Methodological Issues in Feminist/Womanist Theologies- 1

1. Feminist/Womanist Critique of Dominant Theologies

According to feminist theologians, theology portrayed the human condition from a male standpoint and made such an account normative for both men and women. The task of feminist theology, therefore, is to attempt to give voice to women and to include a female perspective in the construction of theology. Rosemary Radford Ruether argues that Feminist theology takes feminist critique and reconstruction of gender paradigms into the theological realm. They question patterns of dominant theology that justify male dominance and female subordination, such as exclusive male language for God, The view that males are more like God than females, that only males can represent God as leaders in Church and society, or that women are created by God to be subordinate to males and thus sin by rejecting this subordination.

Feminist theologians observe that traditional Christianity has taught the equality of souls for God and in the world to come, and the inequality of the sexes in this world and in the church.

Feminists emphasize that theology has been developed not simply by males, but by males within a patriarchal culture and church. Feminists add that male scholars take sexual hierarchy for granted, support it ideologically, or fail to discover the phenomenon at all. In a patriarchal context the tacit pre-understanding of males (and often of females, too) is normally a patriarchal understanding of reality, except for individuals who somehow have developed a critical attitude toward the existing order. Furthermore, in a social system where sex has been (and still is, in part) the most basic criterion for the distribution of social roles and functions, the typical life experience of males and females respectively becomes very different. Nevertheless, most male scholars have not recognized the hermeneutical significance of gender and apparently assume that their perspective is universally human. mainstream theology as ‘patriarchal’ or ‘androcentric’, but discern between three levels of andro-centrism in theology:

            a. Overtly patriarchal theologies, which are based on a conscious/explicit patriarchal ideology (defining male-female as respectively superior and subordinate/inferior) and explicitly legitimize a patriarchal ordering of society.

            b. Implicitly patriarchal theologies, which have a lot of subtle (perhaps unconscious) patriarchal assumptions without propagating patriarchal ideology; they function to support traditional attitudes.

            c. ‘Egalitarian’ theologies, which in principle recognize the equality of the sexes but have little insight into the androcentric presuppositions and priorities built into their methodologies and traditions. In practice they are unable to discover gender issues and deal adequately with them.

2. Feminist/Womanist Reconstruction of Theology

Feminism is one of the latest crisis that Christianity faced. Christianity represents a patriarchal
world, where God is represented as male, and in biblical religion men and women are often
conceived to be differently placed both in relation to God and to one another. Feminism says that Christianity have been patriarchal myths and that they have hurt women. The feminist contention is that symbols are powerful and may damage relationships. The understanding of God as male and the world of the bible has been considered to be normative for human relations, has served to legitimize the place which women have occupied in western culture and to thwart. According to Margaret Daphne Hampson, in her book Theology and Feminism, argues that the historical challenge of feminism is that women may want to express their understanding of God within a different thought structure. Recognizing the absence and marginalization of women in kyriocentric texts, feminist historians have sought to articulate the problems of how to write women back into history and how to capture the memory of women’s historical experiences and contribution. Therefore a critical feminist historical reconstructive approach challenges by insisting that history must be written not from the perspective of the historical winners but from that of the silenced or marginalized.

Feminist reconstruction of theology with the goal of liberating women has two aspects. First, feminists sought to identify the various forms of oppression that structured women’s lives, and second, they imagined and sought to create an alternative future without oppression. The process of protest and transformation is a recurrent thread within feminist theologies, and is characterized in a variety of ways.

According to Sheila Briggs, she identifies three critical moments for feminist theological critique and reconstruction: (i)  the dismantling of patriarchal foundations; (ii) The recovery of women's past and the transformation of present and (iii)future religious institutions. According to Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, she argues for a hermeneutics of suspicion, remembrance, and transformation in which “suspicion” is directed towards the silences, inconsistencies, incoherence’s, and ideological mechanisms of androcentric records and scholarship “remembrance” involves the vital commission to insist on women's inclusion as autonomous subjects, even against the grain of their historical absence and invisibility. Fiorenza argues that the androcentric bias within “God talk” has also emerged as another important theme, another example of the way in which feminist theologians insist on the politically charged nature of religious language.

 

Reconstructive method

According to Fiorenza, “Kyriocentric Biblical Text tells stories and construct social worlds and symbolic universe that mythologise, reverse, absolutise and idealise kyriarchal differences and in doing so obliterate and marginalise the historical presence of the devalued (remove) “other”. The critical-historical reconstruction approach writes history from the silence perspectives and not the winners‟ perspectives. In order to reconstruct the past, feminist scholars used women’s experience and feminist theoretical analysis of reality.

Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza argues that the hermeneutics of proclamation must denounce all texts and traditions that validates and give legitimacy to the oppressive patriarchal structures and ideologies. She further gives a strong assertion that we should no longer proclaim them as the word of God for contemporary communities and people if we do not want to turn God into a God of oppression. Therefore, the feminists call for a careful assessment and selection of biblical texts for proclamation which is inclusive in nature. A critical feminist theology of liberation must further asses how biblical texts, that are not patriarchal in nature or character, can function as oppressive texts in the lives of the contemporary women.

            (i) Renaming God

The Jewish and the Christian tradition overwhelmingly make use of male metaphors in describing God and failing address God in words that, in the society in which they came to be used of God, referred exclusively to males. According to Rosemary Radford Ruether, that feminist theology must create a new textual base, a new canon that cannot be done from the existing base of the Christian Bible.

According to Elizabeth Wendel, the beliefs in the figure of Jesus Christ has become problematic for many women for the past twenty years. Hence women studies have tried to see Jesus from their perspectives and experiences where the figure of Jesus would relate to their pathos and dismantle all male domineering structured notions and practices. According to Rosemary Reuther Jesus was defined as a Liberator and Jesus can be viewed as “liberated humanity” which denotes Christ as the beginning of processing human liberation and not only for his humanity which mentions Christ as the beginning of processing human liberation and not only for his individual perfection.

            (ii) The Shape of God

Margaret Daphne Hampson, in her book Theology and Feminism, argues that the Christian feminist want to change the actor in the play, what they wish to stay within the Christian tradition, have on the whole experimented with renaming God in order to continue the analogy to have different actors. They referring God as a mother rather than a father. The problem also lies on the Trinitarian understanding of God as the term Father and Son are being implied in the trinity. The Feminist theologians argues that there is a Father and son, one naturally think of a Mother also, so as to complete the symbol of the unity of a family. They assert that the father and son implied in the doctrine of trinity is just a symbolism. The feminist also try to refer to the Holy spirit as the Mother and consider her as the one will bring perfection and fulfillment to their community in partnership. The shape of God in essence is neither male nor female. Therefore the ways of traditional male focused theology. At the same time the pronounced She and Her cannot replace the male symbolism either. So that we have to look for a personal God as either He or She that can connect to everyone in balance.

            (iii) God as Community

King Ursula, Feminist Theology: From the Third World opines that Asian women view God not as an individual, but as a community. It is not simply a man or a woman who can reflect God, but it is the community in relationship. In a genuine community everyone is a steward to one another and this community is characterized by interdependence, harmony and mutual growth. The image of God as the community in relationship empowers Asian Women to get out of their individualism. It also encourages them to honor their responsibility and rights as a part of the community.

            (iv) God As Creator In Nature And In History

According to the Asian women believes that God is also a creator of this beautiful universe in all its splendor and variety. They experience this creator God in their own creativity as a women who gives birth, as a cook, gardener, communicator, as a writer, as a creator of environment, atmosphere, and life.

            (v) God As Life- Giving Spirit

Hampson argues that the emerging generation of the Asian women theologians mentions God as a life- giving spirit, they can encounter within themselves and in everything that fosters life. The younger generation of Asian women theologians lift up the immanence of God in their theologies. They are longing for an image of God that is all embracing and God as life- giving spirit who is present everywhere and moves everywhere opens the door for a new understanding of the divine.

            (vi) God As Mother And Woman

According to Elizabeth Wendel, many theologians think that God as life-giving power can be naturally personified as mother and woman because woman gives birth to her children and family members by nurturing them. God is portrayed as mother and woman. Some claims that women are more sensitive to fostering life than men because of women’s experience of giving birth and nurturing others.