Resurrecting Feminist Religious Activist Education to Contest Anti-CRT, Anti-LGBTQI, and Anti-BDS Legislation: How to Innovate Cultural Change in a Time of Surveillance

In a climate of increased educational surveillance—much of it powered by the white Christian religious right—this paper argues from the lineages of feminist of color history and critical pedagogy that it is necessary to support innovative sites of education outside traditional academy. To that end, I discuss the contemplative and critical pedagogies I have used to build alternative classrooms for Christian clergy to study at the intersections of feminist/queer/anti-racist historical change and religious history. This paper suggests that studying how and why these histories of change have been erased is itself a vital democratic habit. I link scholarship in ethnic studies, feminist studies, and religious history to explore how teaching clergy and empowering their creative public voices in justice work—from racial justice in the U.S. to Palestinian rights— is one model of enacting transformative, innovative education and contesting anti-CRT, anti-LGBTQI, and anti-BDS laws.