Language, Sex, and Luther: Feminist Observations

Mary J Streufert

doi:10.3390/rel11020083

Abstract

Reading Luther from a feminist perspective reveals paradoxes and ambiguities in Luther’s writings related to language and sex, but we cannot make sense of Luther without important historical information, particularly the history of the meaning of sex; it affords a fresh reading of Luther. Even while Luther reinforces male-identified language and symbolism, he begins to shift it, and his work offers clues relevant to theological dialogue on the androcentrism of the Christian tradition 500 years into the ongoing reformation of Christianity. Because of the power dynamics infused in Western accounts of sex, gender, and sexuality for humans, Christians cannot in good faith cling to a primary gender or sex identity for God. More careful English translations demonstrate Luther is a resource in this work because he begins to shift an androcentric view of God and humanity even while paradoxically repeating it. Previous English translations of Luther have obscured his shifts in language and imagery and thus have led English readers to misunderstand Luther’s subtle but powerful views.

Highlights

How is it possible for feminist theologians to draw upon Martin Luther’s work? Debates abound on this question
At the risk of pressing Luther into feminist form, I think readers in every age can read with empathy to understand him in his context, as Sasse argues, but we do so with contemporary scholarship, which sometimes alerts us to facets of his context perhaps previously unnoticed
Human bodies in this model were of one flesh, one kind, and observed and experienced differences meant that the female was the imperfect version of the “canonical” male body

Summary

Introduction

How is it possible for feminist theologians to draw upon Martin Luther’s work? Debates abound on this question. At the risk of pressing Luther into feminist form, I think readers in every age can read with empathy to understand him in his context, as Sasse argues, but we do so with contemporary scholarship, which sometimes alerts us to facets of his context perhaps previously unnoticed. Reading Luther from a feminist perspective reveals paradoxes and ambiguities in Luther’s writings related to language and sex, but we cannot make sense of Luther without important historical information. If interpreters are not mindful of his context’s predominant though at times porous one-sex model of humanity and of the post-Enlightenment two-sex model, we are at risk of misreading Luther Knowing this historical feature can help us to read him “on his terms even at the risk of hearing unexpected things,” as Sasse writes. Noticing some clues in Luther’s writing depends upon knowing something about the history of the meaning of sex and accurately translating from his German texts

Sex in the West is about Ongoing Constructions of Power

Luther Gives Clues to Relinquish the Father-Son Dyad in Theology

Luther Retains and Transforms Androcentric Language

Luther Usurps Androcentrism