a guide for the perplexed: feminist theological...

A Guide for the Perplexed:

Feminist Theological Scholarship

An Annotated Bibliography

Laurel M. Jordan

University of Notre Dame December 1987

Bibliographic Resources .................................................................................... 2 Focus and Recommended Introductions .......................................................... 3 Consciousness Raising: Readers That Give the Bitter Taste of History ........ 5 Critique and Construction in Theology and Ethics ......................................... 5 Biblical Translations, Interpretations, Criticism and Reconstructions ......... 11 Women's History within Christianity - The search for a usable past ........... 14 Ethics ................................................................................................................. 15 Ordination of Women, Women as Pastors, Sermon Collections ..................... 16 Language, Writing Resources, Worship ........................................................... 17 Hymns and Prayers .......................................................................................... 18 Impact on Academia .......................................................................................... 19 The Path of Pre- and Post- Jewish and Christian Traditions: Goddesses and the Spirituality of Women ......................................................................... 19 Other Disciplines - Psychology and Sociology ................................................. 20 Relations to Black and Third World Liberation .............................................. 21 Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 22

L. Jordan:Feminism and Christianity 12/87

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Introduction: 1960

Twenty-seven years ago, theologian Valerie Saiving published "The Human Situation:

A Feminine View," in the Journal of Religion (1960). In the article she stated,

I am no longer as certain as I once was that, when theologians speak of 'man,' they are using the word in its generic sense. It is, after all, a well- known fact that theology has been written almost exclusively by men. This alone should put us on guard, especially since contemporary theologians constantly remind us that one of man's strongest temptations is to identify his own limited perspective with universal truth. [Womanspirit Rising, p.25]

She went on to provide a critique of the theology of Reinhold Niebuhr and Anders Nygren,

pointing out the deficiencies in their understanding of sin and salvation from the

perspective of women's experience. Using her own experience as clarified by the writings

of anthropologists Mead and Benedict, she observed that the process of "becoming a

woman" is experienced as an almost automatic unfolding. From the onset of menstruation,

to pregnancy, childbirth, and lactation, to the time of menopause these processes are

"things which happen to a woman more than things that she does." [p. 31] For men there

is nothing biologically comparable to the creativity of women through childbirth. According

to this anthropological/ psychological view, men are forever having to prove their

masculinity through creativity in culture, hence, the constant temptation to self-absorbtion

and pride.

Saiving argued that women's situation presents a different temptation, A mother who rejoices in her maternal role... knows the profound experience of self-transcending love. But she knows, too, that, it is not the whole meaning of life. ... She learns, too, that a woman can give too much of herself, so that nothing remains of her own uniqueness; she can become merely an emptiness, almost a zero, without value to herself, to her fellow men, or, perhaps, even to God. ... [Feminine temptations] have a quality which can never be encompassed by such terms as "pride" or "will-to-power." They are better suggested by such items as triviality, distractibility, and diffuseness; lack of an organizing center or focus; dependence on others for one's own self-definition; tolerance at the


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expense of standards of excellence; inability to respect the boundaries of privacy; sentimentality; .... -- in short, underdevelopment of the self. [p.37]

If by ignoring women's experience, Niebuhr and Nygren developed a one-sided view of sin,

then their requirements for salvation(humility) and description of its fruits in human life

(self-giving love) are equally lop-sided. The whole theological construction falls to the

ground for lack of an adequately human foundation.

Saiving's article marks the beginning in 1960 of a 20th Century critique of patriarchal

Jewish and Christian theology and tradition. The emphasis upon women's experience was

to become central to the movement which picked up her themes in the late sixties and early

seventies. As the amount of feminist theological scholarship has grown in the eighties, the

questions, " what are the differences between the experiences of the sexes and do they

matter?" have been central to the debate.

Bibliographic Resources

Several bibliographies and review essays are available, though many of them are not

currently part of Notre Dame's collection. The Center for Women and Religion at the

Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley funded work by Clare B. Fischer, published as

Breaking Through: A Bibliography of Women and Religion, Berkeley: Graduate Theological

Union Library, 1980. There may be updated volumes currently in process.

Other bibliographies include: Constance H. Buchanan, "Women and Religion, Part

One: Feminist Scholarship in Theology," in The Women's Annual, 1980: The Year in

Review, ed., by Barbara Haber, Boston: G.K. Hall, 1981; Joan Chamberlain, "Patterns in

Christian Feminism: A Bibliographic Essay," Drew Gateway 56, no. 1 (1985), pp.11-15;

Carol P. Christ, "The New Feminist Theology: A Review of the Literature," Religious

Studies Review 3 (October 1977), pp.203-212; Anne Barstow Driver, "Review Essay:

Religion," Signs 2 (Winter 1976), pp.434-442; Ann Patrick, "Women and Religion: A Survey

of Significant Literature, 1965-1974," in Woman: New Dimensions, E.S. Fiorenza, ed. New


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York: Paulist, 1975, pp. 161-189; Kathleen Storrie, "Contemporary Feminist Theology: A

Selective Annotated Bibliography," TSF Bulletin 7, no. 5 (May 1984), pp. 13-15.

Many of the more recently published works that I will mention in the following

sections have extensive footnotes and some have helpful bibliographies, most notably

Mainstreaming: Feminist Research for Teaching Religious Studies, Arlene Swidler and

Walter Conn, eds., Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1985; and God's Fierce

Whimsey: Christian Feminism and Theological Education, The Mudflower Collective, New

York: The Pilgrim Press, 1985.

Focus and Recommended Introductions

For this essay my main concern is to look at the literature produced by scholars I will

call Christian Feminists-- those who while pressing a critique and reconstruction of

traditional patriarchal Christianity maintain their commitment and loyalty to that same

tradition. Feminist scholarship in religion has taken a number of different directions and

been in dialogue with scholarship in other disciplines. I will note these directions and

dialogues, particularly those works which continue to impact the developments within

Christian Feminism.

Also I will note some books and articles on a more popular level. Theological

scholarship has an impact beyond academia within its true community, the church.

Church men and women, clergy and lay have in one way or another been affected over the

last twenty years by the feminist critique of sexism within the church, its theology, its

scripture, liturgy, and hymns.

The best general introductions to the field are Womanspirit Rising: A Feminist Reader

in Religion, by Carol Christ and Judith Plaskow, New York: Harper and Row, 1979; and

Christian Feminism: Visions of a New Humanity, Judith Weidman, ed., New York: Harper

and Row, 1984. Womanspirit contains the Saiving article along with twenty-three other

articles written in the seventies by many of theologians, historians, and radical feminists


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who have become the central figures in the debate in the eighties. The book has become a

classic in a way and its organization of the essays is helpful for the beginner. The first two

sections pose the questions: 1) Does theology speak to women's experience? and 2) The

Past: Does it hold a future for women? The final two sections place the work of these

feminists into two basic categories: 3) Reconstructing tradition and 4) Creating new

traditions. Weidman's book has not been around as long, and because it enters the field

later its impact is less noticible and its influence will not likely be as enduring. However,

as a one volume introduction, with eight articles some by the same authors as the earlier

book, it serves to bring one into the major concerns of the field as they are articulated

seven years after Womanspirit first appeared.

Especially written with lay church women in mind are several books which attempt to

bring clarity and wisdom to bear upon feminism's perceived threat to faith.

An early attempt at this is the highly readable "I'm Not a Women's Libber, But..." and

other Confessions of a Christian Feminist, by Anne Bowen Follis, Nashville: Abingdon,

1981. It however focuses a great deal upon why churchwomen should support the ERA

and is therefore dated. Two excellent books intended for non-specialists but not at all

simplistic are All We're Meant to Be: A Biblical Approach to Women's Liberation, by L.

Scanzoni and N. Hardesty,Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1974; and Feminism and

Christianity: Two-Way Reflection, by Denise Lardner Carmody, Nashville: Abingdon, 1982.

The first is written by two evangelical Protestants who call themselves Biblical Feminists

and the second is written by a liberal Catholic. From a Catholic social justice angle comes,

Mary Bader Papa's, Christian Feminism: Completing the Subtotal Woman, Chicago:

Fides/Claretian, 1981. Ronda Chervin, a Jew converted to Roman Catholicism writes from

a more traditional Catholic perspective and in defense of Vatican teaching in Feminine,

Free and Faithful, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986. Most feminists would argue that

Chervin's understanding of femininity is very limited and I found the book far too

saccharine-sweet for my taste.


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Consciousness Raising: Readers That Give the Bitter Taste of History

Part of the initial work in feminist religious scholarship was simply a matter of

drawing together blantantly sexist aspects of the Christian Tradition and drawing out the

misogynist tendencies in its more subtle theologians. Two examples of this kind of work are

Elizabeth Clark's and Herbert Richardson's Women and Religion: A Feminist Sourcebook

of Christian Thought, New York: Harper and Row, 1977; and Rosemary Ruether's Religion

and Sexism: Images of Women in the Jewish and Christian Traditions, New York: Simon

and Schuster, 1973. The Clark and Richardson book includes selections from the church

"Fathers" through to Karl Barth and feminist and proto-feminist selections from Julian of

Norwich, to Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Mary Daley.

Rosemary Agonito's, History of Ideas on Woman: A Source Book, New York: Paragon

Books, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1977, makes a good companion reader that moves beyond

simply theological writing. Also Gerda Lerner's, The Creation of Patriarchy, New York:

Oxford University Press, 1986, is helpful as a resource for this type of overall critique of

Western culture. As Lerner herself has said, "Women's History is indispensable and

essential to the emancipation of women." [Creation of Patriarchy, p.3,]

Critique and Construction in Theology and Ethics

As the Womanspirit organization pointed out, the discovery of the depth of patriarchal

oppression within the Western religious heritage leads to one of two basic paths, critique

and reconstruction or critique and new construction. Of those on similar paths, there is of

course no complete unanimity about the source and locus of the problem or the methods

and goals for the solution. Phyllis Trible renders the pathos of the situation, I face a terrible dilemma: Choose ye this day whom you will serve: the God of the Fathers or the God of Sisterhood. If the God of the Fathers, then the Bible supplies models for your slavery. If the God of Sisterhood, then you must reject patriarchal religion and go forth without models to claim your freedom. ["Depatriarchalizing in Biblical Interpretation", Journal of the American Academy of Religion 41,(March 1973), p.31.]

Mary Daley has from the beginning been one of the prophets of this movement,

usually several years ahead of everyone else, her first publication in this field was The


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Church and the Second Sex, Boston: Beacon Press, 1968. (This has recently been reprinted

with a "postchristian introduction".) This was followed by Beyond God the Father: Toward

a Philosophy of Women's Liberation, Boston: Beacon Press, 1973, which perhaps also

deserves to be called a classic and has been widely read. When it first appeared, many

traditional scholars considered it merely faddish (such as the Death of God Theology).

Those who perceived it as a threat were more correct in their understanding of the depth

and appeal of its criticism of religiously legitimated sexism. Daley's work has moved

steadily in the postchristian direction with Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical

Feminism, Boston: Beacon Press, 1978; and Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy,

Boston: Beacon Press, 1984.

Daley was trained in the Roman Catholic tradition and continues to be on the faculty

of Boston College. Interpreters have said of her, as they have said of James Cone's Black

liberation theology, that her own pain has become the central core experience in her

theological development. Her rhetoric is both angry and poetic. Her analysis is dualistic to

the extreme and her solution is female separatism. Many have noted the similarity of her

system to Gnosticism. Her critique of the tradition and the modern situation is as

thorough-going and realistic as anyone writing today. However, because of her subjective

idealism, her ability to work out real solutions for a real world are less than adequate.

Other early efforts at critique and reconstruction are: Sarah Bentley Doely, ed.,

Women's Liberation and the Church: The New Demand for Freedom in the Life of the

Christian Church, New York: Association Press, 1970; Sheila Collins, A Different Heaven

and Earth,Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1974; Joan C. Engelsman, The Feminine

Dimension of the Divine, Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1979;

Naomi Goldenberg, The Changing of the Gods: Feminism and the End of Traditional

Religions, Boston: Beacon Press, 1979; Rita Gross, Beyond Androcentrism: New Essays on

Women and Religion, Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1977;

Alice Hageman, ed., Sexist Religion and Women in the Church: No More Silence!, New


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York: Association Press, 1974.;Carol Ochs, Behind the Sex of God: Toward a New

Consciousness - Transcending Matriarchy and Patriarchy, Boston: Beacon Press, 1977;

Judith Plaskow, Sex, Sin, and Grace: Women's Experience and the Theologies of Reinhold

Niebuhr and Paul Tillich, Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1979; Judith

Plaskow and Joan Arnold, Women and Religion, Revised Edition, (Missoula, MT: Scholars

Press, 1974);

Elizabeth Moltmann-Wendel, Liberty, Equality, Sisterhood: On the Emancipation of

Women in Church and Society, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978 and The Women around

Jesus, New York: Crossroad, 1982; Nelle Morton, The Journey is Home, Boston: Beacon

Press, 1985(mostly a collection of personal essays and sermons from the 1970's); Leonard

Swidler, "Jesus Was a Feminist," The Catholic World 212 (January 1971), pp177-183;

Elizabeth Verdesi, In But Still Out: Women in the Church, Philadelphia: The Westminster

Press, 1976.

At the opposite end of the spectrum from Mary Daley is evangelical Protestant scholar

Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, Her Women, Men, and the Bible, Nashville: Abingdon, 1977

has been influencial among clergy and church people. While not offering much that is new

in the world of scholarship, she serves as a moderate in gaining a hearing for feminist

claims among those least likely to listen to someone like Mary Daley. By continuing to

claim her evangelical commitment and Biblical feminism she gains a wide audience for

topics that would once have appeared scandalous, such as The Divine Feminine: The

Biblical Imagery of God as Female, New York: Crossroad, 1983; and her earlier work Is

The Homosexual My Neighbor?.

Rosemary Reuther has been the most prolific of any of the people treated in this essay.

She has been on the faculty of Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston,

Illinois and a contributing editor to Christianity and Crisis for many years.


8

Her New Woman/New Earth: Sexist Ideologies and Human Liberation, New York:

Seabury, 1975, has been and continues to be widely influencial. She believes that the

dualism/dominance syndrome as reflected in the male-female relationship is the primary

model for numerous other destructive and sinful dualistic/ dominating -isms, such as

racism, classism, ageism, imperialism, etc. She saw clearly, as have others, the psycho-

sexual/religious roots of our present day ecological crisis. In her analysis she leans heavily

on what she considers the Judao-Christian prophetic tradition and the critical tradition she

finds within Western political liberalism. Her search for solutions is much more politically

and economically oriented than Daley's; specifically, she links messianic socialist answers

to her wide-ranging political questions.

Her Sexism and God Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology, Boston: Beacon Press, 1983.

is also widely read in classrooms and pastor's studies. I have even seen it open on the desk

of a United Methodist bishop! Reuther is fond of using the slash (/) and now for her God-

talk uses the unpronouncable term God/dess.

Her other works include: Mary: The Feminine Face of the Church, Philadelphia: The

Westminster Press,1977; To Change the World: Christology and Cultural Criticism, New

York: Crossroad, 1981; Womanguides: Readings Toward a Feminst Theology, Boston:

Beacon Press,1985; Womenchurch: Theology and Practice of Feminist Liturgical

Communities, New York: Harper and Row, 1985. An early work published the same year

as New Woman/New Earth was written with Eugene Bianchi, From Machismo to

Mutuality: Essays on Sexism, New York: Paulist Press, 1975.

Another important contributor to the "cause" of Christian Feminism has been Letty

Russell, professor of applied Christianity at Yale Divinity School. Her background training

and approach is along the Christian education model. Ordained in the 1950's in the

Presbyterian tradition, Russell has had more opportunities for first hand leadership in

local congregations and served a parish in Harlem for many years. She has been much


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influenced by the experience of people in the mission field and by third world liberation

theology. Her books are attempts primarily to educate the oppressed and oppressors into a

model of living more clearly in keeping with the liberating good news of the gospel. In all

her books the tone is much more pastoral, even when highly challenging, than jarring,

though poetic language of Daley. However, perhaps for just that reason, her books are

often more tiresome. They are in chronological order: Human Liberation in a Feminist

Perspective, Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1974; The Future of Partnership,

Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1979; Growth in Partnership, Philadelphia: The

Westminster Press, 1981; Becoming Human, Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1982.

Her books on Biblical Interpretation will be mentioned elsewhere.

Examples of other recent contributions in feminist theology are:

Elizabeth Dodson Gray, Green Paradise Lost, Wellesley, Mass: Roundtable Press, 1981, a

very challenging connection of feminism and ecological concerns and also by Gray,

Patriarchy as a Conceptual Trap, Wellesley, Mass: Roundtable Press, 1982; Elizabeth

Schussler Fiorenza, Women Invisible in Theology and Church , Edinburgh: T&T

Clark,1985; Carter Heyward, The Redemption of God: A Theology of Mutual Relation,

Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1982;

Mary Elizabeth Hunt, "Feminist Liberation Theology: The Development of Method in

Construction," PhD Dissertation, Berkeley, California, 1980; Brian Mahan and L. Dale

Richesin, eds., The Challenge of Liberation Theology: A First World Response, Maryknoll,

New York: Orbis Books, 1981; Sallie McFague, Metaphorical Theology: Models of God in

Religious Language, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982; Dorothee Solle, Beyond Mere

Obedience, New York: The Pilgrim Press, 1982 and Strength of the Weak: Toward a

Christian Feminist Identity, Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1984; Susan Brooks

Thistlethwaite, Metaphors for the Contempory Church, New York:

The Pilgrim Press, 1983; Mary Jo Weaver, New Catholic Women: A Contemporary


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Challenge to Traditional Religious Authority, New York: Harper and Row, 1985; Sharon

Welch, Communities of Resistance and Solidarity: A Feminist Theology of Liberation,

Maryknoll: Orbis, 1985; Patricia Wilson-Kastner, Faith, Feminism, and the Christ,

Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983.

A recent issue of Horizons 14,no.2 (1987), is a thematic issue on Feminist Theology

beginning with the article "A Discipleship of Equals: Past, Present, Future," by Joann

Conn. The number of journal articles in this general field has increased almost

exponentially each year, more women are trained and interested in theology and more

male scholars take the feminist critique seriously. Examples of the types of issues dealt

with in the journals are: Roberta C. Bondi, "Some Issues Relevant to a Modern

Interpretation of the Nicene Creed with Special Reference to 'Sexist' Language," Union

Seminary Quarterly Review 40, no. 3, (Spring 1985), pp. 109-115; Anne Dinkelspiel, "When

the Sacred Canopy Rips Apart," Journal of Women and Religion 1, no.1, (Spring 1981), pp.

2-6; Margaret Farley, "Justice and the Role of Women in the Church: Thirteen Theses," in

New Visions, New Roles: Women in the Church, Lora Quinonez, ed., Washington, D.C.:

Leadership Conference of Women Religious, 1975;

Gracia Gindal, "Luther's Theology as a Resource for Feminists", Dialog 24, (Winter

1985), pp.32-36; Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza, "Feminist Theology as a Critical Theology of

Liberation," Theological Studies 36 (1975), pp. 605-26; Fiorenza,"Towards a Liberating and

Liberated Theology," Concilium 15 (1979), pp. 22-32; Fiorenza , "You Are Not to Be Called

Father," Cross Currents 29 (1979), pp.301-322; Carter Heyward, "Speaking and Sparking;

Building and Burning," Christianity and Crisis 39, no. 5 (April 2, 1979), pp.66-72;

Donald McKim, "Hearkening to the Voices: What Women Theologians are Saying,"

Reformed Journal 35, no. 1 (January 1985), pp.7-10; Herman Mertens, "Feminist

Theology," Theology Digest 30 (1980), pp. 103-106; Nelle Morton, "Towards a Whole

Theology," in Sexism in the 1970's: Discrimination Against Women, Pauline Webb, ed.,

Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1975; Pauli Murray, "Black Theology and Feminist


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Theology: A Comparative View," in Black Theology: A Documentary History, 1966-1979,

Gayraud Wilmore and James Cone, eds., Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1979;

Mark Olsen, "Aquila: For Men Who Dare: Feminism Isn't Just For Women," Other

Side 21, No. 1 (January-February 1985), pp. 8-9; Mary Pellauer, "Violence Against Women:

The Theological Dimension," Christianity and Crisis 43 (May 30, 1983), pp. 206, 208-12;

Judith Plaskow, "Christian Feminism and Anti-Judaism," Cross Currents 28, (1978), pp.

306-309; Rosemary Radford Reuther, "Feminism, Church, and Family in the 1980's,"

American Baptist Quarterly 3, no. 1 (March 1984), pp. 21-30; Reuther,"Feminist Theology

in the Academy," Christianity and Crisis 45, (March 4, 1985), pp. 57-62. - -- Replies:

Christianity and Crisis 45 (April 29, 1985), pp.158-162; Reuther, "Where Are They

Heading?" Christianity and Crisis, (April 4, 1983), pp.111-116;

Valerie Saiving, "Androcentrism in Religious Studies," Journal of Religion 56 (1976),

pp. 177-197; Dorothee Solle, "God and her Friends," Ecumenical Trends 14, no. 4 (April

1985), pp. 49-51;Marjorie Suchocki, "Weaving the World," Process Studies 14 (Summer

1985), pp.76-86.

Biblical Translations, Interpretations, Criticism and Reconstructions

In the area of Biblical scholarship Notre Dame can claim some preeminence.

Adela Yarbro Collins, currently on leave from the Theology Department has edited a series

of essays Feminist Perspectives on Biblical Scholarship, Missoula, MT: Scholars Press,

1985. Notre Dame was also for many years the home of Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza, who

is now at Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, MA, and finally working in the same

neighborhood as her theologian husband, Francis, who is at Harvard. Fiorenza's In

Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins, New York:

Crossroad, 1983, I believe, is currently the standard by which other feminist theological

scholarship is to be judged. Her examination of the "discipleship of equals" and the

leadership and ministry of women in the earliest days of the church displays her

passionate devotion to history, to wrestling with the scriptural text, and her concern for the


12

experience of women , both past and present.

She has gathered together a collection of her essays on theology and Biblical criticism into

her book Bread, Not a Stone: The Challenge of Feminist Biblical Interpretation, Beacon

Press, 1985.

The National Council of Churches received a lot of unfounded criticism for its

An Inclusive Language Lectionary, three volumes, prepared by the Division of Education

and Ministry, National Council of Churches of Christ, USA, Philadelphia: Westminster,

1983, 1984, 1985. Next time they need to put some poets on the committee. Some

churches have been using it, but for the most part it has been ignored. An excellent

inclusive language version of the Psalms is Gary Chamberlain's, The Psalms: A New

Translation for Prayer and Worship, Nashville: The Upper Room, 1984. Another volume

was also published by the Upper Room setting several of the Psalm translations to music.

Foremothers: Women of the Bible, by Janice Nunnally-Cox, New York: Seabury,1981,

is a feminist version of an old genre. The familiarity of the model and the simplicity of text

and organization make it ideal for a church study group.

Letty Russell has edited two books of introductory essays Feminist Interpretation of

the Bible, Philadelphia: Westminster, 1985, and previously The Liberating Word: A Guide

to Nonsexist Interpretation of the Bible, Philadelphia: Westminster, 1976. The two books

contain some essays by the same authors -- it might be interesting to compare them for

development and refinement over the nine year time period.

John Otwell's And Sarah Laughed: The Status of Women in the Old Testament,

Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1977, and Evelyn and Frank Stagg's Woman in the

World of Jesus, Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978, are both helpful but somewhat defensive

in approach.

Not within our timeframe, but often referred to is Elizabeth Cady Stanton's The

Original Feminist Attack on the Bible: The Woman's Bible, facsimile edition, New York:

Arno, 1974, which originally appeared in 1895 and 1898. Krister Stendahl's The Bible and


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the Role of Women, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1966, is based on a study published in

1958 in the course of the debate over women's ordination in the Church of Sweden.

Stendahl was one of the first of the present generation to look to Galatians 3:28 as the

breakthrough verse in the Pauline corpus proclaiming the church's unfolding agenda as the

abolition of the divisions between Jew and Gentile, slave and free, and man and woman.

Leonard Swidler's Biblical Affirmations of Woman, Philadelphia: The Westminster Press,

1979, is an excellent one-volume, comprehensive introduction to the problematic and

liberating verses about women in the scriptures with considerable contextual background

to the passages.

Phyllis Trible is the foremost feminist Old Testament scholar. Portions of her God

and the Rhetoric of Sexuality, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978, were required reading

for Brevard Child's Old Testament class at Yale Divinity School and her Texts of Terror,

Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984, is the published version of the 1983 Beecher Lectures

at Yale.

Rachel Wahlberg's Jesus and the Freed Woman, New York: Paulist Press, 1978 and

her earlier Jesus According to a Woman, New York: Paulist Press, 1975, are easy reading

and good for church study groups.

Some of the important journal articles from the point of view of a non-specialist are:

"The Effects of Women's Studies on Biblical Studies," (Thematic issue edited by Phyllis

Trible), Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 22 (1982), pp. 3-71; Elaine Pagels,

"Paul and Women: A Response to Recent Discussion," Journal of the American Academy of

Religion 42 (1974), pp. 538-549; Robin Scroggs, "Paul and the Eschatological Woman,"

Journal of the American Academy of Religion 40 (1972), pp. 283-303, and "Paul and the

Eschatological Woman Revisited," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 42 (1974),

pp. 532-537; Phyllis Trible, "Depatriarchalizing in Biblical Interpretation," Journal of

the American Academy of Religion 41 (1973), pp.30-48.

Women's History within Christianity - The search for a usable past


14

Feminism has created a historical drive among women in search for a usable and

liberating past. Church history scholars in the past two decades have responded to this

need with an outpouring research. Much of the critical and reconstructive theology already

mentioned has a historical dimension, so the lines between church history, Biblical

criticism, and theology are not always easily drawn. Nevertheless here are some examples

of what is being done:

Carolyn Bynum, Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages,

Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982; Roger Gryson, The Ministry of Women in

the Early Church, trans. by Jean LaPorte and Mary Louise Hall, Collegeville, MN:

Liturgical Press, 1976; Nancy Hardesty, Women Called to Witness: Evangelical Feminism

in the Nineteenth Century, Nahville: Abingdon,1984; Mary Pellauer, "The Religious Social

Thought of Three U.S. Women Suffrage Leaders: Towards a Tradition of Feminist

Theology," PhD Dissertation, Chicago: University of Chicago, 1980; Rosemary Ruether and

Eleanor McLaughlin, eds., Women of Spirit: Female Leadership in the Jewish and

Christian Traditions, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979; George Tavard, Women in the

Christian Tradition, Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1973.

Hilah Thomas's and Rosemary Keller's, Women in New Worlds: Historical

Perspectives on the Wesleyan Tradition, Vol. I & II, Nashville: Abingdon, 1981, 1982 were

funded by the United Methodist Church's Women's History Project. Patricia Wilson-

Kastner, et. al., A Lost Tradition: Women Writers of the Early Church, University Press of

America, 1981, brings to life such figures as Perpetua and Egeria as early Christian women

writers.

Examples of this kind of scholarship in the journals are:

Bernadette Brooten, "Women and the Churches in Early Christianity," Ecumenical Trends

14, no.4,(April 1985), pp.51-54;Earl Kent Brown, "Women in Church History: Stereotypes,

Archetypes and Operational Modalities," Methodist History 18 (January 1980), pp.109-

32;Elizabeth A. Clark, "Sexual Politics in the Writings of John Chrysostom," Anglican


15

Theological Review 59 (1977), pp.3-20; Janet Fishburn, "The Methodist Social Gospel and

Woman Suffrage," Drew Gateway 54, no. 2-3, (1984), pp.85-104.; Carolyn Gifford,

"Sisterhoods of Service and Reform: Organized Methodist Women in the Late 19th Century

-- An Essay on the State of Research," Methodist History 24, (October 1985), pp. 15-30.

Ethics

While the entire movement of feminist scholarship obviously has an ethical thrust as

a call to justice and recognition for women, within the seminaries and universities there

are also feminists whose work is specifically ethics. Foremost among them are Margaret

Farley at Yale, and Beverly Wildung Harrison,who teaches at Union Seminary in New

York

Two of Margaret Farley's influencial early essays are "New Patterns of Relationship:

Beginnings of a Moral Revolution," Theological Studies 36 (December 1975), pp. 627-646;

and "Sources of Sexual Inequality in the History of Christian Thought," Journal of Religion

56 (April 1976), pp. 162-76. Her new book Personal Commitments: Beginning, Keeping,

Changing, New York: Harper and Row, 1986, explores the "way of fidelity" and the concept

of "just love."

Beverly Harrison has recently published Making the Connections: Essays in Feminist

Social Ethics, Carol Robb, ed., Boston: Beacon Press, 1985 and previously Our Right to

Choose: Toward a New Ethic of Abortion, Boston: Beacon Press, 1983. Her abortion

argument rests especially upon the a woman's prior right to bodily integrity.

Other work in this field includes: Barbara Hilkert Andolsen, "Gender and Sex Roles in

Recent Religious Ethics Literature," Religious Studies Review 11 (July 1985), pp. 217-223;

Barbara Hilkert Andolsen, Christine Gudorf, and Mary Pellauer, eds., Women's

Consciousness, Women's Conscience: A Reader in Feminist Ethics, Minneapolis: Winston

Press, 1985; Eleanor Humes Haney, "What is Feminist Ethics: A Proposal for Continuing

Discussion," Journal of Religious Ethics 8, no. 1, (Spring 1980),pp.115-124; Carter


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Heyward, Our Passion For Justice: Images of Power, Sexuality, and Liberation, New York:

The Pilgrim Press, 1984; Daniel Maguire, "The Feminization of God and Ethics,"

Christianity and Crisis 43 (March 15, 1982); Carol Robb, A Framework for Feminist

Ethics," The Journal of Religious Ethics 9, no.1 (Spring 1981), pp.48-68.

Ordination of Women, Women as Pastors, Sermon Collections

Increased numbers of women were attending seminaries throughout the seventies and

eighties, many of them going on to be ordained within mainline Protestant denominations.

During the mid-seventies the women's ordination issue focused on the irregular

ordinations of nine Episcopal women in Philadelphia, eventually leading to the decision by

the Episcopal Church in the United States to open the priesthood to women. In 1977 the

Vatican issued a statement against that possibility within Roman Catholicism. There

exists a vast literature both scholarly and popular on the topic of women and ministry.

This is just a sample.

Carroll, Hargrove, Lummis, Women of the Cloth: A New Opportunity for the Churches,

New York: Harper and Row, 1981; Helen Crotwell, ed., Women and the Word: Sermons,

Philadelphia: Fortress Press,1978; John O. Eldred, Women Pastors, Valley Forge: Judson

Press, 1981; Cain Felder, "The Bible, Black Women, and Ministry," Journal of Religious

Thought 41(Fall-Winter 1985), pp.47-58; Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza, "To Comfort or to

Challenge: Theological Reflections," in New Woman, New Church, New Priestly Ministry,

M. Dwyer, ed., Rochester, NY: Women's Ordination Conference, 1980, pp.43-60; Hale,King,

Jones,eds., New Witnesses: United Methodist Clergywomen, Nashville: The Board of

Higher Education and Ministry, 1980 and Clergywomen: Problems and Satisfactions, with

Foreword by Bishop Majorie Matthews, Lima, Ohio: Fairway Press, 1985.

Emily C. Hewitt and Suzanne R. Hiatt, Woman Priests: Yes or No?, New York:

Seabury, 1973; Carter Heyward, A Priest Forever: The Formation of a Woman and a

Priest, New York: Harper and Row, 1976; Mary Hunt, "New Models of Ministry: A


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Feminist Challenge," Journal of Women and Religion 4, no. 1, (Winter 1984), pp.40-44;

Nancy Richardson and Carol Robb, "Politics and Theology of Ministry with Women,"

Radical Religion 2, (1975); Lyle E. Schaller, Women as Pastors, Nashville: Abingdon, 1982;

Spinning a Sacred Yarn: Women Speak From the Pulpit, New York: The Pilgrim

Press,1982; Leonard and Arlene Swidler, Women Priests: A Catholic Commentary on the

Vatican Declaration, New York: Paulist, 1977;Judith Weidman, Women Ministers: How

Women are Redefining Traditional Roles, New York: Harper and Row, 1981.

The Swidlers' book, Carter Heyward's autobiography, and the sermon collections are

the most interesting. Sociologists and historians in the next century will find something of

use in the other rather dull books.

As an example of the same sort of literature from the last century there is Frances

Willard's, Woman in the Pulpit, Boston: D. Lothrop Company, 1888.

Language, Writing Resources, Worship

Concern for the way in which language both shapes and expresses our most basic

concepts about ourselves and the world has been at the heart of this movement and body of

scholarship from the very first paragraph of Valerie Saiving's 1960 article. Since the late

seventies and more especially in the eighties the pressure to use more inclusive language

within the church and scholarly communities has been building.

Excellent general books on the subject of language are: Casey Miller and Kate Swift,

Words and Women: New Language in New Times, Garden City, New York: Anchor Books,

1977 and their The Handbook of Nonsexist Writing: For Writers, Editors, and Speakers,

New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1981.

Linda Clark and Marian Ronan and Eleanor Walker, Image Breaking - Image

Building: A Handbook for Creative Worship with Women of Christian Tradition,New York:

The Pilgrim Press,1981, provides inclusive language liturgies for informal settings.

Marianne Sawicki in Faith and Sexism: Guidelines for Religious Educators, New York:


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Seabury, 1979, uses something like a catechism format to organize a number of religious

concepts and terms with suggestions for eliminating sexism in religious education and

worship.

My personal favorite book on language and Christian worship is Keith Watkins'

Faithful and Fair: Transcending Sexist Language in Worship, Nashville: Abingdon, 1981.

It is especially appealing because it is written by an older man who has changed his mind

on the issue. He relates in an early chapter how his "conversion" began at a service

celebrating world mission. He was singing with the congregation, "O Zion, Haste". Singing

the last verse, "Give of thy sons to bear the message glorious; Give of thy wealth to speed

them on their way..." it occurred to him that it was his daughter who was being

commissioned and was about to leave for Zaire. (His daughter, Sharon, later became a

classmate of mine.) Old hymns are not sung in vain!

Journal articles on this subject include: Mary Collins, "Naming God in Public Prayer,"

Worship 59, (July 1985), pp. 291-304; and Letty Russell, "Inclusive Language and Power,"

Religious Education 80 (Fall 1985), pp. 582-602.

Hymns and Prayers

The concern about language has also produced new hymns, prayers, and liturgical

texts. Most of what is being published now in mainline denominations and from their

church presses conforms to guideline about inclusive language about the community of

faith and is less strict about language for God.

Examples of these kind of publications are: Because We Are One People: Songs For

Worship, The Ecumenical Women's Centers, Box 25760, Chicago, IL 60625; Creation

Sings, Phladelphia: Geneva Press,1979; Ruth Duck's Everflowing Streams, New York:

Pilgrim Press, 1981,Bread For the Journey, New York: Pilgrim Press, 1983, and Flames of

the Spirit, New York: Pilgrim Press, 1985;

Sharon and Thomas Neufer Emswiler, Women and Worship: A Guide to Nonsexist

Hymns, Prayers, and Liturgies, New York: Harper and Row, 1974; and Jane Parker Huber,


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Fresh Words to Familiar Tunes published by United Presbyterian Women, Room 1151, 475

Riverside Dr., NY, 1982.

Impact on Academia

Several works describe the actual or suggest the optimal impact of feminist religious

scholarship upon the world of higher education and theological training. Your Daughters

Shall Prophesy: Feminist Alternatives in Theological Education, by the Cornwall

Collective, New York: The Pilgrim Press, 1980, is a collaborative work by women within

seminary administrations and faculties on the goals and needs of women seminarians from

a feminist perspective. The Mudflower Collective, which included one of the women in the

earlier "collective," published God's Fierce Whimsey: Christian Feminism and Theological

Education, New York: The Pilgrim Press, 1985. It is less focused on institutional goals

and more a record of the personal wounds received at the hands of patriarchal theological

organizations, departments, and seminaries. One day it will make more interesting

reading for a historian than the Daughters book.

For professors and would-be professors, Mainstreaming: Feminist Research for

Teaching Religious Studies, Arlene Swidler and Walter Conn, eds., Lanham, MD:

University Press of America, 1985, is very encouraging and helpful for developing course

outlines and choosing texts. A similar book not focused on religion is Women's Place in the

Academy: Transforming the Liberal Arts Curriculum, Marilyn Schuster and Susan

VanDyne, eds., Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Allanheld, 1985.

The Path of Pre- and Post- Jewish and Christian Traditions: Goddesses and the Spirituality of Women

Just to show the direction taken by those who have moved beyond traditional religion,

I offer this select list of general "Women's Spirituality":

Carol Christ, Diving Deep and Surfacing: Women Writers on Spiritual Quest, Boston:


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Beacon Press, 1979 and Laughter of Aphrodite: Reflections on a Journey to the Goddess,

New York: Harper and Row, 1987; Christine Downing, The Goddess: Mythological Images

of the Feminine, Charlene Spretnak, ed., The Politics of Women's Spirituality: Essays on

the Rise of Spiritual Power Within the Feminist Movement, Garden City, NJ:

Anchor/Doubleday, 1982; Starhawk, Dreaming the Dark: Magic, Sex, and Politics, Boston:

Beacon Press, 1982 and The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great

Goddess, New York: Harper and Row, 1979; Merlin Stone, When God Was a Woman, New

York: Dial Press, 1976; Penelope Washbourn, Becoming Woman: The Quest for Spiritual

Wholeness in Female Experience, New York: Harper and Row, 1979 and Seasons of

Woman: Song, Poetry, Ritual, Prayer, Myth, Story, New York: Harper and Row, 1982.

Other Disciplines - Psychology and Sociology

Other disciplines have informed the work of feminist scholars in religion and often

find their way into their course curricula. Jo Freeman is the editor of a volume of essays

entitled Women: A Feminist Perspective, Second Edition, Palo Alto, California: Mayfield

Publishing Company, 1979. These essays can be a helpful addition to a study of Feminism

and Religion, by broadening the social background to a variety of problems and questions

in feminist theory. The essays on language and on "the rape culture" is especially worth

reading.

Carol Gilligan's In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development,

Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1982, has been an inspiration for some and a

battleground for others in the feminist movement. Her work is often placed together with

the anthropological model of gender differences, but she herself has denied the import of

the similarity. Gilligan's main point is that studies of moral development have not

included female subjects in the research and therefore the models obtained are inadequate.

A "different voice," an ethic of caring or non-harm, can also be heard if women are included

in the research. In fact both men and women can learn to reason morally with either the


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voice of principles or the voice of care. It appears, however, that under the current

conditions of socialization, with mothers as the primary caregivers of children, that girls

learn first the voice of care and boys the voice of priciples.

In The End of God: Important Directions for a Feminist Critique of Religion in the

Works of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1982, Naomi

Goldenberg argues that feminists have too quickly passed over important insights from the

"fathers" of modern psychology. As a psychologist of religion, with little interest in any

revelatory truth claim for religion, Goldenberg believes that Freud's criticism of religion is

basically correct. It is an illusion-- a male projection. Jung's willingness to consider the

present-day revelatory character of dreams and fantasy is also at the foundation of modern

post-Christian women's spiritual quest

Madonna Kolbenschlag critiques Western culture's sex role stereotypes through its

myths and fairy tales in Kiss Sleeping Beauty Goodbye: Breaking the Spell of Feminine

Myths and Models, New York: Doubleday, 1979. Jean Baker Miller's Toward a New

Psychology of Women, Boston: Beacon, 1976, is cited and used by many of the more

moderate feminists to show the strengths of traditional women's values and skills. Anne

Wilson Schaef's Women's Reality: An Emerging System in the White Male Society,

Minneapolis: Winston Press, 1981, is an excellent resource to give to someone who is

confronting for the first time painful pscho-social oppression in their own experience. Ann

Ullanov's Receiving Woman: Studies in the Psychology and Theology of the Feminine,

Philadelphia: Westminster Press,1981, is heavily informed by Jungian psychology.

Relations to Black and Third World Liberation

Feminist theologians, have been informed by, and perhaps can be considered part of

the larger movement of liberation theology. Their emphasis on women's experience is

analogous to the Latin emphasis on praxis. Books often cited within the work of feminists

with form this perforated boundary are:


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Bell Hooks, Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism, Boston: South End Press, 1981;

Gloria Joseph and Jill Lewis, Common Differences: Conflicts in Black and White Feminist

Perspectives, Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, 1981. Also the "Liberation" corpus of

publications byJose Miguez Bonino, James Cone, Paulo Freire, Gustavo Gutierrez, and

Juan Luiz Segundo, for example, have been influencial especially upon Letty Russell and

Rosemary Reuther.

Conclusion

As to the scholarly agenda for Feminist Christians, the end is not yet is sight. There

is more work to be done on every field or front. Theologians have always looked to

scripture, tradition, reason, and experience as the general authorities upon which to

articulate one's faith with fear and trembling. For nineteen centuries androcentric texts

have been given canonical status by men, interpreted and expounded upon by men on the

basis of their own reason and experience. Until the history, reasoning powers, and

experience of women are lifted up and taken seriously, the Christian faith will continue to

be criticized, by the cultured despisers and the faithful alike, as one of the primary agents

of women's oppression.

a guide for the perplexed: feminist theological...

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