Feminism 2
Feminism's False Gospel
Feminism
1
by Chris Charles
We saw last month that men and women, both made in the image of God, are ‘equal
but different’ because of who God is. Thus the model
for human relationships is not interchangeable egalitarianism, as feminism
supposes, but God’s Trinitarian inter-relationship — involving a complex
pattern of initiation and response, of dependence and obedience.
In 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 Paul demonstrates this link between the divine and
human inter-relationships. Discussing how men and women should conduct
themselves in church, he writes, ‘I want you to realise
that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the
head of Christ is God’.
In verses 11–12 Paul reminds them that this does not mean that man is
independent of woman — there is deep mutuality in the way the sexes relate. But
the pattern reflects the way God is.
It is, therefore, a false assumption to say that ‘equal’ must mean ‘identical’.
Some differences between men and women are created — essential to what we are.
To express these differences in different roles has nothing to do with who is
more gifted or valued. It has everything to do with who God is and reflecting
his image.
Biblical Christianity teaches what feminists find impossibly contradictory —
that, because of what God is in himself, it is both possible and necessary to
be equal and different.
Experience is authority?
Having identified their problem and their goal (freedom, as they define it),
feminists applied this principle to theology. The dogmatic way they went about
it might shock many but they believed deeply in their right to do so.
But feminism is incompatible with Christianity. Why? Because
feminism is anti-authority. No one can question the feminist perspective
because, according to this perspective, experience is everything.
Letty Russell wrote a book entitled Household of freedom[1] — a sort of feminist vision for the church. In it
she argues that the only possible authority is experience, and any other
authority is necessarily about domination rather than ‘empowerment’. One is
left wondering how such a viewpoint can be reconciled with a Christian
submission to God.
This probably explains why feminist theology books are full of hyphens —
invented words that make them very hard to read! For example Mary Grey’s book
Redeeming the dream uses ‘co-redeeming’, ‘co-creating’ and ‘mutuality-in-
relation’ to express the idea that God is just as dependent on us as we are on
him. A feminist cannot permit herself to be subject to anyone, not even God.
Sin and salvation
Daphne Hampson, a prominent feminist theologian, has
rejected Christianity on just these grounds. She sees that feminism is founded
on autonomy whereas Christianity is based on heteronomy — the two are
incompatible. If only others could be as honest!
So, in naming the problem as ‘male oppression’ and the solution as ‘being
liberated to attain equality with men’ (that is, having the freedom to do and
be all the same things), feminist theologians rewrote the central Christian
doctrines of sin and salvation.
If women’s basic problem is male oppression then their sin cannot be pride —
that’s a male sin! Women’s sin is passivity or (according to Valerie Goldstein)
‘the underdevelopment or negation of the self ’.[2]
Salvation then becomes liberation from such oppression and lack of self-worth,
to reach a ‘wholeness’ or ‘integrated personhood’.
Letty Russell gives a typical feminist definition of
salvation as ‘the realisation of personal power and
corporate responsibility to change the world for the better’.[3]
Rosemary Radford Ruether uses the language of
conversion to refer to a conversion from sexism.
Branch of another tree
This is superficial and completely unbiblical. It
confuses the essence of sin with the effects of sin. Whatever symptoms might
arise as sinful people interact with one another — arrogance,
denial of self-worth and so on — the root cause is the same. We are out of a
right relationship with God, being self-oriented rather than God-oriented.
Although some people (and indeed groups of people) do suffer terribly as human
beings conflict with one another, no one is merely a victim. We are all part of
the problem. And it is from this estrangement from God, and the punishment for
our rebellion, that we need saving. The Bible makes it clear that that is why
Jesus died.
Feminist theology is in many ways a branch of another tree — liberation
theology. It labels sexism as the ultimate ‘ism’ (over against capitalism and
nationalism, for example) from which we need to be liberated.
According to feminists they have identified the root oppression from which all
other ills flow. Maybe if we renamed sin ‘selfism’ we
might get further with persuading them that something very different is at the
root of it all!
It is easy to think that liberation theology is ‘Christian’ because it talks
about helping the poor and the oppressed. However it is a false gospel because
it is all about ‘now’ and about ‘us’. It denies any concept of eternity or a
personal relationship with God restored through Jesus Christ.
Next month we shall consider the final two ‘phases’ of feminism. These are much
shorter, but show how extreme and unbiblical feminist theology became once it
had gone wrong on defining equality and on the core gospel doctrines of sin and
salvation.
http://www.evangelical-times.org/Articles/Sep05/Sep05a13.htm
References
1. Russell, L., Household of freedom: Authority in feminist theology
(Philadelphia, Westminster Press, 1987).
2. Goldstein, V., ‘The human situation: A feminine
viewpoint’, Pastoral Psychology, Vol. 17 (1996), 38.
3. Russell, L., Human liberation in a feminist perspective: A theology
(Philadelphia, Westminster Press, 1974).
as of 12-2006