Contemporary Theology II: From Theology of Hope to Postmodernism. Feminist Theology: Introductory Issues. ST507 LESSON 07 of 24

Transcription

1 Contemporary Theology II: From Theology of Hope to Postmodernism ST507 LESSON 07 of 24 John S. Feinberg, PhD University of Chicago, MA and PhD Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, ThM Talbot Theological Seminary, MDiv University of California, BA In our last few lectures we have been discussing liberation theology, and we ve been discussing that theology in general, but now I want to turn in this lecture and for a number of lectures to come to look at a specific form of liberation theology; namely, feminist theology. And we re going to do that in a moment, but I want to begin our session as is typically our habit with a word of prayer. Lord, we thank you so much for the privilege of study, for the opportunity to study theologies that are not the ones that we hold, but ones that can teach us and instruct us. Help us to understand our own thinking and help us to refine that thinking. Father, as we look at feminist theology we want to thank you at the outset, Father, that you have made human beings as both male and female. We thank you for the great wonder of your creation that men and women are, and we pray, Lord, that you would help us to become sensitive to the concerns of feminist theology and where appropriate to adjust our thinking. We pray though, Lord, that overall we would catch a better perspective on who you are and how we should relate to you. So, Father, bless our time together as we study in this lecture. For it s in Christ s name we pray it. Amen. As I mentioned before the prayer, we want to turn today to feminist theology, and I suppose when you hear that rubric, that label, there are certain names that immediately come to mind. For example, you would probably be inclined to think of people like Rosemary Radford Ruether, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Sallie McFague, and these indeed are extremely important thinkers, but I want to introduce you to another feminist writer, if you do not know of her. Her name is Elizabeth Johnson, and she is a professor in the department of theology at Fordham University. She has written a book that came out in , and it was published by Crossroad Publications. This book was the winner of the 1993 Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion, and it was co-winner of the 1992 Crossroad Women s Study Award, and as I read through 1 of 12

2 this work, I find that she is a very engaging writer, and I think has some rather powerful things to say. And so for the majority of our consideration, I would like to use this book as an example of feminist thinking. I do emphasize example, because like a number of the different movements that we are discussing in this course and that we discussed in the previous course, there are varieties of these different theologies. We cannot cover all of them, but we do want to give you a taste of what they are about, and I think with Elizabeth Johnson s work we do get a very substantial taste and see a number of themes raised that oftentimes are raised in feminist thinking. The title of Elizabeth Johnson s book is She Who Is. The subtitle of the book is The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse. Let me begin by raising some introductory issues that Johnson raises as she sets for the problem and the issues that she s going to discuss in the book. She begins by raising what she believes is really the crucial question, namely, what is the right way to speak about God? Part of the reason that this is even a question at all is that God is the ultimate mystery that surrounds us and gives meaning to all of life, and yet, Johnson says, God is so beyond us that we really don t know exactly how to speak of God. There is no human language about God that can be literal at all. All of it must be seen as symbolic, but even having said that, we are not entirely sure of the nature of the reality toward which the symbols point. This is going to be a theme that she repeats over and over in the book and develops to a certain extent later on in the book, and we ll share with you when and where that comes and the part that it plays in what she has to say about feminist theology. In spite of these facts about God and what we know and what we don t know about God, how a community speaks of God, Johnson says, is extremely important. It s important because such speech and thought about God molds the corporate identity of a community and directs its praxis, and it not only does this for communities as a whole, but it directs their praxis and molds their identity as individuals as well. Johnson illustrates the effect of our concept of God on our thinking and on our action in the following way. And here I quote from page 4 in her book. She says, Speech about God shapes the life orientation not only of the corporate faith community, but in this matrix guides its individual members as well. God is that on which you lean your heart, that on which your heart depends, that to which your heart clings and entrusts itself in Martin Luther s memorable phrase, As the focus of absolute trust, one to whom you can give yourself 2 of 12

3 without fear of betrayal, the holy mystery of God undergirds and explicitly gives direction to all of a believing person s enterprises, principles, choices, system of values, and relationship. A little bit earlier on the page, she has explained some of the specific things that you might think and do depending on your view of God. She says, for example, A religion that would speak about a warlike God and extol the way He smashes His enemies to bits would promote aggressive group behavior. A community that would acclaim God as an arbitrary tyrant would inspire its members to acts of impatience and disrespect toward their fellow creatures. On the other hand, speech about a beneficent and loving God who forgives offenses would turn the faith community toward care for the neighbor and mutual forgiveness. So very clearly then the way people think about God and conceive of God is going to affect how they act. But this is an important question; that is, what is the right way to speak about God, for another reason, and this is the reason in part that she has written the book. In fact, this is the major reason she s written the book. She says, The question of the right way to speak of God is equally important for the reason that typically the mystery that is God has been spoken of in male symbols and metaphors. And Johnson says, The question today is, and I quote her from page 5, whether the reality of women can provide suitable metaphor for speech about God. Here s what she says on pages 4 and 5. She says, In our day, interest and right speech about God is exceptionally alive in a new way thanks to the discourse of a sizeable company of bakers, women who have historically have borne primary responsibility for lighting the cooking fires and feeding the world. The women s movement in civil society in the church has shed a bright light upon the pervasive exclusion of women from the realm of public symbol formation and decision making, and women s consequent, strongly enforced subordination to the imagination and needs to a world designed chiefly by men. In the church this exclusion has been effective virtually everywhere: in ecclesial creeds, doctrines, prayers, theological systems, liturgical worship, patterns of spirituality, visions of mission, church order, leadership, and discipline. It has been stunningly effective in speech about God. While officially it is rightly and consistently said that God is spirit and so beyond identification with either male or female sex, yet the daily language of preaching, worship, catechesis, and instruction conveys a different message: God is male, or at least more like a man than a woman, or at least more fittingly addressed as male than as female. The symbol of God functions. 3 of 12

4 Upon examination it becomes clear that this exclusive speech about God serves in manifold ways to support an imaginative and structural world that excludes or subordinates women. Wittingly or not, it undermines women s human dignity as equally created in the image of God. Then later on she makes a similar comment summing this up. She says, What is the right way to speak about God? The presenting issue and debates about inclusive language is ostensibly whether the reality of women can provide suitable metaphors for speech about God. The intensity with which the question is engaged from the local to the international level, however, makes clear that more is at stake than simply naming toward God with womenidentified words such as mother. The symbol of God functions. Language about God in female images not only challenges the literal mindedness that has clung to male images in inherited God talk, it not only questions their dominance in discourse about holy mystery, but insofar as the symbol gives rise to thought, such speech calls into question prevailing structures of patriarchy. Now with these kinds of comments you get a foretaste of what she s going to say not only in terms of what she wants to do with respect to our speech about God, but why she thinks this is necessary and what she hopes it will do in terms of the position and role of women in society. The crucial question for Johnson s book then, as she states it herself, is as follows: What is the right way to speak about God in the face of women s newly cherished human dignity and equality? Johnson calls this a crucial theological question. She says, and here I quote her from page 6, That what is at stake is the truth about God inseparable from the situation of human beings and the identity and mission of the faith community itself. One of the things that she will be stressing is that if you only talk about God in male metaphors and male symbols, there s a lot of things about God that you are not going to pay attention to, you will overlook these themes, but beyond that, you will continue to give the impression that it is men who are most like God, women are not equal to men, they are surely not apt representations, and their experience is not appropriate symbols for anything that relates to God and divine activity. Having raised this question about what the right way to speak about God is, especially in terms of the concern to uphold women s dignity, Johnson explains further why such a question is such a significant issue. She says it is a crucial issue first of 4 of 12

5 all because the reality of God, and here I quote her, is mystery beyond all imagining. So transcendent, so imminent is the holy mystery of God that we can never wrap our minds completely around this mystery and exhaust divine reality in words or concepts. The history of theology is replete with this truth. Recall Augustine s insight that if we have understood then what we have understood is not God. Anselm s argument that God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived. Hildegard s vision of God s glory as living light that blinded her sight. Aquinas s working rule that we can know that God is and what God is not, but not what God is. Luther s stress on the hiddenness of God s glory in the shame of the cross. Simone Weil s conviction that there is nothing that resembles what she can conceive of when she says the word God. Sallie McFague s insistent on imaginative leaps into metaphor since no language about God is adequate and all of it is improper. It is a matter of the livingness of God. Given the inexhaustible mystery inherent in what the word God points to historically new attempts at articulation are to be expected and even welcome. If the concept of God confesses the infinity and the incomprehensibility of holy mystery, then as Karl Rahner argues it actually postulates thereby a history of our own concept of God that can never be concluded. This is a point to which Johnson returns repeatedly. I suggested that to you a moment ago. It is so important though for her in part because if God really is so totally mysterious, if he really is so totally beyond our knowledge, and if as Johnson is going to argue God is so totally different from us as Johnson will tell us God is, it should be clear then the thinking we have to refer to God always and only in male images is wrong. But now this is a crucial issue secondly because words about God, she tells us, are culturally conditioned. On page 6 she says that they are entwined with the mores and adventures of the faith community that uses them. As cultures shift, so too does the specificity of God-talk. As she s going to show, in our culture we are coming to recognize the full significance of women as imago Dei, the image of God, and imago Christi, the image of Christ. But now Johnson says that if that is so, if women are the image of God and they are the image of Christ, then why shouldn t it be possible to speak of God equally well using female metaphors as it is to speak of God using male metaphors? This is a crucial issue in the third place, Johnson says, because we are wrong if we think that our speech about God is limited only to the very terms of Scripture itself. It s at this point that Johnson points to what I think is an exceptionally important 5 of 12

6 passage from Aquinas, and in this passage Aquinas makes some comments about talking about God in language that goes beyond Scripture. I d like to read to you what he has to say, and you can see when you hear this that this is going to be, so to speak, the, if I can put it this way, the philosophical underpinning, the philosophical justification for going beyond the actual words of Scripture to say a number of things about God in female terms, in female metaphors, and concepts. Here s what Johnson has to say as she quotes Aquinas. This is taken from pages 6 and 7. In one of those myriad interesting little discussions that Aquinas carries on in the formal framework of the Christio, he deals luminously with the legitimacy of this historical development and by development she means that talk about God changes at various times in history and in various religions, and in various cultures. The question at hand, she says, is whether it is proper to refer to God as person. This is the question that Aquinas is considering. Some would object that this word is not used of God in the Scriptures, neither in the Old Testament nor in the New, but goes his argument, and the his is a reference to Aquinas, what the word signifies, such as intelligence is in fact frequently applied to God in Scripture and so the word person can be used with confidence. Furthermore, he muses, the he being Aquinas, if our speech about God were limited to the very terms of Scripture itself, then no one could speak about God except in the original languages of Hebrew and Greek. Broadening the argument, Aquinas defends the use of extrabiblical language about God on grounds of historical need, and here she quotes from Aquinas. Aquinas says, The urgency of confuting heretics made it necessary to find new words to express the ancient faith about God. Then Johnson says, In conclusion, Aquinas clinches the argument with an exhortation to appreciate this new language. And here again from Aquinas, Nor is such a kind of novelty to be shunned. Since it is by no means profane, for it does not lead us astray from the sense of Scripture. Well then, Johnson makes the following comment. She says, The wisdom carried in this argument supports in striking fashion patterns of speaking about the mystery of God that are emerging from the perspective of women s experience. It is not necessary to restrict speech about God to the exact names the Scripture uses, nor to terms coined by the later tradition. So long as the word signifies something that does characterize the living God mediated through Scripture, tradition, and present faith experience, for example, divine liberating action of self-involving love for the world, then new language can be used with confidence. Moreover, 6 of 12

7 the urgency of confuting sexism so dangerous to women s lives in the concrete makes it imperative to find more adequate ways of expressing the ancient good news that faith is to proclaim. Nor is such novelty to be shunned, for it does not lead astray from the sense of Scripture. If, that is, the sense of Scripture means the promise of God s creative, compassionate, liberating care bent on the whole world, including women in all our historicity and difference. The present ferment about naming, imaging, and conceptualizing God from perspectives of women s experience re-pristinates the truth that the idea of God, incomprehensible mystery, implies an open-ended history of understanding that is not yet finished. You may not agree with everything that you heard in that paragraph, but I think the basic point that is being made is one that is correct. We oftentimes in theology use terms to speak of God or to speak of other theological concepts that are not specifically in Scripture. They go beyond Scripture. So long as they are based in Scripture and grounded in scriptural concepts, normally we would say this is acceptable. The problem comes if we begin to attribute terms and concepts to Scripture or into our theology that have no grounding in Scripture, but at least the basic point that is being made here, namely, that even if one were to use female metaphors and female terms to speak of God, that would not be problematic if in fact the concepts that those metaphors and terms are predicating of God are taught in Scripture. If in fact that s what s happening, then that seems to be acceptable. So at this point in the discussion, we may be thinking this sounds like it may be a fairly careful, conservative handling of the data. And I think as we proceed, you ll find that there are many things that Johnson has to say with which you can agree. There are places, on the other hand, in her discussion where not only her language but the concepts, I think we would say, go beyond what Scripture itself warrants us to say about God. In light of the significance of the issue, and in light of Johnson s belief that one can speak of God in female metaphors, what then does she propose to do in this book? Johnson answers that she wants to wed together the new language of Christian feminist theology with the traditional language of Scripture and classical theology. And I think this shows that there s a certain sense in which this is a more moderate feminist theology than some we might look at. Some feminist theologies would suggest that one should throw out the Christian model, the Christian worldview altogether and 7 of 12

8 go beyond Christian theology to other religions and find in those religions the symbols, the ideas for structuring theology. Not so in terms of Johnson. She still wants to use Scripture, she still wants to use classical Christian theology, but there s going to have be a wedding of those two things with Christian feminist concern. The results she hopes will be to speak a good word about the mystery of God, recognizable within the contours of Christian faith that will serve the emancipatory practice of women and men to the benefit of all creation, both human beings and the earth. That s from page 8. In order for us to see what all of this means and why we should think that there s issues here to discuss, Johnson helps us at various points by offering some critical definitions, and it s at this point that she offers some of the initial ones. For example, on page 8 and into page 9 she gives us her definition of Christian feminist theology. Here s what she has to say. She says, By Christian feminist theology, I mean a reflection on God and all things in light of God that stands consciously in the company of all the world s women, explicitly prizing their genuine humanity while uncovering and criticizing its persistent violation in sexism, itself an omnipresent paradigm of unjust relationships. In terms of Christian doctrine, this perspective claims the fullness of the religious heritage for women, precisely as human in their own right and independent from personal identification with men. Women are equally created in the image and likeness of God, equally redeemed by Christ, equally sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Women are equally involved in the ongoing tragedy of sin and the mystery of grace, equally called to mission in this world, equally destined for life with God in glory. Then on the next page, what we find is a statement of what the agenda is as she sees it for this kind of feminist theology. She says, Feminist theology explicitly recognizes that the contradiction between this theological identity of women and the historical condition of women in theory and practice is glaring. This leads to the clear judgment that sexism is sinful, that it is contrary to God s intent, that it is a precise and pervasive breaking of the basic commandment, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, found in Leviticus 19:18 and Matthew 22:39. It affronts God by defacing the beloved creature created in the image of God. Faced with this sinfulness, church and society are called to repent, to turn around, to sin no more, to be converted. Corresponding to this theological stance, feminist theology advocates the reform of patriarchal civil and ecclesial structures and the intellectual 8 of 12

9 systems that support them in order to release all human beings for more just designs of living with each other and the earth. Far from being a theology done for women alone, it calls to strength in women and men alike who care for justice and truth, seeking a transformation of the whole community. So that s her concept of feminist theology and what she thinks this kind of feminine theology is trying to accomplish, and I m sure as you listened to that, the language you recognized as very, very much scriptural. And many of the concepts you, I m sure, were able to agree with. Women are the image of God, they are equally saved, they are equally sanctified by the Holy Spirit. All of the things that we would say in terms of spirituality that are true and possible of men are also possible of women. When we get further in the book, we re going to see what Johnson actually does with some of these terms and concepts, and we re going to see that it no longer looks quite so orthodox as it did right now, but at least at this point we have an idea of where she s going. Johnson also wants to give us a definition of classical theology, and she has said that she wants to wed together Scripture, classical theology, and feminist concerns, so she s very much concerned that we understand what she means by classical theology. And so she gives us a definition of it, and then she gives us her assessment of it. This is again from page 9. She says, By classical theology, I mean the body of thought that arose in early Christian centuries in partnership with the Greek philosophical tradition and continued through the medieval period, molding the discourse of the churches at the beginning of the modern era. This tradition continues to shape contemporary language about God, both explicitly and implicitly, whether accepted or rejected. In popular and intellectual circles, particularly in its language about the Supreme Being, divine attributes, and Trinitarian persons. The feminist perspective, which honors women s humanity, women as imago Dei, finds this classical tradition profoundly ambiguous in what it is meant for female well-being. It has aided and abetted the exclusion and subordination of women, but also sustained generations of foremothers and foresisters in the faith. Along with the need for criticism of classical thought, my own inclination, Johnson says, leads me in addition to give it a hearing, listening for wisdom which may yet prove useful. My approach is somewhat analogist to interreligious dialogue. After centuries of suspicion, the Second Vatican Council set free in the Catholic Church a hospitable spirit toward the world religions, affirming that whatever is true and holy in them reflects a ray of 9 of 12

10 divine light. Formed in that spirit, I find it coming home to roost in the attempt to see that whatever is true and holy in classical theology may also reflect a ray of divine light. As I m sure you re beginning to gather from what you re hearing, Johnson is not just a proponent of feminist theology, but she is a Roman Catholic who is a proponent of feminist theology. Given what Johnson has said, we might think that she would reject using classical theology and Scripture altogether, but she doesn t. The last paragraph on page 9 says this. She says, Taking a cue from feminist methodologies in related fields, I asked whether when read with a feminist tuned hermeneutic there is anything in the classical tradition in all of its vastness that could serve a discourse about divine mystery that would further the emancipation of women. The answer, I think, to have found is in the affirmative. That may surprise you, but she says, Yes, I think there are things in the classical tradition and in Scripture that can be used to further the goal of the emancipation of women. Now, having said that, though, she wants us to be careful that we don t get the impression that it will be very easy to find such things and easy to translate them into feminist terms. As a matter of fact, it s going to be difficult to do what she proposes, and on page 10 she explains why. She says, This project and by this project she means a project of capturing ideas and terms from Scripture and from classical theology and using them in speech that will be emancipatory toward women and women s concerns is fraught with complexity, she says. Not only is the reference of the word God utterly incomprehensible, the fathomless mystery that surrounds the burning mystery of our own lives, so that it is impossible to do justice to the subject. Not only are Scripture and tradition historically ambiguous monuments to patriarchy s view of its own rightness, so that the contribution of the Christian heritage cannot be simply presumed or easily retrieved while at the same time it continues to be a source of life for millions, but women s interpreted experience is as diverse as concrete women themselves so that the perspective of women is not a unity or nor immediately at hand. In fact, sensitivity to differences is an intellectual virtue being positively celebrated by feminist thought in resistance to centuries of univocal definition of women s nature. The diversity cultural, interracial, and ecumenical is consciously prized as a condition for connectedness. For women have the insight borne in pain that a monolithic position inevitably works to the disadvantage of somebody, usually the most powerless. 10 of 12

11 Having said all of this, having stated her agenda, Johnson then, I think, offers us a key distinction about feminist theology. As you ve heard in these last few moments, she notes that they are not all of one type. There are varieties of feminist theologies, but Johnson believes that you can divide them into two broad categories of feminist theology. On the one hand, there are theologies that she labels Reformist Feminist Theology. On the other hand, there are theologies, feminist theologies, that she labels Revolutionary Feminist Theologies. And let me give to you her definition of each of these, and then we ll place her theology within that distinction. She says, Various typologies have been suggested to order the feel, such as the distinction between revolutionary or God as feminism, which seeks religious meaning beyond the dominant religious traditions of the West and Reformist Feminism which aims to correct these inherited traditions. So there you have the distinction. Revolutionary or God as feminism is a theology or represents feminist theologies that go beyond Christianity and its Scriptures, its traditions, and go to other religions in an attempt to correctly speak about God in ways that will not be detrimental to women and to women s concern. Reformist feminism, on the other hand, is the approach that says there are problems with Christian theology, but rather than getting rid of Christian theology altogether, let s try to work within it and reform it. Clearly from what we ve said already, you can see that Johnson s feminism falls within the reformist camp. Now she makes a further statement, though, about the kind of reformist feminist theology that she holds. She says that because she has traveled and studied outside of wealthy North America, she has seen the plight of women in many underprivileged countries. As a result, that has placed her as a Roman Catholic within specifically the liberation stream of Catholic Christian feminist theology. So that s where she is. Hers is a feminist theology, she is a Roman Catholic; this is a reform type of feminism. She s going to stay within Catholicism and Christianity, but it is clearly a liberation type of theology that she presents. Johnson on page 15 summarizes for us and underscores the point of what she is up to in this book as follows. She says, Inherited Christian speech about God has developed within a framework that does not prize the unique and equal humanity of women and bears the marks of this partiality and dominance. This language is now under fire both for its complicity in human oppression and its capacity to rob divine reality of goodness and profound mystery. Christian feminist emancipatory discourse aims at empowering 11 of 12

12 women in their struggle to make their own humanity as imago Dei historically tangible and thereby to secure a foothold for the glory of God in history. Given the interlocking of oppressions in the world; that is, the connivance of sexism with racism, classism, militarism, humanocentrism, and other forms of prejudice, this effort at renewed speech about God is vitally significant for the church and the world in all of their constitutive dimensions. Johnson moves on in her second chapter to explain why such a feminist theology is necessary, and in so doing, she explains the feminist theology s critique of traditional speech about God. And I d like, as we end this lecture, to begin to see what she has to say. In the next lecture we re going to pick up more fully her critique of traditional Christian theology and its way of speaking about God. Johnson begins by noting that, and I quote her from page 17, Christian feminist liberation theology is reflection on religious mystery from a stance which makes and a priori option for the human flourishing of women. Johnson notes that making a fundamental option as the center of theology is done all the time. For every theological reflection has a center of gravity that unifies, organizes, and directs it attention. So what she s doing, that is, consciously molding a theology around a central motif and idea is not at all unusual, and surely in the theologies we ve studied already in this course and in the previous course, we ve seen that that is so. In her case, feminist concerns are that center of gravity. Then she argues that her project and that of other feminists is necessary because traditional speech about God is both humanly oppressive on the one hand and religiously idolatrous on the other. It s those ideas that traditional speech about God is both humanly oppressive and religiously idolatrous that I want to begin with in our next lecture as we see fully the feminist critique of traditional Christian theology and its speech about God. Christ-Centered Learning Anytime, Anywhere 12 of 12