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Feminist Theology

Overthrowing idolatry and rediscovering relationship in the Christian tradition

Margie Mayman-Park and Judith Sorrell

The authors, members of the Aotearoa (New Zealand) SCM, prepared this statement on feminist theology/or a theology workshop,

The church and its theology support the status quo, which denies women their full humanity and their part in continuing the creation of this world. Christianity and feminism are not opposed: Christianity demands feminism, in order that all may follow Christ and, like Christ, change the world.

Christianity inherits from the classical world a view of humanity that is dualistic and hierarchical. Dualisms describe reality in terms of opposites. For example,

self male spirit light rationality good white

Body female flesh darkness emotion evil black

These opposites are given values. Hence, we have a hierarchy of values. The male church has applied this view of reality to its practice and its theology.

Men, who have created culture, have identified the "positive" side of the dualism with themselves and projected the "negative" side onto women, over whom they claimed the right to rule. The same pattern is applied to other groups, for example, Jesus (on the one hand), blacks and homosexuals (on the other).

Which side is God identified with? The "positive" male side. Feminist theology charges Judaism and Christianity with being sexist religions, because God has been named in almost exclusively male terms, and placed firmly on the male side of the dualistic structure. When God is male, men are God. Christianity as a sexist religion has a male god, and traditions of male leadership that legitimate the superiority of men in family and society.

The theologians of the church have, from earliest times to the present age, restricted, limited, defined and named women.

In all of this, feminist Christians are in a dilemma. Is Christianity

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essentially sexist? Can the God who has been used to oppress us also be our liberator? The God of the oppressor is no god; he is an idol. As women, we affirm that Christ is liberator and that the central Christian commitment is to actively love God and other people. In Christ, God has made true humanity possible.

Women are now choosing from a spectrum of expressions of spirituality. From a movement out of the church in favour of goddess worship, to radical Christian feminism (which seeks essential change in the church), to reform (which allows women to participate in the church on men's terms), women are responding to humanity's ultimate concern. Women affirm that human life has a spiritual dimension that they will not be excluded from simply because, until now, the expression of spirituality has been determined by men.

We will not be silenced in church or anywhere. The bible has long been used to justify the exclusion of women from church leadership and theological reflection. The authority of scripture has given way to the idolatry of scripture.

As women, we must trust our experience as a base point for our theology. We affirm and celebrate our bodies and ourselves as the agents of love. From our embodied experience we move in a new naming of world and self.

Feminist theology rediscovers the centrality of relationship in the Christian tradition. To look at Jesus is to see not a man lusting for self- sacrifice, but rather the radical power of mutuality. And followers of Christ are called not to practise the virtue of sacrifice, but rather to embody, share, celebrate the gift of life, and to pass it on! In the feminist mode, the pattern of Christian relating moves from domination by to partnership with God, with each other and with all creation.

Feminist theologians are working in all the fields of Christian scholarship, and their contributions vary greatly. They have influenced male thinkers so that the study of theology will never be the same again. In whichever discipline they work, feminist theologians share a concern for ethics — what we believe shapes who we are and what we do. Activity is the mode of love.