by little, courageously change their economic and political habits."
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Justice in a Global Economy:
Strategies for Home, Community, and
World
Kathryn Blanchard
The Christian Century.
124.23 (Nov. 13, 2007): p45+. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2007 The Christian Century Foundation http://www.christiancentury.org
Full Text:
Justice in a Global Economy: Strategies for Home, Community, and World.
Edited by Pamela K. Brubaker, Rebecca Todd Peters and Laura A. Stivers. Westminster John Knox, 176 pp., $19.95 paperback.
CHRISTIANS CAN BE quite good at feeling guilty. We feel guilty if we commute to work by car, but we also feel guilty if we don't earn enough money to buy a house in the suburbs with a yard for our kids to play in. We feel guilty if we buy jeans manufactured cheaply in sweatshops, but we feel guilty if we spend money on expensive clothes that could otherwise be spent on charity toward others.
Not surprisingly, this kind of guilt tends to be the privilege of the few--those educated, well- intentioned people of some means who live in the industrialized world, where we have the luxury of almost unlimited economic choices. Ironically, awareness of our position near the top of the globalized consumer chain can lead many Christians to a paralyzing--one might even say convenient--sense of hopelessness in the face of the apparently impervious machine that we think of as the global economy.
The 12 authors who contributed to Justice in a Global Economy (most of them professors and some of them also Protestant clergy) are doing their part to challenge this kind of convenient paralysis. They start with the conviction that the world's poor and oppressed cannot afford the inaction of people of good will who believe that there is nothing they can do to resist injustice. Also, the authors reject the notion that the market is a self-perpetuating machine and instead remind us that markets are made up of human beings who actively make choices on the basis of their values. First and foremost, these writers offer assurance that there are some things individuals and congregations can do to change the world--and they provide concrete examples.
The chapters are organized according to three types of strategies--strategies for households, strategies for communities and public policies strategies--for combating the dominant version of neoliberalism that has largely shaped today's global economy. Alternative economic practices
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suggested for households include supporting local agriculture, engaging in mindful eating and other consumption, and creating just conditions for household laborers. Strategies for communities and congregations involve cultivating a sense of rootedness to place, standing up to corporations and insisting that they be sensitive to community needs, creating community development organizations or offering services to local people, and being attentive to the particular needs of different communities (one size does not fit all). Finally, public policy strategies include promoting solidarity with migrants (a timely topic for the 2008 election campaigns); shifting policy and institutional emphases toward justice, sustainability and fair trade; and changing the terms of public argument--for example, avoiding general categories such as "the poor" and "moral values" and using more particular terms that do justice to particular situations and people.
In contrast to more scholarly works on the topic of Christian ethics and globalization (such as editor Peters's prize-winning 2004 work, In Search of the Good Life: The Ethics of Globalization Justice in a Global Economy approaches the same subject matter while remaining accessible to a wide audience. Each short chapter is followed by a list of discussion questions, and each provides a brief bibliography of books and Web sites that interested readers can go to for more information.
This book may be helpful to the motivated individual, but it will prove especially fruitful in the context of groups or congregations willing to put some time and effort into communal ethical discernment. Those who do so (perhaps over the course of several months or in a yearlong study) will surely find themselves able to gradually shake off their privileged paralysis and then, little by little, courageously change their economic and political habits with an eye toward justice for their neighbors both near and far.
Reviewed by Kathryn Blanchard, who teaches religious studies at Alma College in Alma, Michigan.
Blanchard, Kathryn
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Blanchard, Kathryn. "Justice in a Global Economy: Strategies for Home, Community, and
World." The Christian Century, 13 Nov. 2007, p. 45+. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A171580981/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=84519b13. Accessed 12 Aug. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A171580981
QUOTED: "far more than a how-to manual."
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Justice in a Global Economy:
Strategies for Home, Community, and
World
Robin Lovin
The Christian Century.
124.9 (May 1, 2007): p25. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2007 The Christian Century Foundation http://www.christiancentury.org
Full Text:
Justice in a Global Economy: Strategies for Home, Community, and World. Edited by Pamela K. Brubaker, Rebecca Todd Peters and Laura A. Stivers. (Westminster John Knox, 175 pp., $19.95 paperback.) Academic ethics tends either to lead or to lag behind public concern about specific issues. Michael Northcott, Ted Peters, Sallie McFague and others led a theological reassessment of our thinking about the environment that predated widespread interest in climate change and global warming. Today we await new work in Christian ethics that will connect in practical and critical ways to this growing public discussion. One recent book that will be a great help to those who want to both educate and act is Justice in a Global Economy. This collection of essays focuses equally on strategies that can be used in individual households, local communities and public policy settings. Constituting far more than a how-to manual, the essays provide an introduction to the theological, economic and scientific questions involved in creating a sustainable and equitable global economy.
Selected by Robin Lovin, who teaches at Southern Methodist University.
Lovin, Robin
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Lovin, Robin. "Justice in a Global Economy: Strategies for Home, Community, and World." The
Christian Century, 1 May 2007, p. 25. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com
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/apps/doc/A163680407/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=15c192e9. Accessed 12 Aug. 2018.
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Rebecca Todd Peters, Solidarity
Ethics: Transformation in a
Globalized World
Tatha Wiley
The Ecumenical Review.
66.4 (Dec. 2014): p510+. From Book Review Index Plus. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/erev.12123
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Wiley, Tatha. "Rebecca Todd Peters, Solidarity Ethics: Transformation in a Globalized World."
The Ecumenical Review, vol. 66, no. 4, 2014, p. 510+. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A402347659/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=c46a41fd. Accessed 12 Aug. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A402347659
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Rebecca Todd Peters. In Search of the
Good Life: The Ethics of
Globalization
Bernard S. Morris
Utopian Studies.
16.3 (Winter 2005): p506+. From Book Review Index Plus.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Morris, Bernard S. "Rebecca Todd Peters. In Search of the Good Life: The Ethics of
Globalization." Utopian Studies, vol. 16, no. 3, 2005, p. 506+. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A142573702/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=28a5d8b2. Accessed 12 Aug. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A142573702
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To Do Justice: A Guide for
Progressive Christians
Peter Boeve
Interpretation.
63.3 (July 2009): p330. From Book Review Index Plus.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Boeve, Peter. "To Do Justice: A Guide for Progressive Christians." Interpretation, vol. 63, no. 3,
2009, p. 330. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A203770067 /GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=01d6b431. Accessed 12 Aug. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A203770067
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Justice in a Global Economy
Interpretation.
61.2 (Apr. 2007): p239. From Book Review Index Plus.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Justice in a Global Economy." Interpretation, vol. 61, no. 2, 2007, p. 239. Book Review Index
Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A162791375/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=0a3d1ecc. Accessed 12 Aug. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A162791375
13 of 13 8/12/18, 9:46 PM
QUOTED: "I’ve been working on this project for 25 years, but when I began specifically writing this book in my sabbatical two years ago, it was an open question about whether or not I was going to talk about my personal experience. And for me, figuring out whether or not to do that was really about what I’m trying to do in the book."
"In the book, the whole argument is oriented around shifting the conversation from a justification framework to a reproductive-justice framework. And the point of a reproductive-justice framework is to say, abortions are events in the larger lives of women’s reproductive experiences, and we can only understand them within the history of those lives. And women’s stories are absent. The sort of ordinary abortions, those stories are absent."
"So it felt important to have those stories, to normalize those stories, and to say, abortion is a normal part of women’s lives. That was absolutely the case for me, and telling my story in a landscape where those stories are so silent seemed very important to me. Once I decided it was important to tell my story, opening with it was just an editorial decision, in terms of the effectiveness of starting with a story as a way of confronting that silence."
A Christian Argument for Abortion: A Q&A With Rebecca Todd Peters
Peters discusses her new book and her vision for the role of progressive, feminist Christian theology in contemporary abortion debates.
By Stephanie Russell-KraftTwitter
April 11, 2018
Rebecca Todd Peters, author of Trust Women
Rebecca Todd Peters, author of Trust Women. (Images via Beacon Press / Rebecca Todd Peters)
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Abortion is a moral issue, just not in the way we’ve been taught, argues Rebecca Todd Peters, an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church and professor of religious studies at Elon University. She is also the author of the new book Trust Women: A Progressive Christian Argument for Reproductive Justice. Rather than an abstract moral question, she argues, abortion is a morally valid option to a concrete question women face on a regular basis: “What should I do when faced with an unplanned, unwanted, or medically compromised pregnancy?”
Right now, much of our society seems unable to let women answer that question for themselves. Peters attributes that state of things to misogynistic and patriarchal ideas of womanhood that judge motherhood to be a moral end that supersedes all others. Peters pulls no punches against Christianity, which she holds responsible for shaping many of these cultural norms.
As an alternative, Peters offers a moral framework in the language of progressive Christianity and built on a foundation of reproductive justice—an intersectional approach conceptualized by a small cohort of black women activists in the 1990s that recognizes the complexity of women’s reproductive lives. Within the context of a specific woman’s life, the moral consequences of having a child can be equal to—if not greater than—the moral consequences of having an abortion. And so, in many cases, she argues, abortion can be a morally good decision.
I recently spoke with Peters about the book and her vision for the role of progressive, feminist Christian theology in contemporary abortion debates. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Related Article
The Nation
Why Is Reproductive Justice Vital in This Political Moment? A New Book Breaks It Down
Dani McClain
—Stephanie Russell-Kraft
You begin the book with a description of your own abortion, before diving into the philosophical, legal, and religious attitudes about women that shape the contemporary discourse around abortion. Why was it important for you to start from the personal?
It took me a long time to make that decision to start from the personal. I’ve been working on this project for 25 years, but when I began specifically writing this book in my sabbatical two years ago, it was an open question about whether or not I was going to talk about my personal experience. And for me, figuring out whether or not to do that was really about what I’m trying to do in the book.
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In the book, the whole argument is oriented around shifting the conversation from a justification framework to a reproductive-justice framework. And the point of a reproductive-justice framework is to say, abortions are events in the larger lives of women’s reproductive experiences, and we can only understand them within the history of those lives. And women’s stories are absent. The sort of ordinary abortions, those stories are absent. So it felt important to have those stories, to normalize those stories, and to say, abortion is a normal part of women’s lives. That was absolutely the case for me, and telling my story in a landscape where those stories are so silent seemed very important to me. Once I decided it was important to tell my story, opening with it was just an editorial decision, in terms of the effectiveness of starting with a story as a way of confronting that silence.
A significant portion of your book is then spent challenging and prodding what you call the “flawed moral discourse” in public discussions of abortion, that we are unable to recognize the bodily integrity of women because we are culturally conditioned to expect motherhood as the default outcome of pregnancy. What would a better moral discourse look like?
That’s what I think a reproductive-justice framework offers us. I think it offers us a counter-narrative, a counter-framework. The simplicity of a reproductive-justice framework is one of its strengths. The three principles that that movement identifies are the right not to have a child, the right to have a child, and the right to parent the children that we have. I think what is so powerful about that framework is that it recognizes that the issue is about parenting and families and motherhood, and the right not to be a mother, and the right to be a mother, and the right to raise our children in healthy and safe environments. A reproductive-justice framework highlights the difficulties women face when they do have children, in raising those children in a country that tolerates obscene levels of poverty, obscene levels of racism and damage to vulnerable children and families.
So it’s putting abortion back into a context, rather than isolating it.
Yes, right. I think that’s the problem that I identify with the justification framework, is it forces public conversation into this narrow moral binary abstract question: Is abortion right or wrong? And that’s the wrong starting point. Abortion is only ever the answer to a question a woman faces about, What should I do when I have an unplanned or a medically fragile pregnancy? That’s the question: What should I do? That’s absolutely a moral question. One of the things I really want to lift up in this book is, abortion is definitely a moral issue. But it’s a moral issue within the context of women’s lives, where women make moral decisions about their sexuality all the time. Having a child, I argue, is a larger moral decision than having an abortion, because the moral requirements of motherhood are enormous.
Part of that is the way we talk about women and motherhood. I’m particularly fascinated by your linguistic choices in the book, specifically your coining of the term “prenate” to refer to the developing fetus inside a pregnant woman. To be honest, I found it somewhat jarring at first, but by the end of reading, it seemed natural. Can you tell me more about why you chose to use this word?
I needed a word, because in my experience, when I hear women’s accounts, when I talk to women about their abortions, very few use the term “fetus.” And pregnant women with wanted pregnancies don’t talk about their “fetus,” they talk about their “baby.” And yet, that is so inadequate. It blurs our capacity to recognize the difference between a prenate and a baby.
I searched for months and months, I looked at other languages to see if there were other ways that people talked about this entity, and I just never found one. So I started trying to coin a phrase and came up with “prenate.” It felt like it worked, it felt right to me. I remember when I was talking to my daughter, who at the time was probably 10 or 11, and she was asking about this, she said, “What is this term?” And I said, “Well, ‘pre’ means before, and ‘nate’ is from natal, for birth, so it’s before birth.” And she was like, “Oh, that makes sense.” It had a simplistic logic to it, and I hope that having a new term will allow us to recognize the very important moral distinction between a prenate and a baby.
I feel like so much of the broader public, on a gut level, feels torn about this, because they sort of feel like there’s something there but they don’t have language for it. I’m hoping the book will have a language to have a better conversation about abortion and the morality of abortion and the morality of pregnancy and motherhood.
Speaking of language, you write that the frames of pro-life and pro-choice limit the contemporary abortion debate because the categories they represent are “incommensurable.” You write, “one category is a theological position, and the other a legal position.” Do you believe theological and legal arguments can be compatible? And how should those of us without a theological position engage with theological arguments?
I feel we can’t do that within the justification paradigm, precisely because it’s a flawed paradigm. You cannot have a conversation with someone when you’re talking about two different things. When it’s framed as pro-life or pro-choice, you don’t share a common vocabulary. So if you change the paradigm, if you move to a reproductive-justice paradigm, when we’re talking about women’s ability to have children, not have children, and raise the children they have, then you have created a neutral conversation to ask the question: Is it moral to have an abortion? That’s not a legal question. Within that neutral paradigm, you can ask legal questions and you can ask theological questions, but they don’t have to overlap. The theological claim shouldn’t be in a legislative debate. A legislator can say, as a Jew or as Christian or as a Hindu, this is what I believe, but that is not an adequate basis for legislation. You would have to then translate that into legal principles, into a common discourse.
I’m skeptical of this approach, because so many legal decisions in the US already have been influenced by theological positions. Is it possible to remove them?
We’ve done that in other ways, around homosexuality. The prohibitions around homosexual sexual acts were absolutely influenced by theological beliefs around homosexuality, and we have managed to disentangle those beliefs about the morality of homosexuality from the legal position that people have a right to have sex with whomever and in whatever way they want, as long as no one is being harmed. So we have instances where we’ve done that. We just haven’t figured out how to do it with this topic.
There’s somewhat of a growing movement among religious progressives in the United States to reclaim a space in the political sphere. Would you consider yourself a part of that? And was that space ever lost in the first place?
I consider myself a progressive Christian and have for a while. I’ve written about progressive Christianity, as a feminist social ethicist, and that’s how I position myself within the intellectual history of progressive Christianity. I trace that back to the social gospel movement of the late 19th century, leading through the liberation movements in the 1960s and ’70s. I’ve been very active in that movement for the last 30 years and so I don’t think that moment ever disappeared. I think that movement has a very strong trajectory that has been historically represented through largely mainline Christianity. My experience is that it’s a very male movement, and there’s not much attention to feminist theology, feminist leadership, feminist concerns.
In your book, you lay much of the blame for our society’s conception of women on early Christian male theologians, many of whom believed women to be the root of sin and thus excluded them from church leadership. What role should contemporary Christians play in rewriting these assumptions?
I think this has been the work of feminist theology for the past 30 or 40 years, but it’s not mainstream. Even these progressive Christian movements are very male, and most of them are not incorporating feminist theological ideals and assumptions and liturgy into their understanding and definition of progressive Christianity. I think until that happens, until feminist theology can make the leap from the academy into churches, and into the more popular understanding of what it means to be Christian, I think that’s the leap that needs to be made.
There was a big movement in the ’70s and ’80s around inclusive language in churches, even opening up our understanding around who and what God is, and pushing past very androcentric ideas about the divine. In 1993, there was a Re-Imagining God conference that had 2,000 people attend, and it was mostly laypeople, and it was this celebration of feminist theology, and the most prominent scholars and theologians of the day presented. It was absolutely attacked, it became this flashpoint for conservative Christianity, and there was a massive backlash after that conference. What I’ve found in the last 10 or 15 years is that fewer and fewer churches use inclusive language, and even the influence of feminist ideological ideas. That backlash has been really effective.
The shifts will happen as voices become more prominent in popular culture and in public discourse. I think Serene Jones, president of Union Theological Seminary in New York, is a leading voice in trying to move in that direction, but it will take more people and more voices and more platforms for having alternative visions of progressive and feminist forms of Christianity, before we can really shift those traditions.
Christians are often crudely categorized as anti-abortion in the American abortion debate. What’s missing in the way we talk about religion, and Christianity specifically, in the context of reproductive rights?
The dominant narrative is that Christianity is opposed to abortion, and that dominant narrative is being pushed by the Catholic Church and very conservative Evangelical voices, both clergy and laypeople. There are legislators who are evangelical, or Catholic, mostly men, who push those ideas in the debates that are happening in state houses across the country. And when that gets covered in the media, it gets covered in ways that give the impression that Christianity is anti-abortion. That’s one of the reasons I wrote this book, is to try to lift up a counter-narrative, because there’s a very strong counter-narrative, and there are many Christians who are pro-choice.
I don’t think there’s been the depth of conversation around the morality of abortion or sexuality or motherhood or parenting that we need to have, that would be healthy for us as a country. My hope is that the book will offer a Christian counter-narrative that really engages in a much more nuanced and complex conversation about the morality of abortion. Even though I work out of a Christian tradition, I try to do so in ways that are not exclusively Christian. So when I talk about justice or morality, I don’t do that in ways that require one to be Christian.
One thing I found surprising was how little of the book was explicitly Christian.
Well, what do you mean when you say that?
Maybe that’s my own misunderstanding, based on that dominant narrative.
What I would say is, my book embodies progressive Christianity, and that’s what most people don’t understand. Progressive Christianity, for me, and for many people, is about focusing on what the social teachings are in the Bible, in the traditions, in the church, that help us think about and address the social problems we see in the world. That’s very different from an evangelical understanding of Christianity, which is about salvation. I actually don’t care that much about salvation. That’s not my primary concern. My primary concern is about the world that we live in, and how we make a more just world. That’s the tradition of the social gospel.
Stephanie Russell-KraftTwitterStephanie Russell-Kraft is a Brooklyn-based reporter covering the intersections of religion, culture, law, and gender. She has written for The New Republic, The Atlantic, Religion & Politics, and Religion Dispatches, and is a regular contributing reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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https://www.thenation.com/article/a-christian-argument-for-abortion-a-qa-with-rebecca-todd-peters/
QUOTED: "Peters is one of those all-too-familiar 'progressive' ministers [in this case Presbyterian] who has persuaded herself that 'justice' requires abortion, which requires overturning the patriarchy."
"Perhaps she is so ideologically driven that she cannot understand that being a 'feminist' and being pro-life are not incompatible but rather two sides of the same coin."
NRL News Today
February 26, 2018 Abortion
The moral incoherence of the “progressive Christian argument” for abortion
By Dave Andrusko
It’s always a clarion call whose message is unmistakable. Whenever a review of a book about abortion starts with something like “In this courageous, personal book,” you know (a) it’s written by a woman who has had at least one abortion, and (b) all of us guys will be disqualified from having a pro-life position because we can never be in a position to actually have an abortion. (Never mind that men, by their lack of support for a woman experiencing a crisis pregnancy or by their acts of coercion, can virtually ensure a woman will abort.)
Enter “Trust Women: A Progressive Christian Argument for Reproductive Justice,” by Rebecca Todd Peters. The Rev. Peters is one of those all-too-familiar “progressive” ministers [in this case Presbyterian] who has persuaded herself that “justice” requires abortion, which requires overturning the patriarchy which includes recalibrating a religious “tradition that remains dominated by male god-language and imagery.”
In other words Peters is a cliché’s cliché.
I read the Publishers Weekly blurb and learned, “The starting point of our ethical conversation should be women’s lives,” writes Peters, yet “the problem that we face in this country is our failure to trust women to act as rational, capable, responsible moral agents.”
Publishers Weekly tells us that for the Rev. Peters, there are “big problems”
with the way Christians and Catholics frame moral questions around abortion and women. She writes that they employ a “justification paradigm” in which the default expectation is for women to bear children if they get pregnant, and they must “justify their moral decision” to do otherwise. Peters’s book is dense with the history of women’s rights, as well as analysis of patriarchal oppression and the ways the church, legislators, and businesses have tried to control and govern women’s bodies.”
Indeed, this “theologically astute and social justice–minded book,” we’re told in the blurb’s conclusion, “could easily become part of the required reading for an array of university courses.” Wow!
A couple of thoughts.
#1. If you go to https://muse.jhu.edu/article/547749/pdf, you’ll find an excerpt from the book. In Peters’s reading of the history of opposition to abortion, we’re told that grumpy, judgmental, heterosexual females replaced grumpy, judgmental, heterosexual males. These women, in turn, have been replaced by younger women who are no less eager to deny other women access to abortion but have “changed their rhetorical and political approach considerably by attempting to position themselves as sympathetic sisters, concerned about women facing problem pregnancies and publicly pro-claiming their desire to help women.”
Really? Just guessing, it appears, age-wise, Peters is likely between the two sets of female “anti-abortion” leaders she ridicules. So perhaps she is so ideologically driven that she cannot understand that being a “feminist” and being pro-life are not incompatible but rather two sides of the same coin.
Indeed that’s how pro-life feminists (correctly) see themselves. But to Peters, concern for women and unborn children is impossible, therefore to talk and act that way is hypocrisy.
#2. Yes, I plead guilty to believing that the “default expectation” is to carry a baby to term. Why? For a hundred reasons, beginning with the responsibility that comes with our having brought that child into existence and a belief that the more powerful have a moral and ethical obligation to the less powerful not to take their life because they are “inconvenient.”
The Rev. Peters can babble on about patriarchies and other drivel forever and a day but none of that converts tearing an unborn child limb from limb into “reproductive justice.”
abortion
QUOTED: "This book is not an easy read for two reasons: the 'shame factor' of course, and also it’s probably too close to ‘academic dissertation language’. Someone like David Suzuki or E.F. Schumacher or Ralph Nader might have made it more palatable for the general reader. It’s a theoretical approach, so there are few if any suggestions about how ordinary folks like us can engage in the battle for community and justice and the survival of the planet."
"There is also no coherent exposition of a paradigm of Biblical/Christian ethics: we have to pick up clues scattered throughout the book. But Rebecca Todd Peters is nothing if not passionate. She is another prophet who might just be on to something, and we’d better 'listen up' (as the Americans put it) before global catastrophe strikes."
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Book summary/ Review: In Search of the Good Life: the Ethics of Globalization, by Rebecca Todd Peters (NY: Continuum, 2004).
This morning’s Melbourne Age has an article headed ‘Indonesia plans to sue US mining giant over pollution.’ ‘The world’s largest gold producer (Newmont) has been under investigation over charges that its Indonesian unit, Newmont Minhasa Raya, dumped toxic waste, causing fatal illnesses among residents near its mine on Sulawesi Island.’
~~~
We all saw, on TV, the ‘Seattle battle’ in November 1999, when people dressed as trees, bananas, clowns, monarch butterflies and sea turtles protested at the outcomes of corporate globalization. Why were they trying to disrupt the lawful pursuit of trade and wealth-creation?
Well, consider:
· Trading in foreign securities in the US was 2% of GNP in 1975; by 1997 it had risen to 213%
· By the late 1990s the world’s highest-income one-fifth had 86% of the world’s GDP – the bottom fifth just 1%
· Natural vanilla seeds grown in Madagascar sold on the world markets for $1200 a pound, but two U.S.-based biotechnology firms have developed a way to produce a genetically engineered version of vanilla for $25 a pound. One NGO estimates that more than 100,000 two-thirds world farmers will lose their livelihood as a result
· 35% of the earth’s land is degraded: there, soil loss exceeds soil formation by at least ten times
· In Mexico City’s worst pollution-days, half of its 18 million residents become sick with some respiratory ailment
· Nine of the world’s seventeen major fishing grounds are in decline; four are already ‘fished out’ commercially
· More than 2,000 women, men and children died in oil pipeline explosions in Nigeria 1998-2000
Rebecca Todd Peters is a Christian feminist scholar, who writes from a ‘postmodern’ perspective (she is sceptical about grand narratives) and encourages a commitment to ‘standpoint theory’ (which is sceptical about ‘objectivity’ = ‘a pristine. truth or position’).
She describes four globalization theories, provides an economic and moral analysis of each, and suggests how ‘globalization [may] proceed in ways that are grounded in values that prioritize a democratised understanding of power, encourage care for the planet, and enhance the social well-being of people.’
She suggests three underlying moral questions: ‘What is our context for moral decision-making? What is the telos of human life? What constitutes human flourishing?’
Peters is primarily a theologian/ethicist, rather than an activist. (She offers very few strategies for opposing the injustices practised by transnational corporations like McDonald’s or Monsanto or Nike!).
First, an all-too-simplified summary of her four theories of globalization:
1. ‘Neoliberal’ (theorized by Milton Friedman et. al., promoted by U S President Reagan and Britain’s P M Thatcher, and conferenced at Breton Woods 1944 which established the World Bank and International Monetary Fund). Humans, according to the social elites who run big business, are primarily ‘homo economicus’ – desiring to gain wealth with as little labor as possible. Privatization, deregulation, trade liberalization and open economies on a ‘level playing field’ are at the heart of the neoliberal policy agenda. The theory is that economic growth will make more people wealthy, and as people get richer they’ll want a cleaner environment. But, in the meantime, the environment is becoming degraded, and, overall, wealth isn’t inevitably ‘trickling down’ to the world’s poor. Big-business types have little contact with the social reality of the majority of the world’s people. And economics is never ‘value-free’. A functioning ‘free market’ is a fiction: some government involvement is inevitable (conservatives favour as little as possible; liberals advocate a stronger role for government). McNamara’s World Bank tossed billions of dollars of loans into the ‘two-thirds’ world. Result: ‘Many of the projects displaced whole communities of people, destroyed environment resources, or were so mismanaged they had to be abandoned.’ The moral vision of the neoliberal model emphasizes individualistic self-interest, the value of prosperity as the chief end (or ‘telos’) of human life, and (capitalistic) freedom to seek personal and private goals.
2. ‘Development’ models share a confidence in neoclassical principles, but move beyond ‘laissez-faire’ to recognize the responsibility of governments to protect/care for the most marginalized members of society. The ‘era of development’ was launched by Harry Truman (1949) who articulated humanity’s moral obligation to help the less fortunate (the impetus) through the market’s ability to provide greater prosperity (the means). But the failure of neoliberalism, after the greatest migrations in history – from rural to urban areas – led in the 1990s to a major push for sustainable development, and strong calls for debt forgiveness. Economic health is more than a measure of GDP: it should also take account of indicators of longevity, education, and income per head (Human Development Index, or ‘HDI’). ‘Lean and mean’ corporations ‘downsize’, subcontract work out to the lowest bidder, relocate for tax breaks and cheap labor (often where governments can’t or won’t protect the rights of the poor, or the earth). Results? Terrible smog in Mexico City, indigenous peoples ripped off, ‘casino capitalism’, an international sex/slave trade etc. The HDR 1999 expressed it well: ‘The real wealth of a nation is its people. Development [ought to] create an enabling environment for people to enjoy long, healthy and creative lives.’
3. ‘Earthist’ theo-ethical thinkers assert that ‘profit is not king’, and that the earth and creation are centrally important to a sustainable moral vision for our future. All of life is imbued with sacredness. Environmental or earth justice are concerned about the fate of people – especially those who for generations have lived ‘nearer the earth’; about the land on which they live, and the creatures with which they share the land. Ecologist Thomas Berry says we must move ‘from our human-centred to an earth-centred norm of reality and value.’ The survival of our planet and the life forms it sustains (including our own) are in peril. Further, ‘environmental racism refers to the reality that poor, disadvantaged, and minority communities or “two-thirds” world communities receive the brunt of exposure to environmental toxins and wastes.’ Another worrying phenomenon is the production of genetically modified plants. Monsanto has produced seeds genetically engineered to produce seedless crops: so poor farmers have to continually buy more seed from this very rich transnational company. There are strong moves around the two-thirds world to shift economies back towards the production of food and products for local consumption, and to encourage ‘family farms’ – ‘farming with a face on it’ – again. It is a ‘given’ now that the problem of food supply in our world is not one of quantity but rather one of distribution. In summary, the three core values of the earthist vision of the good life are mutuality, justice, and sustainability.
4. ‘Postcolonial’ theory addresses the plight of the disenfranchised in the two-thirds world whose poverty is related to the destruction of their traditions and cultures by neo-colonial globalization practices. Proponents of this view are highly critical of Eurocentric historiography. This ‘subaltern’ view of history is ‘from the bottom’ – the perspective of those whose lands were stolen by European conquerors. More recently, traditional cultures have been seriously threatened by Western media images of affluence and adventure, luring millions of young people away from their villages/communities to the cities to seek their fortunes. At the same time, Western-educated professionals returned to their home countries and moved into positions of power and influence in government and business, often encouraging indebtedness without concomitant cuts in expenditures, thus falling under the power of the lending countries. Whereas in ‘colonial’ times power was enforced by colonial armies; power is now ultimately wielded by transnational corporations, which commodifies, trivializes or supplants local culture. (‘Kids on the screen in Tokyo have more in common with kids on the screen in London than they do with their parents’ – an MTV executive). So the question for grassroots communities is: ‘Does hegemonic neocolonial globalization symbolized by Coca Cola and McDonalds offer the ‘good life’? How can traditional communities nurture and transmit their precious historical culture in the face of this massive tsunami of global neocolianlism? Western individualistic notions of ‘telos’ are linked with what we DO; in traditional cultures they’re rather who we ARE in relationship with others.
MOVING FORWARD: The Good Life for Whom? While September 11, 2001 is, for Americans as ‘the day the world changed’, innocents in their thousands – whose lives we will never see – are dying every day from preventible diseases, poverty and starvation. The neoliberal vision of the good life is only accessible to the richest 10% of the world’s people.
Peters calls for power-sharing, in the context of community, and a ceding of power from the global to the local. The ‘market’ cannot be trusted to solve poverty and environmental problems. In other words the neoliberal vision of the good life is ‘morally bankrupt on the grounds that it is incompatible with the image of the good life rooted in the Christian tradition that is oriented toward caring for our neighbour and for creation in addition to ourselves.’
Development Globalization with its vision of responsibility, progress and equity, again, must be more critical of economic ‘growth/profit’ paradigms, and must ‘place the earth and all of creation at the center of the moral world.’ ‘[This] approach fails in that it uncritically accepts the possibility that capitalism can be regulated in ways that allow for justice.’
The two capitalistic theories assume a fallacy: that continually rising living standards are a prima facie good. They do not like the question ‘How much is enough?’ Both of these theories are incongruent with a democratized understanding of power, care for the planet, and the social well-being of people.
The Earthist paradigm, with its commitment to mutuality, justice and sustainability, involves a belief that ‘people who are affected by decision-making processes have relevant wisdom to contribute to the conversation. Transnational corporate governance negates local knowledge, livelihood and sustainability.’
Postcolonial Globalization arises from a recognition of the mistreatment and abuse of marginalized people in the global South, and argues that ‘many of the social changes that have contributed to a loss of community in the modern era can be traced to the effects of corporate globalization.’ It emphasizes the values of community, a respect for culture, communal autonomy, and the democratization of power (involving local people in decision-making). This vision is also implicitly ecocentric.
So a fundamental ideological divide separates the neoliberal and development models of globalization, and the two ‘resistance positions’. ‘Reform’ of capitalist systems is probably not possible, says Peters, given the power of individualism and greed. So any strategy for moving forward must involve dialogue and strategy-building between the adherents of the Earthist and Postcolonial models, affirming the value of voluntary simplicity, but also addressing structural injustice wherever it exists. Peters resists the notion that all this is naïve or utopian or both: we desperately need ‘a new paradigm of globalization [reimagining] the spheres of economics, politics and civil society.’ We must affirm that the ultimate purpose of business should not be simply to make money, or be simply a system of making and selling things. Business ought to increase the general well-being of humankind, which includes meaningful work, safe working conditions, a living wage, respecting cultural diversity, listening to the voices of the marginalized, and restructuring towards genuine democratization (which is implicit in the biblical vision of justice).
We must face the stark recognition, she writes, that ‘the earth cannot sustain continued growth and industrial capitalism in its present form, but equally important is our recognition that the human spirit cannot sustain the fragmented and atomized social order generated by the current models of globalization.’
So a serious question has to be ‘How much profit is enough?’ ‘The sins of overconsumption, indifference, and greed are. subtly woven into the fabric of our culture, and even our religion.’
This book is not an easy read for two reasons: the ‘shame factor’ of course, and also it’s probably too close to ‘academic dissertation language’. Someone like David Suzuki or E F Schumacher or Ralph Nader might have made it more palatable for the general reader. It’s a theoretical approach, so there are few if any suggestions about how ordinary folks like us can engage in the battle for community and justice and the survival of the planet. There is also no coherent exposition of a paradigm of Biblical/Christian ethics: we have to pick up clues scattered throughout the book. But Rebecca Todd Peters is nothing if not passionate. She is another prophet who might just be on to something, and we’d better ‘listen up’ (as the Americans put it) before global catastrophe strikes.
Discuss:
1. According to Ayn Rand, laissez-faire capitalism is the system in which individuals produce goods and services that they trade with one another based on mutual consent, not on the use of force or fraud. Capitalism is a moral system based on respect for the equal rights of individuals to pursue their own rational self-interest, and it rewards people for their achievements. Political philosopher and Ayn Rand expert, Dr. Edward Hudgins notes, “Rand was virtually alone in celebrating the virtues of productive, innovative individuals and the wealth they create.” So what’s wrong with that?
2. Where would you fit Australian Prime Minister John Howard’s and Treasurer Peter Costello’s Industrial Relations vision for Australia into the four schemas above?
3. ‘Economics is a discipline, a field of study, to help people attain their goals; it is not, or should not be, the ideology that sets those goals’ (Sallie McFague). Discuss.
4. Will greed and self-interest on a massive scale be solved by discussion/debate? Or is some deeper ‘spiritual surgery’ required?
5. What can one person do about structural injustice in our society?
6. Jesus expected his disciples to discern the ‘signs of the times’: “You can look at the earth and the sky and predict the weather; why, then, don’t you know the meaning of this present time?” (Luke 12:56). Identify two or three of the dominant “Powers that Be” on the global scene. Which of the four theories of globalization seems to be driving the behaviour of each one?
7. Which of the four theories of globalization most closely aligns with Jesus’ teaching and demonstration of the Kingdom of God? Which is the least aligned?
8. Review “Powers that Be” on the global scene identified in response to Question 6, and their apparent driving ideologies, in the light of your answers to Question 7. Can you discern whether each is likely to be promoting or hindering the emergence of the Kingdom of God?
9. Imagine a group of committed Christians who hold exactly the opposite viewpoints to your group, i.e. they arrive at completely different answers to Question 8 than your group, and moreover they support their position with multiple scripture references. How would you engage in constructive dialogue with such a group?
10. Do you believe in the value of “free enterprise” (i.e. independent business centres of creativity)? If so list the positive features of such business organizations which would encourage you to be involved with integrity. Do the same positives apply to a publicly traded corporation? Consider this statement by Anita Roddick, founder of “The Body Shop” (and later voted off her own Board – her philosophy was to negotiate win/win agreements with her suppliers in Third World – too generous!): “This obsession for maximizing profits to shareholders has got to be seen as abusive, as dangerous, and as one of the most appalling situations on this planet, because it makes for criminal behaviour”.
11. If you had some responsibility for Career Guidance in a Christian or State secondary school, how would reading this book affect your presentation of alternatives to senior students making careeer choices?
12. Assume you chose “Accountancy” after leaving school. Now at 30 and well qualified, you have been offered a job with a transnational corporation with considerable career prospects. How would reading this book affect the questions you ask before your decision? What issues does it raise for you?
13. Individuals and churches are “small change” when it comes to global issues, and it can seem “all too much”! Can your group share information about larger groups like “Micah Challenge”, or AFTINET (Australians for Fair Trade & Investment Network)… groups that are well-informed and focussed upon where action is needed against exploitation or environmental vandalism.
14. Governments, both State and Commonwealth, claim that they can legislate to protect against any damaging consequences of the actions of global corporations focussed only on making extortionate profits. From your awareness of recent and current events, how effective is any government control? Who determines, and how do they arrive at, the values which underpin government regulatory control over global corporations?
(Thanks to three friends who suggested some of these questions).
Rowland Croucher
March 2005
QUOTED: "There seems to be a concerted effort among abortion activists to pervert Christian teachings by using religious arguments to justify killing unborn babies. A new book by Presbyterian minister Rebecca Todd Peters pushes the notion that killing an unborn baby is not wrong."
Presbyterian Minister Writes New Book to Make the “Christian Argument for Abortion”
National Micaiah Bilger Feb 23, 2018 | 7:10PM Washington, DC
There seems to be a concerted effort among abortion activists to pervert Christian teachings by using religious arguments to justify killing unborn babies.
A new book by Presbyterian minister Rebecca Todd Peters pushes the notion that killing an unborn baby is not wrong.
In “Trust Women: A Progressive Christian Argument for Reproductive Justice” from Beacon Press, Todd Peters argues for abortion from a religious perspective.
Todd Peters, who also is a professor at Elon University, wrote, “The starting point of our ethical conversation should be women’s lives, [yet] the problem that we face in this country is our failure to trust women to act as rational, capable, responsible moral agents.”
Here’s more from Publishers Weekly’s review of her book:
For Peters, who is open about having had abortions, there are big problems with the way Christians and Catholics frame moral questions around abortion and women. She writes that they employ a “justification paradigm” in which the default expectation is for women to bear children if they get pregnant, and they must “justify their moral decision” to do otherwise. Peters’s book is dense with the history of women’s rights, as well as analysis of patriarchal oppression and the ways the church, legislators, and businesses have tried to control and govern women’s bodies. This theologically astute and social justice–minded book will appeal to progressive Christians who are interested in reclaim-ing abortion as an issue of women’s health and could easily become part of the required reading for an array of university courses.
Elon University had this to say about her book: “Her most recent work is developing a Christian ethic of reproductive justice as the framework for thinking about women’s whole reproductive lives, including everything from access to contraception to fertility treatments to unplanned pregnancies. … This new project also focuses on helping people think in more sophisticated ways about how pregnancy challenges our existing moral categories of personhood and life.”
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Todd Peters is a minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), a liberal protestant denomination whose pastors sometimes promote abortion in contradiction to traditional Christian church teachings about the sanctity of life.
Christianity teaches that every human life is created in the image of God and therefore is valuable from the moment of conception to natural death. The Bible describes the “shedding of innocent blood” as one of the seven things that God hates the most, and murder is wrong. The teachings are simple and clear: Human life is valuable, and killing innocent humans is wrong. Why can’t abortion activists put these two teachings together and understand that abortion is abhorrently wrong?
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