FAITH AND IDEOLOGY
LOOKING THROUGH THE LENS OF THE EXPERIENCE OF TEACHING FEMINIST THEOLOGY?
Evangeline Anderson-Rajkumar
For a very long time in history, women who identified themselves as ‘activists’ were rather skeptic when it came to the subject of religion and maintained a respectable distance from it. Dissociation from any religious faith was considered almost a marker of identity for an academic feminist/ activist. Feminists (including some men) found it easier to come together to discuss women’s issues and participate in struggles for justice, equality and rights as long as religion was kept outside the framework. Perhaps keeping away from religion initially helped women across the country to consolidate their voices and become a “secular” force to name their experiences of violence, resistance, survival, struggle, solidarity and hope. At the same time, they were also able to see the mischievous role that religions played at times, in legitimizing and condoning violence against women. Violence against women and gender discrimination was obviously something that was prevalent in all religions, cultures, classes and castes which seemed to justify the action of women activists to dissociate themselves from any religion. Moreover, ‘Faith’ aspect was considered as pertaining to an abstract realm, something that contradicted the concreteness of human experience and therefore best avoided.
In a national consultation that was organized at the United Theological College, Bangalore in December 2002 on the theme: ‘Recasting Women, Reshaping Theologies’, Susie Tharu, an eminent feminist activist, a thinker and writer remarked in her keynote address that for a long time, she, as a feminist, had felt that she had nothing to do with religion, and hence steered clear of the faith that she was born into, namely Christianity. However, after the incident of Godhra violence in Gujarat in February 2002 and another incident of caste violence against the dalits in Andhra Pradesh (where a local church had offered a place of refuge for the fleeing
The Rev. Dr. Evangeline Anderson-Rajkumar is Professor in Theology and teaches in the Department of Women’s Studies at the United Theological College, Bangalore. She is also the Vice President of the United Evangelical Lutheran Churches in India, the first woman to be elected to this office after a change in the Constitution of UELCI. This paper started off based on a presentation that was made at a conference organized by the Hengasara Hakkina Sangha on the theme “Politics of locations: Issues of gender and identities in Contemporary India”, in Bangalore, 2005 but revised keeping in mind, the role of the church and theological education in our present Indian context.
dalits) Susie said, that she was ready to rethink about her stance on the role of religion in shaping the identities and ideologies of women and men. How intensely intertwined the question of one’s identity, power faith and religion must have been if women and men of the two warring religious communities were blind to recognize the human in the face of the other!
In my own doctoral research on the subject of feminist theology, I was able to show a close link between the construction of identity of women with one’s perception of God-images, faith, and other ideologies that one grew up with. In other words, Faith and ideology are indelibly connected to the way a woman experienced her day to day life and also in shaping her identity as a “woman”. One’s perception of who God is and one’s own level of self-esteem are key factors that shape the experiences of a woman. The construct of the notion of an ‘ideal woman’ is dependent on the values and social expectations laid out by respective faiths, scriptures, traditions, ideologies and cultures in addition to other aspects of social location.
To show how intimately faith and ideology are connected and how important it is to understand the politics of location, let me share an experience. While I introduce feminist hermeneutics (a science of interpretation) to a class of theology students (mostly, it has been a class of few women and more men) who are beginners in the programme of gender sensitization, I usually pose this question to them: ‘Who is the first witness to the risen Lord Jesus?’ The unanimous answer that comes is ‘Mary Magdalene’. I then ask them to turn to the reference in the first letter of Paul to the Corinthians, chapter 15: verses 3-5 and read aloud the list of the witnesses who had seen the risen Jesus. Interestingly, Mary Magdalene’s name does not figure either as the first witness, or as one of the “five hundred brothers’. That first experience of seeing the risen Lord is ascribed to Peter.
Giving the class some time to get over this initial shock, I then ask them to react to this Biblical reference. ‘What do we do? What happened to Mary Magdalene’s name that the gospel writers refer to as the first witness to the risen Lord? Can we gloss over this as unimportant’? The reaction of the students is most interesting. The male respondents usually try to explain away the problem saying: “perhaps Paul did not like women, or the socio-political context of that time was extremely patriarchal and hence Peter took the place of Mary”. Many of them usually wonder why I make such an issue of it because an important message such as the message of resurrection would have been put into Peter’s mouth so that the message is carried forward into eternity with a seal of legitimacy and authority! So what!! The responses of students reveal the legitimizing of patriarchy. The question why and how we append value and legitimacy to male and female voice remains a non-issue if not a trivial issue.
The response of women students to the same question as that put to men (as to how they react to the disappearance of Mary’s name) did not vary much from that of male respondents but they often added an interesting dimension. They said: ‘If women’s contribution and role were not acknowledged by the early church as in the case of Mary Magdalene, it is nothing unusual! Women generally do not expect (or get) rewards for their labour/ contribution which is often taken for granted in a patriarchal household and society. Hence it was not so shocking an experience to the women that Mary’s name was deleted from the list of witnesses. What is of ultimate importance is the truth that Jesus rose from the dead. The women students’ unwillingness to problematise the silence and invisibility of Biblical women can be noted as one of the deep rooted problems.
Faith and ideology seem to be subject to the question of patriarchal authority and expectation proving that one’s understanding of Scriptures is connected to the daily experiences as women and men in a gendered world. Faith and Ideology are crucial categories to interrogate the ‘politics of locations and exploring the issues of gender and identity’. I am glad that Hengasara Hakkina Sangha has moved away from traditional skeptic attitude of feminists distancing from religion, and included Faith and Ideology as an important sub-theme in this consultation. In the process of sharing my experiences of introducing gender issues in theological education, I shall narrate how teaching feminist theology and feminist hermeneutics contributes to challenging dominant paradigms and methods of doing theology and research. It is important to see a continuity between this task of teaching feminist theology to a class of predominantly men and the task of secular women’s movements outside that are committed to bringing about gender justice in a patriarchal society. One cannot deny that feminist theology is a reality in theological seminaries today because of the important role played by women’s movements in a larger secular context. Teaching Feminist Theology and Feminist Hermeneutics would lose its relevance if it did not maintain the link with secular women’s movements outside.
What is Feminist Theology?
To clarify on what theology is, theology – that can be split up into two Greek words namely theos and logos - can be literally translated as ‘study of God’ . God however cannot be studied like an object under a microscope. Theology then is a human endeavor to articulate one’s faith in God, in a coherent way, reflecting critically on human relationships in a given socio-political-economic-cultural situation and very much in the light of the one’s experiences of understanding and interpretation of Scriptures. A ‘feminist’ perspective in theology (or Feminist theology) uses women’s experiences as the starting point to study how and whether human beings valued the female in a given context, or whether a female was ignored, discriminated, devalued and denied a place simply for the reason of being a female. A “womanist” perspective takes the cue from the experiences of the Afro-American women who underlined the link between patriarchy, class and race in addition to gender in the valuing of human beings, human relationships in different socio-political context. Feminist/ womanist theology is rooted in the core faith that there can be no inherent inequality of sexes in the sight of God, on any basis such as caste, race, class, religion, ethnicity or gender. The task of feminist / womanist theology then is not only to challenge the silences and the invisibility of the woman in theologies, history and culture but to construct and creatively re-imagine a history and theology that would make women and men realize that they are equals, created by God.
With this aim, teaching feminist theology is undertaken as a critical feminist task where domineering paradigms of theologies, methods and pedagogies are challenged. Feminist Theology raises certain fundamental questions about epistemology, and about preliminary concepts such as Truth, Canon, Authority and Authenticity. In other words, feminist theology
From a feminist perspective, I would say that an attempt to define a word beginning with a root word and original meaning will be delimiting the potential of the word. It has to be acknowledged that root words are already loaded with meanings and assumptions and that we need to go beyond these in order to provide space for a description of the word than definition.
I would prefer to use the term ‘womanist’ instead of ‘feminist’ in Indian context as one cannot ignore the link between caste, class and gender. Structures of power and hierarchy are intrinsically woven together in the ideology of caste, class, race, colour, patriarchy, colonialism, capitalism and gender. However, I do not give up the word feminist in the theological discourse because it seems to be more familiar a term, a political term now greatly in use in the secular circles. As my intention is to widen and deepen the gender consciousness in people across cultures and traditions, I also use the term feminist more frequently than womanist.
shakes up the roots of faith and ideology with the purpose of reconstructing a theology that will usher in / foster a gender-just society and church. What are the possibilities of re-reading the scriptures with new eyes? How do we know, whether what we know is right or wrong? If women in history were not counted as full-fledged human beings, then where and how do we begin the process of correcting theologies?
Women’s Studies at the United Theological College: An overview
The oldest university in India is Serampore University (1918), located in West Bengal, to which about fifty theological colleges in India, and other South Asian countries like Srilanka, Nepal and Bangladesh are affiliated. The United Theological College is the only college that is granted an autonomous status at the level of ‘Bachelor of Divinity’ degree. For the first time in the history of theological education, a course on ‘Women in Christian History’ was introduced by Dr. John Webster in 1981 - 1982. This was a new effort to learn more about the contribution of women in the history of Christianity. As any new course would anticipate, it required new tools, new sources and more important, new perspectives to open one’s eyes to the construction of history itself. In the year 1990, the Senate of Serampore College introduced an interdisciplinary course titled ‘Women in Religion and Society’ in the revised curriculum. This provided an opportunity to take serious note of the enormous contribution made by women to the history of Church and Society. Apart from these structural changes in engendering theological education, one cannot forget the special contribution made by people like Gabrielle Dietrich, Bastian Wielenga, Prasanna Kumari, Aruna Gnanadasan, Corine Scott, David Scott, and many others for whom gender perspective was an important perspective to critique, reconstruct and articulate their theologies.
In the year 1994, the Women’s Studies began as a program at UTC with Dr. Rini Ralte as the first coordinator. Two compulsory courses (a 3 credit core course and a 3 credit optional course) were offered for all the ministerial / BD students. It was not easy to introduce gender issues as we had to often begin with a basic starting point that gender / women’s studies is a non-issue, a trivial issue, but something in vogue! Gender sensitization workshops were also conducted for the whole UTC community including the maintenance, office, and service staff to underline the importance of gender sensitization. Not only was the required space created to discuss gender issues but also a critical positioning of woman as the subject in our approach so that gender sensitization was not considered a subject outside the framework of theology, nor as something that can be reduced to the interest of one group (of women) but as a collective task to be undertaken by women and men who are committed to justice and transformation.
The pedagogy followed in the area of women’s studies was a little different from teaching other disciplines by including exposure to women’s movements. Participation in protest marches, special seminars and lectures on contextual issues which brought together people belonging to People’s / Women’s Movements from across Bangalore (Mahila Okkoota) was included in the syllabus. Of these, Women’s Organizations like Vimochana, and Women’s Voice play a greater role in providing the practical exposure to gender issues to UTC students. During the four year of theological training period, a student is required to complete a minimum of hundred hours of practical work in an academic year and be associated with development related work during their period of study. This program that is built into their curriculum is part of their Concurrent Field Education.
Networking and participation in such programs with like-minded organizations outside UTC and connecting what they learn in the classrooms with their experiences of social reality, the BD III students of 2001 batch expressed thus: “Why should only women be expected to take the lead role in addressing the issue of violence against women? As many men are involved in this issue, we need to address it as our issue, a human rights issue and take the lead in changing the situation of violence.” These students, who had registered for the course ‘Women in Religion and Society,’ then decided to form a network called as Men against Violence Network (MAVnet) with the objective of addressing the issue of violence against women. There was wide media coverage for this issue stating that men could play a definite role in fighting against violence of all forms MAV-net has been accepted as an official ongoing programme of the college committed to conscientising younger generations to work for violence-free societies. International Women’s Day celebration (March 8) is observed as an important day in the College and begins with special worship arranged on the theme of Overcoming Violence and thus invites the community to play their role in affirming gender-justice in family, church and society.
About 40 organisations in Bangalore come under the banner of Mahila Okkoota which is an Association of Women’s movements and UTC Department of Women’s Studies is one of them.
From 1994 until 2001, it was called as the programme of Women’s studies at the UTC. In the year 2001, the programme was upgraded to the status of a full fledged department. Women’s Studies became a regular / required discipline that one could specialize in, just as any other subject. M.Th in Women’s studies began in 2001 with two women students - Omana Mathew and Vijayakumari who had done their initial BD studies at UTC. Ever since, we have had at least three students registered for the Postgraduate theological programme in Women’s studies. For the first time, a male student by name Zara from Mizoram joined M.Th. in Women’s Studies thereby erasing the notion that Women’s Studies can be pursued by women alone. Each time the student introduced himself as Zara doing Women’s Studies, women and men would burst into laughter! Zara was approached by several men from his own community who tried to convince him to change his discipline of studies as it was embarrassing to them also. I am proud and happy to say that Zara withstood all this as one fully prepared for this reaction and learnt that it has to do with the nature of Women’s Studies itself as a discipline of study. Challenging patriarchy and patriarchal roles within the home, church and society is most difficult because it is here that patriarchy is very much at home!!
A significant step in the positive direction of promoting gender awareness and sensitivity in academic pursuit became a reality at UTC when many male and female post graduate students specializing in other disciplines of theology (such as Biblical Studies, Counseling, History, Religion, Ethics and Communication) were motivated to choose a course from Women’s studies Branch for their optional interdisciplinary course requirement. This means that gender perspectives get more and more integrated as a perspective and a tool for analysis, reflection and articulation of every subject they study.
For the first time in history ever since women’s studies started in UTC as an important field of study, students did not join for the Postgraduate program in the year 2007 because of imposition of a “rule from above” that stated that students should have either finished three courses in their BD studies in the area of Women’s Studies or they should have cleared a qualifying examination doing three papers before they apply for M.Th. in Women’s Studies. Of course it sounds fair that students follow this minimum requirement that is stipulated for the process of doing M.Th in any discipline. The problem is that in all the colleges affiliated to the Senate of Serampore College, except UTC, three courses in women’s studies are not offered at the BD level for the students. At the most, there is one course titled Women in Religion and Society that many senate affiliated colleges offer but stop with this. This hints also at the level of gender awareness / sensitivity of the rule makers indicating that we have a long way to go before gender awareness matches with the realisation of the importance of engendering of theological education. My comment has to be understood as a prodding in the direction of catalysing the process of engendering of theological education and not as one who is unthankful or ignorant of how much we - the Senate of Serampore College or UTC or other sister seminaries - have achieved in this area compared to many other seminaries, universities, education systems any where in the world.
Teaching Women’s Studies, Feminist Theology and Feminist Hermeneutics is indeed a challenge. Students have gone through every predicted phase in their own journey of becoming gender sensitized. There are several opportunities for a theological student to integrate gender perspectives in one’s oral and written presentations. It has been an awarding experience to see many men and women students who have internalized gender perspectives and who are keen to show their awareness and interest. Though there have been occasions when students have found it difficult to critique patriarchy and listen to gender issues, there is an overall readiness to wrestle with the subject. What this statement means in reality is that one who teaches Feminist Theology / Feminist Hermeneutics has to understand that there is an element of resistance, hatred, denial of the problem, name calling, labeling etc are responses form the nature of the very discipline itself. Once the (feminist / womanist) teacher is prepared for this reaction as a possible response from those who are introduced to this discipline of gender / women’s studies, the focus is on how to take the process of learning forward, despite all these challenges. In my experience of teaching theology, ethics and women’s studies since 1990 in Serampore College, I have learnt the value of engendering theology in terms of teaching, writing, pedagogy and reviewing the content of what is taught in any discipline in theology. UTC as an autonomous college certainly offers that space to move forward in engendering theological education and play a greater role in enhancing the learning and practice of gender justice in theory and praxis.
Women Studies / Gender studies needs to move further and become much more than a separate discipline. When feminist / womanist perspectives permeate all other disciplines, one can envisage change in the quality of theological education offered as well as in the personal formation of women and men for ministry. In the task of Curriculum Revision, the UTC pursued with great vigor to sharpen the skills of analysis, reflection and participation. The Serampore University is also presently working on the revision of BD curriculum and plans to implement the new curriculum by June 2008.
Women are still a minority in the field of theology, which is still considered a male bastion. In many churches, women are not accepted for ordained ministry yet. Patriarchal power is still operative in all levels in the churches and theological institutions, giving women limited power, space and identity. At times, women are made to feel that they can have their space but that in reality is often not an entirely ‘free’ space, but a monitored space with limited rights, defined by the male hierarchy. Though many churches have continued to be adamant about their stance on Ordination of Women into ministry, some churches have had women as full fledged ordained pastors in the last thirty years. In some churches where decision was taken to ordain women, it was followed by encouraging women to take up positions as wardens of hostels or chaplains but not as pastors with independent charge of a parish. The process of change and transformation has to be catalyzed and theological education, in my opinion, can be an effective catalyst. The question has been: “who has the right and responsibility to define what and how much gender justice is needed in the church”? We need more women and men to jump on board to take this issue forward and make it as a core aspect in the struggle for justice, equality, freedom and Liberation.
The Role of the Church and Theological Education
In conclusion, I must say that I have found the process of ‘Re-reading the Bible with New Eyes’ as an effective way of introducing gender issues to women and men, in the local congregations, women’s fellowship groups, men’s fellowship groups in addition to several batches of women and men who pursue their theological education. When I address an audience that is made up of people from various religious and cultural backgrounds, I highlight the role that our respective religions, theologies and scriptures play in affecting the formation and formulation of the values that we stand for as individuals and community, our construct of ideal woman and man in our respective contexts. In this article, my primary aim is to underline the importance of the role of the Church and Theological Education in our times. If gender sensitization programme and engendering of theological education can be taken seriously as a linked process, then the Church and Theological Institutions have no option but play a greater role in realizing gender justice. The challenging question is: Does the Church want to? Will the Church consider this as its calling? As a faith mandate? As a theological priority? As a way of living out the meaning and purpose of being the Ecclesia? My prayer and hope is that UTC as a community will take its role and calling seriously and play the catalyst role in ushering in justice in all walks of life.
