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OUR BIBLICO-THEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

Salvation implies total liberation of the whole society from oppressive structures. In this idea of total liberation is included women’s emancipation so that women’s emancipation is impossible without the liberation of total society and vice-versa.

In the Asian scene, which is the context out of which we speak, women have traditionally been very much oppressed. And religions have played a significant role in deepening and compounding women’s oppressive condition. The major religions in Asia-Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam- have depicted women as sinful, impure and ritually unclean.

Even in Christianity, we find a lower status of women to men, in practice, if not in teaching. It has been observed that in Christian liturgy, as a concrete example among a host of examples, women are relegated to secondary position if not totally ignored. Christian liturgy is in practice no more than a worship to a male God, led by a male clergy but in which, ironically, the majority of worshippers are women.

Part of our task in this workshop has been to study what our faith has to say on the matter of a basic equality of the sexes, men and women, before God and society. We note that in the message of Christ, there was an attempt on his part to raise the status of women. When he came, women in Palestine were treated very low in society. It is said that when Jewish men rise in the morning, they thank God that they had not been born, “Gentile, slave or woman”.

On the contrary, women occupied an honored place in Christ teaching and activities as witnessed, for example, in the writings of Luke. Luke mentions prominently Mary, the mother of our Lord; Elizabeth,

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the mother of John the Baptist; Anna, the prophetess; the sinful woman who poured ointment on our Lord’s feet; the woman of many infirmities (13:11-13); Mary and Martha; at least two parables with women as central figures (15:8-10, 18:1-18); and Mary Magdalene.

In the recording of the Magnificat of Mary, we note that it was in and through Mary that our Lord came into this world. A fresh insight into the Incarnation Event informs us “that a legitimate interpretation of the Incarnation would be that it reverses the order of the old creation. Jesus, the New Man, comes without any masculine agency being employed… If Eve of the old woman came from a man (creation story), then Christ, the Mew Man, comes from a woman.” Likewise, the Bible study brought to fore the boldness of the Magnificat message- a manifesto on social justice spoken by a woman.

Gleaned from this, it can be said that Christianity has a message particularly addressed to women, which is one of hope. We find our Lord breaking with the discriminations which negated women in social life. The Christian message is one of affirmation of the worth, the value, of every person, female or male, and of every people, Jews, Greeks, Gentiles and so on. In fact, the Christian message is an affirmation of the whole of creation, the whole inhabited world.

Also, in the context of our own theological understanding, we express indignance to formulations and practices that would divide people into classes: rich and poor, learned and unlettered, black and white, old and young, and men and women. Any practice which would in effect separate persons from one another is contrary to the tenets of Christianity as we understand it.

We strongly feel that we need to further explore the richness of the Christian message, not only vis-à-vis the emancipation of women in our particular national situation, but of the whole society and the struggle for a truly free, equal and human world. We hope our national movements and the Federation on the regional and world-wide levels shall continue to help their members in this search for understanding and full awareness.