TRANSGRESSION AND TRANSFORMATION:

Transcription

1 TRANSGRESSION AND TRANSFORMATION: THE ROLE OF FEMINIST, POSTCOLONIAL AND QUEER BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION IN FOSTERING COMMUNITIES OF JUSTICE CONFERENCE HOSTED BY THE GENDER UNIT, BEYERS NAUDÉ CENTRE FOR PUBLIC THEOLOGY, FACULTY OF THEOLOGY, STELLENBOSCH UNIVERSITY IN COLLABORATION WITH THE CENTER FOR THEOLOGY, WOMEN, AND GENDER OF PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY MARCH 2019 HOFMEYER LECTURE ROOM (2003) FACULTY OF THEOLOGY, STELLENBOSCH UNIVERSITY

2 PROGRAMME WEDNESDAY 13 MARCH :30 14:00 Registration and arrival tea and coffee 14:00 14:05 Welcome and Arrangements Julie Claassens 14:05 14:15 Word of Welcome by the Dean, Faculty of Theology Reggie Nel 14:15 15:45 Session 1 (Chair Julie Claassens) 15:45 16:15 Refreshments Law as Liberator: Strengthening Institutions as Transformative Transgression Jacqueline E. Lapsley, Princeton Theological Seminary In Pursuit of Justice: Womanist Non-Binary Perspectives about Intersectionality, Trauma, Lament and Hope in the USA Context Linda E. Thomas, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago 16:15 17:15 Session 2 (Chair Nina Muller Van Velden) What did Job s Wife and Jezebel Do? Reclaiming and Fostering Narratives of Justice Lerato Mokoena, Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Pretoria Excavating Trauma Narratives: Haunting Memories in the Story of Lot s Daughters Juliana Claassens, Faculty of Theology, Stellenbosch University 17:30 Book Launch Teaching for Change: Essays on Pedagogy, Gender and Theology in Africa (ed. L Juliana Claassens; Charlene van der Walt & Funlola Olojede; SunMedia, 2019) 08:45 09:00 Welcome and Arrangements Julie Claassens THURSDAY 14 MARCH :00 10:30 Session 3 (Chair Elna Mouton) 10:30 11:00 Refreshments Justice for Rahab and the Gibeonites in the Book of Joshua: The Elusive Communities of Justice in the Imperial/Colonial Contexts Dora Rudo Mbuwayesango, Hood Theological Seminary Interventions to the Drama of a Broken Family in Jer 2:1 4:4 Christl M. Maier, Philipps-University Marburg 11:00 12:30 Session 4 (Chair Hendrik Bosman) σὰρξ (flesh) as δόξα (glory)? Reading John 1:14 and 10:10 ecologically in Gendered Africa Today Elna Mouton, Faculty of Theology, Stellenbosch University

3 12:30 13:00 Conversation 13:00 14:30 Lunch Women, Priests and Hierarchy: On Interruption and Transforming Gender Normative Practices in Ecclesial Spaces Miranda Pillay, Department of Religion and Theology, University of the Western Cape Navigating Graveyard Spaces: A Gender-critical Reading of John 20:1-18 Dr Nina Müller van Velden, Northwest University 14:30 16:00 Session 5 (Chair Juliana Claassens) Panel: Students engaging Students on Gender, Postcolonial, Queer Interpretation of the Bible 16:00 Wine and Chocolate Tasting (limited numbers) Lanzerac Wine Estate, Stellenbosch 08:45 09:00 Welcome and Arrangements Julie Claassens FRIDAY 15 MARCH :00 10:30 Session 6 (Chair Funlola Olojede) 10:30 11:00 Refreshments When the Personal is Political, and the Political is Personal: Towards a Politics of Forgiveness among Black and White Readers of Matthew 18:15-35 Dion Forster, Faculty of Theology, Stellenbosch University Whose Text is it Anyway? Developing Interpretative Resources for Life-Affirming Bible Reading Practices by Considering How it Should Not be Done. Charlene van der Walt, School of Religion, Philosophy, and Classics, University of KwaZulu- Natal The Fragments of the Feminine: Judith in Conversation with Wonder Woman Nathania Hendriks, Faculty of Theology, Stellenbosch University 11:00 12:30 Session 7 (Chair Charlene van der Walt) Torah as Instruction to Establish Justice: Rethinking Childbirth and Cultic Purity According to Leviticus 12. Hendrik Bosman, Faculty of Theology, Stellenbosch University Me Too? A Woman s Reading of Exodus 20:17 Tanya van Wyk, Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Pretoria Female Solidarity as a Tool of Transgression: The Case of the Daughters of Zelophehad Funlola Olojede, Faculty of Theology, Stellenbosch University 12:30 13:00 Closing and the Way Forward (Chair Julie Claassens)

4 ABSTRACTS Law as Liberator: Strengthening Institutions as Transformative Transgression Jacqueline E. Lapsley, Dean and Vice President for Academic Affairs/ Professor of Old Testament, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ Transgression sounds radical and edgy, exercising whatever transformative power it possesses at the margins. But the transgression I want to explore takes place within the banal, mundane activities of quotidian institutional life. One destructive social norm that may manifest within even the best-intended institutions, ancient and contemporary, is the widespread disregard of good laws already on the books. Thus simply following those laws, and pressing others to do so when they would rather not, becomes an act of creative transgression. The story of the woman of Shunem who presses the king to return her land to her after her sojourn in Philistia, recounted in 2 Kings 8:1-6, provides a useful lens through which to reflect on the dynamics of institutional power when following the law is itself an act of transgression. In Pursuit of Justice: Womanist Non-Binary Perspectives about Intersectionality, Trauma, Lament and Hope in the USA Context Linda E. Thomas, Professor of Theology and Anthropology, Lutheran School of Theology, Chicago Womanist Interpretation in the North American context, particularly, the United States grows out of the context of African American women s embodied experiences that began in 1619 with the arrival of enslaved Africans in Jamestown, VA. Katie Geneva Cannon records the history of African women s journeys to and in the New World in her seminal article, The Emergence of Black Feminist Consciousness, and notes the relationship between Black women s oppression and the liberating power of the Scriptures. An intersectional analysis about the harm done to female bodies must explicitly include the bodies of women of colour and oppressed Queer bodies of color, as documented by Pamela R. Lightsey. This paper will focus on the lament of women of colour s bodies in the US context by colonial presence and the ensuring damage of uninterrupted intergenerational trauma related to demonarcy (Delores Williams) and its continuance in the Trump era. In ways not often noted, lament is a perennial theme in African American women s history. History is repeating itself, and women of colour s bodies are marginalized and victimized in alarming ways today. The present context calls for a prophetic-yet-hopeful response to the multiple oppressions female bodies of colour face in the United States. Womanist interpretation is uniquely positioned to offer this critique, holding lament and hope in tension with one another, in order that the cause of justice may be pursued. What did Job s wife and Jezebel Do? Reclaiming and Fostering Narratives of Justice Lerato Mokoena, PhD Student in Old Testament, Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Pretoria Job s wife and Jezebel the wife of Ahab king of Samaria are amongst the few most vilified women in the Hebrew Bible. Unlike other characters where a woman or being a woman is used as a metaphor (i.e. Hosea s wife, Jerusalem the whore); they are present as live characters who partake in a number of alleged questionable narratives.

5 It has become a trend for these two women in contemporary interpretation to be key characters in narratives that want to sacrifice women at the altar of masculinity. They have also have been key tenets in response made by feminist Biblical interpreters. Those who identify or even relate to Jezebel and Job s wife, even only by proximity are also subjected to the same kind of scrutiny. This is because Job s wife and Jezebel make up most of the narratives that women are bad, are the downfall of men and monarchies. This paper aims to explore all the possible negative connotations associated with these two women, secondly, how the narratives are appropriated in contemporary interpretation and lastly, how these two women can be absolved by history in an attempt to reclaim and foster narratives of justice. The conclusion is that, they did not do anything, but in a world where being a woman is second nature, they were susceptible to vilification. It is therefore our task as 21st century feminist biblical interpreters to absolve them. Excavating Trauma Narratives: Haunting Memories in the Story of Lot s Daughters Juliana Claassens, Professor of Old Testament/ Head of Gender Unit, Faculty of Theology, Stellenbosch University In Genesis 19 a very strange story is told of Lot s daughters sleeping with their father in order to conceive children in the post-cataclysmic world in which they find themselves. The offspring of this incestuous relationship is said to be Moab (meaning of my father ) and Ammon (meaning of my kinsmen ) the ancestors of Israel s longstanding, and much despised, enemies. This narrative inevitably evokes some strong emotions in those who hear it for the original audience, but likely also readers now would recoil in disgust when hearing about daughters sleeping with their father. Or at the thought that a father would callously throw his young virgin daughters to the wolves to be savaged by a horde of menacing assailants. In this paper, I will consider the role of this narrative as a trauma narrative, and how the traumatic memory of Israel s neighbours continues to haunt Israel as they seek to make sense of their own place in the world. Justice for Rahab and the Gibeonites in the Book of Joshua: The Elusive Communities of Justice in the Imperial/Colonial Contexts Dora Rudo Mbuwayesango, George E. and Iris Battle Professor of Old Testament/ Dean of Students, Hood Theological Seminary, Salisbury, North Carolina The story of the identity of Israel is rooted in imperial/colonial and patriarchal ideologies that are framed in religious terms. Israel s identity is tied to a colonial ideology of displacement and obliteration of the indigenous peoples of Canaan. This ideology determines how Israel constructs its interaction with the indigenous Canaanites in Joshua Rahab and the Gibeonites represent two distinct groups of Canaanites who are spared from the fate of obliteration but are given a marginal (in the case of Rahab) and enslaved (in the case of the Gibeonites) existence in colonial Israel. This paper seeks to engage in a postcolonial analysis of the narratives depicting the encounters of the Israelite colonial invaders and the indigenous Rahab and the Gibeonites in a way that honours the experiences of the victims of colonization with the goal of fostering an authentic transformation of exploitative and oppressive social and economic paradigms.

6 Interventions to the Drama of a Broken Family in Jer 2:1 4:4 Christl M. Maier, Professor of Old Testament/ Director of the Center for Gender Studies and Feminist Research, Philipps University Marburg Kathleen O Connor has named Jer 2:1 4:4 a domestic disaster based on the metaphor of a broken family. The two chapters present a long speech of God to be delivered by the prophet Jeremiah to Jerusalem, in which the history of Israel and Judah as sister kingdoms is reviewed in a most polemical way: Israel and Judah are personified as YHWH s adulterous wives and cited in their self-assured search for other lovers. The issue of divorce leads to a struggle for the children who are called to abandon their mother and to side with their father. Then follows a short dialogue, in which Israel is repenting and God relenting. Taking up Carolyn Sharp s definition of transgression as the privileging of creative interventions, ancient and contemporary, that resist or reframe destructive social norms, this paper seeks to deconstruct the text s gendered codes and uneven discourse of voices. In challenging the divine monologue from feminist and queer perspectives, the paper reveals the fragility of the theological idea of human malice and divine justice that permeates the book of Jeremiah. σὰρξ (flesh) as δόξα (glory)? Reading John 1:14 and 10:10 ecologically in gendered Africa today Elna Mouton, Emeritus Professor of New Testament, Faculty of Theology, Stellenbosch University The paper takes its point of departure from Margaret Daly-Denton s earth-conscious commentary of the Fourth Gospel (Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017). Supposing Jesus to be the earth s gardener, she reads the text with three levels of attentiveness. The first is to elements such as water, bread and light that are prevalent in the text yet often understood as (only) referring to metaphorical and not necessarily material realities. The second is to the impact of first century CE socio-economic and political realities on the land. The third level focuses on present-day consciousness of the earth in light of such a reading of John s Gospel. In continuation with Daly-Denton s work, the paper explores the ecological imagination and implications of John as a text that starts with In the beginning (1:1), with probable reference to the creation of earth and all earth beings, a text that refers to the λόγος (word) as the one through whom all things came into being (1:3), that became σὰρξ (flesh) and revealed God s δόξα (glory, 1:14) for the sake of life in all its fullness (10:10), a text that uses pastoral imagery (shepherd/ sheep) in 10:1-18, with Jesus as good shepherd (10:11), and garden imagery (vine/branches) in 15:1-8, with God as vine grower a text that claims to be written so that those who believe in Jesus may have life in his name (20:31). In light of these broad strokes in terms of nature and purpose, the paper explores the God imagery and Christology of the Fourth Gospel as green, as life-giving and -affirming. The project is particularly interested in the reinterpretation of σὰρξ (flesh) as δόξα (glory) in 1:14 in contrast to (negative, female?) associations with σὰρξ in 1:13. This is read in tandem with the Gospel s emphasis on God s dwelling (tabernacling) among people (1:14; Mary Coloe 2001, 2007), of God s bringing heaven and earth together (1:51). Without spiritualising the Gospel as has often been the case during its history of reception its emphasis on God s dwelling on earth seems to offer hope to the Johannine community in the years after the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple in 70 CE. By retelling the story of Jesus presence/absence after the destruction of the temple, the Johannine community embodies God s alternative temple/house-hold as a

7 concrete source of hope in the socio-economic world of first century empire (14:2) a household where water, bread and light would be essential elements for survival. The paper finally invites collective appropriation of these perspectives in the gendered spaces of churches and theological training in Africa. Women, Priests and Hierarchy: On Interruption and Transforming Gender Normative Practices in Ecclesial Spaces Miranda Pillay, Emeritus Senior Lecturer, Department of Religion and Theology, University of the Western Cape Two years ago, in 2017, the Anglican Church of Southern Africa (ACSA) celebrated with great fanfare the twenty-fifth anniversary of the ordination of women to the priesthood. The headlines of the Cape Times on 15 August 1992 read Women priests for SA and reported that seventy-nine percent of Synod representatives voted in favour of the ordination of women thus complying with the two-thirds majority required on an issue declared controversial. The controversial issue was (and remains?) undergirded by the gender of clergy justified (explicitly or implicitly) by the gender of God. The bottom line: women were excluded from the ordained ministry because they did not represent the male body of Jesus. This theology of exclusion of women on the basis of gender was justified by the ways in which men in authority use and interpret the Christian Bible. Back in 1992 a Bishop was quoted as saying no part of the New Testament testifies that a woman could be, in a public and authorised way, the representative of Christ. This view was echoed by a lay male Synodrepresentative who argued that, If God meant women to be priests He (sic) would have done so from the beginning. Men must be a symbol of Christ at the Eucharist. The question now is: Has there been any transformative change in the nearly three decades of the admission of women to the ordained priesthood? Not in my view. In December 2018 twenty-six years since the ordination of women in the ACSA a newly ordained Anglican woman priest was addressed as, and given the official title mother during the vestment ritual at a church service preparing her to celebrate the Eucharist for the first time. This, while male priests have (without any critical reflection on the part of the church) retained the title father. What was I to say? What was I to do? I wrestled with these questions in anticipation of my delivering the sermon I had prepared to preach at that service. In this paper I want to argue that the notion of interruption /anacoluthon could serve as an effective rhetorical device and teaching opportunity to inform and transform gender normative discourse and practice that serve to maintain patriarchal hierarchy. To his end I will explore how anacoluthon is used in particular New Testament texts to interrupt normative beliefs and practices of that time. This is done with the view to identify the inherent patriarchal nature of these texts and also to illuminate the transformative and liberative potential of New Testament texts in contemporary contexts. Navigating graveyard spaces: A gender-critical reading of John 20:1-18 Dr Nina Müller van Velden, Postdoctoral Fellow, Northwest University The narrative of John 20:1-18 describes the events of the empty tomb on the first day of the week, involving three prominent characters: Mary Magdalene, Peter and the Beloved Disciple. In the liminal space of death in a graveyard setting, in the early hours of the morning, with emotions of sorrow and mourning running high each of

8 them have a unique experience of the One whose body is not where it had been left after the crucifixion. This paper explores the ambiguity of the confirmation of Life amidst (apparent) death; of new beginnings amidst what appears to be the ultimate end. From a gender-critical perspective, I will propose how this biblical narrative may create a space for reflection on the ambiguity of the spaces in which transgression and transformation is navigated in the ongoing journey toward gender-just and genderinclusive societies. How do the experiences of the characters Mary Magdalene, Peter and the Beloved Disciple connect with our own and how do we engage the more and less obvious evidences of resurrection whilst standing in and around gendered graveyard settings? When the personal is political, and the political is personal: Towards a politics of forgiveness among Black and White readers of Matthew 18:15-35 Dion Forster, Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Ethics, Faculty of Theology, Stellenbosch University Martha Nussbaum notes that, the ability to imagine the experience of another needs to be greatly enhanced and refined if we are to have any hope of sustaining decent institutions across the many divisions that any modern society contains" (Nussbaum, 2010: 10). In biblical studies, the turn towards engaging the lived experiences of Bible readers is playing and important role in the development of our understanding social hermeneutics. This paper is framed by the slogan, "the personal is political, and the political is personal", that was coined by second wave feminists in 1960 s. By drawing on this claim, the paper aims to explicate the logic that undergirds radically different understandings of forgiveness among Black and White readers of Matthew in South Africa. Through an engagement with qualitative empirical data gathered over a period of 4 years, the paper will illustrate the importance of a rigorous, textured, and reasonable engagement with the lived experiences and social identities of contemporary South African readers of Matthew In particular, the data shows that there is a logic to the different understandings of forgiveness among Black and White readers of this text that stems from their social locations and social identity. Yet, the data also shows that there are some possibilities of imagining the experience of the other in order to engage divisive and destructive theological and political convictions. Whose Text Is It Anyway? Developing Interpretative Resources for Life-Affirming Bible Reading Practices by considering how it should not be done. Charlene van der Walt, Associate Professor of Gender and Religion, School of Religion, Philosophy, and Classics, University of KwaZulu-Natal The 2017 Hulu adaptation of Margaret Atwood's 1985 novel, The Handmaid s Tale, served as the primary reflective surface in a post-graduate Gender and Religion module within the School of Religion, Philosophy, and Classics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. The module aimed at exploring the intersection of gender, Sexual Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR) and Religion within a contemporary cultural context. Weekly episode screenings of the series augmented with insights from theoretical conversation partners informed rich and complex class discussions that existed at the heart of the module. Besides sparking pertinent contextual conversations about dominantly taboo subjects in the SRHR constellation such as rape,

9 female sexual pleasure, menstruation, punitive corrective practices implemented to control same-sex love and sex work, the series viewing facilitated critical engagement and reflection around especially two major and interconnected themes. Firstly, and considering the foundational nature of the Genesis 29 narrative to the dystopian reality depicted in the series, questions pertaining to interpretative ethics, responsibility, and accountability when it comes to contemporary appropriations of Biblical text remained dominant in class discussions. Secondly, and closely linked to reflections on interpretative praxis, discussions and student reflection often returned to the tensions, conflicts, and relationship between depicted states of surviving resilience and dynamic moments of resistance against the all-encompassing totalitarian regime dominant in Gilead. The essay offers a first-round pedagogical praxis reflection of the pilot version of the module developed within the Gender and Religion program at UKZN in Beyond the praxis reflection the essay also offers some preliminary reflections on the apparent interpretative resources that the module nurtured within contemporary Bible interpreters that presently function at the outside or the margin of the nexus of interpretative power and control when young African woman and Queer interpreters of the Bible pertinently ask: Whose text is it anyway? The Fragments of the Feminine: Judith in Conversation with Wonder Woman Nathania Hendriks, Licentiate in Christian Ministry, Faculty of Theology, Stellenbosch University This paper considers how popular culture often disseminates the patriarchal ideology of femininity, which limits women to observing traditional exemplified understandings of being a woman. When femininity is only defined in relation to masculinity, women are reduced to possessions, objects for the male gaze and desires. This serves to rationalize violence against women. The paper therefore embarks on a gender-critical engagement that brings together a text from popular culture and a biblical text to contribute to the search for liberating understandings of femininity. The biblical (apocryphal) character of Judith is brought into conversation with the popular culture character of Wonder Woman. These two images of women move along the apparent gender binary and the paper shows how a creative encounter between these two characters can offer insight into alternative notions of femininity. Torah as Instruction to establish Justice: rethinking childbirth and cultic purity according to Leviticus 12 Hendrik Bosman, Emeritus Professor of Old Testament, Faculty of Theology, Stellenbosch University Childbirth is a phenomenon that is embedded in different cultures and religions across the globe. The cultural and religious process whereby childbirth is processed has functional and symbolic aspects that are closely interrelated. Although children are considered as a gift from God (Ps 127:3) and the childbirth itself is neither sinful nor impure, Leviticus 12 contains the most significant priestly instruction related to childbirth in the Pentateuch and the Hebrew Bible. This instruction clearly indicates that the parturient (birthing mother) suffers from cultic impurity up to 40 days after the birth of a son and up to 80 days after the birth of a daughter. Many reasons have been suggested to explain the collection of bodily impurities described in Leviticus 12 15, of which the instructions concerning childbirth form the introduction: sin, fear of demons, safeguarding the holiness of the Israelite sanctuaries (tabernacle, temple in

10 Jerusalem), health reasons, enhancing priestly power and influence etc. In agreement with Jacob Milgrom this paper argues that the loss of blood during childbirth not only caused cultic impurity but also endangered life and was thus associated with death. It is also suggested that Leviticus 12 as instruction indicated how the parturient should act after childbirth since justice is established when authoritative rules show individuals and groups how to act in specific circumstances. The instructions concerning childbirth established justice by enabling the mother of the child to become a fully-fledged member of the Israelite or Jewish society and cultic community after 40 or 80 days. The Torah regarding childbirth is an important example of the importance of life and how justice is established to safeguard mothers as the bearers of life against the forces of death (as perceived by the authors of the HB more than two millennia ago). Me too? A woman s reading of Exodus 20:17 Dr Tanya van Wyk, Senior Lecturer in Spirituality, Systematic Theology and Ethics, Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Pretoria In a 20 year old textbook about sexual ethics, the author Peter Vardy (1999) remarks that the tenth commandment of the Decalogue is expressed entirely in male terms and therefore, strictly speaking, it is not applicable to women. Teaching courses on sexual ethics for a few years have illustrated that while theology students have access to a range of exegetical and hermeneutical tools, some constantly struggle with Vardy s statement. Others struggle with the commandment itself. Amidst a growing awareness of gender disparities, I wonder what to make of the tenth commandment today. This paper will investigate the possibility of formulating a strategy for reading a text that seemingly creates women as invisible, by considering the relationship between spirituality, transformation and ethics from a feminist perspective. Female Solidarity as a Tool of Transgression: The Case of the Daughters of Zelophehad Funlola O. Olojede, Postdoctoral Fellow, Gender Unit, Faculty of Theology, Stellenbosch University In Numbers 27, the daughters of Zelophehad brought a class action lawsuit against the government of the day to challenge the law that denied them access to their late father s assets. The suit was to become a test case with regards to inheritance law in ancient Israel. It is argued in this essay therefore that in situations of advocacy, female solidarity could be employed as a tool of transgressing and transforming hegemonic norms as these five daughters have jointly done.