Book Review: Female Images of God in Christian Worship: In the Spirituality of TongSungGiDo of the Korean Church

Abstract

Female Images of in Worship: In the Spirituality of TongSungGiDo of the Church. By Myungsil Kim. New York: Peter Lang, 2014. viii + 139 pp. $75.95 (cloth).Female Images of in Worship seeks to address a destructive lack of female images of the divine among Presbyterians such that struggle to recognize themselves in theological and liturgical practices. Kim calls for the of female images of ... in embodied through which women may reconstruct the value of their bodies and lives by saying yes to the justice and equal-peace of God (p. 31). Kim's strategy for self-grammar in for is through an alliance with biblical and traditional feminine images of the divine.Kim uses an understanding of Presbyterian worship (based on the American liturgical theology of E. Byron Anderson) by which worshipers acquire a sense of self and worldview through self-grammar. Because Presbyterian worship excludes most images connecting the feminine and the divine, it is seriously inadequate for the identity needs of both and men. To fill this gap, Kim gathers a collection of female deities from the Ancient Near East, the Hebrew and scriptures, and finally the equally old and complex historical and cultural traditions in which female deities play a major role. While the collection of female images from the Ancient Near East and scriptures are familiar to many, the collection is something with which few who do not read will be familiar. The book concludes by connecting the use of female images of the divine with lament for the purposes of personal and communal identity and healing.The term Christian and Korean Church are used as if all Christians were Presbyterians. While there is some acknowledgment of the existence of Catholic Christians, all others are ignored. The perhaps unintended consequence of this approach is an example of how any specific cultural / historical setting of practice requires specific liturgical and theological responses. Although the context and nature of this work is exclusively Korean, that particularity-how it attends to a specific historical setting of Christianity-is a model for Christians in other cultures. The example is not to be copied, but used to inspire further exploration of our own particular cultural needs in theology and liturgy. …