Midwives

Sarah James 10-31-2022
An ancient illustration of Mary giving birth to Jesus with the help of midwives as they are surrounded by animals.

“The Nativity,” from Ethiopian manuscript Nagara Māryām (1730-1755)

IN THE EIGHTH season of Call the Midwife, set in post-war east London, nuns and nurse midwives of Nonnatus House assist a woman with severe complications from a “backstreet” abortion. Sister Julienne says to a young nurse, “The word ‘midwife’ means ‘with-woman.’ A woman in that situation needs somebody by her side.”

I’m pro-choice, which was an unpopular stance in the Catholic community I grew up in. For my views on reproductive rights, people in youth group called me a “baby killer” and “Pontius Pilate.” During Advent, specifically, I loathed the hollow teachings on Mary and childbirth. We sanitized the Nativity into a cute story — the equivalent of a Disney movie featuring a white family and a manger crowded with men. Only recently did I learn that some scholars believe that midwives attended Jesus’ birth. As reproductive freedom and care are further undermined in the United States, this is an apt time to reclaim a more feminist view of the Nativity and rethink Advent as the season of the midwife.

10-27-2022
A graphic illustration of Vanessa Nakate, a young Black female activist with shoulder-length black hair and a jacket. She holds a megaphone; an orange background with blue, green, and red geometric shapes is behind her.

Cover design by Cássia Roriz

Activist Vanessa Nakate on Jesus, erasure, and the climate crisis in the Horn of Africa.

Julie Clawson 3-09-2009
Shortly after I took a position as Children's Ministry Director at a small Baptist church, I sat down with the kids under my care and asked them what questions they would like to ask God.
Vincent G. Harding 12-09-2008

I think it was sometime early in 2007 that I began to find myself almost possessed by a profound premonitory sense that the next year, this year, 2008, would be filled with a special power.

Anna Almendrala 7-18-2008

In the first weekend of June I watched some au naturel how-to videos on the oldest profession in the world.

Anyone who's read The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant, knows that I'm talking about the ancient practice of women supporting other women in childbirth. The assisting woman, whom today we would call either a midwife (medical training) or a doula (comfort techniques training), [...]