A Thinking Reed

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal

The divine feminine

There’s been a minor tempest in a blogspot in some quarters over the fact that the newly elected Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori preached a sermon in which she referred to Jesus as “Mother.” Surely, we’re told, this is the death knell of kooky liberal mainline Protestantism which has finally sold its soul to neo-pagan postmodernist relativism!

In response, the blog Kinesis has a nice roundup of quotes from saints, sages, and mystics (not to mention the Bible) showing that feminine language for God has ample precedent in the church. (via Guanilo’s Island)

It’s entirely possible and consistent to uphold the use of the traditional Trinitarian name and yet want to expand our language and imagery to include feminine terms and images (which is in many cases a recovery, not an innovation).

11 responses to “The divine feminine”

  1. Gaius

    Feminist Goddess-worship justified by a history of gender confusion among male celibates?

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  2. Joshie

    Didn’t we have a discussion on this topic on here a few weeks ago? VI is so ahead of the curve.

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  3. Lee

    Naturally!

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  4. Chip Frontz

    I didn’t have a huge problem with her “Mother Jesus” imagery, by itself. I think that in a sermon after just having been elected Presiding Bishop of the ECUSA, it sends a signal, though.

    More troubling was her off-the-cuff imagery of the Episcopal Church as two conjoined twins who could not be separated because of viability concerns. Whenever you start to accept disunity as a given, it’s a problem.

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  5. Lee

    That’s fair enough. I don’t really know enough to comment on what kind of PB she will be in general or what kind of theology she has, and as a non-Episcopalian it only affects me indirectly anyway. (Although, the way things are looking now it appears that Abby and I may end up attending an Episcopal church here, so I guess I could have at least one foot in the Episcopal camp.)

    My point was more to rebut some of the knee-jerk Schadenfreude I’ve seen about mainline Protestantism in response to this.

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  6. Joshie

    I think the fact that she is a liberal, rather than the fact that she has a uterus, is bigger news. It signals a crushing defeat for the conservatives in the ECUSA, the last in a long line of them. Their choices now are a) put up with it b) split and leave the Anglican Communion c) become Catholics, Lutherans or Methodists. For the foreseeable future, whether the cons, Africans and Brits like it or not, the liberals are running the show in the ECUSA.

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  7. Lee

    I wonder – how much influence does the PB actually have? In the ELCA at least my impression is not much. I would be willing to bet that most members of the average ELCA congregation couldn’t even name the current PB, much less tell you much about his theology, etc. I assume the PB in the ECUSA (or TEC as I see it’s now to be referred to) has more influence since the episcopacy is a more fundamental part of their polity (duh), but how much more?

    I guess I’m wondering if people aren’t flipping out about something that won’t make too much difference at the parish level.

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  8. Joshie

    When I was ECUSA for a few months in 2000-2001, as a part of the prayers at every service, we prayed for “Kate our bishop and Frank our presiding bishop”, so I would imagine most know at least her first name.

    I don’t think her election means a whole lot on the congregational level as far as what she will do to change anything, but it is very significant on a symbolic level. It means, like I said before, the liberals are in charge in the American church. Will there be a revolution in the ECUSA? no. But it signals that the conservatives have lost. An by conservatives, I mean those opposed to gay ordination. That has become the litmus test in the ECUSA, UMC and all the other mainline denominations.

    By that account, although both of us would probably consider ourselves right of center theologically, that makes us both liberals, I think.

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  9. Chip Frontz

    From what I’ve been reading, the bishops in TEC have very little actual power. A big deal for a lot of Episcopalians seems to be their “independence.” Although bishops are part of their structure, and you can’t get them out, it’s not as if it’s a hierarchical model of theology and doctrine, at least here in the U.S. A really interesting subplot of the past week was reading about how the American Revolution was being fought all over again. It seems a lot in TEC really resented being told what to do by “the stuffy Brits.” The words “tea party” appeared more than once in blogs I read. Another thing was that many really did not like was PB Griswold “invading” the house of deputies and bringing his influence to bear in pushing for some sort of answer to the Windsor report.

    Does a PB have a lot of influence? Answer – yes, but in the same way a superintendent of schools has an influence – he/she determines how money is spent from above, what programs will be funded, what the public face of the whole district will be. Does every kid in the classroom know who the superintendent is? No, but every teacher does, and every teacher knows or thinks he/she knows how that superintendent is affecting them and their classrooms. PB Hanson (ELCA) has had a direct influence in the following ways: he was very influential in shaping the Church Council response to the sexuality study, whereas another PB might have used his/her influence to commend a different approach; and he pushed through a major restructuring of the churchwide office, which will affect the way that part of the church will work for decades to come. He and PB-E Schiori are both “justice and peace” advocates first and foremost, which means that (for example) our congregation’s not going to get our offering money spent on developing resources on converting Muslims to Christianity, but rather we will get resources on understanding our neighbors.

    I think, Joshie, that gay ordination/blessings are symptomatic of the “justice/peace” emphasis over and above the “sin/salvation” emphasis that classical Christianity has historically espoused. When you start approaching the church’s mission as primarily about establishing earthly justice/peace for the oppressed, then gay ordination becomes a slam dunk. It’s also, of course, about the locus of revelation and so forth. But maybe that’s less of an issue than I think, because you can pull “peace/justice” texts out of the Bible just as well as “sin/salvation” texts. Guess it’s just hard to keep them both in tension.

    Sorry for the post-length response.

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  10. Joshie

    I follow ya chip, but I think it’s gone beyond that. Gay ordination/membership has become THE test of what “side” you’re on in the mainline. Which is, I think, completely stupid. People like me, who are to the right theologically from most of the other people in my congregation (lay and ordained) are now liberals because we believe the church cannot close its doors to whoever the Spirit is calling to ministry. It’s like what the abortion issue has become on the national political level.

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  11. Lee

    I agree that a theological language of “rights” “liberation” and so on does threaten to overtake traditional language about sin, salvation, holiness, etc. This is a properly theological problem that the mainline churches haven’t really shown much interest in addressing and which, IMO, is a serious problem. (I do think categories of liberation, peace and justice, etc. have a place in the church, but they need to be theologically informed and not just taken over wholesale from secular contexts.)

    That said, I think many, if not most, Christians, who have reconsidered their attitudes toward gay people have done so not because they have adopted some kind of revisionist theological stance, but because they’ve actually come to know gay people, in their churches or elsewhere, and have a hard time seeing what’s supposed to be so wrong about their way of life. I recall a gay couple at our previous church who were, in every way that I could discern, pillars of the congregation. Now, I realize that there are weighty theological reasons on the other side, but I think this kind of experience is probably what changes most people’s minds.

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