Woman was defined as body only, historically. Man was mind and
soul, the "better" part. As body, woman was dangerous, the
home of lust, the issuer of defiling blood; she was chaos—like the
sea, she only answered to the moon. She was without conscience and
mind enough to know the way of righteousness on her own.
Yet women have always been mystics and preachers, prophets and
teachers, servants and leaders, as well as whores, virgins, and
mothers.
Women have talked about God—have sought, defied, laughed with,
cursed, praised, wept for, and pondered God. But their knowledge has
been divided up, boxed away, and ignored, except for glimmers in the
story, in the tradition—the name of the house church leader, the
writings of a mystic, the story of a girl raped and killed. And in
that boxing up, creation itself has been divided, defiled. The full
revelation of God has been packed away.
Feminist theology is, in part, the effort to reunite body and soul.
It is the effort for women to reclaim the power of speech, the power
to tell what they know about God, to question the tradition that tried
to take away their God-given voice, to create new expressions of the
life of faith. As with all passionate endeavors, it can be both
controversial and a rich source of life and energy in the church.
Questions that are raised by feminist theology, even by women who
fiercely claim the Christian tradition, can seem to strike at the very
foundations of that faith. Alternative expressions of spirituality
that emerge as women explore life with God on their own terms can seem
too strange, new, different.
But we have to place theology in its proper context. It has never
been an exact science or a world of once-and-for-all pronouncements. A
theologian is always exploring the shifting places where revelation,
tradition, his or her current circumstances, and mystery meet.
Uncertainty is intrinsic to authentic theology; God cannot be caged.
In the same way, rituals aren’t equations to be completed in just
the right way to catch God’s attention; they are hypotheses to be
tested and adjusted, again and again. Deep, eternal truths will
manifest themselves in changing circumstances, but some elements of
tradition will fall away, take new forms, or return to their original
intent. (In this way, the sinful church is called again and again to
understand that the liberation of Exodus will always trump cultural
justifications for slavery.)
FEMINIST THEOLOGY BRINGS feminist theory into the conversation
about God. Just as there is not one "feminist position,"
there is not a single feminist theology, even if one focuses on the
Christian faith. Rather, feminist theology is a stream of
interpretations and emphases, welling up from some shared assumptions,
but with different currents and streamlets, at many points feeding
into or being fed by other traditions.
What insights does feminist theory offer? Feminism asserts that
historically what has been called the human understanding of
the world has more often than not been subsumed in men’s understanding
of the world. Human nature and the cosmos have been defined from the
point of view of men’s experience, and further, women’s experience
and perspective have been suppressed. As Maria Riley has written (Sojourners,
July 1987), "Patriarchy includes those symbols, language
patterns, attitudes, structures, systems, and social and cultural
mores that constantly impress upon all women their inferiority and
dependency."
Feminism holds that women are, in contrast to the implications of
patriarchy, fully human and fully equal. In light of this, women and
men of conscience must name oppression, think about its sources, and
claim their own understanding of reality. This counters the dualism
that is dominant in much of human culture, which starts (consciously
or not) from an assumption that authentic selfhood is male, with
female being the "other," a deviant from the
"norm."
Among the basic agreements and assumptions shared among feminist
theologians is that most traditional theology is in fact patriarchal,
created with men as its norm and men as its primary audience.
(Although some women mystics and prophets in every age have been the
exception to this patriarchal norm.)
Another commonly agreed upon understanding is that such theology is
not only distorted and limiting of God’s creation in theory, but
helps to shape worldviews, culture, and actions. Theology that
denigrates women supports—even sacralizes—behavior, attitudes, and
structures that do the same in society.
Finally, feminist theologians agree that women need to create
theology. Women need to develop alternative interpretations of
theological sources (such as scripture and tradition) that have been
misused to oppress, and to seek other sources from the vantage point
of women’s experience.
There is not a single feminist theological method. A given
Christian feminist theology, like any other specific example of
Christian theology, may draw more heavily from some sources than
others, and may hold different parts of tradition as more
authoritative than others. The church tradition of a feminist
theologian will often influence whether she or he concentrates more
on, for example, church teaching, scripture, or the authenticity of
new revelation through the Holy Spirit.
MOST CHRISTIAN FEMINIST theologians fall within a broad range that
has been called liberation feminism. Their primary interest is the
liberation of women with the eventual goal of human liberation of all
sorts. Such feminists may view scripture as their central authority or
as just one of several (including tradition, other writings, and
women’s experience).
Others take women’s experience as the primary norm for assessing
theology: Is this theology credible to women’s experience? In other
words, if it can be used to promote the interests of a small group
over those of the whole, if in any way it can be used to deem women
non-persons, it is not credible, no matter what place it has held in
Christian tradition.
Theologians who claim a Christian identity fall within the
"reform" approach of feminist theology. Individually they
may claim any number of the above criteria for authority (scripture;
combination of scripture, tradition, and experience; or women’s
experience alone), but they have also made a primary affiliation or
commitment to the Christian community of faith or the non-patriarchal
vision demonstrated by Jesus. Other theologians have firmly decided
that the Christian tradition can in no way be redeemed from patriarchy
(what has been termed a "rejectionist" approach) and now
would be termed post-Christian.
While acknowledging the ways the Bible has been used as
justification for women’s subordination, some Christian feminists
affirm that moving throughout scripture and proclaimed and
demonstrated by Jesus Christ is an egalitarian, mutual, all-inclusive
vision of what God calls creation to become. This biblical feminism
takes the Bible as both the source for theology and the primary
authority or norm for its authenticity.
Letha Scanzoni and Nancy Hardesty wrote All We’re Meant to Be in
the late 1970s, a landmark book based on an evangelical feminist,
non-literal reading of the Bible. Using critical methods, research of
tradition, and comparison of different passages, biblical feminists
assess it holistically. Some verses are then held to be less
authoritative for our times because they reflect specific cultural
circumstances (such as 1 Timothy 2:11-12, "Let a woman learn in
silence in full submission..."), rather than universal doctrinal
statements.
Letty Russell, a Presbyterian minister (based in Harlem for many
years) and theologian, argues (as has Rosemary Radford Ruether) that a
"liberating tradition" located in the Bible’s
"‘prophetic-messianic’ message" serves as a
self-critique of the Bible itself and critiques all structures of
oppression. Russell emphasizes theology as action, relationship, and
reflection—the shared work of communities (comprised of all
different sorts of people) of struggle and faith. She sees the
biblical story as "open-ended," being continued by those who
struggle against oppression "in the light of hope in God’s
promise."
Others explore theology and ritual through gatherings of primarily
(although often not exclusively) women for alternative worship
ceremonies that explore symbols from both inside and outside of
Christian tradition that speak to women. These include the member
groups of the predominantly Catholic "Women-church" network,
and a multitude of independent groups, affiliated with churches and
not, ecumenical and interfaith, clergywomen groups and lay.
These broad approaches can serve as markers in the flow or range of
Christian feminist theology. It is best not to make idols of
categories, however, for often a theological position is really a
hybrid of different approaches. For example, Sojourners has maintained
a feminist position that is deeply rooted in the central authority of
scripture. And active, concrete pursuit of liberation for all peoples
also has been intrinsic to Sojourners’ understanding of the
Christian message.
OTHER APPROACHES TO feminist theological work arise to address the
fact that the women’s experience cited as key to feminism and
feminist theology has often meant white, middle-class women’s
experience. White women feminists can be racist and classist (actively
or passively). Feminists have not always been aware that both their
diagnosis of oppression and definitions of liberation have drawn from
a dominant culture that might not have the same truth in the
experience of the African-American woman, the Latina woman, the Asian
woman, the Appalachian woman, and so on.
But creating "hierarchies of suffering" isn’t
especially helpful for anyone; neither is allowing those whose primary
interest is the preservation of the status quo, not the elimination of
sexism or racism, to pit women against one another. And as Susan
Thistlethwaite, a theologian who also counsels domestic abuse victims,
notes, patriarchy can kill racially and financially privileged women
too.
Still, different experience draws forth different analysis and must
claim different roots. Many black women have claimed the term "womanist"
to describe themselves as black feminists, distinct from black males
and white feminists. (For a review of three recent womanist works, see
"Wading in the Water," by Cheryl J. Sanders, August 1994).
Latina mujerista theologians such as Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz,
Korean theologian Chung Hyun Chung, Chinese theologian Kwok Pui-Lan,
and many, many others create new expressions of Christian faith that
are specific to their culture and place.
White feminism has often talked of a sort of universal
"sisterhood." Womanist theologian Jacquelyn Grant writes
that "sisterhood" or "partnership" between black
women and white might not be possible, since often it would be nothing
more than reconciliation without liberation or repentance. But
"coalition" might be the answer—"temporary alliance
for some specific purpose." Various forms of oppression—racism,
classism, sexism, and imperialism—are all interconnected, Grant
contends. No one of them can be eliminated by challenging them
separately. Black women cannot simply put aside two-thirds of their
"triple burden" of race, sex, and class to engage in
sisterhood.
These insights have been working their way throughout current
feminist theology, with white theologians such as Thistlethwaite
critiquing the lack of attention to difference in women’s experience
within the dominant white feminist movement. While a case could be
made that feminism and feminist theology have always made some
interconnection between systems of oppression, such connections—and
the need for autonomy and acknowledgment of conflict among different
groups of women—are becoming both more intrinsic to all feminist
theology and more concrete.
Elizabeth Bettenhausen notes that while the naming and active work
of resistance to oppression is now often trivialized and dismissed,
people of faith are no less called to do justice. Multiple aspects of
human existence are marginalized and designated as inferior in the
United States: "Sex, race, class, sexual orientation, age,
physical ability, mental condition—even this is the short
list," Bettenhausen asserts. All subjugation is what those who
would call themselves feminist must work to actively resist.
This interconnection of work for justice, among women of very
different backgrounds and theological self-definitions, may be one of
the most exciting and much-needed ways that feminist theological work
can feed the church as it goes into the next century. Deep connections
have already been made between environmental concerns and feminist
theology (as both work to reunite spiritual understandings with the
body, whether the human body or the body of creation.)
Likewise, many feminist theologians are investigating (and working
against) many edges of pain and brokenness in the world that have been
neglected (and often implicitly sustained, via sexual repression and
denial) by the church. Prostitution, the global sex trade, sexual
abuse in the church, and child abuse are being treated seriously by
theologians as places of deep pain and injustice that must be
spiritually addressed, as places where God must be, and as places
where previously unheard stories of faith and doubt, healing and
crucifixion, are told.
FEMINIST THEOLOGY USUALLY evokes strong reactions, positive and
negative, but often negative. An event like the November 1993
"Re-Imagining" conference, a gathering to explore women’s
concepts of God, Jesus, church, sexuality, and family, is still
drawing angry fire from many members of the sponsoring denominations
10 months later, and has resulted in the forced resignation of at
least one national Presbyterian staff person because of the
controversy. Some of the tension about Re-Imagining has arisen from
isolated incidents being pulled out of context to characterize the
whole event negatively, and conversely, from inadequate dialogue about
feminist theology with people in the pews.
But lurking beneath much of the strong emotion, the fear that
arises around an event like the Re-Imagining conference, is the primal
belief that woman is indeed inherently "pagan" or even
"demonic." Some women, whether post-Christian or of other
faith origins, have in fact freely claimed "pagan" roots or
God-dess worship. Some might, as human beings are wont to do, assume
that they have found the only true path and reject women who maintain
ties to patriarchal religious traditions.
But this is a long way from the assumption bandied about by many
critics of feminist theology that all woman-centered spiritual
exploration, organizing, analysis, and challenge is inherently outside
of the Christian tradition, or leading people to the door. It is also
a long way from assuming that most women who have chosen to consider
themselves post-Christian maintain a goal of drawing other women
"away from the faith."
Many women have freely chosen to claim deep roots in Christian
tradition and scripture and a firm commitment to challenging
pervasive male domination. There can be very real contradictions in
doing so. There are those (both from a Christian perspective and from
a feminist perspective) who say it is impossible. But there is no such
thing as a life of faith, a meeting of human being and mystery, that
does not have contradictions, paradoxes, and questions.
Such women do not lack human conscience with which to discern the
authenticity of their path and their experience of Spirit and God. (It
must also be made clear that women who choose other faith explorations
or traditions or no faith at all also make their choices from full
human conscience as well.) Women who claim feminism are not somehow
more or less vulnerable to idolatry than the priest who thirsts for
power, the literalist who puts faith in a translation rather than God,
or the church committee that favors the building fund over feeding the
poor.
The title of a just-released book, Defecting in Place,
describes the situation of many women. They are seeking out groups
within which to explore women’s spirituality, stretching their own
creativity and skills, claiming responsibility for their spiritual
lives and understandings—and remaining committed to their faith
communities, congregations, and denominations, often in positions of
lay or clerical leadership. While alienated in some ways from the
church institutions, they are claiming church as the people of God,
and challenging the institutions to follow.
People have, almost from the beginning, tried to make the Christian
church concrete and unchanging. While the institutions of the church
have their dynamic moments, the community of faith, the body of
Christ, is where the Spirit truly makes its home. If we do not open
our eyes to the whole body, male and female, who can say what
Pentecostal fire we will miss?