Feminist theology that emerged in the second half of the twentieth century was an offshoot of the feminist movement in the western world, which was begun a century ago.220 Feminist theology, which focuses on the oppression of women in mostly patriarchal societies,221 has borrowed the principles of the liberation theologians to argue for the rights of the oppressed and the sidelined, and thus, has become a “theology from the underside of history.”222 Feminist theologians can be both female and male theologians who work for the rights of women, and their objective is to end oppression, discrimination, and violence directed to women and help to acquire equality and human dignity for every woman in society.223 Instead of completely separating women from men in theologizing, they aim “at the transformation of the theological concepts, methods, language, and imagery into a more holistic theology as a means and an expression of the struggle for liberation.”224
Feminist theologians see the Church as a site of tension between two realities: on the one side, the Church is the site where women have the experiences of marginalization and
220 Anne M. Clifford, Introducing Feminist Theology (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2001), 10-6. Clifford presents three major waves of feminism: the first wave, between the mid nineteenth through the early twentieth centuries, women’s participation in public life was envisioned; the second, in the 1960s and 1970s, sought civil rights and equality for women, especially in Europe and America; the third wave, which began in the 1980s, envisioned justice for all women around the globe.
221 Fiorenza, 13.
222 Gustavo Gutiérrez, The Power of the Poor in History: Selected Writings (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1983), 183. Cf. Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, An Introduction to Ecclesiology: Ecumenical, Historical and Global Perspectives (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2002), 188. Many feminists want to speak of God with female images and metaphors - mother, lover, or friend – to free women from a subordination, which is a result of the patriarchal image of God in the Bible.
223 Clifford, 13, 17.
224 Natalie K. Watson, Feminist Theology, ed. Sally Bruyneel, et al., Guides to Theology (Grand Rapids, MI/ Cambridge, UK: William B. Eerdamans Publishing Company, 2003), 3. Natalie Watson proposes the definition, “Feminist theology is the critical, contextual, constructive, and creative re-reading and re-writing of Christian theology. It regards women – and their bodies, perspectives, and experiences – as relevant to the agenda of Christian theologians and advocates them as subjects of theological discourses and as full citizens of the Church.”
oppression, and on the other, it is the site of empowerment, because it has the shared memory of life, death, and gospel of Jesus Christ, the hope of whole humankind.225 Thus, at the heart of the feminist theology, which draws on the experience of women as a basic source of content and criterion of truth,226 there is “the struggle for justice and the creation of right relationships,”227 in which the Church, being the sign of salvation in the world, has an important role. The prophetic role of the feminists consists in their involvement in the social injustices against women, because whatever diminishes or denies the full humanity of women cannot reflect the divine, nor can it be a sign of redemption.228 The hope of the redemptive work to regain the God-given dignity of women is the prophetic-liberating tradition of Biblical faith.229
For feminist theologians, the early Christian community in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 2:43-7), the community in which the Eucharistic ecclesiology is found in its perfect form, serves as a powerful symbol of the social unity that the Church should maintain in all ages. The
breaking of the bread, in which the early Christians commemorated and proclaimed the death and the resurrection of Christ, was the primary sign of their communal life. Today, the Eucharist, the central sacrament of the Church, professes the faith in the saving power of the death and
225 Introducing Feminist Ecclesiology (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2008), 117.
226 Rosemary Radford Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1983), 12.
227 Watson, Introducing Feminist Ecclesiology, 116.
228 Ruether, 19; Cf. Marie-Therese Van-Lunen-Chenu, "Women's Liberation: The Chruch's Opportunity and Necessity for Liberation," in Liberation Theology and the Message of Salvation: Papers of the Fourth Cerdic
Colloquium, Strasbourg, May 10-12, 1973, ed. Rene Metz and Jean Schlick (Pittsburgh, PA: The Pickwick Press,
1978), 61.
229 Cf. Ruether, 24. Ruether gives four themes that are “essential to the prophetic-liberating tradition of Biblical faith,” which give hope to the feminists: “(1) God’s defense and vindication of the oppressed; (2) the critique of the dominant systems of power and their powerholders; (3) the vision of a new age to come in which the present system of injustice is overcome and God’s intended reign of peace and justice is installed in history; and (4) finally, the critique of ideology, or of religion, since ideology in this context is primarily religious. Prophetic faith denounces religious ideologies and systems that function to justify and sanctify the dominant, unjust social order.” Cf. also Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Discipleship of Equals: A Critical Feminist Ekklesia-Logy of Liberation (New York: Crossroad, 1993), 69.
resurrection of Christ. Christian feminists believe that those who celebrate the Eucharist together are friends, brothers and sisters, and members of a common body and life. They are no longer strangers, aliens, and nonmembers.230 Guided by the symbol of such an ideal community, feminist theologians analyze social realities, and examine how the good news of Christ can reshape the structures of the society in which women are sidelined or experience discrimination or oppression.231 Their criticism of the present Catholic theology is that “it cannot claim to be a liberative theology proclaiming the ‘good news’ of salvation,” because “it does not take seriously its call to become a theology for the poor – women, men and children.”232 Instead it promotes or sustains division in the Church as high class clergy and low class laity under the patriarchal system of leadership. Ruether believes that in theology, there had been an attempt to emphasize the biological particularity of Jesus, i.e., his maleness, which limits his “representation as the embodiment of God’s universal new Word,” and she is convinced that what is needed is not an emphasis on the biological particularities of Jesus but his message which was the revolutionary word of good news and hope to the poor.233
Erasto J. Fernandez, who emphasizes the need of a community action of the Eucharist, says that our assembling or coming together as God’s Children to the Eucharistic celebration could bring out the true meaning of the rite.234 Assembling as God’s children becomes true and meaningful when the members of the Church consider the fellow Christians as brothers and
230 Denise L. Carmody, Christian Feminist Theology: A Constructive Interpretation (Oxford, UK/ Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1995), 102-7.
231 Ibid., 115.
232 Fiorenza, "For Women in Men's World: A Critical Feminist Theology of Liberation," 11. See also Rosemary Radford Ruether, "Women's Difference and Equal Rights in the Chruch," ibid., 211.
233 "The Liberation of Christology from Patriarchy," in Feminist Theology: A Reader, ed. Ann Loades (London/ Louisville, KY: SPCK/ W/JKP, 1990), 147.
sisters, or in other words, it demands us to be responsible towards each other. The imagery of “the Church around the table,” feminist theologians believe, explicates the equal role of the members of the Church or the discipleship of equals.235 The Eucharistic table is the unparalleled model and serves as the symbol of this relationship of equals created by Christ sharing his body and blood. In real life, Méndez-Montoya says, the Eucharistic table is “a painful spot, for it mirrors a wounded Chruch,” especially in the area of gender and sexuality.236 Méndez-Montoya believes that an authentic Eucharistic action is very challenging, because it demands radical inclusion and promotes a profound sense of personal and communal dignity, and it invites the Church to perform divine caritas.237 Lucchetti Bingemer is of the opinion that the sacrament of Eucharist places women in a privilaged position based on the notion of “transubstantiation” or “real presence.” She argues that God’s feeding of his people with his own body and blood is the supreme way God chose to be with them. In this way, God is giving his own life in this
sacrament. “During the whole process of gestation, parturition, protection, and nourishment of new life,” Lucchetti Bingemer says, “we have the sacrament of Eucharist, the divine act par excellence, happening again and again.”238 In this sense, women can anthropologically understand this mystery in its best possible way.