From Mary Daly to the Emerging Church – An Unlikely Dissertation Trajectory by Xochitl Alvizo

It was 2004 during the first semester in one of my classes for the master’s program when my TA presented a lecture on feminist critiques of atonement and introduced me to the writings of Mary Daly. It was my first introduction to feminism as theory and theology, and my first introduction to Mary Daly the writer.

Mary Daly was the first woman to preach at the Harvard Memorial Chapel in its three-hundred and thirty-six year history, back in 1974. On that occasion and in cahoots with some of her graduate students of the time, Mary Daly took the opportunity to invite people to give physical expression to their exodus from sexist religion by walking out of the church with her that day. Thinking that she would be leading the way out the door, she was surprised to find that people were very much ahead of her. She walked out of that church, out of sexist religion, as one among many who were ready to take their “own place in the sun.” This exodus, the act of leaving behind the silence and alienation from one’s own voice and from one’s own be-ing that is perpetuated by the prevailing patriarchal structures of church, is a choice I commit to make every day as I stay on the boundary of Christianity and church.

Mary Daly’s work led the way for me to be able to live differently on the Boundary of these institutions. Because of her work, I am compelled to account for the ways in which my energies and participation in church, and my academic studies related to it, serve either as a resource for its continued patriarchalism or as a resource for the disruption and dismantling of its patriarchal habits and patterns embedded within.

The Boundary is a New Time/Space – that place created when we are willing to Live and Spin beyond, above, through, and around the Deprived Space of patriarchy. Committed to no fixed center, Boundary Living is always ready and open to spark new connections and interconnections in order to collectively spin and weave new possibilities, new realities – to be new creations.

This is what I bring with me to the work I do in feminist ecclesiology. For my dissertation, I conducted a feminist analysis of the emerging church movement – a movement on the margins, the boundaries, of institutional Christianity. Literature on the Emerging Church makes claims that the movement represents a more organic, more relational, and more inclusive form of church. It is a movement, of deconstructing church and reimagining it, envisioning it anew.

The popular image of the emerging church, however, is that it is made up of a few high profile white men who give themselves credit for work that has long been engaged in by feminist theologians. People often ask me why it is that I focused my research on the emerging church. But in my mind, I say, Why wouldn’t I? à I’m invested in what its participants are trying to accomplish, and I’d like to see them succeed at it. I want their churches to be more of a living organism than a fixed institution, responsive to those within and around them; 2) to be relational in structure – to eschew hierarchical organization and creatively explore new forms of leadership that facilitate power-sharing; and 3) I want them to be inclusive of questioning and critique, so much so that their churches are changed by it – willing to die and be born anew. I also want for them not to fall into the age-old pattern of erasing women’s work from history – so I bring the work of radical feminist philosophers and feminist theologians with me to research with the Emerging Church.

When one is not bound to a fixed center, when one doesn’t have to have everything they do connect back to and be authorized by a single point of authority, when instead one does one’s spinning and working with a community of people, what one realizes is that there are an infinite number of possibilities and points of connection available to us as a resource, available for our creative, collective becoming. So why not feminist theology and Emerging Churches?

In the history of feminist theology, we’ve seen that the strongest critiques raised to the church most often come from those within it. From my perspective, the Emerging Church movement holds the potential of disrupting and dismantling the patriarchal imagination that prevails within Christianity and calling it to new life.

After the Harvard Exodus, Mary was asked if the walkout meant “leaving the church for good.” She responded, “Well, the Exodus symbol can have many meanings. It is for each woman who walked out to decide what her actions mean to her. For some it may mean having no more to do with institutional religion. For others, it may mean working within institutional structures to eradicate oppression, refusing to submit passively to an exploitative situation. In my sermon I did not use the expression “leave the church” attributed to me by the press. Whatever had been authentic “in the church” seemed to be very much present, alive, and well among us when we exited from the gloom of Memorial Church to claim our place in the sun.”

To me Mary Daly’s work serves as my touchstone – as that place that I return to again and again in order to be reminded what courage looks like. What it looks like to speak to and raise charges against oppressive institutions. To remember that it’s possible, and to be reminded that it is necessary, to speak truth to power and to live beyond, above, through, around the Deprived Space of patriarchy and work to dismantle the fixed center that would claim to be the authority of all that’s possible and allowable.

Mary Daly took her course but also knew that her friends had to take their own – and she encouraged, challenged, and supported her friends all the way – even when she disagreed with them. Knowing that my work is different from hers, I am reminded that we all have our different work to do. At the end of the day, even if I didn’t ‘exodus’ the church as Mary did, I am grateful for the way she did her work, because it compels me to step up my game in how I do mine; which sometimes takes me to unlikely places.

Xochitl Alvizo, loves all things feminist. She often finds herself on the boundary of different social and cultural contexts, and works hard to develop her voice and to hear and encourage the voice of others. Her work is inspired by the conviction that all people are inextricably connected and what we do, down to the smallest thing, matters; it makes a difference for good or for ill.

Author: Xochitl Alvizo

Feminist theologian, Christian identified. Associate Professor of Religious Studies in the area of Women and Religion and the Philosophy of Sex Gender and Sexuality at California State University, Northridge. Her research is focused in Congregational Studies, Feminist and Quuer Theologies, and Ecclesiology specifically. Often finding herself on the boundary of different social and cultural contexts, she works hard to develop her voice and to hear and encourage the voice of others. Her work is inspired by the conviction that all people are inextricably connected and the good one can do in any one area inevitably and positively impacts all others. View all posts by Xochitl Alvizo