Gender and theology

Bible - C essentially/ irredeemably sexist

• OT - Moses to commanders: “kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves ever girl who has never slept with a man”

• Gen 2: “I will make a helper suitable for him”

• Gen 3: Eve blamed for Fall

  • “bc you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree”

  • imbalance of m/f power - “he will rule over you”

• Judges: scoundrels demand to abuse guest

  • offers virgin daughter and concubine

  • r*pe concubine to death

Scholars - C essentially/ irredeemably sexist

• Tertulian: women = ‘devil’s gateway’

  • responsible for fall and J’s sacrifice

• Aug: women =/= imago dei

• Aquinas: women = ill-conceived males

C essentially/ irredeemably sexist

2000 yr tradition, C = sum of experiences

male hierarchy fundamental

C essentially/ irredeemably sexist - J and disciples

• m saviour

  • Mary Daley “idea of a uniquely m saviour may be seen as 1 > legitimisation of m superiority”

• 12 m dsciples

  • deliberate theological, not culturally deterined

  • permanent example

NoG - C essentially/ irredeemably sexist

• Father

  • Jesus addresses - OT and NT idea

  • Mary Daly “God is male then male is God”

• C chose to follow Jewish heritage of 1 m God, even tho knew Greeks and Romans had f deities

• Trinity excludes women

Early - C essentially/ irredeemably sexist

• Paul (Corinthians) - “women should remain silent in the Churches”

• Ephesians: “For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the Church”

Church teachings and practices - C essentially/ irredeemably sexist

• Aquinas

• Catholicism - VM venerated as paradigm of f role

  • pure yet maternal

• m priests in most of C history

  • still in RCX

    • priests → sacraments

    • salvation thru men

Religion in society - C essentially/ irredeemably sexist

• men use/ weaponise religion to gain authority and power over women

• “The Handmaid’s Tale”

  • rigidly patriarchal society presented and reinforced by state religion

  • warning against what happens when fundamentalist religious ideology allowed to develop unchecked

Mary Daley - C essentially/ irredeemably sexist

• Mary = passive empty “void”

  • rape victim

  • “spirit invaded”

  • no consent, even so → power diff

  • God = ultimate Harvey Weinstein

  • Mary put on pedestal only to encourage women to become passive, submissive and obedient → sexual property of men

• “unholy trinity”: rape, genocide, war

  • C legitimised patriarchy → 3 outcomes

    • implicitly (m God)

    • explicitly e.g. Moses tells commanders

• spirituality presented in form of fixed m being

Bible - C NOT essentially/ irredeemably sexist

• Biblical texts = simply products of societies they come from

• Gen 1: “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them, m and f he created them

Scholars - C NOT essentially/ irredeemably sexist

Fiorenza

• Bible supports women’s struggles against patriarchal sexism e.g. J breaking sexist customs (Mary and Martha)

Trible

• can ‘depatriarchalise’ Bible

• OT uses f to describe God

  • Numbers, God potrayed as mother and nurse of her wandering children

• Bible misinterpreted in patriarchal way

Example of J - C NOT essentially/ irredeemably sexist

• interactions with women

  • Mary Magdalene found empty tomb

    • proclaims resurrection

    • 1st to see J after resurrection

  • Mary and Martha (Luke)

    • J praises Mary

    • women not just homemakers, can appreciate his words

    • “sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said”

    • “Mary has chosen what is better”

• J not sexist = C not sexist

• Ruether

NoG - C NOT essentially/ irredeemably sexist

Ruether

Early Christian (Paul) - C NOT essentially/ irredeemably sexist

• Galatians: “nor is there f and m, for you are all one in Christ Jesus”

  • Paul → Jewish heritage

  • CA/ m and f equal value BUT diff roles

  • women took leadership role sin early Church, as described in NT e.g. Lydia and Sapphira

• wisdom and Christ

  • Corinthians: “Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God”

• chooses Phoebe to deliver letter to Romans and referred to her as deacon and helper

church teachings and practices - C NOT essentially/ irredeemably sexist

• Catholic Catechism “God is neither man nor woman… Pure spirit”

  • symbolic

• many churches rethinking lang around God → neutral pronouns

• f bishop in CoE → archbishop of canterbury

• Ruether

• The Shakers

  • believed women particularly receptive to HS and should play essential roles in C leadership in preparation for Christ’s 2nd coming

C NOT essentially/ irredeemably sexist

Ruether

• ‘sexism and God-talk’

  • “Golden thread” thru OT and NT

• “whatever diminishes or denies the full humanity of women must be presumed not to reflect the divine”

  • rather reflects writers/ cultures

Hampson

Rosemary Radford Ruether

• reformed fem theologian

• ‘Sexism and God-talk: Toward a Feminist Theology’

• patriarchy → profound and damaging effect on C → radical reform

  • not essentially sexist, but distorted

  • God beyond gender

Ruether - J’s challenge to m warrior-Messiah expectationn

• Hebrew Scriptures (OT) → Davidic Messiah

  • conquering warrior

  • future king, son of David who will be restored to Israel and deliver ppl from bondage thru battle

  • Messiah = Son of God (chosen by God) and Son of Man (represent ppl before God)

  • ‘the Messiah can only be imagined as a m’ (maleness association)

• BUT ‘he is expected to win, not to suffer and die’

  • traditional Messiah =/= incarnatino of divine/ redeemer, who forgives sins thru redemptive self-sacrifice

• J rejects nationalist-revenge mythology

  • envisions time of harmony on earth

• SERVANT KING

  • attends to poor and dispossessed rather than highest in social order

  • critical of Jewish authorities and reignign powers

  • washes feet of disciples (John)

  • ppl freed by following servant king and becoming servants of God, not thru acts of military bravery

  • self-sacrificing, redeeming, connected to f notion of wisdom

• shouldn’t mix maleness of historical and Davidic military Messiah into C concept of Messiah

Ruether - f wisdom principle, J as incarnation of wisdom

• Sophia = wisdom (greek)

  • in ancient world, personified in f form as goddess

  • early C → divine wisdom

• Proverbs: divine wisdom referred to in f terms

• God associated with wisdom (f) ‘The Book of Wisdom’

• notion of divine wisdom (unites cosmos with divine) merged into → notion of messianic king (brings new age of redemption)

  • f wisdom idea obscured behind patriarchal veil of m Messiah

• Theologically ‘divine wisdom’ = ‘Son of God’

  • Paul Corinthians: ‘Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God’

    • R: J ‘plays the same cosmological roles as Sophie as ground of creation’

• refers to God as ‘Gaia’ (ancient Greek goddess of earth)

  • links divinity with earth

  • but God =/= Gaia

  • trying to recover concept of God thru ancient notion of Sophie

    • for truer reflection of imago dei (image and likeness)

🙂 Ruether

• Biblical support: strong women depicted in OT not edited out

  • women 1st to meet resurrected Christ in NT

    • despite women barely recognised except as possession of fathers and husbands

    • J

• allowance for cultural context in which Church grew

• RCX can be changed from within

  • ppl essentially good

  • sufficient evidence in Bible of ‘true’ teachings

• Archbishop of Canterbury

  • change possible → Anglican Church in UK, has struggled in to achieve full equality

  • CA/ much opposition and Cs left

☹ Ruether

Simon Chan

• can’t rewrite C to give > prominence to women

• story shapes C identity

• belief in Trinity central to C and key parts of C liturgy rely on lang

• central prayers e.g. Anglican and Catholic Churches’ Eucharistic prayers → ‘almighty Father’

  • wrong to downplay maleness

• can’t abandon m lang of God

  • accepts that f images used to describe God’s love

  • BUT ‘mother’ never used

  • other ancient religions had goddess at centre sometimes along god e.g. goddess Isis in Egypt

  • BUT still patriarchal and not equal/ matriarchal

  • using f lang =/= < patriarchy

  • m lang =/= patriarchal

Daphne Hampson

• C and fem incompatible

• C too tightly interwoven with patriarchy to be reinterpreted with fem agenda

General

• too far

• not far enough

Mary Daly

• Post-C radical fem

• ‘Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation’

• religion, has, still = tool to enforce oppression and violence to women

  • women need to get beyond religion

• inspried by Nietzsche

• Father-God → patriarchal view of society and spirituality

  • ‘If God is male then male is God’

• cultural impact of C on society → ‘unholy trinity’ of rape, genocide, war

  • 1 patriarchal God = sexism + racism + classism → 3 headed monster

• Biblical and popular image of God = great patriarch in heaven

  • universe m dominated

  • husband represents God, dominates wife

  • perpetuates sexual role delusions

• criticised “fathers” in C tradition for anti-fem

  • Tertullian

  • Aquinas

  • Augustine

  • Martin Luther - God created Adam lord of all, but Eve spoiled

  • criticised C role of women = mother and that women cannot be ordained bc J = m

• criticised modern theologians, accused

  • Bonhoeffer → m subject to husbands

  • Barth → woman subordinate to man (head)

  • Pope Pius XII → women’s true liberation =/= formalistic/ materialistic equality with men, = vocation to be mother

• Critical of Fletcher SE

  • m-made (patriarchy’s dominating elite)

  • personalistic, individualistic, denying communal dimension for liberation of women

• system of ethics and theology = product of m

  • overtly, explicitly oppressing women

Daly - rape

• ‘rapism’ = culture of rape = symbol of all violent oppression

  • creates society that encompasses e.g. nuclear arms race, racism, man-made poverty

  • pervasive culture of violence

• leaders of society = ‘sovereigns of sado-society’

  • use culture, religions, politics to erase f power

• patriarchally possessed sleeping women have forgotten reality of gross inequality → gynocide

• not only theoretical but systemic acts of physical violence towards women

• connection between mentality rape + war

  • e.g. rape of 100s of 1000s of Bengali women by West Pakistanu soldiers in 1971

    • some raped to death

• rape + war link in Bible

  • Moses in Numbers

  • Judges

• ‘arm chair rapists’ = those who vicariously enjoy pornography

  • to enhance sense of power over women

Daly - genocide

• rape = cultural manifestation of sexual caste system

  • world-wide phenomenon , hierarchy

• conditioning process

  • perpetuated by consent of victims (f) and dominant sex (m) thru sex-role socialisation

    • birth → reinforced thru experiences

• rape + genocide

  • m sexual violence → basis of military interests

  • rape → raped person = objective victim of rapist

    • x individual, joins group of raped ppl

  • act of one group against another: m against f

• linked groupthink of Nazis against those subjugated + RCX

  • focus on sameness, against diff

  • Jewish origins of C - ppl of Israel chosen to be apart from others

Daly - War

• horrors of war associated with manly, adventurous virtues

  • courageous, powerful acts of violence to defeat enemy

• violence hidden by technical lang

  • e.g. ‘collateral damage’ used to cover up fact that lives of innocent ppl expendable

  • corrupt lang

    • killing of humans in conflict → “just”

    • killing of unborn humans in abortion → “unjust”

  • war defended by ‘phallic morality’ and ‘phallic mentality’

• liberation: women need to be radically deviant in patriarchal expectation

• total revolution of moral and social standards

  • C key in sustaining and shaping these

• incarnation of Christ = ‘symbolic legitimisation of the rape of all women and matter’

• underlying culture of rape, genocide and war, impregnated in C itself

Daly - spirituality experienced thru nature

• m of God needs to be overturned

• special sacred men’s club of m mothers (priests) who control spiritual moments of life as religious authority have locked women into an Eden

• traditional holy places (built and managed by men) not suitable centres of spirituality

• sacred space = moving thing, part of mov of freedom for both women and men

• ‘quintessence’ = being in which we live, love and create

  • highest essence

    • spirit that permeates all nature, giving life and vitality to whole universe