I'm reading the book She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse by Elizabeth Johnson for an independent study with a female student. I can't say that I consider myself a "feminist" by any stretch of the imagination. I refer to God as "He" and "Father" - and I attend a church that does not allow women to preach or even sit on the council. Not that I don't have "feminist"impulses...I believe that women should be allowed to preach from the pulpit, and I'm not convinced that the way we understand sexuality in the church is very helpful. I just finished Jacques Ellul's The Subversion of Christianity in which he argues that in the beginning Christianity was egalitarian, only to inherit essentially pagan views of gender through the years. Johnson, who I believe is Roman Catholic, makes simliar, and quite convincing claims.
Once again today I opened my mouth in Gen 300... imploring students to rethink our understanding of gender and sexuality. I appealed to St. Bernard, Hildegard of Bigen, Julian of Norwich, and implicitly presented Jurgen Moltmann's Trinitarian understanding of gender and the image of God. I argued that the reason there is little difference between the sexual practices of Christians and non Christians is because we share similar views of sexuality and gender. So often gender and sexuality are portrayed as additives - not really essential to our human identity. This leads, I believe, to a utilitarian view of sex (primarily as a means of reproduction and orgasms) as well as a dismissal of any serious engagement of gender issues. What if being made in the image of God included our sexuality? What if gender was considered an essential part of our human identity? What if sex really correlates with divine perichoresis? I asked these questions today in class. The response? They thought I was making up "stuff".
I tried to tell them this discussion is as old as Christianity itself. I tried to tell them that I'm not smart enough to come up with this on my own. I tried to allude to the mystical perspective of Calvin who talks about being united to Christ in love... becoming one with Christ... language that drips with sexuality. I tried to tell them that if we reclaimed even a small part of this perspective of gender and sexuality the sexual practices and perspective of the Christian community would be wildly transformed.
One students was interested... perplexed enough to talk to me after class. The rest were either irritated, amused, or indifferent.
Another glorious failure.
4 comments:
Don't think of it as failure--some of us are just still contemplating the possibilities
It's not a failure. Those "pointless" talks helped me realize that gifts from God are not related to gender but related to the work of the Spirit in my own life.
So. Thanks.
--SarahJo
I agree that it was not a failure. I definitely appreciated hearing it, especially since I have had so little experience with feminist theology. You gave me a good reason to pay more attention to it.
I think that for many students, talks like these can take a lot of time to sink in and won't until other experiences in life move them in the same direction. Like carving out a statue, who can say which hammer blow marks the transition from a marble block to a figure?
I've always been fond of Ellul's arguments that Genesis makes Eve superior to Adam. I wish more folks took those arguments seriously...
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