Confessions of a
former feminist
Feminism, women's liberation, and the idea that men and women are no
different from each other have led many of us down dead-end roads --
often away from faith.
Lorraine Murray, in her book, Confessions of an Ex-Feminist (Ignatius
Press, 2008), tells the story of her own walk down that road and back,
with many illuminating lessons on everything from abortion to the
anti-religious bias on college campuses.
Murray grew up in a Christian home, eagerly attending Mass at church,
and absorbing what she was taught in the Catholic schools she
attended. Against the advice of one of her teachers, she decided
to study at a secular college, and it was there that her faith and her
values began to unravel. As she describes it, up until then,
she'd rarely run into people who didn't believe in God. In
college, it seemed as though no one did. She writes that she
began to equate becoming an adult with turning her back on God.
watch commentary icon smallShe lapped up feminist ideology and rejected
the morality and values she'd been taught, including those about
abortion. Like most of her peers, she began having relationships
with men. But as an avowed feminist, she couldn't understand the
emotional pain she suffered when the relationships ended. By her
own admission, she was searching for Prince Charming, even though she
knew she was supposed to be unconcerned with commitment.
After her mother's death while in graduate school, Murray, in her own
words, "launched a vendetta against God," doing her best to convince
her students that God didn't exist.
She offers interesting insight into how being a college professor
allowed her to do that. "As my philosophy students tackled topics
like the meaning of life and the existence of God, I knew that,
ideally, instructors are supposed to remain neutral. But I also
recalled, from my own college days, how skillfully some professors had
dodged this expectation." She writes that there are innumerable
ways professors let their students know what they want to hear:
"a chuckle, a grimace, or a wink and a nod."
Her attitude about politics was much the same. Having become a
staunch liberal, she writes that like many professors, she "assumed
college was the place to challenge and dismantle traditions.
Conservative thought, almost by definition, was the dragon to slay in
the classroom, and few students had the courage to disagree with a
strongly opinionated professor."
Nonetheless, she writes that she believes the "Hound of Heaven" was
pursuing her, in ways large and small. She got married, and
recounts about a memorable experience she had while spending time with
her husband in Cedar Key, Florida. Anchored out in the gulf on a
small boat, they suddenly heard a loud splash and saw the heads of two
manatees pop out of the water. The manatees peered at them before
disappearing underwater again. "The atheist in the boat," Murray
writes, "stunned by their eyes, which seemed so deeply innocent and
mysterious, now uttered a rather strange statement: 'It was like
looking into the face of God!'" Later she would write in her
journal that she believed she'd gotten a glimpse of God's face here on
earth.
After dinner one night, the image of a nearby church flashed into her
mind. She asked her husband to take a walk there with her to see
it, and he did. Once home again, they talked about their
childhood beliefs about God and religion. And she confided in him
about her "perplexing feeling that 'someone' was calling me.'"
Both of them decided they wanted to explore further, and they met with
a local Catholic priest. Kneeling in the church, Murray
remembered the story of the Good Shepherd going after the one lost
sheep. That night, for the first time in 20 years, she prayed:
"Help me to believe."
Murray then movingly tells readers the story of the abortion she'd had
years before. "No one," she writes, "had prepared me for the
flashbacks, which began about a year after the 'procedure'....I would
relive the experience....I started having upsetting reactions to
babies....A question started plaguing me: How old would my baby have
been now?"
Murray's "plaguing question" about how old her baby would be
immediately reminded me of a post I read just last night on the
pro-abort blog, My abortion & related incidents. This was written
January 7, 9-1/2 months after eve had her abortion:
Murray described having upsetting reactions to babies. So did eve in
this post written about 2 weeks after her abortion:
A couple other confessions from our pro-abort post-abortive friend, all
in one paragraph, written 2 days after her abortion. Eve doesn't
realize she's describing feelings of having been raped, which some
post-abortive mothers say they do feel, as well as suspicions about an
sexually exploitive and selfish boyfriend:
I fully expected eve to have broken up with her boyfriend by now,
because over 90% of post-abortive couples split, but they are still
together. I still say it's a matter of time.
Finally, eve demonstrates the schizophrenia of abortion-minded mothers
and with refreshing candor expresses why over 90% of abortions are
committed - for me, me, me. This was written last March 19, the day eve
found out she was pregnant and almost 3 weeks before aborting:
Abortion is just the saddest thing ever.
One night, her husband, Jef, encouraged her to attend an Advent penance
service, where confessions would be heard. It had been years
since she'd been to confession, but reluctantly, she went. With
tears streaming down her face, this former feminist and long-time
defender of abortion told the priest what she'd done. He
explained that just as Jesus had said on the cross, "Father, forgive
them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34), Jesus would forgive
her, too.
Lorraine Murray (author)Months later, however, Murray was still filled
with self-recrimination about her abortion. She believed that God
had forgiven her, but couldn't forgive herself. She started
meeting regularly with a woman from a group called PATH (Post-Abortion
Treatment and Healing), and after many months, began to heal.
Years later she came across a quote in The Privilege of Being a Woman
which reminded her of how this woman had helped her: "Those who devote
their loving attention to [women who have had abortions] know that the
wound created in their souls is so deep that only God's grace can heal
it."
She and Jef began working with four nuns from the Missionaries of
Charity, who had been sent to the U.S. to open a home for women with
AIDS. "The nuns were the furthest thing from self-centered and
the last people in the world to defend their rights or to assert
themselves. In my days as an ardent feminist, I would have
scoffed at how meek and unselfassuming they were. They weren't
concerned about goals, accomplishments, or applause."
Another former radical feminist turned Christian, Elizabeth
Fox-Genovese, helped Murray to understand the incompatibility of the
two belief systems. "In a book review, [Fox-Genovese] suggested
that radical feminists balked at the possibility that one could be both
pro-woman and Catholic. She believed this was due to an inherent
disconnect in feminism concerning the notion of service, which is the
core of Christianity for both men and women."
The selflessness she'd seen in the nuns was antithetical to everything
she'd believed as a feminist. They were about putting others
first, not themselves. They were about service, not success.
Like so many of us, Murray took the tempting bait the world has to
offer. But, as she puts it, the "Hound of Heaven" kept tugging at
the line until finally she came home again.
Contact: Marcia Segelstein
Source:
OneNewsNow, jillstanek.com
Publish
Date:
January 26-27, 2010
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