Feminist Theological Reflections and Praxis in India
INTRODUCTION
The beginning of
a feminist theological approach in India, which emerged in the early 80s of the
20th century, was not developed due to a renewal movement within the
Church. The growing women’s movement in urban and rural India gave the
necessary impetus to a small group of Christian women to re-read the Bible from
a feminist perspective.
The attempt is
to base all theological perceptions in the context of Indian women’s lived
experiences and the realities of women’s oppression. This has given birth not
only to new questions but also to new interpretations. It implies also the
development of new methods for liberating faith from a patriarchal mindset and
patterns of understanding the gospel.[1]
FEMINIST THEOLOGY
Feminist theology is a new mode of relationship; neither
a hierarchical model that diminishes the potential of the other nor an equality
defined by a ruling norm drawn from the dominant group, but rather a mutuality
that allows us to affirm different ways of being. It is a liberation theology
which attempts to liberate the Word. It teaches the Bible from the perspective
of the oppressed, recognizing the Bible’s clear bias of the poor, and draws
from the Bible the power to play an advocacy role in favor of all those who are
in greatest need of God’s mercy and help.
The Bible which is an androcentric text cannot be
spontaneously re-appropriated through the eyes of women. But it also cannot be
rejected for its patriarchal content, as being beyond redemption. There is
another way open to us which Gabriele Dietrich terms as the ‘re-reading of the
Bible in a scientific way informed by a commitment to women’s liberation and to
human liberation in general. This will be a historical re-reading of ‘biblical
and extra biblical traditions in order to retrace the struggle of our
fore-sisters for full human-hood and to re-appropriate their victories and
their defeats as our own submerged history.’[2]
ARUNA GNANADASAN
Co-Workers
with God
A careful and
scientific analysis of the Bible provides clues for the historical discipleship
of equals in Old Testament times, in the time of Christ and in the early
Church. Women in biblical times played a tremendous role in participating in
the struggles of their people. These brave women of exceptional deeds are to be
remembered and celebrated. The four women Shiprah, Puah, Miriam, and the
Pharoah’s daughter, who played a crucial role in the Exodus story, Deborah,
Jael, Judith, Huldah, Vasthi, Esther, and Ruth and the lesser known daughters
of Zelophehad (Num 27) come to mind. There are others, many of them nameless,
whose actions of courage cannot be minimized.
Pauline
literature and Acts of the Apostles record how women were among the most
prominent missionaries and leaders in the early Christian movement. They were
apostles and ministers like Paul and some of them were his co-workers, and not
necessarily his assistants or helpers, as is often made out. Women founded
house churches and played an active role as prominent patrons. They were not as
deaconesses of today restricted to feminine roles and functions to do ‘children’s
ministry’ or ‘women’s work’. A woman writer would no doubt have given much more
importance to Priscilla, Phoebe, Junia and other great women missionaries in
the early church. Aruna says that male ecclesiactical writers tolerate women in
their domestic role, serving the Church, but not as itinerant missionaries.
While sects like
the Montanists and the Marcionites legitimize the prophetic activity of women
with reference to the Scriptures, most of the Church Fathers try to belittle
and to eliminate women’s leadership. Tertullian decreed that the Acts of Paul
and Thecla in which Thecla appears as a religious leader equal to Paul, was a
fraud. Church Father Jerome outdid Tertullian by his observation that women are
not only the origin of sin but also of heresy. Here the drive to exclude women
for reasons of ‘orthodoxy’ is most sharply formulated. Elisabeth Fiorenza
therefore expressed the need for a new ecumenism which restores the original
equality of women which was practiced in the Jesus community and those parts of
the early church which were later declared as ‘heretic.’[3]
Power
of women in Christ
The
Jesus community was basically a protest movement, rejecting accepted norms of
relationship and behavior. It was an egalitarian, not hierarchical community.
The value system of the Jesus community developed under the hegemony of the
poor. It offered love and acceptance to the suffering and poor outcasts, the
scum of the society, including women.
Despite
the cultural and linguistic bias we encounter in the New Testament, Jesus and
His ministry emerges clearly as transcending patriarchal limitations. The
important role women play in the Gospels, precisely because of their low
status, is in keeping with Jesus’ vision of the vindication of the lowly in
God’s new order. Among the ritually unclean, the woman with the flow of blood
exhorts healing for herself by touching Jesus. A Syro-Phoenician woman
challenges Jesus and forces him to concede redemption to the Gentiles. His
acceptance of the woman condemned as an adultress and his dialogue with the
Samaritan woman at the well are few examples of the liberation that Jesus
offers from hierarchical patriarchal relations by which societies have defined
privilege and deprivation.
As
women move forward in a rediscovery of their human hood, the church and its
theologians need to stand by women in solidarity. Such an understanding and
support is not always evident. Traditionally followed doctrinal, ecclesial and
administrative patterns restrict the church from being a true and liberating
witness to the suffering servant. If we are true to be our calling, we will
respond sensitively and courage to the clear and strong voices of women in
their struggle for a place in the sun[4]
[1] Aruna Gnanadasan, “Feminist
Theology: an Indian Perspective”, in Readings
in Indian Christian Theology vol. 1 ed. R.S. Sugirtharajah and Cecil
Hargreaves, (London: SPCK, 1993), 60-61.
[2] Ibid., pp 63f
[3] Ibid., pp 69f
[4]
Ibid., pp 70f
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