C. Duraisingh, 2010

FEMINIST THEOLOGIESA THIRD WORLD MAN’S

TESTIMONY TO ITS TRANSFORMATIVE POWER

CHRISTOPHER DURAISINGH

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PARISH OF THE EPIPHANYADULT EDUCATION

NOVEMER 7, 2020Long time ago

– in fact, 45 years ago –

in Hadley Hall

at another adult ed.

program in Epiphany.

Then, with Psalms; and

now witnessing to the transformative power of

Feminist theologies

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Recalling the connection further

On the last Sunday at Epiphany

Just before for the Matins

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A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to

its old dimensions

For over 25 years Feminist theologies have stretched my mind

and heart. Hence the testimony!

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May we read the following two Biblical passages in silence?

Make mental note of key differences between the passages

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Luke 24.1 – 11But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, the women came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. 2They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3but when they went in, they did not find the body.* 4While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. …5 the men* said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.* …6Remember how he told you, … 7that the Son of Man must … on the third day rise again.’ 8Then they remembered his words, … 9. 10Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. These words seem to them an idle tale.

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I Corinthians 15. 3- 83 … Christ … was raised on the third day, … 5and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters* at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died.* 7Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8Last of all, as to someone untimely born, he appeared also to me.

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What strikes you as you read these two passages side by

side?

Can you take a few minutes to share similar motifs in the

Scriptures?

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Born and bred in a land of patriarchy, the Bible abounds in male imagery and language. For centuries interpreters have explored and exploited this male language to articulate theology: to shape the contours and content of the Church, synagogue and academy; and to instruct human beings - female and male - in who they are, what rules they should play, and how they should behave. …

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So harmonious has seemed this association of Scripture with sexism, of faith with culture, that only a few

have even questioned it. (Phyllis Trible, Feminist Hermeneutics and Biblical Studies,

1982)

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“Patriarchy’ in its original sense refers the apparent dominance in terms of status and power of men within certain kinship systems. But feminists have extended the term to include the ideology by which whole pattern of superior/subordinate relations between men and women is maintained and legitimized. It is gender specific. It defines a set of particular social relationships which may not always have existed and therefore need not exist in the future. It can be overturned!

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But the land or period of patriarchy is not in one place and at one time.

A value system and a picture of reality, shaped by the power and privilege of men, is so ubiquitous that it has led to a comprehensive ideology of sexism. Its dualistic and hierarchical arrangements of women and men, body and mind… has led to systematic devaluing of women, white and black, brown or yellow. No culture or religion was exempt from its reach.

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“Feminism is a struggle against sexist oppression. Therefore, it is necessarily a struggle to eradicate the ideology of domination that permeates Western culture on various levels, as well as a commitment to reorganizing society so that the self-development of people can take precedence over imperialism, economic expansion and material desires.“(bell hooks , Feminist theory: From margin to center, p.26)

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The movement character of the struggle over centuries.

It is inadequate to identify feminism just with fighting for equal rights. No.

It is rather a conscious embracing of a comprehensive and alternative vision of humanity, and the earth and actively seeks to bring this vision to realization. The vision is rooted in women’s experience of sexual oppression

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The trouble with liberal persons and churches

Is that feminist movement is reduced to a struggle for ‘equal’ rights. Therefore, women and men often feel that they are already and all for it! But feminist movement is a “liberative” movement calling for transformation at personal, interpersonal, institutional and even cultural levels “embracing a comprehensive and alternative vision of humanity itself.

Where does this leave you and me?

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Feminist theology, then, is:

That part of women’s liberation movement which is concerned with “critical analysis and liberating retrieval of the meaning of religious traditions” which have been shaped by the patriarchal system.

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It is a Liberation theology

But unlike the Latin American (or many male) liberation theologies which were blind to the oppressive nature of sexism – and for some women combined with racist and class violence too – feminist liberation theology is rooted in the distinct, concrete experience of women all forms of violations. It is gender-specfic and not neutral.

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But what does a Third World man from India – sponsored to study theology by an upper middle class parish of the Epiphany for three year has to do with feminist liberation theology?

How can he identify himself a male-feminist? Is it possible for men – those who are here – to be male-feminist or at least pro-feminist ?

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Feminist colleagues and my own ‘consciousness raising’ in early 70s

Back in the US in to a very different Cambridge, MA than I had left a decade ago

Women students walk out of seminar one day Mary Daly’s Beyond God the Father Sitting with women students in sessions like

CR groups hearing their stories Eyes opened; imagination shocked

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•Even after 100 years Elizabeth Stanton words rang true in the years of my women friends and so after repeated hearing and seeing in mine too:•“The greatest block today in the way of woman's emancipation is the church, the canon law, the Bible and the priesthood.”

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My painful experience as a speaker/ consultant in the Lambeth conference of more than 500 Anglican Bishops in Canterbury in 1978.

Stanton’s statement appeared to be alive and well as they engaged in debates on the ordination of women.

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• Of course, we are in 2010, here in Epiphany. How do the following

words and images sound? Are they outdated and irrelevant – for women?

For men?I do not think so.

May we take time to look at the next few slidesin silence?

23

“Woman in contemporary churches are suffering from

linguistic deprivation and

eucharistic famine.”

~Rosemary Ruether

24C. Duraisingh, 2010

Linguistic deprivation ?

They can no longer nurture their souls in alienating words that ignore or systematically deny their existence. They are starved for the words of life, for symbolic forms that fully and wholeheartedly affirm their personhood and speak truth about the evils of sexism and the possibilities of a future beyond patriarchy.

~Rosemary Radford Ruether, Women-Church, introduction, 1985

25

Eucharistic Famine

Did the woman say,

When she held him for the first time in the dark of the stable.

After the pain and the bleeding and the crying.

“This is my body, this is my blood”?

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26

Did the woman say, when she held him for the last time in the dark rain on a hill top,

After the pain and the bleeding and the dying,

“This is my body, this is my blood”?

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27

Well that she said it to him then;

For dry old men, brocaded robes belying barrenness,

Ordain that she not say it for him now.

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May we take a moment and share our response to the angst and anger

behind these pictures and words?

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What then is feminist theology?What are its concerns and steps?

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Feminist theologies born out of the deep sense of the denial of one’s embodied experience, oppression are part of the long history of movements of women’s struggle for liberation.

Therefore, a sense of being surrounded by a “cloud of women witnesses” is a good starting point.

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In the US several streams flow into this more than a century old river:

From the movements for abolition of slavery, suffrage, civil rights, equal rights amendment, ---all these provide the backdrop for the work of the fore-mothers and movement-midwives of feminist theologies. Valerie Saiving, Mary Daly, Rosemarie Ruether, Letty Russell, Delores Williams, Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz,- just to name a few – and countless others for over 100 years

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The purpose and method is to reclaim Christianity in order to de-legitimate, to subvert sexual, racial and class oppression, thus freeing humanity to fulfill its God-intended destiny. Christianity too will be liberated from its own perversion.

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Just as ML King was not satisfied with the goal of civil rights movement as ‘the end of segregation as an institution’ the goal of feminist theologies is not just the end of sexism as a force and patriarchy as an ideology but it is ‘the creation of the beloved community,’ a new humanity – defined in distinctly different ways. One of the early texts is A Different Heaven and Earth. A Feminist Perspective’ (Sheila Collins)

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Like all liberation theologies, feminist theology too is an expression of

an insurgent consciousness It begins with social location Rooted in Experience – distinct from men’s But unlike other liberation theologies, its

memory of suffering is shaped by the all pervasive ideology of patriarchy.

As ‘embodied’ theology, it is as plural as embodiment can be – ‘intersections’

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Plurality of locations – gender Continuum - race, class,

heterosexism; Intersectionality

‘ Womanist’ theologies of African-American women

‘Mujerista’ theologies of Hispanic women

‘Asian Women’s theologies

African feminist theologies.

Born out of distinct experiences & critiquing

White feminist theologies

Theological moves and Steps

Two Basic moves: 1) critical analysis of the pervasive ideology of

patriarchy; 2) retrieval of liberative meaning from religious

tradition in articulating an alternative vision for humanity and creation.

Based on – woman’s experience in distinction from claims to ‘ common human experience.’

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Steps and Moves (cont)

A hermeneutics of suspicion:

Why the absence of women

How role of women which, in fact, exists, has been trivialized (Luke 24:11 & Acts)

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Retrieving lost traditions and voices of women.

Unearthing the sub-altern,

the hidden Recovering the silenced

voices Reversing the canon Releasing the ‘subject’ Reframing the question

Steps and Moves (cont)

Feminist theologies reframe a vision of reality

Making a conscious shift from: Dualisms/ binaries to Both/and Hierarchical to egalitarian Essentialist to Relational Power as control to power as empowerment Self as separative to self as integrative (in

relation) ‘Bounded’ community to centered relations

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Re-imaging God, humans and creation.

Contours of Feminist theologiesand their continuing challenge.

(Next session)