It turns out that the proverbial old witch in the woods has much to teach the faithful about liberating feminine wisdom from Christian patriarchy.
Angela J. Herrington, a spiritual coach and author whose “Embracing the Old Witch in the Woods” was published in October, was a recent guest on “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast.” Listen to her 62-minute conversation with hosts the Rev. Lee Catoe and Simon Doong here.
The majority of Christian theology is “rooted in this idea that the first woman broke the world by being disobedient, by being selfish and manipulative,” Herrington told the hosts. “That’s what we’re taught.”
In the Bible, the second main pillar is Mary, the mother of Jesus, “who is the exact opposite, we’re told, of Eve,” Herrington said. “Either we’re perfect or we break the world. We bounce back and forth between ‘I want to be good, but oh, I’m made bad.’”
Women are taught “that it’s very tempting to flip to the other side and be the evil woman, the manipulative woman, if it serves us,” she said. “We’re raised to be responsible not only for ourselves, but for all the people around us, without ever acknowledging that other people are responsible for themselves.” That can leave women “depleted and edgy and spiritually can be just devastating.”
“I’ve seen so many people walk away from the church because everything they were taught in church was suffocating any sort of spiritual connection or any sort of spiritual flourishing. It was actually healthier for them to leave,” Herrington said. “I’m not mad at people for leaving. I’m mad at us as a church for making leaving the better option for someone who is spiritually hungry for connection.”
Noting that witch language has long been demonized, Catoe asked Herrington to talk about it.
“Before the outline for the book was even cemented, this visual of the old witch in the woods was there,” Herrington said, adding that to her, “everything we are told to be afraid of, everything we’re told not to be, everything that is naturally strong and resilient and wise within us that threatens unjust systems” has been ”labeled the old witch.”
The old witch who lives in the woods is there either by choice or “because she’s been pushed out there by the community that doesn’t understand her. She has no redeeming value in the eyes of a system that wants to exploit people,” Herrington said. “Maybe we shouldn’t be afraid of that. Maybe we shouldn’t be afraid of our intuition or our generational connection with our ancestors. Maybe we shouldn’t be afraid of our bodies in the way we’ve been taught to.”
Why, Herrington wondered, “is this little old woman who knows how to give you herbs when you’ve hurt yourself, knows how to make a poultice for a cut, knows how to deliver a baby or when the wind is changing — why is that the biggest evil in the world? The answer is it’s a threat to evil systems that want to exploit people and want to commodify those services.”
Asked by Doong how men can help empower women to resist patriarchy, Herrington had a frank response: “You can’t, until you root out your own bias, until you figure out what pieces of you unknowingly uphold that system,” she said. “If we go barging into vulnerable populations wanting to be an ally with the best of intentions but we haven’t done our own work, all we’re doing is undermining those healthy little pockets of people and putting the responsibility of fixing us on their shoulders, when they’re already facing these huge oppressive systems.”
Do some work first, she suggested. “Make sure you have people helping you with the work and that you’re compensating them for their time,” Herrington said. The people who benefit most from an unjust system “should be shouldering the majority of the weight for fixing it,” she said, “and that includes figuring out where we still benefit from it.”
New episodes of “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast” drop every Thursday. Listen to previous editions here.
Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service (Click here to read original PNS Story)
Let us join in prayer for:
Jonathon Talbott, Administrative Support I/Receptionist, Operations, The Presbyterian Foundation
Tom Taylor. President and CEO, Executive Office, The Presbyterian Foundation
Let us pray:
Gracious God, you have called us to bring your good news to all people. Help us to minister faithfully in our congregations and neighborhoods to your children of all ages, so that all will know of your love. In the matchless name of Jesus. Amen.
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