Feminism and Religious Identity by Ivone Gebara
Pat Reif Memorial Lecture delivered at Claremont College, March 2009
Introduction
In the tumult of feminist theories of the twentieth century most Christian women have abandoned their traditional prayers, devotions, and work at churches and now feel a great sense of emptiness regarding religious institutions. We are not what the institutions said about us, we do not recognize ourselves in the way institutional religions have taught us. We are not women to provide men’s needs or be their helpers as our raison d’être. We have discovered more accurately that Christianity has been co-opted and that it sustains and legitimates the domination of women in the larger social cultural context.
Likewise, in the twentieth century we became aware of the diversity of cultures and religions and we observe in many of them the same hierarchical oppression of women as in the Christian tradition. Our former religious identities are broken. A new adventure to discover ourselves by ourselves and by new references of life and knowledge lies open as a mission to everyday living.
Since the last century, we began from different points of view to search for a new approach to who we are as women and what we can do to help ourselves to live together in dignity and in solidarity, struggling against unjust social and cultural religious structures. Feminism opened our eyes and woke up our memories about our own subjectivity and history. With feminism we have changed references in philosophical, political and social issues and we are moving to change every day something deeply rooted in us: our religious identity.
What does it mean for a woman to seek out her religious identity? In this conference I will move only within the Christian tradition (which is my tradition) and in the horizon of many women who are challenged by feminism and by a more accurate understanding about all sorts of violence against women. In this, I feel connected to the struggle of Pat Reif with her feminism and her deep social-justice orientation. I am honoring her memory with this reflection.
Traditional Christian identities
Christian women before the feminist revolution got their religious identity from a kind of Revelation of God or from Nature understood as something created by God. The Bible was interpreted according to this philosophical background. The concept of God was presumed to be evident in theology, and theologians dealt with it as a clear idea for everybody. The universal concept of the Christian God corresponds to the masculine universality of anthropology.
From this apparently evident concept, theologians and biblical scholars of various centuries and backgrounds helped to shape religious identities, particularly masculine identities and from them the religious identities of women. A religious identity is not merely a simple social identity. It is something that has more value because is connected to a previously existing will, the will of a good and loving God. It is like obeying a superior order more valuable than our mere fragile human history. Any intent to change it is a kind of profanation against a sacred order of the Universe. In this perspective, we can observe that women’s identities were always depending on men’s identities, and men’s identities depended on an image of God. This is not peculiar to Christians but Christians take it from patriarchal cultures where the first communities were born and the first theologies were built.
Religious identity in a patriarchal world is based philosophically within an idealistic and political background. It is from above, which means that we get the meaning of our mortal life from something beyond the limits of our contextual history. We have to obey this established reality as part of our basic constitution in order to be true believers in God our Father and the master of the Universe. It is in this perspective that, for instance, Augustine tried to answer the question about the purpose of women. He read the Bible and from his reading he tried to discover what could be the intention of God regarding women. In the light of Genesis 1, 28, for him Eve is created to help Adam to beget children. This role of women is compared to the role of the earth that receives seeds passively. In spite of this passive role, Augustine insists on the reality of the souls of man and woman as being both in the image of God. This idea or this anthropology has spread its effects until today. Some of us may say that today we hear from some philosophical currents that God and the human being as essential models of being are dead. So for them Augustine’s theology is over. In fact, in my understanding, these ideas are still alive in our culture in spite of lots of radical theories about human beings. For this reason I want to stress that religious identity doesn’t come only from the present century in which we are living. Our body is built on a connected past history, a past heritage, past ways of speech and expression of our values, on past words that have defined ourselves. The "I" becomes an "I" only among a "We". It is this complex web of past, present and future as well as the confluence of different traditions that we can define some aspects of our identities. Inside my "I", I can find lots of different "I"s in harmony or conflicting among them.
If we try to describe religious identity in a phenomenological and traditional way, we can say that our ordinary life was connected to a mysterious loving God who made us and that we are here to serve him and be happy with him. And to serve him means in our daily life to obey social and cultural rules given for women. More than that, all our cultural organization has been based on Christian beliefs especially in the Incarnation of God. The most important moments of this God’s adventure to become human, celebrated in Christmas and Easter, became the key to divide times, spaces and different important moments of our lives. Christmas, Easter, Holy week, Baptism, Confession and other sacraments have served to put a particular sign on human life following the mystery of life identified with a masculine God becoming human. We belong to this God as we belong to the church. The time of our History is understood according to the various times of the life of the Man-God Jesus. He became the central reference for women’s religious history and women’s identities. And from this centrality men still maintain their power over women.
As we know, the cultural symbolic force of Christian Faith when identified with political power was able to spread the meaning of this understanding of divine mysteries to all cultures that accepted it. This cultural symbolic force became not only a collective reference but also an individual reference giving to each single believer the possibility to get her or his own religious identity. From organized time we can note different forms of control exercised by church institutions on bodies and especially on women’s body. All these aspects are parts of our religious identity.
Probably today some of us can say that all of these old theologies are passé. That may be, but they are not over institutionally and still exist in some cultures. We have to remember that capitalism in its different manifestations learned from the Christian hierarchical background to renew the control of bodies and to present itself as the new revelation about ourselves. While we women are saying to the churches that our vocation is not to be mothers and helpers of men, new forms of scientific technology are controlling our bodies and restoring traditional identities. Science and technologies are saying once again that we have to be mothers and we can be mothers now without sex. Sex became dangerous because of the dissemination of sexual diseases. New body patterns are dictating what should be the loving body for men and the best body for business propaganda. Again, women’s bodies exist for others. Powerful people are controlling our bodies, our food and introducing new sacred ideas about it. We are entering upon a different way to a new form of women’s slavery or women’s domination. We are still criticizing dominant religions without perceiving their continuity in other forms of power that become a new ally of the present domination of capitalism.
Feminist critique of feminine Christian identities
The feminist generation of the last century does not deny the importance of the symbolic dimension of our life, but criticizes reducing symbolic Christian culture to a male hierarchical culture and negating the rebellious message of the Jesus Movement. For us, the vital insights present in the Christian tradition became repressed and weakened by a historical process of accommodation to power structures of domination. Theology was a strong instrument for this domination and for the repression of all emancipatory initiatives. The earthly justice present in the Jesus Movement tradition was dislocated to a heavenly justice that alienates us from our own bodies and concrete issues. All this history is very well known by all of you, but it is important to not forget it because it is part of our common struggle.
Feminist insights opened ways to a critique of the universal subject especially in the work of some scholars. The universal subject as we know is the universal man of modern rationality representing the belief in reason as the faculty of truth. This reason was supportive to hierarchical powers. Feminist scholars in various fields proposed a new understanding of human knowledge, of human being and of our multiple identities. Women theologians learned much from them and felt challenged to analyze Christian identities in these new lights.
The criticism inside Christian Churches was first of all a movement from feminist theologians and Christian activists trying to change by rational arguments the pretension of male culture to present itself as universal. This universal conception includes women in a kind of fixed definition and identity in the way of subordination to men and God. The struggle for a new understanding of our own self and of our identity became a very important field to feminism and also to feminist theologies. In Brazil we tried to make this reflection available also to grassroots groups of women trying to help them to tell their stories, sufferings and hope in order to rediscover their plural identities and to value them.
We struggled too much in these last thirty-five years. While Christian churches denied the right of choice for women, feminist theologians became allies of movements promoting the decriminalization and legalization of abortion. While Christian churches still continue to proclaim homosexuality as a sin, we declare homosexuality to be a choice, and women from different sexual orientation work together and respect one another. While Christian churches were silent about the rape of women, we struggled to recognize it as a crime deserving hard punishment. While Christian theologies of different churches were male and racist, we became plural and anti-racist.
Indeed we worked a lot. We did new theology, biblical studies, wrote lots of books and articles, and did new liturgies and, and… But most of our work was frequently in the margin of our original churches. As feminists we were not integrated as part of the ministry and magisterium of our churches.
For a long time in spite of our suffering we did not care. Now, after many years we have begun to think about the flourishing of our labor. And we are convinced that our struggle for freedom and justice have precedence over any theological orthodoxy. We do not care about patriarchal orthodoxy. But we do care about the life of our poor people, and poor women living inside the Christian tradition. Because of them, we have to think more about our methods of working and our new concepts in order to leave a nourishing heritage to the new generations. Probably I am saying this also because I am getting old. I feel that with our feminist theological past history we still need to work in new simple language and new forms of expression to manifest our common desire for a better world, to console ourselves in our sufferings and joys and to keep the flame of hope lighted. I am talking with general words but I know that a reading of a text from the Bible can help a group of grassroots women to discover truth differently from what middle class scholars discover in the meaning of the words and the structure of the text. Just as liberation theology in Latin America worked with the Bible we have to explore in a new moment and in plural contexts the potential meaning for liberation present in biblical myths, in narratives and in poetry in spite of our critique of the patriarchal background of the text. We did lots of work but we have still work to do following our liberationist intuition for the new moment of our common history.
Some limits in our present feminist policy
What am I feeling and observing today in Brazil and probably in other countries regarding the situation of women in churches?
At the same time that women theologians and activists were able to built very good arguments and convince lots of women about the pertinence of our arguments we slowly created a big abyss between us and local Christian communities. While local Christian communities were still celebrating all Christian seasons and feasts in a traditional and patriarchal way we were frequently absent. And if present we were regarding what was happening in a very critical way. Sometimes we transformed a celebration afterwards as a kind of laboratory piece for critical study. It is difficult to share what I am sharing because I stand inside my own critique and because of the consequences in the daily life of poor women.
A great distance is beginning to be built up between us and grassroots groups, as well as between theoretical academic feminism and the social movement of women. We were and we are considered as very special persons, very critical about churches and devotions and probably very strong as we face suffering and vulnerability. It was not our aim to build this distance or to reproduce a similar vacuum that most scholars have lived in their lives. But it has happened.
In order to solve this problem, especially for us, we began to build alternative places with lots of creativity and enthusiasm. We wanted to share ideas and celebrate life. But those places were a kind of selected places for us intellectuals and soon became getting old as we were getting old. Most groups were not really renewed with the presence of new generations and grassroots women that had not lived the same struggle that was our struggle. The new generation seems interested in a different way in egalitarian struggles between men and women. And we know, new generations are also our children educated in our critical ways regarding religious institutions. We became, in a way, isolated mothers in a symbolic way of expression.
We have to admit that small groups have a small history and if they want to spread their influence more than just for the present generation they have to be better institutionalized and include more diversity. The identity of small groups does not need to be clearly explicit because everybody knows everybody.
New challenges are present in our agendas and we have to deal with them. As I said before, small groups are groups of friends. But if we want to be more active and make a significant and larger change that can make a difference, we need to be more than a group of friends. We have to work in a more extended institution. I suspect also that we have to enlarge our life and be close to people that are really suffering and need immediate help. They have to be our interlocutors in order to call us to touch and feel the more common problems which are bigger than the small world of a university or a religious congregation.
From these feelings and suspicions, I have to confess that I am arriving at a conclusion that I do not want to admit. Sometimes I feel that, probably, I was in a hard but also romantic struggle believing that sufferings and arguments can move hearts for a significant change in the traditional institutions of the Church. This moving heart does not happen in spite of some exceptions. Structurally Christian Churches are still patriarchal and male. They are still using biblical myths and texts for the exaltation of the strongest people and not for vulnerability, compassion and mutual help. Something changed indeed but not enough to stop the thirst for war and profit and domination.
I feel today that most radical feminists with a Christian formation are losing a chance to exert more pressure and help other people to be allies inside the same institutional church. We are not very insistent inside the institutions to educate ourselves and others about the urgency of religious change. We were not politically and continually present in some struggles because of the negative responses of religious institutions. We are sometimes like a dog that was kicked once or twice by a master and we hate to hear the sound of the same boots coming along. From my Brazilian experience I have to say that women inside the churches are still not very well organized to be a real political lobby inside it and I do not know if they want to do it. We are so deeply formed in the sacred male spirituality that we move only on the surface of the antipatriarchal religion. This religion is inside us. We are colonized by it. This religion takes possession of our subjectivity and appears frequently when we thought that its force was over. We are still in captivity and we need to hold hands strongly and tenderly to begin to see another light.
Some groups of women declare themselves no longer inside Christian churches and they try to erase this tradition from their own identity. They do not believe that the institutional church has any significant thing to say to them. But, at the same time they are struggling against the conservative policy of the church, especially regarding sexual issues. And to do this work they have to know the positions on those questions developed by the churches and recognize their power in civil society. They have, for instance, to recognize the political and ideological influence of the Roman Catholic Church and others inside Latin American culture. They can’t put themselves totally out of institutional churches, but they have to deal with them, if they are struggling in a feminist perspective and want to change cultural behaviors, cosmologies, beliefs and social laws.
Our identities are today challenged by the multiplicity of components that are tied to our own self and to the people we are living with. Theology is one component among others in this complexity of what we call religious identity. Being close to the sufferings of people, their struggles and new joys cause us to be more worried with vital questions than with the question of religious identity itself.
Are we living a backlash?
I am convinced that we Christian feminists cannot erase our convictions while we are inside church institutions. But we have to admit that there are so many women inside church institutions who feel emptiness and a big contradiction between, on one side their personal convictions and choices and, on the other, the ethics, politics and theologies of church institutions. In spite of all contradictions most women feel that their churches or religious congregations are part of their own body, part of their history and part of the place they chose, of course in a limited way, to be their space of conversation and struggle. Religious institutions become an important part of their cultural traditions and they do not want to feel marginalized inside them. This is also true for women from poor communities. Being part of a church is an important element in their lives. Also most feel a contradiction regarding the way religious institutions treat them, but they do not want to move out. They feel a kind of cultural connection coming from their parents and grand parents and their local culture.
In spite of my desire for radical change I have to admit that things go slowly in cultural spaces and in the human heart when we are searching for deep changes as a new understanding of what it means to be a human being and a new understanding of our women identities.
We need new strategies in order to move the policy of our institutions. This is not properly a backlash but a consciousness of the new moment in which we are living and also the needs of new generations.
One strategy is using our capacity to speak out together and sometimes loudly against the present policy of religious institutions. We are able to organize ourselves in public manifestations against a law made by the government, exert pressure and change it but we are not able to do the same when unjust laws and behavior come from the church.
These strategies have to be lived on different fronts: in parishes, in chapels, in religious communities, in newspapers, in small periodicals, by e-mail. We have to try once more a massive struggle to denounce the new forms of oppression of women connected with religious discourses (sermons) and denounce the unfair appropriation of the space, goods and richness of the fruits of the work of many generations of women. We gave freely to the church our time and work without any salary, and now we have to ask permission to enter our own common house or to sing what we love to sing. In this effort we have to be more active locally but also internationally in order to bring about a more effective policy.
One of the biggest questions concerns new generations of women. Most of them feel that the feminist struggle is finished because there is some equality in some places, especially for some jobs. The concept of equality has not been adequately analyzed in the new social context of our world. For some young people rights and justice became an individual issue and not a social issue. And the meaning of rights and justice is limited merely to having opportunities in this same oppressive and racist society.
How are we going to maintain and express new political power as women when the post-feminism generation stands in a different place?
I am worried about the instability and growth of individualism in our time. As a consequence there is also a growing search for the security that comes with. Patriarchal religions as well as from the army. The apparent backlash of feminism in fact is the backlash of collective values, is the backlash of national and international governments, the backlash and the fear of religious institutions to dare to welcome the changes needed for our time.
The implication of this entire situation goes far beyond what we thought of as feminism and as feminist theology and religious identity.
There are new questions to be asked, beyond all those that emerged in every field of women’s activity. We are there today.
Our present religious identity: a brief conclusion
My religious identity is a mirror of myself. Moving, searching, embracing struggles for human dignity, for the dignity of the planet, for my neighbor put in jail unfairly, for the child that has no place at school. My religious identity is a mirror of my present life. Dreaming again the possibility of justice and peace for all, betting the possibility of erasing hunger and war from the world, wanting love and friendship for myself is part of my present identity. It is also my fragile faith knowing that each one of us (and me too) can betray our beliefs. They are apparently strong but they are also fragile, able to die for "a new pair of sandals" or by a threat of torture. Symbolically, we can deny ourselves of searching for love and justice as Peter denied Jesus. Our new feminist religious identity is a multiple identity. It is not a new universal feminist identity that situates women’s condition as a monolithic condition, and feminist religious tradition as a new dogmatic one. Our new identity has to do with our everyday wake-up as full citizens of the world, with our renewed longing for better conditions of life for human beings and for the planet. Our new religious identity is a kind of vital perception of following the emancipatory impetus always present in human history. Our new religious identities, even while we keep the same name–Christians or Muslims or Buddhists and others– and express a kind of go-beyond-it regarding traditional systems and theological concepts. These old concepts seem exhausted in their capacity to provide new enthusiasm or social and personal transformation for the present generation. Something new is awaited inside us.
We are living in a marvelous challenging world but also in a world where frequently we do not feel at home. We built fortresses inside and outside us in order to keep alive a system that is producing death with the appearance of life. Our new plural religious identity invites us to be a stone in the shoes of this system, a dissonant voice in the churches, and a sign of contradiction in a pretentious homogenous world.
Our new identities have to express the capacity to speak in our name and be responsible for our choices and deeds.
Let me finish this reflection by sharing some poetic words of my dear friend Dorothee Solle. Like Pat Reif she was, until the end of her life, a fighter for justice and an inspiration for feminist theologians of old and new generations. Solle’s quote is from her book The Window of Vulnerability (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990):
"To be alive is to be vulnerable
To be faithful is to resist
the temptation of security".
We do not want security for our religious identities. We want vulnerability and faith as a good bread for our daily life.
Ivone Gebara is a Brazilian Sister of Our Lady (Canoneses of St. Augustine) and one of Latin America’s leading theologians, writing from the perspective of ecofeminism and liberation theology.
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