WOMEN RE-IMAGINING AND RE-SHAPING THEOLOGY:
    A Specific Aspect of Women's Revolution
                        Mercy Amba Oduyoye

    There is a revolution happening to human perception of what it means to be human.  It is not the first neither it is the only one.  When slaves are revolted enough by the lack of room to be human and slavers come to themselves that their humanity too is debased by that very system, a revolution happens and active resistance begins. But resistance/movements never just happen at one particular time, they are there all the time working quietly to redeem the system.  The women's revolution is not new, it has accompanied humanity all along, saving its structure from self destruction.  It is a non-violent revolution that has accompanied human development providing the first agriculture, providing space for growth, for caring and loving.  It is not an armed revolution but it is certainly a social revolution, just like that against slavery and racism.
    The contemporary women's revolution is a challenge to the impasse now experienced in humanity's management of itself and its environment.  Women have embarked upon a campaign of making their visions known and overtly operative.  It is a campaign to convert human structures and systems from a culture of enslaving others to that of partnership and mutual respect.  Women are re-imagining human community.  It is not a revolution that changes one set of oppression from another.  Women are calling for a change in the rules that govern human relations and makes them oppressive to women and men alike and deadly to the environment.  Women have seen the hierarchical pyramids for what they are and are asking for them to be transformed into globes.  The frequent use of the term 'global' is an indication that we are ready to forgo privileged positions and to seek the humanity of all and the health of the environment.
    God gave us a special responsibility when God created us in the divine image.  The power in human beings is the power to create what is good and lovable.  That is why we have imagination.  As humans we shape and reshape, we organize, we analyze and synthesize.  We do not simply absorb impressions, we produce perceptions, it is all these processes of imagination that result in creativity.  Women's unfortunate experience, and society's poverty is that women go through imagination but are prevented from being creative, except in limited aspects of life.  It is important, therefore, that we do not stop at re-visioning but continue with the concept of re-shaping.  Today, we are professing that the new shape of theology will be a community effort.  Christian theology will begin a journey towards becoming the statement of the faith of the household of God in word and in deed.  Theology too is about to become a truly human enterprise and cease to be the word of God as heard by men.
    In many liberative human enterprises, women are to be found in the circle of those working to bring in God's domination-free order.  Today wherever human rights are trampled upon you will find women among those who resist and protest.  They care for the whole but they are say, "See what it does to women?"  In movements for peace, ecological sanity, movements against child abuse and the exploitation of indigenous people, in non-violent movements, in attempts at alternative economic systems, in liberation theology and in all that revolts against domination, you will find women.  Women are no longer considered as the power behind the movements but the spirituality that persists until doors are open, until chains are broken and until human beings act human again.  Women are re-imagining life and working creatively to reshape human life, human communities and humanity's relationship with the rest of creation.
    There is a revolution in religion, the opening of the human spirit to its only source of existence, God.  There is a revolution in theology and women are at the heart of it.  The women in theology movement are a recognition and acknowledgement of this factor in contemporary Christian theology.  Christian women are re-imagining and re-shaping theology to open humanity to the fullness of life, that is God's will for God's creation.  Women in other religions are doing the same.  This points to the need for all theological institutions to join in a movement of women in religion if they want to be part of the re-shaping not only of theology but of human community.
    Reading the history of early Christianity with a "feminist" theologian named Noel King (at that time Head of Department of Theology, University of Ghana), I was struck by how gradually the names of women began to drop out and the history turned to streamlining and the building up of structures.  The female figures and feminist anti-domination perspectives began to fade.  Christianity became churches and theology became doctrine and dogma as a few men got together to determine what is to be believed.  I saw the figures of women believers and martyrs replaced by women labeled heretics together with all men who pointed to the activities of the Holy Spirit.  The centrality for me of what is treated as marginal and the intolerance of diversity led me even at that stage to ask, where are women in all this?  Why is the church becoming a club of powerful males who ally themselves to the political powers of the day?
    In the church's life, and in academic studies what counts for theology is defined and taught mainly by men.  What is theology, who is a theologian, what is excellent in the field, what is theology for?  All these are men's questions to be answered by men and in the history of Christianity mainly by men in the North Atlantic zone.  Contemporary liberating theologies are coming mostly from the South (called generically liberation theology) and from women, named feminist theology by white women theologians of North America.  Call it what you will, the spirit of the women of the early church who called the church to a recognition of the presence and power of God's spirit, is alive and abroad and women are again calling to the church listen to God.

Re-Imagining
    Re-imagine theology, give it flexibility, not a rigid shape, for the Spirit of God moves where it will.  What is sure and unchanging is that God loves the world, humans included.  In our academic study of Christianity, theology is narrowly defined as biblical, and historical, and is studied in a systematic way based on the articles of faith, now encases in the Niceane-Constantinopolitan Creed.  The church has defined what is to be believed and the theological task is to articulate this in a language that communicates.  What then are women re-imagining and what is this language of re-shaping?  In a recent issue of the Decade Link, a post-card produced by the International Women's Tribune Center, New York, describes what I am calling the women's revolution as follows: "Let us re-examine the whole question, all the questions.  Let us take nothing for granted.  Let us not only redefine ourselves, our role, our image, but also the kind of society we want to live in."  This is the revolution and the task that women theologians join with women possessing other skills and gifts to undertake.
    Re-imaging theology, women affirm that since the domination they experience and which rules the world is not of God, it can be eliminated.  It was Gustavo Gutierrez who said, "The task of theology is not helping the bourgeois to discover the meaning of life, but assisting the de-humanized to recover their humanity."  This is what women want theology to do, assist both men and women to redeem the humanity enslaved to androcracy.  "To unmask oppressors and oppressive structures, to heal the servile will and to expose the delusional systems," will be Wink's formulation of the same task (Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers, Augsburg Fortress Press, Minneapolis 1992, p.102).  Theology should be a call to wake up from inertia that makes peace with injustice.  Re-imagining theology is therefore a process of getting the whole faith community to come to a realizations of how the very identities that people live out, have been shaped by role definitions arising out of the domination order.  An order which stifles imagination, curbs creativity and causes us to live below our potential of full humanity.

Theology by Women
    Women doing theology are imaging afresh what the word of God is to this ailing world.  What men theologians imagine God to be saying has led to structures and systems that have enthroned patriarchy, a societal mode that gives grades and ranks, and turns difference into inferiority and superiority.  Women are re-imagining the meaning of diversity, of power and of sexuality.  Instead of a rigid system of doing theology by indoctrination, women imagine theology as a way of facilitating the birthing of God's domination-free order.  In feminist theology we find inclusive images of God.  God is loving but God also judges, God is hard on what is evil, seeking its transformation because God is also compassionate.
    Women's accent on inclusiveness reflects the very nature of God.  It reflects the preaching of Jesus, the man who propagated a vision of liberation through the transformation of androcratic ways into the paths of partnership.  In the  sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught many of these feminist perspectives which sound like foolishness to the ears of those with androcratic values.  Jesus taught that, what this world labels feminine virtues is what will transform the world.  In feminist theology, all of humanity (men, most especially, because of their malformation into masculine machines) is called upon to be loving and to provide space for life to flourish.  What feminist theology says to humanity is this, "there was a time when you were not slaves to this domination system, recall it, and if you cannot remember, reinvent it.

    In the theology coming from women who find values associated with the reign of God.  Where God reigns there is partnership and mutual respect, barriers erected to ward off "the other" are broken and violence and hierarchies are repudiated, race and caste cease to have meaning.  You would have noticed by now that it is not only women who are working to expose the detrimental nature of patriarchy and androcracy through a re-magining of Christian theology.  Many men are to be counted among "feminist theologians" and needless to say not all women theologians have feminist perspectives.  Patriarchy has produced many mis-shapened humanities.
    As far as I know in the United States of America, it is the New English women theologians, especially those in the Boston area, who deliberately professionalized the feminist perspectives in Christian theology into feminist theology, they were all white and they included Mary Daly, Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, Letty Russell of Yale Divinity School and others too.  These theologians and many others are rereading the Bible and the history of the academy, church, human community and the world, and from prevailing order as being androcratic.  They are shaping, moulding, organising and giving form to this knowledge.  Their synthezizing and unifying of all this is what has resulted in the re-imaging of theology-the genre they have named as feminist theology. Feminist theology is creative, arresting and liberative.  Its subject is not God and humanity, but the whole cosmos.  It does not stay on theory but moves into areas that were labeled ethics by calling people to count and to action.
    Not all women liberation theologians name their theology feminist, there is of course a variety of experience among women leading to a variety of emphasis and naming.  The black women of the USA do "womanist theology" in which you find all their white sisters want and more, because the nuance around racism and exploitation differentiate them.  Among women this is not a source of competition or ranking, it is a source of mutual enrichment and the promotion of the common cause, that of humanizing humanity so that the glory of God be not tarnished.  They and all other women doing liberative theology are working to transform they pyramids of patriarchy into the circle of life.
    Women theologians are to be found all over the world, Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe, wherever women study or do theology.  One bonding factor is the examination and repudiation of patriarchy.  We need to note that it is not theologians only who have identified patriarchy as the primary challenge.  Women in all areas of life and in all disciplines have come to that conclusion.  Patriarchy is not simply the rule of a father over the household, but the rule of men and the social factor called masculine in all human affairs and the primary of androcentrism in the ordering of humanity, and its relation to the rest of creation.
    My first encounter with feminist theology was Mary Daly's "The Church and the Second Sex" followed by "Beyond God the Father."  In this theology nothing is taken for granted, language, iconography, biblical studies, history, the whole field of religion is being examined.  Today, all over the world, one finds women theologians doing their own reflections and sharing them through a variety of media and joining together to act theologically.

Feminism and Patriarchy
    Feminist theology is multi-disciplinary as well as operative.  It demonstrate that with the evidence being unearthed by the students of pre-history, we can free ourselves from the clutches of patriarchy.  It is not normal.  It had a beginning some 5000 years ago.  That its domination structures cannot be said to be ordained to God, is certain.  That it is a human creation based on the perspective that might make right makes it unworthy of creatures who believe themselves to be in God's image.
    Many human committees socialize boys and girls to believe that men are always right and that what is described as masculine proceeds and has priority over what is described as feminine.  This is what has embroiled and enslaved human community in the rule of the male or androcracy.  It is not women only who question this, and call for a re-examination of how we live in community by exploitation of nature, marginalisation of the weak and the violation of vulnerable.  Surely this does not reflect the nature of God, hence the efforts of liberation theologians, men and women, and especially women to re-imagine god by listening more carefully to the Scripture.
    Biblical scholars among feminist theologians are uncovering aspects of God's dealings with humanity (as recorded in the Bible) that the androcentric theologians have overlooked.  A programme of women in Christianity will need to promote this rereading of the Bible by both men and women.  History will have to be reread and church and society re-evaluated with the experiences of women as the prism.  Critical examination of all that we have traditionally labelled as norms and definitive statements is part of feminist theology.  This theology (like other liberation theologies) is a challenge to the "self-selected male sanctioning bodies" of our institutions.  It is not a direction that one takes without caution.  If it was easy it would have been done long ago and may be would not be worth our while calling for a woman in Christianity/religion programme.  We are not calling for studies of women by women.  The whole range of theological studies is to be reshaped and the various aspects of theology as expressed by women should be made available to all, men and women alike.

An African example
    In Africa too the need for change is beginning to be felt.  Women in Africa are relative newcomers into the theological field.  In other professions women have already made their mark, and although they may be operating within androcratic structures, in several areas women are organizing themselves to bring transformation for the sake of those ranked as marginal or ignored altogether.  I am thinking specially of women in the medical and legal professions and also women communicators in the public media.  These are all calling attention to the specifically women's perspectives.  Women pastors have begun to organize asking themselves afresh, what does it mean to be in the service of the household of God?
    It may be that the youngest of this women's revolution in Africa is that of African women theologians.  We have chosen to be a circle, not an association or a club with rules of exclude.  We have chosen research and writing as our tool for contributing to the transformation that Africa cries for.  We have called ourselves "Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians' and are working on how religion and culture affect women in Africa, and applying a cultural hermeneutic to our study of Christianity.  We had the first public manifestation of our existence in 1980.  At that time one bishop asked, are there any women theologians in Africa?  A professor of religion in a university asked, are there any theologians in Africa?  Those were not frivolous questions.  I took them seriously, after all, if you do not say I am, the world will not say you are, especially if what you are, challenges their assumptions.  I asked myself afresh, who is a theologian, who does theology, who states what is to be believed?  Women the world over now say - we too have a responsibility for what shape our communities take and if the androcentric imagination has run out of stimulating and liberative imagery we owe it to ourselves, as human beings, to all creation and to God to break the age old silence of women and to make feminism work for a domination-free order.
    One senses at the beginning of a turn around in departments of religion in the state universities of Africa where traditional theological courses pay attention to women's contribution in the field and the effects of the tradition on women’s being.  Theological educators are beginning to examine the curricula of the institutions they serve.  The departments of religion have had women students since their founding in 1948, but the church theological colleges opened their doors to women theological students only recently.  All these institutions are waking up to the absence of women in their courses and of feminist perspective in their world view.  A couple of years ago the Association of Theological Institutions in East Africa organized their periodic institute on feminist theology.  In the Department of Religion, Cape Town University, a programme on women and religion has begun.  In the universities where members of the circle teach, theological issues already embedded in the curricula.  As women's studies become a recognized part of academic studies, departments of religion are working towards programmes on women and religion and many more are waking up to the absence of books on African women by African women.


Conclusion
    All who have recognized the bankruptcy of androcracy are on a journey towards inclusiveness which will transform us and our relationships in the human community as well as that between us and the rest of creation.  The anthropocentric theology or rather the androcentric theology has run us into a cul de sac.  To turn round is the challenge humanity faces.  Women are offering their vision, let the whole community search for all that is hither to called feminine, loving, caring, providing space, minding the weak, building up self-esteem, respecting the dignity of others, channeling the energy of the strong.  Harmony, cooperation and respect of the other are not for the insecure, only those secure in their own humanity are open to such attitudes.  Those who plead for non-violent resolution of conflicts and equality of opportunity, are not weaklings, they are people who see their full humanity, as linked with that of the neighbor.
    Feminist theology is not simply confrontational, it calls for deconstruction but also construction, but it is feared by those who refuse the inducive image of God.  They have understood the movement as geared to removing the maleness of God and they are afraid they will lose their power with that move as they have hither usurped the place of God or presumed to speak for God.  God could be seen in all that is life-giving in which is labeled masculine, but also what we call feminine.  God is father and mother.  God is from all eternity but God is present here and now.  God is too complex, too loving, too inclusive to be either or.
    To be global, responsible and just is to attempt to live the image of God.  That is all we ask for, those of us asking for including programmes on women in Christianity in the theological curriculum.  That is all we ask for, those of us who ask for feminism to become a principle for the re-shaping of theology, the church and the human community.  Feminists carry on their task of promoting women's perspectives.  This is not exclusivism, there are no exclusive women's issues.  If the church faces poverty it will respond to the needs of sections of population, 80% of whom are women.  If theologians examine the abortion of female foetus, they will be examining the meaning of life, of human community and our responsibility before God.
    Women theologians ask for women's perspectives, women's style of acting and the global concerns that strike them as pivotal for our day to be included in theological studies.  Women do this because they live by hope.  Women believe God's future has already broken into our present and call to all to act accordingly.  Hope envisions the future and then acts as if that future is now irresistibly present.  It is by this assertion that the future is realisable, that women struggle for a domination-free world, in spite of the present power of androcracy especially in religious structures.  Hope helps women to create the reality we long for.  Women theologians long to expand this circle of hope till the earth is filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the seas. Join this circle of hope, the hope for the end of androcracy and the birthing of God's domination-free order.