Deconstructing Patriarchy, Reconstructing Faith: How a Bible Study Critiquing Patriarchy Increased Connectedness Público
Plating, Kendra (Spring 2024)
Abstract
This project centered around a bible study I composed and taught over a 4 week period in 2023 at a Baptist church in the South. The bible study was entitled, Finding Freedom: Releasing the Bible from Patriarchy’s Grip, and it sought to create a resonance of the problem of patriarchy in our lives and in our churches, and to give ways to imagine living faith differently than we do under patriarchy’s influence. The question that I sought to answer in writing a bible study offering a critical education around the notion of patriarchy was how such an understanding would affect the faith of those who chose to participate. Knowing that patriarchy has been present in every era of Christian history made me wonder how hard it would be to disentangle patriarchy from a practical Christian faith. In essence, it made me wonder if a believer could both “deconstruct” faith and “reconstruct” faith at the same time; in essence, to remove the harmful ways patriarchy has been centralized in Christian faith, while rebuilding new understandings and connections to central elements of faith. To measure the bible study’s effect on participants’ faith, attendees were asked to fill out an online survey after our first meeting and after our last meeting. The surveys asked participants to self-report their connectedness to God, Christ, the Bible, the local congregation of First Baptist Greenville, and the Christian Tradition. The results of these surveys revealed that over the course of the bible study “connectedness” increased on average across every demographic (age, gender, and number of years of attendance) and in every category (God, Christ, the Bible, First Baptist Greenville, and the Christian Tradition) measured. The demographics reporting the most positive change in connectedness were males and those under 60 years old.
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Deconstructing Patriarchy, Reconstructing Faith: How a Bible Study Critiquing Patriarchy Increased Connectedness () | 2024-04-29 18:09:56 -0400 |
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