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A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Canon Anne Easter

Good morning!

Today, May the thirtieth, the Church remembers Josephine Butler, an English feminist and social reformer who was born in 1828. Josephine was an extraordinary woman, well ahead of her time, who, when her youngest child died in an accident, decided that the best way to deal with her grief was to try to help others who less fortunate than herself so she went to the local workhouse and listened to the women there.

Hearing their stories, Josephine went on to campaign for a number of feminist causes, including the right of girls to better and equal education and for an end to the human trafficking that took girls and young women to Europe as prostitutes.

There are some who’d say that the term Christian feminist is an oxymoron, given the blatant discrimination that the church has practised towards women over the years, but Josephine saw her work very much as the manifestation of her faith which, she wrote, was in God to whom she prayed direct, she didn’t bother with the church as intermediary!

Two hundred years later, feminist causes still need to be championed – the average hourly earnings of women in this country is overall still fifteen percent less than that of men.

While the Bible inevitably reflects the social culture of its day, it seems very clear to me that Jesus bucked those trends. He included all those who were often excluded, especially women. He listened to women’s views and used positive examples of women in his stories – even suggesting that women could be like God in the story of the lost coin, for example.

God, help us to enjoy the diversity of all those around us but to treat each person we meet equally and honourably.

Amen

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