The Cambridge Companion to Feminist Theology
The Cambridge Companion to Feminist Theology is a collection of essays by various authors intending to give a general orientation to Feminist Theology. Feminist Theology is theology done specifically and intentionally from the ideological vantage point for feminism. The opening essay in the book defines feminism as “a critical stance that challenges the patriarchal gender paradigm that associates males with human characteristics defined as superior and dominant (rationality, power) and females with those defined as inferior and auxiliary (intuition, passivity). Here I will focus on one essay in the book by Carol P. Christ, called “Feminist Theology as a Post-Traditional Theaology.”
Post-Traditional
Thealogy derives from the words thea, meaning “goddess,” and logos, which Carol P. Christ defines as “meaning.” Thus thealogy refers to the meaning of the goddess while theology refers to the meaning of God. Although thealogy could be understood as “pre-traditional,” since Goddess feminists identify their historical origin to be over 25,000 years prior to the times of Abraham and Moses, it “cannot claim a direct inheritance of pre-Jewish or pre-Christian religious symbols, rituals or ideas” (79). Rather, most Goddess feminists originated as or identify themselves as Christians or Jews, albeit “post-traditional.” Carol P. Christ locates the “seeds” of feminist thealogy with Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s The Woman’s Bible and Matilda Joslyn Gage, who “maintained that Christianity could not be salvaged for women” (80). Though she has distanced herself from the movement, Mary Daly laid further groundwork for it through her writings, epitomized by the phrase “if God is male, male is God.” By the end of the twentieth century, a significant “goddess” or “women’s spirituality” movement emerged largely from individuals departing from (either through separation or significant revision) their Christian or Jewish traditions and subsequently incorporating elements of neo-paganism, witchcraft and Wicca.
Embodied Thinking
Carol P. Christ contrasts “embodied thinking” to “objective thinking.” Objective thinking is a pretense to veil the “passions of the thinker.” Instead, embodied thinking is rooted in the life of the body and personal experience. Because this is the case, it does not and cannot claim an oppressive universality but maintains empathy and free dialogue with those of other positions.
Embodied thinking entails a recognition of the female body as containing the divine power of the “goddess.” Ntozake Shange describes this by saying “i found god in myself / and i love her / i love her fiercely.” Recognizing divine power within the female body does not just liberate one from internalized misogyny directed toward one’s body, but it produces a “profound metaphorical shift” in how one views the entire world. All that femininity has symbolized is “sacralized” and recognized with its profound value and significance: “the flesh, the earth, finitude, interdependence, death” (81). A revitalized appreciation of the interdependence and interrelatedness of all things leads to an affirmation of bodily and natural life, encouraging women to value themselves and encouraging all to respect women, value diversity and care for the earth.
This is considered post-traditional because it shares sentiment with critiques of Christianity and Judaism that render them unsalvageable for women. To see God as male is inherently detrimental to women and establishes a hierarchical (oppressive) order of society. They also believed that dualisms which split “body and mind, spirit and matter, finite and infinite, rational and irrational, male and female, must be replaced with more holistic notions” (82). Furthermore, in light of the interrelatedness of all things, they “envision a more just world.”
While many of Carol P. Christ’s concerns are valid, she does not demonstrate why, or even that, these issues make embodied thinking post-traditional. Many theologians have shown that Trinitarian theology undermines the hierarchical construction of church and society and replaces it with an ontology of relationship and interrelatedness.1 Furthermore, numerous Christian scholars have also recognized that the dualisms Carol P. Christ rightly decries (as she also recognizes) are not Christian at all, but are Platonic. Faithful interpretation of scripture leads to a non-dualistic understanding of the world. This is especially so in some recent theologies of the Holy Spirit that seek to overcome distortions in the understanding of flesh and spirit.2 Additionally, to envision a more just world, one needs to go little further than the Hebrew prophets. Furthermore, within the New Testament, radical views with regard to gender equality are clearly seen, as has been demonstrated by many in modern times.3 Therefore, the overcoming of hierarchicalism, the valuing of the body and the earth, the overcoming of dualism and concerns for justice and equality are not post-traditional; they are profoundly within the tradition. What is centrally post-traditional about her thealogy is that it requires a “divine power” in the female body in order for these truths to be recognized. Faithful Christian communities have recognized these by authenticity to Biblical testimony and by recognition of what would have been an extremely radical idea in the Ancient Near East: that the very image of God is invested in all people: male and female.
Old-European and Indo-European Culture
Carol P. Christ presents the work of archeologist Marija Gimbutas in explaining a new “myth of beginnings” for thealogy. In this schema, “Old Europe” (ca. 6500-3500 bce) was a society that worshipped the Goddess and correspondingly was “peaceful, sedentary, agricultural, artistic, matrifocal, egalitarian” (84-5). Remarkably different were Indo-European cultures, which were oriented towards the worship of the sky-god. These cultures were “warlike, mobile, domesticated horses, patrilineal and patriarchal” (85). Although she only hints at how this happened, somehow, the peaceful “Goddess culture” of Old Europe was disrupted by the “patriarchy, violence and war” of the “Sky-god culture” of Indo-Europe. Though, by her own admission, this analysis is nearly universally “dismissed by classicists and archaeologists,” she maintains this view by a corresponding dismissal of nearly the entire academy in relevant fields of study. Classists, she says, “generally have little knowledge of pre-history.” Archeologists, on the other hand, are methodologically challenged in regards to religion. History of religion scholarship, she says, is entirely androcentric. This is a most remarkable move. One would imagine that to sustain such a thesis that goes against nearly all scholarship in the realm of classics, archeology and history of religion, she might consider citing at least one other scholar that agrees, rather than a simple categorical dismissal all of these respective disciplines and their work. Her “myth of beginnings,” however, is not really a discussion of origins at all. It does not replace the Biblical story of the creation of the world because it does not address the world’s formation, but, the formation of the patriarchal-world. Instead of a story of origins, and ironically because she does not believe humanity is “fallen,” it is nevertheless a story of the Fall. In this version of the story, the fall of the human race does not occur in the violation of the law of a transcendent God, but when God worship overtakes Goddess worship, when matrifocal society is replaced by patriarchal society. This story of beginnings hardly seems to promote egalitarianism or overcome dualisms. Rather it promotes the view that a feminine-oriented culture is peaceable, passive (sedentary), artistic, expressive and loving, while a masculine-oriented culture is aggressive, hostile, active, mobile and domineering. It also suggests that individual and global salvation lies in the Goddess, i.e. women—a view of which even feminist theologian Sally McFague is extremely critical.4
Though I have of course been rather critical of Carol Christ’s views, I actually resonate with a number of her concerns. That massive abuses have been perpetrated at the hand of male domination and violence is undeniable. The dysfunctionality caused by dualistic thinking quenches life of its vitality. The subtle hatred of the body that has run rife in popular and academic Christianity makes it virtually impossible to be human. While I see that her conclusions (the necessity of a fusion of ancient goddess religion with Wicca, New Age, etc.) are certainly post-traditional, I cannot see why her concerns are. In fact many of her concerns are rightly and truly addressed by faithfulness to the biblical tradition. Furthermore, its seems as though her solution promotes further disintegration of humanity by advocating a women’s separatist movement. The Gospel of Jesus Christ, faithfully interpreted in context to its historic and holistic Hebrew spirituality opens the way for the overcoming of unhealthy dualisms, alienations and hatreds and the recovery of the community of women and men together experiencing the fully embodied vitality of a life lived before God.
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1 Jurgen Moltmann, Trinity and the Kingdom; Catherine M. LaCugna, “The Relational God,” Theological Studies 46 (1985); Stanley J. Grenz, The Social God and the Relational Self: A Trinitarian Theology of the Imago Dei (Louisville, KY: Westminster, 2001); Gregory A. Boyd, Trinity and Process: A Critical Evaluation and Appropriation of Hartshorne’s Di-polar Theism Towards a Trinitarian Metaphysics (New York: Peter Lang, 1992); John D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985); William J. Hill, The Three-Personed God: The Trinity as a Mystery of Salvation (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University Press); Ted Peters, God as Trinity: Relationality and Temporality in Divine Life (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster/John Knox, 1993); Catherine LaCugna, God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life (San Fransisco: HarperSanFransisco, 1991).
2 Jurgen Moltmann, Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), esp. pp. 86ff. Clark Pinnock, Flame of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit (Downers Grove, Ill: Intervarsity Press, 1996), esp. pp. 62ff. Michael Welker, God the Spirit (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), esp. pp. 258ff.
3 Gilbert Bilezikian, Beyond Sex Roles (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1977), amongst others.
4 Sally McFague, Metaphorical Theology: Models of God in Religious Language (Philadelphia, 1987), 159.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Edward Hopper, Morning Sun