Being feminist in the church

Being a feminist in the church is not always an easy thing, even if you do belong to a church which ordains women and espouses gender equality.

Much to my disgust when I wrote a Masters Qualifying thesis, I was enrolled in "Women's Studies" - this makes it sound like it's only applicable to women, but I believe very strongly that the work of feminist theologians and liturgists has implications for the whole church. Inclusivity is the catch-cry of most Christian feminists (yes, it is possible to be both) and we are working not to exclude men, but rather to have all sectors of the church work together as equals, equally respected and valued by all, in an environment which allows everyone to use his or her God given gifts to their fullest extent.

So...why am I interested in feminist theology?

One answer might well be "sheer masochism". There are certainly days when it feels like that! You might, though, be interested in a story of one of those "aha!!" experiences in my theological training and one since. Basically, however, it's in response to a number of things which I've found important in my life and in the lives of others I talk to. These are outlined below.

A rude awakening

I was fortunate to grow up in a home where I was never told that I couldn't do something just because I was female. My father was a motor mechanic and he was quite happy to show me how to change the head on my car and anything else about the inner workings of cars that I cared to learn. (I never developed an interest in lawn-mowing, though!) I went to an all-girls school where we were constantly told that we could do anything we liked , if we tried hard enough.

It wasn't until I was at university that I realised that this simply wasn't true - I was not going to be a farm advisor, no matter how well qualified I might be, because I was female and farmers wouldn't listen to women. It was a very rude awakening!

Sexist language

I used to be one of those women who didn't feel excluded when people used terms like "men" and "mankind" (I guess I had a reasonably healthy sense of self-worth). I certainly felt invisible, though, when some professor at Sydney Uni walked in to one of our agriculture lectures and said "Good morning, gentlemen". And I met increasing numbers of women who did feel excluded by the use of these terms.

I could understand why people in society at large would run with the line "It doesn't worry me, so why should I change". After all, society at large doesn't pretend to be in solidarity with the oppressed and the downtrodden. I cannot understand, however, why people inside the church take the same line, and why people in the church are actually much slower to change their language in response to the obvious hurt of some of the people for whom Christ died if it really doesn't matter to them and would make such a difference to the people concerned.

Being made in God's image

In the course of my work, I have come across many, many people who have great difficulty coping with life for a great number of reasons. The fundamental one, however, is usually that they have a very low sense of self-esteem. They find it difficult to accept themselves because they are not rich, famous, good looking, academically gifted and so on.

I have been trained to ask "what is the gospel in this situation?" and when I ask it about these people, the answer is that our worth doesn't depend on what we do, what we have or how we look. We are of worth because we are made in God's image!

I find this comforting, but many others, even committed Christians of long standing, don't. Often this is because they find it so hard to accept that they are , in fact, made in God's image. After a great deal of questioning (of myself and others), and reading the work of feminist theologians, I have come to the conclusion that a significant amount of the reason for this is that the church gives us a very skewed image of God. If you go to church regularly, you would be forgiven for thinking that God is King, Father, Lord, Almighty, oh, and Saviour, of course! I personally don't relate to any of these terribly well. The Bible provides us with lots and lots of other images for God, but we very rarely hear about them.

Worship rarely addresses issues important to people I know

My job means that I spend a lot of time talking to people (both church members and those who don't belong to churches) about issues of significance in their lives. I very rarely hear these issues being addressed in church, and when I do, they are usually not dealt with in a helpful manner. It is my firm conviction that Christianity is relevant to people living here and now even though there is a great deal of justification for the criticism that church is totally irrelevant to their lives. Traditional theologies often begins with Scripture and ask how it relates to human beings, whereas feminist (and some other) theologies start with people's lives and ask how Scripture speaks to them.

I am gradually working on a series of resources for people interested in planning and leading worship based on feminist principles. At the moment there is not a great deal there, but you might like to keep an eye on it.

One of the things springing out of my interests in feminist theology and computers is a page of links to useful and interesting places on the web. Some are Christian, others are just religious, some have no religious content at all but almost all are feminist or woman-friendly.

A note about the colours on these pages. I've known for ages that purple, green and white are the colours used by the suffragists at the turn of the century, but not why. Recently, a visitor to these pages enlightened me: it's not purple, green and white but Green, White and Violet for Give Women the Vote!!

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Last updated 5 June 2001
Maintained by Judy Redman
E-mail to: jredman@metz.une.edu.aujredman@metz.une.edu.a

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