DOCSLIB.ORG

Recu 70970/80970-045 Womanist Theology and Ethics Course Prospectus

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Recu 70970/80970-045 Womanist Theology and Ethics Course Prospectus RECU 70970/80970-045 WOMANIST THEOLOGY AND ETHICS COURSE PROSPECTUS INSTRUCTOR Name: Melanie C. Jones Email Address: [email protected] COURSE INFORMATION Course Semester: Spring 2018 Three (3) Semester hours Prerequisites: None COURSE DESCRIPTION Drawing from the Black idiomatic expression “you actin’ womanish,”1 novelist Alice Walker in her collection of essays, In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose (1983) penned the term “womanist” in efforts to name the distinctive political aims of Black women beyond a white feminist scope in the 1980s. From Walker’s four-part poetic framing, womanism birthed in religious studies as a critical approach to take seriously the lived experiences of Black women against multiple forces of oppression. This course engages the theoretical contributions of womanist scholarship of the 20th and 21st centuries to the discipline(s) of theology and ethics. The course explores womanist thought as a theo-ethical enterprise for dismantling multidimensional oppression at the critical crossways of identity and difference. Utilizing the core tenets of womanist theological ethics, students will interrogate the moral virtue(s) of the body, human flourishing, ecology, faith, love, justice, hope, and redemption. COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES 1) To introduce the interreligious, spiritual, political, theological, and ethical dimensions of a womanist sacred worldview. 2) To mine the motherlode of primary womanist theological and ethical contributions from the 1980s to the present. 3) To investigate and employ research methods for constructive womanist theology and ethics including literary analysis, sociology of Black liberation, Black women's historiography, and Black popular culture. 4) To interpret, articulate, and construct original theo-ethical positions resource womanist theology and ethics. CLASS PROCEDURES Lectures, Readings, Class Participation, Analytic Paper, Final Presentation. 1 Alice Walker, In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983), 4. 1 REQUIRED TEXTS Cannon, Katie. Katie’s Canon: Womanism and the Soul of the Black Community. ISBN: 978- 0826410344; $8.00 Cannon, Katie, Emilie Townes, and Angela Sims. Womanist Theological Ethics: A Reader. ISBN: 978-0664235376; $19.06 Coleman, Monica. Making a Way out of No Way: A Womanist Theology. ISBN: 978- 0800662936; $20.98 Douglas, Kelly Brown. What’s Faith Got to Do With It?: Black Bodies, Christian Souls. ISBN: 978-1570756092; $27.00 Grant, Jacquelyn. White Women’s Christ and Black Women’s Jesus: Feminist Christology and Womanist Response. ISBN: 978-1555403034; $33.56 Floyd-Thomas, Stacey et al. Deeper Shades of Purple: Womanism in Religion and Society. ISBN: 978-0814727539; $28.00 Harris, Melanie. Ecowomanism: African American Women and Earth Honoring Faiths. ISBN: 978-1626982017; $25.85 Lightsey, Pamela. Our Lives Matter: A Womanist Queer Theology. ISBN: 978-1498206648; $17.98 Mitchem, Stephanie. Introducing Womanist Theology. ISBN: 978-1570754210; $18.70 Riggs, Marcia. Awake, Arise, and Act: A Womanist Call for Liberation. ISBN: 978-0829810097; $9.49 Terrell, JoAnne Marie. Power in the Blood?: The Cross in the African American Experience. ISBN: 978-1570752162; $25.00 Townes, Emilie. Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of Evil. ISBN: 978-1403972736; $30.40 Turman, Eboni Marshall. Toward a Womanist Ethic of Incarnation: Black Bodies, the Black Church and the Council of Chalcedon. ISBN: 978-134947782; $34.99 Williams, Delores. Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist Godtalk. ISBN: 978- 1626980389; $22.62 Walker, Alice. The Color Purple: A Novel. ISBN: 978-0156028356; $6.71 RECOMMENDED TEXTS (students do not need to purchase, but may engage these writings as reference sources for course content and discussion) Alexander, Liz S. and Melanie C. Jones, et al. #MillennialWomanism. https://btpbase.org/millennialwomanism/. Cannon, Katie. Black Womanist Ethics. ISBN: 978-1597523738 Coleman, Monica. Ain’t I A Womanist, Too?: Third Wave Womanist Religious Thought. ISBN: 978-0800698768 Copeland, M. Shawn. Enfleshing Freedom: Body, Race and Being. ISBN: 978-0800662745 Day, Keri, Religious Resistance to Neoliberalism: Womanist and Black Feminist Perspectives. ISBN: 978-1137569424 Floyd-Thomas, Stacey. Mining the Motherlode: Methods in Womanist Ethics. ISBN: 978- 0829815849 Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. ISBN: 978-0061120060 Phillips, Layli. The Womanist Reader: The First Quarter Century of Womanist Thought. ISBN: 978-0415954112 Townes, Emilie. In A Blaze of Glory: Spirituality as Social Witness. ISBN: 978-0687187577. 2 Townes, Emilie. A Troubling in My Soul: Perspectives on Evil and Suffering. ISBN: 978- 0883447833. Townes, Emilie. Embracing the Hope: Womanist Perspectives on Hope. ISBN: 978- 1570751400. Walker, Alice. In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose. ISBN: 978-0156028646 FILMS Journey to Liberation: The Legacy of Womanist Theology. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjhtUGqFCWg. What Manner of Woman Is This? Documentary. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUlc6L1Z9-k. GRADING PROCEDURES (70970-045) * Weekly Oral Participation (in class) 10% Social Strata Inventory 10% Diasporic Literary Journal 20% Class Presentation 30% Analytic Essay (12-15 pages) 30% GRADING PROCEDURES (80970-045) Weekly Oral Participation (in class) 10% Social Strata Inventory 10% Diasporic Literary Journal 20% Class Presentation 30% Constructive Theo-ethical Credo (15-18 pages) 30% * Grading Procedures are subject to change. Final grading procedures are set forth on the first day of class with the syllabus. 3 .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Development of Womanist Theology: Some Chief Characteristics
    DEVELOPMENT OF WOMANIST THEOLOGY: SOME CHIEF CHARACTERISTICS RUFUS BURROW, }R. INTRODUCTION Womanist theology is the most creative development and has been the most sig- nificant contribution to black theology and black religious scholarship since its emer- gence in the mid- I 980s.' Proponents of this new way of thinking about and doing theology are primarily Afrikan-American women who have put black religion on trial' in a way heretofore unknown. Although influenced by both black theology and feminist theology, womanist theology is not a mere constellation of ideas from these camps. Instead, Womanists have focused first and foremost on their own experience and voice as they continue to clarify just what they mean to say and do as theologians whose reality is multidimensional. That is, they are women, Afrikan American, who believe they are frequently adversely affected by classism, colorism, and heterosexism. This essay focuses on three things. First, I discuss contributions of the folklorist, anthropologist, and novelist Zora Neale Hurston to womanist theology and ethics. Second, attention is given the reasons black women religious scholars were initially critical of their male counterparts, and why they now prefer womanist theology as the best way of describing their work. Third, I discuss six important characteristics of womanist theology and ethics. I conclude with a consideration of several limitations or concerns about the womanist theological project. The hope is that these will soon come to center stage in womanist theology and ethics. Indeed, in light of the seri- ousness of the genocidal tendency reflected in intracommunity violence and murder among large numbers of young Afrikan-American males, they must.
    [Show full text]
  • Healers of Our Time: Women, Faith, and Justice a Mapping Report
    HEALERS OF OUR TIME: WOMEN, FAITH, AND JUSTICE A MAPPING REPORT Conducted by The Institute for Women’s Policy Research Supplemented by Women in Theology and Ministry Candler School of Theology, Emory University October 2008 The Sister Fund Copyright 2008 tsf-cover-spine-spread.indd 2 11/18/08 8:54:22 AM The Sister Fund ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many individuals contributed to the produc- Professor and Director of Women in Theology tion of this study. At The Sister Fund, Dr. Helen and Ministry, and Hellena Moon, doctoral student LaKelly Hunt, President, and Kanyere Eaton, in the Graduate Division of Religion, the research Executive Director, conceived of the project and team extended the original pool of women’s planned its original content and design. Lilyane organizations and expanded the academic Glamben, former Deputy Director, served as research review. They also revised and edited the project director. Julia A. Cato, Program Officer, original report. Team members included Michelle and Linda Kay Klein, Director of Research and Hall, Ayanna Abi-Kyles, Josey Bridges, and Anne Communications, were invaluable members of Hardison-Moody. the project team. Lake Research Partners and Auburn Media The original study was conducted by the provided helpful review of the content and the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR). project as a whole. Elizabeth Perrachione served Dr. Amy Caiazza, former Director of Democracy as editor, with assistance from Leslie Srajek. The and Society Programs, served as primary Sister Fund hosted two separate sessions, May researcher and author. Anna Danziger, Mariam 10, 2007, and February 27, 2008, at which a K.
    [Show full text]
  • Goddess and God in the World
    Contents Introduction: Goddess and God in Our Lives xi Part I. Embodied Theologies 1. For the Beauty of the Earth 3 Carol P. Christ 2. Stirrings 33 Judith Plaskow 3. God in the History of Theology 61 Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow 4. From God to Goddess 75 Carol P. Christ 5. Finding a God I Can Believe In 107 Judith Plaskow 6. Feminist Theology at the Center 131 Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow 7. Answering My Question 147 Carol P. Christ 8. Wrestling with God and Evil 171 Judith Plaskow Part II. Theological Conversations 9. How Do We Think of Divine Power? 193 (Responding to Judith’s Chapters in Part 1) Carol P. Christ 10. Constructing Theological Narratives 217 (Responding to Carol’s Chapters in Part 1) Judith Plaskow 11. If Goddess Is Not Love 241 (Responding to Judith’s Chapter 10) Carol P. Christ 12. Evil Once Again 265 (Responding to Carol ’s Chapter 9) Judith Plaskow 13. Embodied Theology and the 287 Flourishing of Life Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow List of Publications: Carol P. Christ 303 List of Publications: Judith Plaskow 317 Index 329 GODDESS AND GOD IN THE WORLD Sunday school lack a vocabulary for intelligent discussion of religion. Without new theological language, we are likely to be hesitant, reluctant, or unable to speak about the divinity we struggle with, reject, call upon in times of need, or experience in daily life. Yet ideas about the sacred are one of the ways we orient ourselves in the world, express the values we consider most important, and envision the kind of world we would like to bring into being.
    [Show full text]
  • The Ecofeminism of Ivone Gebara
    The Ecofeminism of Ivone Gebara Elaine Nogueira-Godsey Town Cape of Supervisor: David Chidester Co-Supervisor: Sa’diyya Shaikh Thesis Presented for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Universityin the Department of Religious Studies Faculty of Humanities UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN November 2013 The copyright of this thesis vests in the author. No quotation from it or information derived from it is to be published without full acknowledgementTown of the source. The thesis is to be used for private study or non- commercial research purposes only. Cape Published by the University ofof Cape Town (UCT) in terms of the non-exclusive license granted to UCT by the author. University Para os meus filhos Natália e Lucas Que são minha inacabável fonte de alegria e inspiração! To Nina Hoel, a rare human being, who I have the luck to call friend and To Trad Nogueira-Godsey who has been married to a PhD thesis for the last fifteen months. ii “Prefiro ser essa metamorfose ambulante Do que ter aquela velha opinião formada sobre tudo” (Raul Seixas, 1945-1989) iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements vi Abstract ix Preface xi Chapter 1: Introduction: Contextualizing the Theology of Ivone Gebara 1 1.1 Research Context 6 1.2 Conceptual Frameworks 18 1.3 Gebara’s Life Trajectory 23 1.4 Chapter Outline 38 Chapter 2: The Contours of Global Ecofeminism 41 2.1 Ecofeminist Development 43 2.2 Women, Ecology and Development 51 2.3 The Academic Intersection 56 2.4 Ecofeminist Basic Tenets 59 2.5 The Intersection of Ecofeminism 70 and Christian Feminist Theologies 2.6 Ecofeminist
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Ecofeminist Theologies & Spiritualities Rels-V265, 001
    1 ECOFEMINIST THEOLOGIES & SPIRITUALITIES RELS-V265, 001 & 002, Bobet 101 Dr. Anne Daniell [email protected] Office: Bobet 440 For other appt. times, Office hours: Thurs. 10 AM - Noon please e-mail professor. Course Overview This course introduces the ecofeminist and ecowomanist movements of the late twentieth century to the present day, looking specifically at how they have influenced constructive theology. The course examines ecofeminism’s claim patriarchal institutions and “other worldly” concepts of the divine mutually reinforce one another, maintaining a hierarchical worldview that subjugates both women and nature. After analyzing works at the intersection of ecofeminism and theological studies, the course proceeds with perspectives from diverse social locations, including various geographical and religious contexts. The course concludes with an introduction to non-binary gender theory and the challenges it poses to ecofeminism. Assigned reading, websites & videos will all be posted on Bb Course Material & Bb Streaming Video. Types of Assignments & Grading, based on a 100-point grading scale: 5% Attendance (see below) 5% Participation (see below) 10% Presentation or Discussion Leader (see below) 10% Writing Assignments (averaged) 10% Test 1 15% Test 2 20% Test 3 25% Test 4/Final Exam (cumulative) A = 95 – 100 pts. A- = 90 – 94 pts. B+ = 88 – 89 pts. B = 83 – 87 pts. B- = 80 – 82 pts. C+ = 78 – 79 pts. C = 73 – 77 pts. C- = 70 – 72 pts. D+ = 68 – 69 pts. D = 60 – 67 pts. F = 0 – 59 pts. Attendance: Attendance is expected and accounts for 5% of the final grade. Students absent more than four (4) times during the semester will lose the entirety of their attendance points.
    [Show full text]
  • Bibliography for Womanist Theology
    Bibliography for Womanist Theology Allen, Donna E. Toward a Womanist Homiletic: Katie Cannon, Alice Walker and Emancipatory Proclamation (Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Studies in Religion, Culture, and Social Development). Peter Lang, 2013. Aslan, Ednan, Marcia Hermansen, and Elif Medeni, Eds. Muslima Theology: The Voices of Muslim Women Theologians (Wiener Islamstudien). Peter Lang, 2013. Baker-Fletcher, Karen. Dancing With God: The Trinity from A Womanist Perspective. Chalice Press, 2006. Binaohan, B.The Womanist Musings Posts: Nascent Thoughts on Gender and Colonialism [Kindle Edition]. biyuti publishing; 1 edition, 2013) King, Toni C. and S. Alease Ferguson. Black Womanist Leadership: Tracing the Motherline by (Jun 1, 2011) Bostic, Joy. African American Female Mysticism: Nineteenth-Century Religious Activism (Black Religion/Womanist Thought/Social Justice). Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Boyd, Stacy. Black Men Worshipping: Intersecting Anxieties of Race, Gender, and Christian Embodiment (Black Religion/Womanist Thought/Social Justice). New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Brooten, Bernadette J. (Editor). Beyond Slavery: Overcoming Its Religious and Sexual Legacies (Black Religion/Womanist Thought/Social Justice), Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Cannon, Katie G. Black Womanist Ethics. Wipf & Stock Pub, 2006. Cannon, Katie G. The Womanist Theology Primer: Remembering What We Never Knew : The Epistemology of Womanist Theology. Women's Ministries Program Area, National Ministries Division, Presbyterian Church, 2001. Cannon, Katie Geneva, Emilie M. Townes, Angela D. Sims, eds. Womanist Theological Ethics: A Reader (Library of Theological Ethics). Fortress, 2011. Coleman, Monica A. Ain't I a Womanist, Too?: Third Wave Womanist Religious Thought (Innovations). Fortress, 2013. Coleman, Monica. Making a Way Out of No Way: A Womanist Theology (Innovations: African American Religious Thought) (Innovations: African American Religious Thought).
    [Show full text]
  • Religion, Intersectionality, and Epistemic Habits of Academic Feminism
    Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture and Politics, 1(1), 04 ISSN: 2542-4920 Religion, Intersectionality, and Epistemic Habits of Academic Feminism. Perspectives from Global Feminist Theology Elina Vuola 1* Published: October 30, 2017 ABSTRACT This article pays critical attention to the ways in which academic feminism has regarded religion. Issues related to religion and gender have by and large either been ignored or treated quite stereotypically. I have called this phenomenon a simultaneous under- and overestimation of religion. The phenomenon is not global. Feminists of the global south tend to pay much more and more multi-faceted attention to religion than scholars from the global north. I will illustrate this problem through a close reading of intersectionality in feminist research in religion, especially feminist theology. My argument – which can be supported by evidence from historical records – is that what has been called intersectionality since Kimberlé Crenshaw, has in fact been explicitly present in early feminist theology (1970s-). The reason why feminist liberation theologians stressed the interstructuring of gender, class, and race/ethnicity lies in their practical and theoretical cooperation with liberation and feminist theologians from the global south, for example through the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians (EATWOT). My article is a critical re-reading of the history of feminist theorizing from the perspective of religious feminists, academic feminist theologians and liberation theologians from both the global north and south (including black and womanist theologians from the USA, Latin America and Africa). My aim is to correct a long-held understanding of the history of feminist theorizing as purely “secular”.
    [Show full text]
  • Reimagining Religious Education for Young, Black, Christian Women: Womanist Resistance in the Form of Hip-Hop
    religions Article Reimagining Religious Education for Young, Black, Christian Women: Womanist Resistance in the Form of Hip-Hop Tamara Henry New York Theological Seminary, New York, NY 10115, USA; [email protected] Received: 26 October 2018; Accepted: 7 December 2018; Published: 11 December 2018 Abstract: How might the black church and womanist scholarship begin to re-imagine religious education in ways that attends more deliberately to the unique concerns and interests of younger black, Christian women? Throughout the history of the black church, despite being marginalized or silenced within their varied denominations, black women have been key components for providing the religious education within their churches. However, today, in many church communities, we are seeing a new, emerging trend whereby young, black, Christian women are opting out of traditional approaches to religious education. They view contemporary church education as insufficient to address their contrasting range of real-life difficulties and obstacles. Instead, these young women have been turning to the work of contemporary black female hip-hop artists as a resource for religious and theological reflection. Drawing from focus groups conducted with young black female seminarians and explored through the lens of womanist theory, I argue this trend is forming a new, legitimate type of religious education where the work of artists such as Beyoncé and Solange are framing an unrecognized womanist, spirituality of resistance for young black women. Both religious educators and womanist scholars need to pay attention to this overlooked, emerging trend. Respectively, I suggest religious education and womanist scholarship would benefit by considering new resources for religious, theological, and pedagogical reflection, one that is emerging out of young black women’s engagement with the art and music of specific black female artists within hip-hop.
    [Show full text]
  • Current Theology Feminist Theology: a Review of Literature
    Theological Studies 56 (1995) CURRENT THEOLOGY FEMINIST THEOLOGY: A REVIEW OF LITERATURE INTRODUCTION* According to Sandra Schneiders's useful definition, feminism is a comprehensive ideology, rooted in women's experience of sexual op­ pression, which engages in a critique of patriarchy, embraces an al­ ternative vision for humanity and the earth, and actively seeks to bring this vision to realization.1 Feminist theology may be considered that part of this quest for justice which is concerned with critical anal­ ysis and liberating retrieval of the meaning of religious traditions. In the roughly 35 years of its existence, contemporary feminist theology has produced a vast, international body of literature that ranges across all of the theological specialties and beyond. The notes that follow revisit several salient themes and debates in the area of systematic theology, although no hard and fast division obtains between this dis­ cipline and feminist ethics and biblical hermeneutics.2 The current intellectual ferment first came to expression in Valerie Saiving (Goldstein)'s now-classic 1960 article, 'The Human Situation: A Feminine View," in which she raised the question of the applicabil­ ity of prevailing theological statements to all human beings. Her own suggestion, that teachings about sin as pride or will-to-power and about redemption as negation of self or self-giving love might look very different from the perspective of women's experience, struck a deep chord.3 Since then, virtually every aspect of inherited theology has been scrutinized for the ways in which its context has shaped its con­ tent, the two being inextricably linked.
    [Show full text]
  • Feminist and Womanist Theologies
    FALL 2012 FEMINIST AND WOMANIST THEOLOGIES TH3466 Dr. Yolanda Pierce Dr. Mark Taylor SYLLABUS 1 GOALS 1. Overall, to examine the major issues and thinkers in womanist and feminist theologies through an integrative study of historical, literary, doctrinal and ethical resources and methods. 2. To expose course members to the inter-racial and polycultural dimensions of women’s movements and discussions within which theological and ethical perspectives emerge. 3. To contribute to course members’ practical dimensions of ministry, social justice organizing, and spiritual formation, as they are challenged by gender and sexual justice issues, cross-cut always by ethnic and racial issues. LEARNING OUTCOMES 1. Students will have displayed, in their written essays, serious engagement with the theological content of diverse feminist/womanist theologians, an ability to appraise critical debates about approaches in feminist/womanist theologies. 2. Also across the students' two essays, they will have demonstrated interpretive skill, a basic “literacy of difference,” in the reading of contrasting cultural, racial/ethnic and literary traditions in feminist/womanist theologies. 3. Student essays and course contributions will also have displayed an inter-disciplinary capacity to integrate, working amid three different academic disciplines (history, literature, theology), and integrating also disciplinary areas within their seminary course work, from biblical, historical, theological, ethical and practical studies. 4. In especially the second essay, students will be able to articulate the impact that course readings have had on their own Christian faith, and their significance for meaningful practice of Christian life in its personal, ecclesial and wider social and political meanings. TEXTS The following texts are in the PTS bookstore and on Reserve in Speer Library.
    [Show full text]
  • Womanism As a Method of Literary Text Interpretation: a Study of Emergent Women’S Images Under Religious Structures in Selected Works of Heinrich Böll
    Womanism as a Method of Literary Text Interpretation: A Study of Emergent Women’s Images under Religious Structures in Selected Works of Heinrich Böll. Inaugural-Dissertation zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades der Philosophie an der Ludwig-Maximilians –Universitiät München Vorgelegt von Aloysius –Gonzagas. Ikechukwu. Orjinta. PhD. aus (Nigeria) (University of Nigeria Press Ltd. Nsukka, Nigeria, 2013) 1 REFERENT: PROFESSOR. DR. CLEMENS. PORNSCHLEGEL. KORREFERENT: PROFESSOR. DR. SVEN. HANUSCHEK. TAG DER MÜNDLICHEN PRÜFUNG: 14. 1.2011 2 Table of Contents- - - - - - - - - - 3 Plan of Work - - - - - - - 7 Abstract - - - - - - - - 9 Chapter One - 13 1.0 Towards the reception of German Literature in Nigeria and in Africa - - - 13 1.2 Literature and Society: Expectations and Reception Horizons - - - - - 16 1.3 The Present situation of German studies in Tertiary Institutions in Nigeria - - -- 21 1.4 Outline of the Development of German Studies in Africa - - - - - - 29 1.5 The difficulties in the teaching of German language and literature in Nigeria and Africa - 33 1.6 Conclusion and Possible Suggestions - - 44 CHAPTER TWO: THE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK -47 2.1 Introduction - - - - - - -47 2.2 Feminist Criticism - - - - - -51 2.3 Womanism - - - - - - -62 2.4 Motherism - - - - - - - -68 2.5 Stiwanism - - - - - - - - -71 2.6 A Plea for Womanism - - - - - - 72 CHAPTER THREE- - -74 Feminisms and Womanism: Points of contact and divergence - - - - - - - -74 3 3.1 Introduction - - - - - - - 74 3.2 Feminism - - - - - - - -75 3.3 Womanism - - - - - - - - 81 3.3.1
    [Show full text]
  • Secular Feminist Religious Metaphor and Christianity
    JETS 38/1 (March 1995) 77!92 SECULAR FEMINIST RELIGIOUS METAPHOR AND CHRISTIANITY BETTY TALBERT!WETTLER* Two years ago I responded to the views of radical feminist Emily Erwin Culpepper during a philosophy symposium at California State University at Fullerton.1 At the time I was struck by the strength of the secular fem- inist presence in the university. Almost ninety people attended the Culpep- per session alone. Out of nine religious studies philosophers chosen to par- ticipate, three were radical feminists: Mary Daly, Emily Culpepper and Charlene Spretnak. I discovered that radical feminist views on metaphor, symbol and myth were not new ideas. Some of the feminist presuppositions on myth and meta- phor are a common offering in religious liberal academic fare. Symbol, myth and metaphor function almost as an intellectual hook to draw women into feminism. There is a growing need for Christians to respond to this secular radical feminist presence in our society. This study will investigate some current influential views on secular feminist religious metaphor.2 I will contend that the religious metaphors * Betty Talbert!Wettler is a graduate student in New Testament at Talbot Theological Sem- inary, 13800 Biola Avenue, La Mirada, CA 90639. 1 Β. Talbert!Wettler, αΑ Critique of Symbolism, Myth and Oral Tradition in Dr. Emily Erwin Culpepper's Feminist Methodology" (lecture delivered on March 12, 1993). 2 Although feminism is a worldwide movement, only American feminism will be dealt with in this paper. Some feminists, such as Carol P. Christ, Adrianne Rich, Starhawk, Charlene Spretnak and Alice Walker, identify with traditions of goddess worship, witchcraft and pantheism.
    [Show full text]