Trinity – Feminism and Religion

Musings on the Triune God by Natalie Weaver

This past term I had the opportunity to teach courses on the Christian doctrines of Christology and Trinity. My first inclination was to approach these doctrines from the perspective of their historical development. For, I find the historical study of doctrinal development to be a fascinating and liberating approach to theology because it delivers the searcher from the illusions of ubiquity and universality, even in matters of the most central tenets of faith. When people can see doctrine in its political, polemical, and posited guises, we can be free from absolutization of belief in past expressions as well as in present permutations.

Yet, as much as I enjoy tours through the historical development of faith formulations, I found myself unable to really commit to this approach this year. I was more concerned with allowing students space to think about Christ and to think about God. I wanted to introduce the problems and tensions that have dogged Christian logic and practice for millennia, but I wasn’t interested in arriving at conclusions or teaching modern experts’ answers. I wanted to create occasion for my students to answer for themselves questions of justice and mercy; theodicy; particularity; scandal; and more. Continue reading “Musings on the Triune God by Natalie Weaver”

Queering Kenosis: A Review of “God and Difference” by Caryn D. Riswold

I still think that Valerie Saving was right.

It’s been 56 years since she published her article on “The Human Situation” in The Journal of Religion, and her most basic groundbreaking insight holds true: Under patriarchy, the fundamental sin and danger for women is not too great a sense of self, too much pride as Reinhold Niebuhr would argue; rather, the problem is too small and diffuse a sense of self. Prioritizing others ahead of herself, the woman under patriarchy accepts second-class citizenship and submission to male headship as her rightful place.

Wrong.

Yet, in recent years, when reminding colleagues of this fundamental feminist insight from the second wave, I have received replies that begin “But Sarah Coakley says ….” What they lift up is Coakley’s supposed reclamation of kenosis as feminist, of self-emptying as a revolutionary Christian act in relationship to God. To them, this corrects Valerie Saiving. I have heard variations on this defense from senior male scholars who believe themselves to be quite advanced in their thinking, as well as from female scholars who believe this is the kind of feminist theology they want.

Wrong. Continue reading “Queering Kenosis: A Review of “God and Difference” by Caryn D. Riswold”

Dying For the Triune God by Esther Nelson

esther-nelson Last week, the Catholic Studies Chair in the public university where I teach sponsored an event that brought Monsignor Kevin Irwin from The Catholic University of America; School of Theology and Religious Studies, Washington DC, into our midst. His hour-long talk was titled, “Pope Francis’ Teaching on the Environment.”

The monsignor couched his talk in the Latin American proverb, “We drink water from our own wells.” In other words, our life experiences (to a large extent) give us a prism through which we see the world. We construct a “reality” from that view–a view that in turn shapes us. Pope Francis, according to the monsignor, was shaped by the huge unemployment rate and resultant poverty that happened (and is still ongoing) in his native country–Argentina. In addition, he saw first hand how large corporations had taken over the country, laying claim to resources not belonging to them. Furthermore, environmental destruction has taken a heavy toll on the Amazon in Brazil–an area “beloved” to the current Pope. These are some of the waters from the well which Pope Francis has drunk, shaping his worldview. Continue reading “Dying For the Triune God by Esther Nelson”

God the Father or Buffy the Vampire Slayer? by Linn Marie Tonstad

In the second season of the television show Buffy, the Vampire Slayer [spoiler alert!], Buffy is faced with an agonizing dilemma. She is condemned to save the world “again.” Buffy’s former lover is the evil Angelus. Angelus – once the good Angel – has awoken a demon that will swallow up the whole world into an eternity of suffering. In what follows, I read Buffy as God the Father. Angelus represents sinful humanity, Angel is Jesus, and the Spirit is the sword in Buffy’s hand. Buffy attempts to destroy Angelus. But at the moment that she is about to kill Angelus, his soul is returned to him. Unfortunately, only Angel’s blood will close the gaping mouth of the demon. The shift from Angelus to Angel gives a vivid representation of the shifting positions of the first and second Adam in the Christian narrative of redemption. Angelus is evil. Angel carries the weight of Angelus’s guilt without any of the responsibility belonging, strictly speaking, to him. Yet finally, the innocent Angel must bear the consequences of Angelus’s evil for the salvation of the world.

The gender dynamics of this scene complicate and illuminate traditional readings of the involvement of the Father in the crucifixion. Gender subordination and the subordination of the Son to the Father go together, and are ultimately justified by the same theological logic. Reading the Father as an 18-year old girl helps to mark the inadequacy of language to capture God. The evident implausibility, even absurdity, of the image, makes visible the theological truth that God is not a father among other fathers. Continue reading “God the Father or Buffy the Vampire Slayer? by Linn Marie Tonstad”