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The Relationship Between Reformed Theology and Contemporary Theologies of Women
by
Tracee D Hackel

(Tracee holds a B.A. in Religion from Whitworth College, a Two Year Certificate for Theology Graduates from Oxford University where she attended Wycliffe Hall, and an M. Div. from the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary. She is currently Associate Pastor of Christian Education and Discipleship at Chapel by the Lake Presbyterian Church in Juneau, Alaska and serves on the Voices of Orthodox Women board.)

The 212^th General Assembly (2000) was asked to consider the following Commissioners’ Resolution:

This resolution was referred to the General Assembly Council (GAC) with only one amendment.Instead of “urging” the GAC and three divisions of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) (PCUSA) to engage in the forums, and dialogue “regarding the relationship between Reformed theology and contemporary theologies of women,” the GAC and the three divisions of the PCUSA were “directed” to do so.

In a remarkably speedy response, the Women’s Ministries Program Area (WMPA) of the PCUSA produced and distributed a “primer” on Feminist Theology.This year they will have available, in time for this General Assembly, “primers” on both Womanist Theology and Mujerista Theology (available in both English and Spanish).The ‘dialogue’ called for seems more like a monologue at this point, but it does bring up the question of whether or not such a dialogue can even take place in any meaningful way.

The discussion called for is one that is to explore the “relationship between Reformed theology and contemporary theologies of women.”[1]This assumes that there is or is the possibility of some ‘relationship’ between them.The rationale given for this discussion includes the concern that “Many Presbyterians…have few opportunities to discuss the role of these (Feminist, Womanist, Mujerista,[2]etc.) theological perspectives in the church….”Here again, the assumption is that these “theologies” have a role to play in the life of the Church.

In addition to working on this resolution, the WMPA welcomed a new associate director to their helm this Spring, Mary Elva Smith.In an interview with Leslie Scanlon of “The Presbyterian Outlook” she offered this bit of advice on addressing the controversy over the programs and teaching of the WMPA, “those concerned about Women’s Ministries need to, ‘de-escalate the polarity and try to find a way to talk about our common ground and then begin to talk about our differences.’”[3]Smith assumes that there is a ‘common ground’ to talk about between the ‘theologies of women’ ‘developed and used’ by the WMPA and those who are calling for faithfulness to the teachings of our PCUSA Constitution.

It is the above assumptions that this paper seeks to challenge.The place to begin that challenge is not with an examination of the content of these various ‘theologies.’ [4]Rather a more basic examination of the approach to theology in general will reveal whether or not any meaningful conversation can take place between these ‘theologies’ and Reformed theology.

At root, “contemporary theologies of women”[5] along with most modern liberal theologies and even many conservative theologies, fit into what George Lindbeck, a retired Yale Divinity School Professor, labels “experiential-expressivism,” which he defines in reference to those who practice it, “…thinkers of this tradition all locate ultimately significant contact with whatever is finally important to religion in the prereflective experiential depths of the self and regard the public or outer features of religion as expressive and evocative objectifications (i.e. nondiscursive symbols) of internal experience.”[6]

What this means is that those who adopt this methodology believe that religion is purely an expression of a person’s own experience.It is a person’s experience that determines the shape and content of their theology.Whether that involves Re-imagining God to correspond with our own ideas of what is God-like or elevating personal testimony to the level of proclaiming the Gospel, our own experience is the determining factor in how we talk about God.What is more, our experience becomes the criterion used to evaluate the worth and relevance of other talk about God, including the Bible, Creeds, and Confessions.

The logical outcome of pursuing religious studies along an experiential- expressivist line is actually the opposite of the inclusiveness its proponents claim as their highest value.Rather this method only leads to fragmentation and isolation.The feminist movement itself has had to come to terms with this reality.In an interview given upon her impending retirement Letty M. Russell, a Yale Divinity School Professor and early proponent of the feminist movement within the church, had this to say about feminist theology today, “We don’t talk about feminist theology anymore.We speak about theologies.There’s womanist (African-American women’s) theology, Asian theology, mujerista (Hispanic) and ‘queer’ theology (the theology of gays and lesbians).”[7]Mary Elva Smith in her interview cited above has this to say about the “need for Women’s Ministries to be inclusive theologically,” she said that there needs to be an understanding, “that within feminist theology there is significant cultural and ideological diversity.”[8]If theology is nothing more than a record of human experiences then this fragmentation is no surprise; of course African-American, Hispanic, and Asian women are going to have different experiences. But why stop with only cultural and economic differences?

The reality of this position is that even if you assume a common object of experience, in this case ‘God’ or ‘the divine,’ there is no way to prove that one particular person’s, let alone one particular group’s, experience is an experience of the same thing as another’s.At the end of the day it is impossible for one person to have the same experiences as another.Not only does this lead to fragmentation and isolation, but can in fact set one group against the other, as is the case with the relationship between many contemporary theologies of women and Judaism.The anti-Semitism inherent in a theology that sees the Old Testament and Jewish religion as a proponent of the patriarchy that is supposed to oppress women is acknowledged by feminists and their critics alike.[9]

Experiential-expressivism is an intellectual dead-end that stifles true discussion and dialogue.Lindbeck, who is concerned to find a method that is able to address ecumenism and inter-faith relations dismisses experiential-expressivism from the pool altogether, saying it, “can be disregarded because…they make meaningless the historic doctrinal affirmations of unconditionality, irreversibility, or infallibility, and thus leave nothing to discuss.”[10]That experiential-expressivism is an inadequate methodology for true theological discussion lies in the fact that, “each type of theology is embedded in a conceptual framework so comprehensive that it shapes its own criteria of adequacy.”[11]At best this method that lies at the root of contemporary theologies of women yields up nothing more than a full range of self-contained monologues.Those who are engaged in theological conversations throughout the church today are beginning to discover the bankruptcy of this method.Many times we will use the same words but invest those words with vastly different meanings, because we are defining those words within conceptual frameworks that have no reference to each other.This renders language meaningless and discussion the same.It is evident that meaningful conversation, let alone a shared role in the church, is not even possible among the different contemporary theologies of women, hence the WMPA’s need for more than one “primer.”It would seem that such internal fragmentation does not bode well for the more complex “dialogue regarding the relationship between Reformed theology and contemporary theologies of women” that has been called for in the above resolution.

The resolution itself betrays the incompatible nature of the two enterprises it seeks to bring together in dialogue by its vocabulary: “Reformed theology,” and “contemporary theologies of women.”[12] Such an enterprise of ‘theologies’ is vastly different from the enterprise of “theology.”The task of theologies has been discussed above, and now we must turn to the task of theology and examine the basis of its method.

Theology, the word itself, comes from the Greek and means “the study of God.”In its definition it implies a common goal and a singular purpose that is not the case with the word, “theologies.”Lindbeck notes about the Christian faith in distinction from others, “from the very beginning this religion has been committed to the possibility of expressing the same faith, the same teaching, and the same doctrine in diverse ways.”[13]Theology is not about recording and relating our own experiences of what we perceive to be God, but about handing on the faith, a faith that has as a first-order principle that we know God through God’s own revelation ultimately in Jesus Christ made known to us in Scripture.

As such the purpose of theology is not merely descriptive, but is as Ellen Charry defines it in her fine historical analysis of the practice of theology, ‘aretegenic.’[14] For an enterprise to be “aretegenic” means that it is character forming.Theology is not shaped by our experiences, but our experience, our whole lives are to be shaped by theology.This is a radically different concept of ‘study’ than what it has come to mean to our post-Enlightenment and scientific sensibilities.Theology, or the study of God is not so much putting God under the microscope as it is putting oneself under God—seeking true “under-standing.”It is as Edmund O. Hill says of Augustine’s treatise on the Trinity: we miss the point unless we grasp that, “Augustine is proposing the quest for, or the exploration of, the mystery of the Trinity as a complete program for the spiritual life, a program of conversion and renewal and discovery of self in God and God in self.”[15]Experience is not absent from theology, but neither is it the organizing principle.Rather theology seeks to draw us out of our own small lives into an experience of the very life of God, into the dynamic and eternal, living relationship of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

In light of such a purpose the practice of theology is definitely an “inside” job.Again we look at Augustine’s method in The Trinity as a prime example of the practice of theology:

…throughout the work he never leaves the field of theology in the strict sense.From beginning to end, in his quest for God, he is trying to understand what he believes, and never for one moment does he prescind from what he calls the initium fidei, the starting point of faith.Nowhere in the work is he trying to approach the mystery from other premises than those provided by revelation and accepted by faith.[16]

Theology is first and foremost ‘faith seeking understanding.’Even when theologians are critical of the received tradition as were those of the Medieval Era such as Anselm and Aquinas, Charry writes of them, “For the purposes of historical continuity, it is important to note that they did their work as insiders, committed to the truth of the Christian faith, yet admonishing it to be its best self.”[17]The practice of theology takes place within the context of the Christian faith.The Bible provides for the Christian theological enterprise an entire world and life-view rather than, as is the case with ‘theologies,’ a piece, and it may be a negative piece at that, of a world and life-view ultimately consisting of one’s own experiences.Charry goes on to speak of our practice of theology today and writes, “Those who conclude that the Christian tradition is useless or irredeemably harmful cannot in good conscience be Christian theologians.They must find another place to stand where their integrity can be respected.”[18]Under this rubric, it appears that many‘contemporary theologies of women’ as defined in this resolution cannot with integrity seek a role in the church.Nor is it possible for ‘theologies’ which view the Christian tradition, if they refer to it at all, as just one stop along their spiritual journey into themselves to have any meaningful conversation with ‘theology’ which lives and works and plays in the country of the Christian faith.

The quest of theologies, as Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz describes mujerista philosophy, “…[to] look at theology from a perspective of culture, ethnicity, and socioeconomic issues,”[19] has little if anything in common with theology, the object of which is not to look at itself but to direct the hearts and minds of its practitioners and hearers to God, and encompasses culture, ethnicity, and socioeconomic issues in its quest.Rather than ‘theologies’ in which our world and life becomes the lens through which we view the Bible and the Christian tradition, theology consists of the discipline of using the Bible and Christian tradition subordinate to it as the lens through which we view our world and life.

This commissioner’s resolution seems to imply that people reject ‘contemporary theologies of women’ because they do not understand them.Smith so much as says this is the case in her interview, “criticisms of feminist theology have not always reflected an accurate consideration of the theological points the speakers were trying to make.”[20]Still others like Russell in her interview attributes the rejection of feminism to fear and unwillingness to change, “Some people are frightened by this (feminism making inroads into the church and society). They’d like everything to go back to how it used to be.”[21] These comments do not do the objections justice, nor does this kind of rhetoric foster dialogue-- you cannot dialogue with those you do not take seriously.Perhaps the “backlash”[22] against feminist theology is due to the fact that people have understood and are not afraid to expose the dead-end to which this method of inquiry leads—a point that those engaged in formulating contemporary theologies of women ought not to dismiss so lightly.

In the end, it has to be said that it appears that this called for ‘dialogue’ must of necessity be nothing but a series of monologues.‘Contemporary theologies of women’ and Reformed theology simply cannot talk to each other in any meaningful way because they are two different animals.The former are like sea gulls, swimming just on the surface of the water of Scripture and Christian tradition which make up the context of Christian faith, taking just enough to feed their flight and shedding the rest on their way.The latter are like fish who live and breathe the water and whose journey takes them into new channels and unexplored depths, but never out of the ocean.

Smith says in her interview that she looks forward to “real theological conversation” with “a range of strong theologians.”[23]May the Good Lord provide her with such, that she and all those engaged in such a worthy task may be drawn ever deeper into the dynamic life of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to the glory of God alone and their full enjoyment as they ‘under-stand’ the Almighty.

Hill, Edmund, O.P.. Introduction to The Works of Saint Augustine: a translation for the 21^st
Century, Part I—Books, Volume 5: The Trinity, ed. John E. Rotelle, O.S.A.. Trans. with introduction and notes by Edmund Hill, O.P.. Brooklyn: New City Press, 1991.

Lindbeck,George.The Nature of Doctrine:Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1984.

Lindblad, Norman R. and Morgan, Molly D.. “Comissioners’ Resolution 00-20. Concerning
Dialogue Regarding Contemporary Theologies of Women.”Presbyterian Church (USA).

26 June 2000. Resolution on-line. Available from http://horeb.pcusa.org/ga212/commissioner/0020.htm.

Scanlon,Leslie. “New Women’s Ministry leader wants to ‘keep working to make the church whole.’” The Presbyterian Outlook.Article online. Available from http://www.pres-outlook.com/maryelva.html .

[1] This phrase as it is used in this resolution designates radical feminist philosophy, womanist, mujerista, and some Asian women’s philosophies.It does not include the theology practiced by all contemporary women, since at least some contemporary women practice Reformed theology.In their cases the discussion called for in this resolution would be irrelevant.

[2] I am reluctant to use “Asian” as a description of the ‘theology’ meant in this case, since all Asians and even all Asian women do not share this philosophy.

[3] Leslie Scanlon, “New Women’s Ministry leader wants to ‘keep working to make the church whole,’” The Presbyterian Outlook [article online]; available from http://www.pres-outlook.com/maryelva.html ; Internet; accessed 1 June 2001.

[4]I would suggest that if you want to know what these women think that you read what they write and the WMPA’s primers might be a good place to start.I would make the same suggestion where Reformed Theology is concerned and our own PCUSA Book of Confessions is a great place to start.Be sure to read all these ‘theologies’ with your Bible open, looking up the Bible passages they use and taking into account the context of those passages.

[5] The inadequacies of this term have already been discussed. Nevertheless, for lack of a better designation (since the term “feminism” cannot be used to encompass womanist and mujerista philosophy) it will be used throughout this paper to designate the same types of philosophies to which the writers of the resolution refer.

[6] George Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine:Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age, (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1984), 21.

[7] KathiWolfe, “Feminist theology charting new course(s),” Star-Telegram, Fort Worth, TX, 5 January 2001, c. 2001 Religion New Service, Distributed by the Associated Press (AP) [article on-line]; available from

http://www.star-telegram.com/news/doc/1047/1:RELIGION63/1:RELIGION630105101.html; Internet; accessed 6 January 2001.

[8] Scanlon.

[9] See Wolfe, and Viola Larson, “Human Experience Versus The Church’s Confession,” [article on-line]; available from http://www.naminggrace.org/id24.htm; accessed 10 May 2001.

[10] Lindbeck, 91.

[11] Ibid.,113.

[12] Emphasis mine.

[13] Lindbeck, 92.

[14] Ellen T. Charry, By The Renewing of Your Minds: The Pastoral Function of Christian Doctrine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 3-32.

[15] Edmund Hill O.P., introduction to The Works of Saint Augustine: a translation for the 21^st Century, Part I—Books, Volume 5: The Trinity, ed. John E. Rotelle, O.S.A., trans. with an introduction and notes by Edmund Hill, O.P. (Brooklyn: New City Press, 1991),19.

[16] Ibid., 23.

[17] Charry, 231.

[18] Ibid., 235.

[19] Wolfe.

[20] Scanlon.

[21] Wolfe.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Scanlon.

Dialogue or Monologue?

WORKS CITED

Charry,Ellen T.. By The Renewing of Your Minds: The Pastoral Function of Christian Doctrine.Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.