New Eyes, New Reading, New Woman…

Evangeline Anderson-Rajkumar

Let me begin my paper by weaving together some of the issues that emerged yesterday in our deliberations, after the presentation of the keynote address and the historical appraisal of Ordination of Women. I believe that the Spirit guides all our discussions, because the ‘Wind of Transformation’ helped in raising a lot of dust yesterday that had otherwise settled down comfortably in our minds and hearts, by activating our ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’. It is my hope that this ‘disturbed dust’ would gain momentum and develop into a theological storm and force us out of our slumber and passivity! I can imagine many of those who are introduced to the subject of Feminist hermeneutics for the first time, trying to reach out for the safety umbrella of ‘Church traditions, laws, “Indian cultures”, appeal to feminine values, sacrificial nature of women, the need to appreciate the beautiful gift of “womanhood”/ femininity, appeal to the authority of church councils and church fathers, etc – to face the storm. This is quite a normal response of anyone undergoing the process of gender conscientisation. Some women may even feel guilty about joining in such a workshop on hermeneutics, wondering if they would be misunderstood, as “women” ganging up against the men. One of the first things we need to do therefore is to define what feminism/feminist is, in Indian context. 
New Eyes…
Feminism is that consciousness and sensitivity, which is developed within a man or a woman, to realize that “women” - as a class, caste, race and sex - have been discriminated, suppressed, denied of opportunities to life. It simultaneously demands a conscious pro-active effort on the part of the man or the woman, to change the reality of gender discrimination and gender-inequality. One who is willing to show an existential commitment in continuation with his / her understanding of women’s issues in society is a feminist. This means that both a ‘man and a woman can be a feminist.’ Perhaps I should also add, ‘all women need not necessarily be feminists; neither can we write off all men as oppressors and perpetrators of patriarchy.

Yesterday, there was an important question raised about the usage of the terms, feminist/ womanist/ women’s perspectives as this may give room for men to misunderstand it as something that excludes them, as that which is relevant only for the women. I believe this is an important point of clarification because it brings to surface several other issues. In fact, it brings to focus one of the main questions for Feminist Biblical hermeneutics today which is: “who has had the privilege of questioning and who has felt the need to give answers in the history of our church and society?” These two positions – i.e. the position of asking question and the position of answering reveal positions of power and powerlessness in society. It has been the male prerogative to raise questions to women or about women.  Women have always been open to questioning, having to reply all the time and spend our energy searching for new answers.  The questions never seem to end on the part of the male. For centuries, men have never felt the need to listen to women and women’s perspectives. Theologies constructed within this framework have passed the rule that theology by the male, the white, the rich, the privileged, or the ‘West’ can be called THEOLOGY whereas theologies that take the experiences of women, Dalits, tribals, the indigenous people, the Blacks or ‘Indian’, stand out as adjunct theologies. The existing rule seems to be: “Fit in or Get out! You will be allowed only when you follow the rules of patriarchy.” The need to define a theology against a ‘normative’ criteria, method and content of the notion of ‘standardized theology’ is a burden experienced by many of the contextual theologies of the day. Feminist hermeneutical task therefore is to break out from the narrow boundaries of such “theological norms and expectations” and go beyond in search for answers to the deep-seated problem of patriarchy.

Women, who have ventured into the field of theologizing and interpretation, feel the burden to “fulfill patriarchal frameworks and expectations”. It is easy to fall prey to the social expectations of patriarchy and believe that we are on the road to freedom. What is important is for women to recognize this ‘patriarchal face’ that comes to us in a pseudo-friendly manner, inviting women to be partners within ‘patriarchal terms’.   If we are venturing into the road of transformation, let us begin by ridding the path of all types of demons. As Sheila Collins, a feminist writer puts it, ‘in order to exorcise a demon, you have to call it by name’.  Women have to recognize the face of these subtle powers that unsettle the women. In this search for new feminist biblical hermeneutics, we should let the woman claim her right to pose questions for a change.

My intention is not to divide the women and the men into two sides of the battle line in our quest for new Feminist Biblical Hermeneutical principles.  Rather it is to point out to some of the strategies of the games of power that are common in structures of hierarchy – be it the class, caste, race or sex. One of the rules of the game, especially from the vantage point of the powerful is a willingness to share “some crumbs” of the power as long as one sticks to the rules of the game. Men of every caste therefore would have learnt within a patriarchal culture that it is beneficial and powerful if he is a male, in order to have relatively more access to opportunities and resources. Women and men of the “dominant caste” in the social ladder learn the rule laid down by the game of Caste, that it is beneficial and powerful to be born in the so called upper caste. Such an understanding of power would make even all the women of the dominant caste feel pseudo-powerful over against the men of the so called lower caste. I firmly believe that there is no need to refer to any caste as ‘upper’ or ‘lower’ because there is nothing upper/higher/lower/ inferior about a human being. It is a mythical difference that is introduced by a powerful minority to subjugate vast category of people by constructing an ‘inferior other’ It is of extreme important for women to understand how this power operates, if only to learn, not to look for liberation within the hierarchical/ abusive system of patriarchy for any compromise but reject the system and ideology of oppressive power in toto.

The use of the term “Women’s perspectives” in this consultation is to underline the distinctive and primary character of women’s experiences as a methodological approach.    For the male and female mind shaped in patriarchal framework, the term ‘woman’ is a derivative term that has been shaped in history. It has been made synonymous with powerlessness, inferiority, subordination, a secondary role and identity in society. By this, I mean, the power to define our own self-identity and self-worth.  Let us ask ourselves some dangerous questions: Have women ever had power in history to say, “the decision of this historical council will be decisive on the faith of all the future generations to come!” or “This material put together by women gathered here in this consultation will be binding on all and have an authority? Can we revalorize the experiences of women and make them authentic, and as well as authoritative as a source? Have women ever had the power to say, “The Holy Spirit has certainly spoken to us during this workshop and that this should be binding on the Christian community for all generations”? This burden of having to receive the seal of male approval to fit into the existing paradigms of theology and theologizing should stop at a point in history. What we see that it is persons who exercise authority, Moses, or Paul or apostles. In other words, it is embodied authority. Persons authorize texts just as the text authorizes persons. Thus there is a true dialogical authority.  “Thus true authority has a dialogical quality. Paradoxically in order to grant authority to someone or something else, one must first have the authority to do so. Legitimate and uncoerced granting occurs from a position of strength, not of weakness.  This granting is, moreover reciprocal. For a text to have this dialogical authority, it must continually create new persons to participate in this ongoing interaction, In other words, a truly authoritative text will have a generative life-giving quality.”2

New Reading…

The Bible is one of the most used and perhaps also, one of the most misused/ abused books we’ve ever had in history.  The Bible is used as authority for the formation of Christian faith in God through the person of Jesus Christ and for shaping values like justice and peace for the whole creation. The Bible is used when we recognize it as a witness to a loving God - who has created, redeemed and ever sustains this world out of love. The Bible, however, is misused when exclusive claims of salvation, justification of self-righteous positions, discrimination against fellow human beings on the basis of class, race, caste, and gender are upheld as Biblical.  We have witnessed how the white regime of Apartheid South Africa justified the oppression of the Blacks, claiming that the Bible supported slavery.  We continue to witness blatant misuse of the Bible when men claim for themselves a superior, exclusive and dominant position over against the women on Biblical basis. We can get a glimpse into the tension that prevails in interpreting the Bible when a stand has to be taken on issues such as women’s ordination into ministry.  We see that the women who are still denied ordination into the ministry of the Church are given “Biblical” reasons for their exclusion even as women seek ordination into ministry precisely because it is “Biblical” to realize that women and men are created equally in the image of God.
Importance of Re-reading the Bible

How then do we interpret the Bible? What does it imply when contradicting positions within the Bible are claimed as the basis for their positions?  Does the Bible lose its validity for us today because it is twisted to suit one’s purposes? How can God’s purpose of equality in creation be understood when the Bible tells stories after stories, mostly of men, their sons, and their kings, leaving out the experiences of women?  How very easy it seems to understand God as one who was partial to the males, when we read in the Bible that all the children promised to childless couples, or for special motives, have been males! (Or is it that we find only those stories where male children are promised to couples recorded in the Bible and those stories where girl children promised, counted too insignificant to be included?) We do not know, but we surely have lot of reason to suspect of such a possibility! Hermeneutics of Suspicion is of crucial importance to re-reading the Bible with new eyes.
New Woman…
Re-reading of the Bible demands one to be aware of the different hermeneutical approaches in order to contend with the patriarchal past of the Bible. It is imperative to use our imagination, intuition and experiences of women, to reconstruct the experiences of women in the Bible, to redeem some of the texts that can be reconstructed to bring out both women’s hidden experiences in the Bible, which make us to wince with pain whenever the text is read. The story of the murder of Jephthah’s daughter (Judges 11), or God’s seeming silence when the Levite’s concubine is cut into twelve pieces  and sent to all the tribes of Israel (Judges 19) in striking contrast to God’s intervention when Isaac is saved from being sacrificed by his father Abraham (Genesis 22)?  Can we simply say that women find the contents of the Bible very soothing for their morale and faith when they read stories loaded with violence such as those mentioned above?  Can it simply be stated that all we need to do is to look upon Jesus and his attitude to women and forget about the burden of some texts full of violence?

Feminist hermeneutics opens our eyes to the contextual reality around us and helps us to read between the lines to see how and where women have challenged all these patriarchal barriers and emerged as victors and voices of resistance: e.g. Shiphrah and Puah who were unafraid of what Pharaoh and “Pharaohs” stood for, in their time, clearly make a choice as to which God they will serve. Vashti who defies the symbol of Power is ready to quit her “number one” position among women in the whole country, rather than being reduced to a sex object. Such passages give women the message of courage and empower them. The strand of liberation that runs through out the Bible emphasizing God as God of Hope and Liberation is reiterated when Jesus follows the same principle of protecting, supporting and affirming life at all costs and places the life of men and women as of equal worth before God.  Feminist hermeneutics affirms liberation and feels anger and passion with those women in the Bible, whose lives are snuffed out by the powers of patriarchy.  We also feel the pain of Hagar and Sarah who are forced to fight each other because their identity is defined through their motherhood.  We feel the pain of Rachel and Leah who need to “give” their maids to Jacob in order to compete in the world where the identity of women is connected to being the mother of sons!  We feel the pain of Mary Magdalene who is often referred to as a sinner and whose primacy of first witness to the risen Lord is robbed because she was a woman.

  Once our eyes are opened to the reality of patriarchy and its influence on the writers of the Bible, we recognize the implications of this influence when man is considered as superior to woman, as the whole human being excluding women, rather than recognising woman as a counterpart.  Patriarchy operates in such a way that it makes one feel very normal and natural when man not only excludes woman but also assumes a state of power over the woman and treats her like an object instead of a human being. Patriarchy seems normal and natural when women accept the secondary status ascribed to them and believe that it is the way God has created a woman to be submissive and inferior to man.  In other words, patriarchy is made as our nature rather than recognising it as oppressive culture, thereby placing Patriarchy as part of God’s intent and purpose for the world.  Feminist hermeneutics demands that we critically review the given meanings and interpretations in the light of God’s word, and re-interpret them in such a way that God’s purpose for the whole creation as ‘justice and love’ would emerge as the criteria and the message.