gender and theology Flashcards
mary daly - American radical post-Christian feminist theologian
What is required is a transvaluation of the whole of Christianity.
God being male gave people the concept that power was a male thing, not female
simon chan - “The term father, then, excludes not feminine qualities, but rather the idea of a distant impersonal deity.” (creator of all) - God embodies fatherhood, not necessarily ‘male’
“If God is male, then the male is God”
association between masculinity and divinity had the function of making male supremacy seem like a fact of the universe which could not be challenged
De Beauvoir was right, women are treated as ‘the other’.
Christianity has contributed significantly to this view of women.
Daly’s solution: “God” as a verb. Daly claimed the concept of God needed to be castrated by referring to God as a ‘she’ but also by changing the meaning of God from a noun to a verb, so people think of God as ‘be-ing’ rather than ‘a being’ - introduces the flexibility required for a person to see that the unjust state of being is not fixed but may be changed
Ephesians 5:22 ‘Wives, submit to your own husbands as you do the Lord
If oppressive hierarchy like patriarchy exists, the result is unholy trinity of rape, genocide and war. Christianity is therefore complicit in that, and not only indirectly.
Rapism’ is a culture of rape.
- It is a symbol of all violent oppression
Daly points to Numbers, where Moses is involved in a campaign of war and tells the commanders of his army:
“kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man”
Image of God conceived through ‘total rape victim’ mary - no consent asked for - only to encourage women to become passive, submissive and obedient so that women would become the sexual property of men
trible The ‘texts of terror’ refer to the Old Testament stories in which women are victims of violence and abuse.
trible - should not only mourn but judge the action
liberal christians
Liberal Christians would argue that we should take a more symbolic view of the bible because they regard it as only having literal relevance for the time it was produced in and they often admit that human authors, and thereby patriarchy, had a role in writing the bible, not just God.
would present Jesus’ message as an egalitarian ethic that was perhaps watered down by the Early Church (perhaps because they felt it would harm their ability to evangelise properly).
Trible - importance of contextualising the bible = Man’s ‘mastery’ over woman is an aspect of the fall, it is not what God intended.
She is of the same substance as man (taken from his rib).
Trible’s reading of Genesis as unduly optimistic and argues that there is no reason to try to reinterpret obviously patriarchal texts.
daphne hampson -argues that liberal Christians are saddled with the weight of ancient tradition because despite their different approaches to the Bible, they all “read the bible as scripture” - view it as having unique value (sexist paradigms still affect them even if at a subconscious level
slave/master relationship
Christianity is inherently incompatible with feminist ethical values. It is based on the idea of an unbalanced power relationship with God.
Christians often retort that ‘there is neither male nor female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus’ (Galatians 3:28).
But Daly replies that this is a feeble attempt to make Christianity palatable. St Paul never imagined that gender would become irrelevant because as Christ was male, then women would have to become like men.
sisterhood of femininity
Daly thought the Church was irredeemably patriarchal and sexist against women and had to be abandoned
The Sisterhood of Feminism can take its place and fulfil many of the traditional spiritual functions of religion without being patriarchal - women’s abilities and knowledge are actually superior to those of men
The Most Whole Trinity of power, justice and love - The way of life which women are now spinning is transformed spirituality which is free from Christian patriarchy and which she hopes will also eventually transvaluate all of society.
Daly is advocating female supremacy, which is just as sexist as male supremacy and ultimately dangerous, radical and impractical
patriarchy, however, might someday be ended, and then true equality could be achieved, and male spirituality would then not be inferior. She argued that females needed their own space to heal from the damage done to them by patriarchy, which does not seem similar to segregationist attitudes.
segregation is impractical
Rosemary Radford Reuther - American feminist scholar and catholic theologian
begins with a hermeneutic of suspicion, questioning both the text itself and the way it has traditionally been used.
the Bible can be interpreted in a feminist way and therefore Christianity has the potential to be compatible with feminism. However currently it is sexist because it has undergone patriarchalization: the process whereby misogynistic views take over and dominate
men and women are both equally created with the imagio dei, which should be a basis for equality
Jesus did not fulfil the warrior image that was expected.
Reuther argues that Jesus is better understood as a self-sacrificing non-warrior Messiah, invoking female wisdom. This is a more gender-inclusive understanding of Jesus which could therefore be the basis for a redeemed Christianity. Ruether thinks this view which incorporates the female in the concept of God has been masked by the patriarchal interpretation of Jesus as only the male Messiah.
Daly argues that a male figure like Jesus cannot provide genuine spiritual salvation to women under conditions of patriarchy:
idea that women can be saved spiritually by a male can simply never work in a patriarchal society. It is too legitimating and reinforcing of male superiority.
fits with Reuther’s argument that Christianity underwent patriarchalization – Jesus was a gender inclusive figure which was corrupted by patriarchal reinterpretation. So Christianity can be reformed by this understanding of Jesus.
simon chan - You cannot rewrite the story of Christianity just to give more prominence to women. The story is central to shaping Christianity and the Christian worldview.
ruethers golden thread
there is a theme of liberation, including supporting feminist causes, in the Bible. the Bible also contains sexist patriarchal themes. These two themes – liberation and sexism – are inconsistent with each other. They cannot both be God’s authentic revelation. If we can find a way to separate the golden thread of authentic teachings which support feminism from the patriarchal threads, then Christianity might be redeemable.
golden thread argument depends on her claim that a plausible reading of Jesus’ actions is that they were aimed at liberating of women from the unjust social order
Schüssler Fiorenza - Mary Daly’s reading of the scriptures is narrow and selective - argues that the Bible supports women’s struggle against the patriarchy
Women living in society can take strength from the depictions of Jesus engaging with women
used creative actualisation to try to recreate ‘her-story’ (as opposed to ‘history’) and recreate the stories of the women who had been written out of the Bible.
The woman at the well - Jesus began a conversation with a female Samaritan at a well by asking her for a drink, which was unheard of as the ancient Jewish view was that Samaritans were unclean (willingness to challenge discriminatory behaviour)
The adulterous woman (John 8) is a biblical passage involving a woman who had committed adultery bring brought to Jesus by the Pharisees who asked Jesus if she should be stoned. Jesus said: “let whoever is without sin cast the first stone
The gospels present Mary and Martha as consistent followers of Jesus which shows that although he did not have female disciples he did have close female friends.
other ways of reading these passages which suggests they are not aimed at challenging or change social structures. If Jesus was the son of God, his actions and moral teachings might sometimes appear to challenge social order/structure, but that might just be because he treated everyone as spiritually equal.
She selected certain texts as authoritative over and above others. This is known as preaching a ‘canon within a canon’ – selective!
However she argued that this is what Christians have always done! The Bible has never been treated as though everything it said was equally authoritative. For example, historically the Genesis 2 creation story (in which woman is made out of man) has been treated as though it were more authoritative than Genesis 1 (in which man
and woman are made together).
pagels
women have been written out of the canonical texts and turn to other non-canonical material to try to rediscover what they consider to be a more authentic form of Jesus’ message.
- radical reconstruction is necessary
For Pagels, the important thing is that some of these Gnostic Gospels seem to be very positive towards women.
They are an alternative tradition that Christianity can draw upon and use to reform/reconstruct itself along more egalitarian lines.
They use male and female language about God. Mary Magdalene was an important figure
(as a disciple or, possibly, as Jesus’ wife). Some Gnostic sects had female priests. Gospel of Philip: Wisdom (Sophia in Greek and Ruah - a feminine noun - in Hebrew) is the female aspect of the divine
Pagels believes that in this respect the Gnostics were being true to Jesus’ message and the practices of the first Christians.
McVey - Pagels fails to pay attention to the relationship between the male and female aspects of God. The female aspect remains inferior to the male and is often associated with the material (bad) side of the world rather than the spiritual (superior) side of the world.
Pagels is guilty of confirmation bias
Elizabeth Cady Stanton felt that it was perfectly acceptable to reject the degrading teachings found in the Bible whilst upholding other examples as beneficial.
‘The Bible cannot be accepted or rejected as a whole’ - teachings are varied
- FALL - ‘…the unprejudiced reader must be impressed with the courage, the dignity, and the lofty ambition of the woman.
augustine
Rosemary Radford Ruether believes that Augustine regarded women as ‘possessing the image of God only secondarily’ whilst man possessed it normatively.
Lloyd stressed that Augustine said that women are only inferior in their helper status. Woman’s bodily difference is inferior (because bodily difference reflects her role as helpmate in procreation) but her rational spirit is not inferior to man
Soskice - Augustine believed that people were made in the image of the Trinitarian God (i.e. all parts of God) rather than made in the image of the Son (i.e. a male incarnation of God).
Elaine Pagels etc – Augustine is the source of over a thousand years of sexism within the Catholic Church.
Augustine seems to have treated educated women as his equal - Letter to Florentina.
AQUINAS - Women are less intelligent than men/Women might incite men to lust.
- man and woman are both in God’s image
The idea that man (Adam) was ‘first principle’ at the start of the human race in the same way that God was ‘first principle’ to the entire universe is important. Feminists like Simone de Beauvoire would say that this contributes to the idea of man as normative and woman as ‘other’.
