Is a Christian Feminist Theology Possible?

Abstract

The question explored in this paper is posed within the sisterhood of women who share the concerns of religious feminism. It is reflected in the sizable literature which represents the women’s movement in the synagogue, the Christian Church, and the feminist spirituality movement, and which has already developed into a tradition which is ecumenical, pluralist, and academically serious. Religious feminists are united in the conviction that both feminism and religion are profoundly significant for the lives of women and for contemporary life generally. That shared concern includes the perspectives of Jews, Christians, and those who claim no bond with either tradition. It includes feminists who work for the reform of traditions - Jewish, Roman Catholic, mainline or evangelical Protestant - and those who declare Judaism and Christianity irredeemably biased against women and find religious homes in the new forms of feminist spirituality. Feminist scholarship within the Christian context, for all its variety, is unified in its critical perception of sexism as a massive distortion in the historical and theological tradition which systematically denigrates women, overtly or covertly affirms women’s inferiority and submission to men (patriarchy), and excludes women from full actualization and participation in the Church and society. It is unified in its aim of freeing women from restrictive ideologies and institutional structures which hinder selfactualization and self-transcendence. And it is unified in its attention to the interpreted experience of women as a source for religious and theological reflection, especially as those analyses, whether secular or religious, reflect the collective experience of women, in whatever groups of race, age, class, nationality. Thus it is an interdisciplinary and cooperative task. The differences within feminist religious scholarship as it relates to Christian theology are accounted for by different perceptions of the depth and pervasiveness of sexism within Christianity. In a 1977 survey of feminist theology, Carol Christ argues that the essential challenge is posed by Mary Daly’s claim that the gender and the intrinsic character and attributes of the Christian God are patriarchal.(1) Christ divides feminist scholarship into “reformist” and “revolutionary” approaches, and notes that few reformists working within the tradition have responded to this criticism of Christianity’s core symbolism. Feminist revolutionaries, on the other hand, use the experience of women not only as a corrective but as a starting point and norm. Free of the authorities of Judaism or Christianity, they attempt to create new symbols and traditions on the basis of their own perceptions of ultimate reality. While it remains to be seen whether the writings of the revolutionaries - mainly concerned with symbols and spirituality - will develop