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Theology and Feminism
Feminism represents a radical challenge to Christianity. Having developed its doctrine and its scriptures in a world in which women were considered subordinate, the Christian religion is now confronted with a deeply held ethical belief that women should be treated as equals. Dr Hampson argues that this ethical challenge confronts the church over the issues of priesthood and ordination, language and imagery, and hermeneutics and theology. In each of these areas, she claims, the Christian religion cannot by definition come to terms with the equality of women. Feminism however suggests new ways to conceive God and reformulate theological ideas for a world in which Christianity is no longer tenable. Theology and Feminism contains chapters on methodology, Christology, symbolism, anthropology and theology. It is the first book from a post-Christian perspective to grapple with all the major areas of theology. Covering the work of conservative Christian, Christian feminist and radical feminist thinkers in religion, it will be welcomed by those already familiar with the discussion, as well as providing a clear introduction for those who are new to the subject.
204 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1989
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November 25, 2024
A FORMER ANGLICAN THEOLOGIAN EXPLAINS HER CURRENT POSITIONS
Author Daphne Hampson wrote in the Preface of this 1990 book, “it is the contention of the book that it is in distinguishing between Christianity, a historical religion which necessarily makes reference to the past, and a religious position which is not so tied, that the hope for the future lies… ‘Feminist’ implies a certain set of views, which could be held by men but rarely are, about the equality of the sexes and the need for examples of non-hierarchical relationships. Whether the fact that feminist views are likely to be held by people who are female owes solely to cultural conditioning, or there is a biological ground, is not something to which we can know the answer. The difference here between men and women would appear to be due in large part to cultural conditioning. But to state categorically that there can be no biological component would seem to be foolish… there must be a complementarity between the sexes. It makes me think that humanity is faced with a deeper problem than we knew. I use the word ‘feminist’ … quite as much as prescriptive of a way in which I believe we all should behave. The word ‘feminine’ has for me wholly negative connotations. I use it to designate what is has been supposed by men, in a sexist society, that women should be. It is in this sense a cultural construct, and one which has been deeply harmful to women.” (Pg. ix-x)
In the Introduction, she states her theses: “Feminism represents a revolution. It is not in essence a demand that women should be allowed to join the male world on equal terms. It is a different view of the world. This must be of fundamental import for theology. For theology… has been the creation of men; indeed of men living within a patriarchal society. As women come into their own, theology will take on a different shape… I shall consider the idea… that feminism represents the death-knell of Christianity as a viable religious option. I do not say this lightly… But I have in recent years had to extricate what it may mean to be a religious person from the particular expression of being religious which is Christianity, and to discard Christianity… If one comes to conclude of Christianity, as I have, that it is neither true nor moral, one is faced with two alternatives. Either one becomes an atheist; which for me was not a serious possibility. Or one comes to reinterpret what one understands by being a religious person who loves God… it was in large part my training in theology which allowed me to find a way forward!...” (Pg. 1)
She continued, “For the feminist challenge strikes at the heart of Christianity. Christianity, and Judaism, are religions which reflect a patriarchal world: God is represented as male, and in biblical religion men and women are often conceived to be differently placed both in relation to God and to one another… the challenge of feminism is not simply that women wish to gain an equal place with men in …a religion which is biased against them. The challenge of feminism is that women may want to express their understanding of God within a different thought structure... But the debate has moved on. While men (and some women) debate whether women can be full insiders within the church, women debate whether or not they want to be. Eleven years ago … I wrote the statement in favor of the ordination of women to the priesthood… of the Church of England… Today finds me no longer Christian.” (Pg. 1-3)
She adds, “it will be asked, is there no way in which women and men can be enabled to go forward together? I would surely hope so. For this to be possible, however, it will be necessary that men should abandon that which reflects a patriarchal past…. For women are not asking to be ‘given’ anything.’ They are asking to be allowed to determine their own lives… Religion may represent a last citadel for feminism... Religion has represented that which encompasses our interpretation of our lives and our highest hopes… The revolution in religion will affect human society, for religions constitutes an underpinning of our lives… Feminism is not going to disappear.. The coming age of women as feminists in theology consists of women beginning to undertake that process of naming for themselves.” (Pg. 5-6)
In the first chapter she explains, “I am not myself a Christian because… I do not believe … that it could be said of God that God was differently related to one age or people than God is related to all ages and people. God is something which is always available… I do not believe that there could be peculiar events, such as a resurrection, or miracles… which interrupt the normal causal relationships persisting in history and in nature… Thus I do not … think that there could be a human person … who stood in a different relationship to God than do all other human beings. True, Jesus of Nazareth may have been deeply aware of God… But he was no more than … a person deeply in tune with God.” (Pg. 8) Later, she adds, “there is every evidence that Jesus (though kind to women) was deeply culturally conditioned. It would indeed be surprising were this not the case!” (Pg. 16)
She recounts, “At the time I was contending for the ordination of women to the priesthood in the Anglican Church, I made use of [an] argument … I believe it to be the best argument for the ordination of women there is. The argument arises from the fact that patristics was developed within what was philosophically a Platonist tradition. It was therefore assumed … that there were ‘universals’ and that it was the universal, rather than particular instances, which could be said most truly to exist… what is in fact being said in a Christology … is that God in Christ took on ‘humanity’---the universal… which is not to imply that he did not have particularities, which indeed one has to have to be human… God in Christ, though taking on a particular instance of humanity, shares with all human beings the universal, humanity, and it is that which is of significance…” (Pg. 56-57)
She recalls that at a large gathering, “The Latin American Liberation theologian Jon Sobrino responded that there was no problem: men should emulate Christ… and women Mary… The early Christians clearly did not think that Mary provided a role model for women… Christians modelled themselves on Christ… it must be said of all these suggestions that, if what is intended is that they should give an equal place to women or to the ‘feminine’ within the Christian religion, they fail.” (Pg. 74)
She argues, “There is no positive evidence that Jesus saw anything wrong with the sexism of his day. He did not, so far as we know, see the necessity for structural change to remedy the oppression that women were under… He suggests that women may be allowed to sit at his feet, rather than preoccupy herself with cooking. But there is no suggestion that the service of others, in which discipleship was to exist, should involve taking some of the burden of housework from women. His parables never challenge male privilege… Jesus urges that land and possessions should be abandoned. But only men had these, He forbids divorce, but implicitly accepts that it is a man who initiates divorce, ‘the man who divorces his wife…’ … Nor, significantly… does Jesus appear to have done anything to counter in inferior position in which women were placed…. He never… suggests that women should be allowed into the inner courts of the temple, or take upon themselves the obligations of prayer laid on men… he evidently refers without second thought to God as ‘Father.’” (Pg. 88-89)
She observes, “It is interesting … to reflect upon the question as to which women have remained within the Christian fold… The women who have remained within Christianity… seem to be those who are historians and exegetes. Their work does not in the same sense demand (as does the work of… a systematic theologian) that they come off the fence and state where they stand. They reinterpret texts or rewrite history. But… perhaps by temperament they have not wanted to stand back from the tradition and ask fundamental questions of it… Some women … have needed to make a marked break with the Christian (or Jewish) tradition. The past is too restrictive… To come into one’s own is to reject the male God.” (Pg. 109)
She summarizes, “In what then … does the feminist vision consist?.... I should say that it is a vision of connectedness… Creation, or the relationship to nature, is a theme in feminist writing because feminist women want to elevate the profound connectedness between humankind and the rest of nature. It may be because women live, to a greater extent than many men, in a web of relations with others that Angst may not be such a dominant theme in their lives… In their … vision as to what humanity might become, women create a relationship between people, and between people and the earth.” (Pg. 145)
She suggests, “The task of feminists working in theology is … to formulate a conceptualization of God which is true both to what we may … think the world to be, and moreover to the norms and values which feminists hold… [Feminists] may then … believe that a conceptualization of God which … is commensurate with such a sense of relationality will both reflect and also tend to legitimate a social order which they would promote.” (Pg. 150)
This book may interest those (including some Christians) studying feminist interpretations of religion.
Author Daphne Hampson wrote in the Preface of this 1990 book, “it is the contention of the book that it is in distinguishing between Christianity, a historical religion which necessarily makes reference to the past, and a religious position which is not so tied, that the hope for the future lies… ‘Feminist’ implies a certain set of views, which could be held by men but rarely are, about the equality of the sexes and the need for examples of non-hierarchical relationships. Whether the fact that feminist views are likely to be held by people who are female owes solely to cultural conditioning, or there is a biological ground, is not something to which we can know the answer. The difference here between men and women would appear to be due in large part to cultural conditioning. But to state categorically that there can be no biological component would seem to be foolish… there must be a complementarity between the sexes. It makes me think that humanity is faced with a deeper problem than we knew. I use the word ‘feminist’ … quite as much as prescriptive of a way in which I believe we all should behave. The word ‘feminine’ has for me wholly negative connotations. I use it to designate what is has been supposed by men, in a sexist society, that women should be. It is in this sense a cultural construct, and one which has been deeply harmful to women.” (Pg. ix-x)
In the Introduction, she states her theses: “Feminism represents a revolution. It is not in essence a demand that women should be allowed to join the male world on equal terms. It is a different view of the world. This must be of fundamental import for theology. For theology… has been the creation of men; indeed of men living within a patriarchal society. As women come into their own, theology will take on a different shape… I shall consider the idea… that feminism represents the death-knell of Christianity as a viable religious option. I do not say this lightly… But I have in recent years had to extricate what it may mean to be a religious person from the particular expression of being religious which is Christianity, and to discard Christianity… If one comes to conclude of Christianity, as I have, that it is neither true nor moral, one is faced with two alternatives. Either one becomes an atheist; which for me was not a serious possibility. Or one comes to reinterpret what one understands by being a religious person who loves God… it was in large part my training in theology which allowed me to find a way forward!...” (Pg. 1)
She continued, “For the feminist challenge strikes at the heart of Christianity. Christianity, and Judaism, are religions which reflect a patriarchal world: God is represented as male, and in biblical religion men and women are often conceived to be differently placed both in relation to God and to one another… the challenge of feminism is not simply that women wish to gain an equal place with men in …a religion which is biased against them. The challenge of feminism is that women may want to express their understanding of God within a different thought structure... But the debate has moved on. While men (and some women) debate whether women can be full insiders within the church, women debate whether or not they want to be. Eleven years ago … I wrote the statement in favor of the ordination of women to the priesthood… of the Church of England… Today finds me no longer Christian.” (Pg. 1-3)
She adds, “it will be asked, is there no way in which women and men can be enabled to go forward together? I would surely hope so. For this to be possible, however, it will be necessary that men should abandon that which reflects a patriarchal past…. For women are not asking to be ‘given’ anything.’ They are asking to be allowed to determine their own lives… Religion may represent a last citadel for feminism... Religion has represented that which encompasses our interpretation of our lives and our highest hopes… The revolution in religion will affect human society, for religions constitutes an underpinning of our lives… Feminism is not going to disappear.. The coming age of women as feminists in theology consists of women beginning to undertake that process of naming for themselves.” (Pg. 5-6)
In the first chapter she explains, “I am not myself a Christian because… I do not believe … that it could be said of God that God was differently related to one age or people than God is related to all ages and people. God is something which is always available… I do not believe that there could be peculiar events, such as a resurrection, or miracles… which interrupt the normal causal relationships persisting in history and in nature… Thus I do not … think that there could be a human person … who stood in a different relationship to God than do all other human beings. True, Jesus of Nazareth may have been deeply aware of God… But he was no more than … a person deeply in tune with God.” (Pg. 8) Later, she adds, “there is every evidence that Jesus (though kind to women) was deeply culturally conditioned. It would indeed be surprising were this not the case!” (Pg. 16)
She recounts, “At the time I was contending for the ordination of women to the priesthood in the Anglican Church, I made use of [an] argument … I believe it to be the best argument for the ordination of women there is. The argument arises from the fact that patristics was developed within what was philosophically a Platonist tradition. It was therefore assumed … that there were ‘universals’ and that it was the universal, rather than particular instances, which could be said most truly to exist… what is in fact being said in a Christology … is that God in Christ took on ‘humanity’---the universal… which is not to imply that he did not have particularities, which indeed one has to have to be human… God in Christ, though taking on a particular instance of humanity, shares with all human beings the universal, humanity, and it is that which is of significance…” (Pg. 56-57)
She recalls that at a large gathering, “The Latin American Liberation theologian Jon Sobrino responded that there was no problem: men should emulate Christ… and women Mary… The early Christians clearly did not think that Mary provided a role model for women… Christians modelled themselves on Christ… it must be said of all these suggestions that, if what is intended is that they should give an equal place to women or to the ‘feminine’ within the Christian religion, they fail.” (Pg. 74)
She argues, “There is no positive evidence that Jesus saw anything wrong with the sexism of his day. He did not, so far as we know, see the necessity for structural change to remedy the oppression that women were under… He suggests that women may be allowed to sit at his feet, rather than preoccupy herself with cooking. But there is no suggestion that the service of others, in which discipleship was to exist, should involve taking some of the burden of housework from women. His parables never challenge male privilege… Jesus urges that land and possessions should be abandoned. But only men had these, He forbids divorce, but implicitly accepts that it is a man who initiates divorce, ‘the man who divorces his wife…’ … Nor, significantly… does Jesus appear to have done anything to counter in inferior position in which women were placed…. He never… suggests that women should be allowed into the inner courts of the temple, or take upon themselves the obligations of prayer laid on men… he evidently refers without second thought to God as ‘Father.’” (Pg. 88-89)
She observes, “It is interesting … to reflect upon the question as to which women have remained within the Christian fold… The women who have remained within Christianity… seem to be those who are historians and exegetes. Their work does not in the same sense demand (as does the work of… a systematic theologian) that they come off the fence and state where they stand. They reinterpret texts or rewrite history. But… perhaps by temperament they have not wanted to stand back from the tradition and ask fundamental questions of it… Some women … have needed to make a marked break with the Christian (or Jewish) tradition. The past is too restrictive… To come into one’s own is to reject the male God.” (Pg. 109)
She summarizes, “In what then … does the feminist vision consist?.... I should say that it is a vision of connectedness… Creation, or the relationship to nature, is a theme in feminist writing because feminist women want to elevate the profound connectedness between humankind and the rest of nature. It may be because women live, to a greater extent than many men, in a web of relations with others that Angst may not be such a dominant theme in their lives… In their … vision as to what humanity might become, women create a relationship between people, and between people and the earth.” (Pg. 145)
She suggests, “The task of feminists working in theology is … to formulate a conceptualization of God which is true both to what we may … think the world to be, and moreover to the norms and values which feminists hold… [Feminists] may then … believe that a conceptualization of God which … is commensurate with such a sense of relationality will both reflect and also tend to legitimate a social order which they would promote.” (Pg. 150)
This book may interest those (including some Christians) studying feminist interpretations of religion.
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