HOW FEMINIST THEOLOGY HAS AFFECTED CHRISTOLOGYBDOC 459 ROUGH DRAFT

Jane VanderburghMarch 26, 2015

Introduction

As a female Bible major, I often cringe whenever I hear the words

“feminist” and “theology” used in conjunction with one another. People often

twist these words to mean things that are not true or in accordance with their

original definition and to mean something that will fit their agenda or their

ideology. The word “feminist” simply means a person who advocates for women,

whether male or female. In some regard, I feel that all women are feminists in that

definition of the term—very few women would claim that they are anti-women or

believe in gender inequality. However, there are many ways to contort this

meaning, which is broad and typically good-natured to begin with, that can make

it narrowed and with ulterior motives. For instance, people often use the word

“feminist” to label something or someone in a negative connotation or use it as an

insult towards someone. Or, even worse, they use it to push their own personal

agenda to the extreme.

In this paper, I will be discussing one of two things—how the feminist

movement began in America, and how that movement potentially affected

theology or, more specifically, Christology. It can be, as previously stated, good-

natured in its beginning, it has often been misconstrued into a wrongful or even

heretical scheme. The feminist movement has had a positive impact on Western

society in countless ways, but it has also forever changed culture in such a way

that women can never return to their former place.

History of the Secular Feminist Movement

Feminism finds its roots in the 1940s and 1950s; it was coming off a time

period in which men were predominately absent, thanks to the Second World

War, which resulted in a boost of female pride. Posters of Rosie the Riveter

saying, “We can do it!” impacted women everywhere as they searched for a

renewed purpose. Ideas began to evolve and women became radical in believing

they were equal to men and deserved the rights that men found themselves

automatically receiving. As time went on, women became more and more restless

with their alleged appointed place in society. Feminist writings began to emerge

from Europe as well as America, and the movement began gaining strong

momentum. A European philosopher named Simone de Beauvoir published a

book entitled The Second Sex in 1953. It was not an immediate bestseller but

quickly gained attention in the mid 1960s as the ultimate liberator of women1. She

argued that women, as an entirety, were subjected to second-class citizenship of

the world and were viewed as an inferior species. She also claimed that women

were made to fit a mold that had been established and enforced by men and was

called “the eternal feminine”2. Newspaper articles published in the late 1950s-

early 1960s told of a syndrome that reporter Betty Friedan claimed women

experienced. It encompassed a variety of symptoms, including dissatisfaction,

yearning, emptiness, and a longing for a greater purpose. This so-called syndrome

became known as trapped housewife syndrome and Friedan claimed it was very

1 Mary Kassian, The Feminist Mistake: The Radical Impact of Feminism on Church and Culture (Wheaton, Good News Publishers, 2005). 18. 2 Ibid. 20.

common among women3. American author Kate Millett described “the problem

without a name” (CITATION) as patriarchy, and she used it to describe the

societal dominance of men and the submissiveness of women in the late 1960s4.

As more and more authors began to speak out and voice their opinions on female

submission and inferiority, it gained more and more attention. These writings

would be widely distributed for common use to rally up the women to stand proud

for what they believe in and how they planned to take back their rightful place as

a equal partner to males.

Overall, these women, who were key figures in the early feminist

movement in society, felt that women were called to a greater and higher purpose

than being the ultimate housewife or the ultimate mother. They wrote of

discontentment, anxiety, purpose, and destiny. They were determined there was

something more for women than to sit at home and be submissive to their

husbands all day. However, these were the secular feminist views. It is surprising

to see that the feminist wave in church establishments and various denominations

was rising at the same time the secular wave was.

History of the Religious Feminist Movement

In the early 1950s, as Simone de Beauvoir was gaining recognition for her

book The Second Sex, an American named Katherine Bliss was administering a

survey entitled The Service and Status of Women in the Church with direction

from the World Council of Churches. It reported some fairly surprising news—

women were actively involved in the community outreach and upkeep of the

3 Ibid. 23.4 Ibid. 27.

church family, but were limited to smaller leadership roles within a

congregational setting, such as teaching a Sunday school class or serving on the

missions committee. Women were not leaders in areas of administration, church

growth, preaching, or teaching, even though survey results indicated many of

these women were in fact gifted and capable of performing in some of these areas.

Bliss concluded the survey by arguing for a re-evaluation of gender roles

in the church by saying, “we must begin to ask seriously what the will of God is

concerning the diversity of gifts of men and women and concerning the spirit in

which they are to serve together their common Lord”5. It did not receive

nationwide recognition until the early 1960s when the civil rights movement was

garnering national attention as well. Many used Bliss’s survey results as an

argument for reformation of gender roles and to, as Bliss suggested, conduct a

serious re-evaluation of women’s roles. Articles in the Journal of Pastoral

Psychology at this time were touching on the trapped housewife syndrome

epidemic6. Mary Daly, another outspoken, prominent figure in the feminist

movement, observed that “a layman may be a member of the laity by choice; a

woman is this by necessity”7. Dr. William Douglas, one of the authors of the

journal articles on this subject, claimed that women were patronized for saying

they felt called to ministry because it is not, as defined by society, in their gender

to do so. He said women wanted a stronger input in churches of the day and did

not wish to spend their time serving behind the scenes or in the kitchen. 8 A

5 Ibid. 29.6 Ibid. 30. 7 Ibid. 30.8 Ibid. 30.

periodical titled Christianity and Crisis requested that there be “fairness for the

fair sex” in a article in 19629. The Union Seminary Quarterly Review asked for a

radical new order to discover ways in which women could revive their roles and

status within the church in 196410. That same year, the World Council of

Churches, the same group under which Katherine Bliss conducted her survey,

published a pamphlet titled “Concerning the Ordination of Women” and pleaded

with churches to reconsider their traditions and law for the sake of equality. An

editorial in the Journal of Ecumenical Studies in 1967 asserted that the question

of women’s roles in the church was “the ecumenical question of the decade”11.

Catholics quickly joined in the conversation as well, and sooner it became clear

among Methodists, Congregationalists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians,

Catholics, and Baptists that the second gender needed an evaluation and liberation

in the church12.

Interestingly enough, there was a religion affiliation that resisted this

controversial topic, and many might argue they still resist it today. Evangelical

Christians, as a majority, disapproved of this being a sensitive subject within the

church. An article in Christianity Today from 1971 claimed, “women possess

second-class citizenship in the Kingdom of God”13. Though some bypassed this

and agreed with other denominations, others resisted this wave of potential

change and would like to still resist it today.

9 Ibid. 31. 10 Ibid. 31. 11 Ibid. 31.12 Ibid. 31.13 Ibid. 31.

Once these various denominations and churches recognized there was

potentially a gender problem within their midst, the next obvious question

emerged—what do we do about it? Author William Douglas offered two

alternatives. First, he suggested that churches could try to “recapture the New

Testament pattern which appears to be lost in contemporary Protestantism”14.

These churches could try to return to their roots and do away with a hierarchy

within their congregation and establish a priesthood among all believers and

observe no distinction between the ministers and the laity. Secondly, he offered

the option of clinging to the church’s current structure but allowing women to

enter these ordained roles so they have the option to not be a part of the laity if

they feel called to do otherwise15. Naturally, this would be much easier said than

done—he was asking some churches to do away with their structure that has

mostly been successful for hundreds of years. If not that, he was asking churches

to completely rearrange this structure, and their mindsets, to allow women to

become ordained and serve above men. Most believers opted to agree with

Douglas’s second option, in that it was only one significant change and it was not

to the system that had worked for them thus far16.

Meanwhile, while Douglas attempted to correct churches, other Christian

feminists aligned themselves on a trajectory that was parallel to secular feminists.

Overall, they sought to tear down gender barriers in roles within the church and

recognize that ministerial roles could be gender neutral. They simply believed that

women were able to do everything a man could do, and this included leadership

14 Ibid. 31.15 Ibid. 31.16 Ibid. 32.

roles within the church. They were so strong-willed in their desire to bring women

out of oppression into leadership roles that they did not turn to Scripture to search

the Word for validation for their beliefs. They were so headstrong in striving for

gender equality that they seemed to ignore whether these new roles would be in

alignment with any Biblical principles or patterns. Christian feminists chose to

blindly see the church as sexist and proposed an immediate response to that,

rather than attempting to see if they were following scriptural guidelines or not17.

Defining Feminist Theology

The ultimate question feminist theologians have had to address in the

recent decades since their boom is, what is feminist theology? There seem to be

three specific strands of feminist theology, which range from normal to the

extreme. It could be someone arguing for more equality or leadership in the

church for women, or theology number one. Theology number two is posing the

question—is Jesus male or is Christ male, or can we even separate the two

beings’ genders? And, if Christ is deemed male, how can this male savior save

women18? Finally, theology option number three, is a rather radical approach to

feminist theory—these proponents are calling for a gender-neutral language, both

in the Bible and in church settings, to recognize that God identifies with male and

female alike. This would mean referring to him as “Leader” or “Ruler”, rather

than “Father”, since the latter implies a male gender. This paper will go in depth

17 Ibid. 32.18 McGory Speckman, “Feminist Notions in Christian Portraits of Jesus: Implications for a Gender Inclusive Christology”, Acta Patristica et Byzantina, 12 (2001) 158.

to these three explorations of what feminist theology might contain and if there is

a clear right or wrong direction to be heading in.

Gender Equality in the Church

Many Evangelical Christians today would argue that either there must be

more gender equality in their churches or that plenty equality has already been

made. It has been a very strong argument about progressive and conservative

churches and faith systems alike, but more prominently since the 1960s when the

secular feminist movement took full force in popular culture.

One of the most well known religious feminist writers would be Mary

Daly. She published a book titled The Church and the Second Sex in 1968. It

caused an uproar—she was fired from her teaching position at a Jesuit college

because they felt it was too progressive and violated their beliefs. Feminists took

this as a personal attack as to undermine their movement and picketed the college

to support Daly and her views19. Regardless of her career status, or lack thereof,

she prevailed and became a strong leader for the religious feminist movement into

the 1970s. Daly did not view the church’s current system as overall hopeless and

wrote that it was indeed redeemable.

She began her arguments by saying that religion had always been using as

a tool to oppress women, especially during the Middle Ages. To keep women in

an eternal position of servitude, she argued, was a “powerful trump in [the

church’s] hand”20. She accused the church of conveying, or at least not denying,

19Mary Kassian, The Feminist Mistake: The Radical Impact of Feminism on Church and Culture (Wheaton, Good News Publishers, 2005). 41.20 Ibid. 43.

the idea that men were superior to women. In pagan religions before the

establishment of Christianity, many cults worshipped mother-goddesses of

various backgrounds. Simone de Beauvoir had argued that that Christianity

continued this mother-goddess idolatry by some denominations’ venerability of

the Virgin Mary. Daly continued this argument by claiming that churches wished

their women to view the Virgin Mary as the ultimate housewife who was passive

and submitted to the men in her life without question21. She also said that the

church encouraged this mindset in order to keep women in this position of

servitude and inferiority in the passive role of housewife22.

Perhaps most controversial, Daly persisted that the church’s moral code

even violated women and was extremely harmful to them. She argued that too

much influence from Hebrew tradition and Greek philosophy had shaped the

views of those writing the Bible, and so they twisted some of the stories or

contexts to be male-superior and female-inferior. She argued that the Bible read

as “man is the embodiment of pure spirit, while woman was the embodiment of

the accursed flesh”23. This carried into present day thinking, Daly claimed, into

the mindset that it was the woman’s job and duty to keep her marriage together

and whole. She was to be a faultless and virgin bride, but her husband to be was

not necessarily punished for his previous sexual escapades. A promiscuous

woman might face severe penalties, if not death, for her actions, whereas a

21 Ibid. 43.22 Ibid. 44.23 Ibid. 44.

sexually active man might be viewed as a true man for participating in the same

actions24.

Finally, Daly’s fourth argument she made within her book was that the

inclusion of women from leadership roles in the church led to natural feelings of

inferiority among women. She believed that women had been conditioned to

feeling inferior and the pressure to submit to men in any circumstance. The

biggest shortcoming she faced here was that “all of God’s representatives here on

earth—the pope, the bishop, the priest, the pastor—were male”25. Regardless of a

woman’s religion, according to Daly, the head of that faith orientation was male.

Therefore, it was natural for those women to feel inferior when they have no

leadership examples of women or role models to aspire to emulate as men do.

Once Daly and finished taking apart the church for its shortcomings

concerning women, she preceded to build it back up. She wrote that the believed

the church would be the “vehicle that would bring about women’s liberation”26

and that they were capable of providing the means necessary to build women back

up to an equal status. Five years after she published The Church and the Second

Sex, she wrote a book titled Beyond God the Father in which she attempt to marry

the ideologies of feminism and religion and saw them as interchangeable27.

Despite Daly’s arguments and whether the church agreed or disagreed

with her thoughts at the time, it is very clear to see that she was striving to come

24 Ibid. 45.25 Ibid. 45.26 Ibid. 46. 27 Ibid. 46.

to a resolved outcome in the situation and proposed solutions on how to go about

that, rather than simply deeming the church and feminist theology a lost cause.

It is evident how impactful Greek philosophy was upon the early church—

reading Acts 17 is enough of an example to use that those who were influential

first believers were very familiar with Aristotle, Plato, and their contemporaries.

Perhaps this is where we sense the gender bias among men and women. Greek

thought had a very low view of women that could have easily influenced the New

Testament. A common reading of the creation story in pre-feminism times would

have been that, since Adam was created first and Eve was created from Adam, she

is meant to be a secondary role or of a lesser status28.

Other questions feminist theologians who adhere to option number one

might ask themselves questions such as

Does the fact that women have been marginalized, silenced, and

oppressed by the Christian churches throughout most of their history mean that

Christianity as such is bad for women, or is it possible to write theology in a way

that advocates the full humanity of women in the image of God? Is it possible to

write a theology in which women are seen as those without whom the body of

Christ is incomplete? Could the message of Christianity in fact be interpreted in a

way that advocates women’s experience and equality?29

While some of these are rhetorical questions with no legitimate answer,

they all raise one key point—is it even possible? Have we become so engrained in

our traditions and our standards that the possibility of changing them is far-

fetched at best? It is important to remember Mary Daly’s thoughts here—the

28 Natalie Watson, Feminist Theology: (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003). 26.29 Ibid. 27.

church is redeemable30. One scholar raises an important point in acknowledging

that, even if gender equality is taken in its entirety, male and women are still

different. Instead of arguing and fighting over who can and can’t perform which

role, we should celebrate the differences that make us male and that make us

female and learn to work together in order to produce the most desired effect31.

Some of this first feminist theology is neither here nor there. Though it is

important, I feel as though every Christian, for the most part, would agree that

women are not the same as men, both physically and mentally. However, instead

of chastising one another for these differences and scolding the other sex for their

short comings, we should celebrate and worship that we have a creator who was

good enough to make us different so that we can be strong where the other lacks

and vice versa. Though topics and discussions on women’s role in the church are

important and, especially in certain circumstances, might be urgent and needed

immediately, there are also greater things at hand than discussing whether a

woman should be allowed to lead a song or a prayer when we are gathered as the

body of Christ. Women are invited to partake of the body of Christ, just as men

are. There should be no different in how they choose to worship or serve that

body of Christ as well.

Can a Male Savior Save Women?

Men are just capable of misinterpreting scripture as women are; there is no

claim that either gender is superior at understanding God’s Word over the other.

30 Mary Kassian, The Feminist Mistake: The Radical Impact of Feminism on Church and Culture (Wheaton, Good News Publishers, 2005). 46. 31 Natalie Watson, Feminist Theology: (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003). 28.

However, an interesting question arose within the last century or two, based upon

overwhelming theological facts and ideologies that have been, predominantly

speaking, introduced by males. Some theologians began to claim that since Jesus

was male; Christ is male and is a savior to males. Some went as far to the extent

of claiming women, as an entire gender, “are not included in the saving act of

Christ”32. Author Jennifer Illig claims that the role of feminist theologians is to

push back this mindset that women are unsaved members of the body of Christ

and rise to an equal status with men, as we are in God’s eyes. She argues that yes,

although we possess biological differences, our God views us as his creation,

neither as male nor as female. He is not a dominating or overbearing overlord but

rather an intimate and loving being that invites men and women into a

relationship with him. Illig points out how often Jesus used women in his

ministry, both in parables and miracles or simply involving them in his teachings.

After all, who were the people to first discover the empty tomb? Would God have

allowed the inferior gender or second class citizens to discover the tomb unless he

was trying to make a point that the current, worldly way to handle women is

completely upside down? Jesus challenged the view of women multiple times

throughout scripture, such as allowing them to study and learn from him, as

recorded in Luke 10:38-42, when women could not learn under a rabbi at the

time. Mark 7:24-30 and Matthew 15:20-28 record the same story of a women who

challenges Jesus to heal her daughter because she knows she is not one of the

“lost sheep of Israel”. A woman is the person who anoints Jesus with oil,

32 Jennifer Illig, “Feminist Christology: Remembering Jesus, Re-Envisioning Christ,” Journal of Theta Alpha Kappa 31 (2007): 33.

signifying the preparation of death but also recognizing him as the Messiah. The

women stayed at the cross until Jesus had died, and as previously mentioned,

women were the ones who found the empty tomb. Surely then, Illig argues, Jesus

came to save women as well as men if he chose to involve them and purposively

include them as often as he did. Women were seen as the milestones or

connecting points between Jesus’ ministry, death, burial, resurrection, and the

foundation of the Christian church—clearly these was not reserved for the

“second best”33.

Illig does make a point that many progressive Christians could learn from

today. Even though women were actively involved in Jesus’ ministry and the

advance of the Gospel throughout the world, women are not recorded as being

their equals within the church body. The early communities of Christians sought

to live as freely and equally as they were able, but they still adhered to Jesus’

teachings that taught against women have equal authoritative or leadership status

in a church. Jesus chose twelve apostles; they were not assigned to him, nor did

he pick them randomly. So, then, did he not have the chance to choose a woman if

he wanted to? Although we cannot put words in Jesus’ mouth, we can assume he

did not place women among his apostles because he knew they were already

viewed as “lesser than” men. He wanted to choose the “superior race” in their

culture, but even then he chose the lowly, the scum of the superiors. Why? He

wanted to make a point that the kingdom of God welcomed everyone; male,

female, high in authority, low in influence, rich, poor, etc. By choosing women to

be among his twelve, he might have been written off immediately as being

33 Ibid. 35-36.

another religious teacher gone astray. But choosing twelve men who had less than

favorable jobs and were not among the favorites of their community? Now he had

people intrigued. Now he had his audience with which to transform the world

with.

However, this is all much easier said than done. Even by the close of the

first century, at the most seventy years removed from the burial and resurrection

Jesus, Christians were misinterpreting scripture to believe that women were saved

in a different way than man and submissiveness played a key factor in their

salvation. They used 2 Peter 2:13-15 to illustrate their argument; Adam was

created first, Eve second. Eve sinned first, Adam second. Eve could only salvage

her relationship with God and redeem herself to her former equal status through

childbirth and subordination and that they “persevere in faith and love and

holiness, with self-control”. Some early Christians began to claim this passage

was evident that women were not automatically saved through Jesus’ blood and

God’s grace, but they also had to work at it themselves in order to achieve

salvation. For men, however, since they did not sin first and they were created

first, they did not have to “do anything extra” to please God and win his favor

back34. As the centuries continued, Christ’s image became more and more

associated with his gender while he was a human on earth and he became

“represented” on earth through religious men in a position of power. Therefore,

many believed that Christ was male and was only concerned with male

salvation35.

34 Ibid. 37.35 Ibid. 38.

Augustine, a Christian writer from the late fifth-early sixth centuries,

wrote that although a soul is non-gendered (and that soul is what is the image of a

non-gendered God), the body that soul inhabits does have a gender. As with many

others of his time, he accepted that, since male was created first, he was a superior

being than the woman, who was created second as a “after thought”. Augustine

did not think that sin is what caused the superiority of male over female—creation

order is what caused that, but the difference in the two genders was only

worsened after the sin was committed and its consequences began36.

Thomas Aquinas wrote in the thirteenth century that

Christ has to be male because the male represents the fullness of the image of God, in

himself, and as ‘head’ of woman… Since woman cannot represent headship—eminence,

leadership—either in society or in the church, it is ontologically necessary that Christ be

male37.

It is interesting to note, however, that both Aquinas and Augustine

maintain the idea that there will be no gender hierarchy in heaven and women, as

part of creation in the image of God, will be able to stand equally next to men in

worship in heaven. Despite this belief, they continued to maintain there was

gender inequality and superiority/inferiority on earth, but none in heaven38.

So what can be done about Christ as a male? Or Jesus as a male? Illig

writes that some feminists take one look at how Christianity has been used to

oppress and confine women to specific social standings and they throw their

hands up and declare “Christianity to be hopelessly irredeemable”39. Christology

36 Ibid. 39.37 Ibid. 39.38 Ibid. 39. 39 Ibid. 39.

has often been the weapon of choice of those who wish to oppress women and

take them out of any leadership positions they might hold within the church.

There are some feminist theologians who chose to see Christ’s message,

not as one of submission and dominance but one that calls all people—Galatians

3:28—to wholeness and unity in Christ40. This “brand” of feminist theology is

called feminist liberation theology. They don’t believe that Jesus or Christ himself

is the root of the problem, but rather how people have interpreted, or

misinterpreted, his teachings and message throughout the centuries41.

Bibliography

Illig, Jennifer. "Feminist Christology: Remembering Jesus, Re-Envisioning Christ." Journal of Theta Alpha Kappa 31, no. 1 (2007): 33-51.

Kassian, Mary A. The Feminist Mistake: The Radical Impact of Feminism on Church and Culture. Rev. ed. Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2005. 336.

Speckman, M. "Feminist Notions in Christian Portraits of Jesus: Implications of a Gender Inclusive Christology." Acta Patristia Et Byzantina 12 (2001): 158-78. Accessed

40 Ibid. 40. 41 Ibid. 40.

February 18, 2015. New Testament Abstracts.

Watson, Natalie. Feminist Theology. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003.