On Near Emmaus as we were all trying to find Jesus on that dusty road, out of nowhere, the question of feminism came up (apparently the conversation boiled down to something about inclusive language and turning Jesus into a eunuch, something like that).
One commenter asked,
“Everybody who talked about feminism: How would you define such a term? In my English literature classes, we defined feminism as having several different facets. On one level, there’s the woman > man and on another is the woman = man. In light of biblical discussions, of course, it has a different tone, so I was wondering how everyone would define the term?”
Here is my response in my own unique way, a theological reflection on God’s glory.
For some Christians, feminism is a vengeful philosophy, a gyno-political approach to the universe where women are gearing up for a revolt against patriarchy. Mind you, these same Christians affirm the death penalty, but when it comes to women, vengeance is a sin. I learned in high school, from my American history teacher, that feminism is that crazy idea that women are human beings. Really? Is that all there is? Then, what exactly does it mean to be human? Whoops, now we are delving into theology. During this Lenten season of foregoing kyriarchy, I have my own definition of feminists from a theological standpoint: preachers of transcendence. In my encounter with the scholarship written by “the Other,” I conclude theologically, that feminist theological accounts of God are calls to recognize a God who does not behave or look like me. It has caused me to think self-critically so that this or that theory that I learn in my edu-ma-cation will not become an idol; in short, reflections on scripture written by women have humbled me. In the 20th century, there was a man who lived in an arrogant society. The “spirit” was everywhere you turned around, and g*d looked exactly like one of them. Fortunately, this pastor decided to write a book inspired by an ancient Jewish letter, to argue that God was nothing like this idolatrous nation-state was proclaiming. In short, the personal God of Resurrection found in Judaism and Christianity challenged each and every nation, with its civil religion, its political messiahs, and its works righteousness.
GOD THE WHOLLY OTHER
God’s Transcendence seems to always make a comeback, just when people think they know God and incorporate G*d-talk into the public arena. The pastor I was discussing earlier, his name was Karl Barth and he lived in Germany (for a while before he left) during the Third Reich. His invocations of God’s transcendent Word to remind people, both in Germany and abroad, that God is completely different from the g*d you are invoking in the name of war and nationalism. As Joerg Rieger so succinctly puts it, “Reminders of God’s majesty that do not challenge the majesty of those who tend to put themselves in God’s place by stepping up the pace of exclusion in our market economics exemplify the problem” (God and the Excluded: Visions and Blindspots in contemporary theology, p 169). In other words, not every appeal to God’s majesty is innocent; there must be discernment based off of the biblical witness as well as our encounters with Christ in history. I believe for this very reason, because feminist theology leads many thinkers to become self-critical, and because of their call for us to turn to the Other, feminist, womanist & mujerista theologians alike should be considered the Barthians of the 21st century.
Karl Barth came from the Calvinist end of the Reformed Tradition (many scholars assume, since it is part of the debate). In the United States of America, Calvinists have had a long history of attributing glory to g*d in a number of ways. For a community that believes in universal truth, that the definition of God’s glory keeps changing is quite intriguing. Anthony Pinn (a theologian and professor of African American religious studies at Rice University, wrote a book with his mother, Anne Pinn on the history of African American Christianity. In one of the first chapters, an early Calvinist definition of glory appears, from the work of Cotton Mather, who was at the time, having a conversation about his property, these enslaved Africans, “Who can tell but that God may have sent this poor creature into my hands so that one of the elect may by my means be called and my instruction be made wise unto salvation. The glorious God will put an unspeakable glory upon me if it may be so!” (Pinn, Fortress Introduction to Black Church History, a quote from Mather’s essay, “The Negro Christianized: An Essay to Excite and Assist that Good work, Negro Servants in Christianity”). The modern yet uncritical retrieval of Jonathan Edwards strikes me with such profundity especially since I had to let Joel know that this evangelist, who preached of God’s glory, also endorsed slavery (and yes, I know about his son Sam, but what about him?). Could it be that Rieger is right? That God’s majesty sometimes can be a cover for oppression and ignoring human suffering, preventing Christians from loving their neighbors? Stephen at Undeception pointed to a song from 1785, and I agree with him, that the last few verses articulates how some versions of g*d’s majesty can be oppresive,
“But, Lord, remember me an’ mine
Wi’ mercies temp’ral an’ divine,
That I for grace an’ gear may shine,
Excell’d by nane,
And a’ the glory shall be thine,
Amen, Amen!”
Through the years the definition of God’s glory changed; in the 18th and 19th centuries, Calvinists such as Nat Turner and John Brown shed their own blood to see God’s glory in the face of their neighbors. Barth was correct in demonstrating in his Epistles to the Romans, that God’s transcendence in found in the Resurrected body of our Savior, Yeshua the Messiah. Today, in the US, however, God’s glory is something preached as if God is ruling from a far away planet, and every Christmas is a reminder that God once invaded this great planet (and Christ’s return is something like a second invasion). In fact, in Holy Hip Hop and in pulpits, it is claimed that God is a God dedicated to HIS own self-glorification. HE acts for his own glory, like an NFL wide receiver who hides a cellphone in the stadium, so that when he scores a touchdown, he can make a phone call tom himself in celebration. While this g*d is declared to be personal, this notion of transcendence/glory is far removed from scriptural testimony. This self-glorifying God is bound up in abstract thinking which is unable to be compassionate in addressing concrete realities.
Of course, one could get into a debate over this or that, nitpicking over one is interpreting this or that passage correctly, and that is a conversation worth having. However, being a former calvinist, I can say that I was told that THE way to read THE BIBLE was to take all of the Pauline epistles along with the rest of the letters, and use them to understand the breadth of passages in the OLD Testament. Of course, according to some ministries, there are no Jewish resources on the Resurrection. It is an event without precedent, so the logic goes, so therefore there is no need for scholars like N. T. Wright to take 1st Century Judaism seriously. For a group of people who claim to enjoy the life of the mind, that argument sure sounds an anti-intellectualism in favor of ANACHRONISM GONE WILD!!!
THE TRIUNE GOD, THE HOLY OTHER
One of the earliest Christian leader, Irenaeus of Lyons (somewhere close to modern-day France, I believe) once said that, “The glory of God is a human being fully alive.” It sort of reminds me of my favorite Flyleaf song, Fully Alive. I just love the way Lacy Sturm belts the hook. In light of God’s glory, the kabod YHWH in the Hebrew Bible always so closely associated with God’s presence and nearness, as well as Christ being the Third Temple for YHWH’s glory (John 1:14), Christians must understand the glory of the Holy Trinity as God living in fellowship with humanity and creation. Post-colonial theologian and feminist Mayra Rivera puts it this way in her The Touch of Transcendence: a postcolonial theology of God,
“Recall the burning bush or Moses’ own illumined face. [...] In Jesus’ transfiguration, the disciples behold both the brilliance of Jesus’ glory and his relationship with those prophets who preceded him: Elijah and Moses.” (page 139)
God’s glory is manifested in creatures because God shares God’s glory with creation, for God’s presence invites us all to worship the LORD in trinitarian fellowship. The Good News is that God is here, and that God has always been here, we just need to listen for God’s voice. God being ever present in the world is not pan-theism, for pantheists/deists say that g*d is revealed completely everywhere; there is no mystery, no irreducible complexity. Recorded in Scripture is the idea that the heavens declare God’s glory, as well as all of creation. The glory of YHWH was in the tabernacle and the temple of Jerusalem, in the Transfigured & Resurrected body of Christ, and because of Yeshua, we can all be allowed to join in God’s glory, God’s Holy Presence. Our response to God’s greatness is to live lives of worship in communities of women & men, as J K Gayle says, as equals, reflecting the glory of the Trinity, Creator/Word-Wisdom/Breathe in the Hebrew Bible, and as Father, Son, & Holy Spirit in the New Testament, equals residing in mutuality.
In the words of Yeshua,
“The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one” (John 17:10, nrsv)
Update: Joel on God’s Glory from Anastasius of Antioch
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amazing stuff… keep up the great work!
Thanks Brian.
Regarding your statement: “I have my own definition of feminists from a theological standpoint: preachers of transcendence. In my encounter with the scholarship written by “the Other,” I conclude theologically, that feminist theological accounts of God are calls to recognize a God who does not behave or look like me.”
I appreciate your reflection. I do have to point one thing out: your statement could be said to (1) reveal the fact that you are a male, and (2) indicate that perhaps you assume that (almost) all theologians and readers of theology are male and therefore need to be confronted with the Other (the female). The statement above would be reversed if, like me, you were a female theologian/preacher. So – a woman might write: “feminist theologians are preachers of immanence. In my encounter with the scholarship written by people like me, I conclude that feminist theological accounts of God are calls to recognize a God who behaves and looks like me.”
And once having reflected on a statement like that, I might say that God in one sense cannot behave or look like anyone (male or female), because we are not God, or even “like God” (cf. Genesis 2-3). But, on the other hand, I might say that God must necessarily behave and look like me, because I am created in God’s image, whether male or female (cf. Gen. 1).
When it comes right down to it, the statements I make about God don’t change much whether I am male or female; what changes is how I view myself in relation to my neighbor of the opposite sex (and how he views me). And that is the crux of feminist theology: What we say about God doesn’t change God. But it has a huge effect on how we treat each other. “If God is a male, then the male is god.”
Thank you Susan, for your engagement with my post.
In context, I was responding to a comment that I linked to at the blog, Near Emmaus. One of the commenters randomly went on a raving mad spree, distorting feminist theology and biblical scholarship. That is what I had in mind when I said, “I conclude theologically, that feminist theological accounts of God are calls to recognize a God who does not behave or look like me.”
The post’s bias does mean that I am male. I did not mean to suggest at all that the feminist theologian would say the reverse, in fact, I would say far from it. In my reading of Fiorenza and womanist scholarship, theo/alogy is about recognizing a G*d who transcends our constructed categories of male and female. Of course, from a Christian viewpoint, we have to come to terms with the Imago Dei and the Incarnation, for God is indeed immanent, but for the purpose of my post, the heart of my critique was aimed at the misguided commenter as well as the oppressive calvinist theology of g*d being glorified in HIMself.
“What we say about God doesn’t change God. But it has a huge effect on how we treat each other.”
I am in total agreement with you, thus my conclusion pertaining to equality and mutuality.
Yes, I think we are in agreement about God and theology. I didn’t read the blog you linked to, so I wasn’t aware of the comment you were responding to, although I have certainly heard many such comments! My point was really that men and women tend to experience feminist theology differently. Men (who are open to it) experience it as you did, as engagement with the Other, a window into transcendence – a very healthy and good thing. Women (who are open to it) tend more to experience it as a welcome relief that God is not wholly Other, but that we too are created in God’s image, and are as fully children of God as men are. So, we experience the opposite feelings, but come to the same conclusion: that God transcends our constructed categories of male and female.
Yes. Agreed.
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