Carter Heyward
Carter Heyward
Isabel Carter Heywardis a lesbian feminist theologian, teacher and priest in the Episcopal Church – the province of the worldwide Anglican Communion in the United States...
love-is choices rational
Love is a choice -- not simply, or necessarily, a rational choice, but rather a willingness to be present to others without pretense or guile.
names religion world
I'm a priest, not a priestess. Priestess implies mumbo jumbo and all sorts of pagan goings-on. Those who oppose us would love to call us priestesses. They can call us all the names in the world -- it's better than being invisible.
world lovers
Lovers re-create the world.
god people our-relationship
God reveals herself through our relationships not only to other people but also to other creatures and nature.
forgiving forget members
To forgive is not to forget, but rather to re-member whatever has been dismembered.
church action dramatic
It's obvious throughout secular and church history that significant legislation follows only after dramatic action.
community movement creeds
We are born in relation, we live in relation, we die in relation. There is, literally, no such human place as simply "inside myself." Nor is any person, creed, ideology, or movement entirely "outside myself."
light darkness risk
But doubt is a crucial to faith as darkness is to light. Without one, the other has no context and is meaningless. Faith is, by definition, uncertainty. It is full of doubt, steeped in risk. It is about matters not of the known, but of the unknown.
faith mysterious surprising
Faith is the new, the mysterious, the surprising. Nobody has ever been there before.
christian religious reality
If we are to live with our feet on the ground, in touch with reality, we must help one another accept the fact that we who are christian are heirs to a body-despising, woman-fearing, sexually repressive religious tradition. If we are to continue as members of the church, we must challenge and transform it at the root. What is required is more than simply a "reformation." I am speaking of revolutionary transformation. Nothing less will do.
god believe thinking
the very minute we think we 'have' God, God will surprise us. As we search in fire and earthquakes, God will be in the still small voice. As we listen in silent meditation, God will be shouting protests in the street. God is warning us that we had best not try to find our security in any well-defined concept or category of what is Godly - for the minute we believe we are into God, God is off again and calling us forth into some unknown place.
sweet inspirational-love heart
Love, like truth and beauty, is concrete. Love is not fundamentally a sweet feeling; not, at heart, a matter of sentiment, attachment, or being "drawn toward." Love is active, effective, a matter of making reciprocal and mutually beneficial relation with one's friends and enemies.
god names creative
For god is nothing other than the eternally creative source of our relational power, our common strength, a god whose movement is to empower, bringing us into our own together, a god whose name in history is love ...
peace blessing creating
The only theology worth doing is that which inspires and transforms lives, that which empowers us to participate in creating, liberating, and blessing the world.