Feminist theology's contribution to pastoral theology, by Brian McKinlay.

[The] challenge of gender issues to pastoral care does not simply involve the
inclusion of women into traditions and models of ministry which otherwise
remain unchanged. Instead, it is a programme for reconstituting the very
values and assumptions which underpin Christian practice."1
Elaine L. Graham.

I
Feminist theology's contribution to pastoral theology begins with its
contribution to theology generally. Feminist theology seeks to understand and
criticize male-dominated tradition and to challenge androcentric images of God
and humanity. It argues for equality and right understanding of women and
men to be sanctioned by contemporary theology and practice.2
Central to Christian understanding of humanity is that to be human is to be
created in the image and likeness of God - the imago Dei. If this is so, it follows
that our understanding of the nature of humankind and human experience will be
based on our beliefs concerning the nature of God. Therefore, feminist critique
of male-centred theological anthropology is intertwined with critique of
androcentric tradition concerning the nature of God. The question "Is God
male?" has a direct bearing on whether only male creatures can be those most
perfectly made in his image.3 From this follows questions about the gender
identity of those would minister as God's representatives.
Another important endeavour of feminist researchers is to recover
women's stories and positive female images that have been hidden. Discovery
of women's history subverts the androcentric paradigm.
In her writings4, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza offers a liberationist
perspective on Biblical studies, refusing to relinquish the Bible to those who
maintain its patriarchal character as Christian. Fiorenza uses four
hermeneutical principles: (1) a hermeneutic of suspicion, that recognizes
1
Transforming practice: pastoral theology in an age of uncertainty / Elaine L. Graham. - London:
Mowbray, 1996, p.44.
2
A succinct summary of the feminist contribution to theology generally is provided by Anne Carr's
essay "The new vision of feminist theology," in Freeing theology: the essentials of theology in feminist
perspective / Catherine Mowry LaCugna, ed. - San Francisco: Harper, 1993, pp.5-29.
3
For an important example of writing on this topic, see She who is: the mystery of God in feminist
theological discourse / Elizabeth A Johnson. - New York: Crossroad, 1993.
4
Particularly In memory of her: a feminist theological reconstruction of Christian origins. - New York:
Crossroads, 1983.
 2

patriarchy and androcentrism in many texts; (2) a hermeneutic of proclamation

that assesses which texts are suitable for liturgical use, (3) a hermeneutic of
remembrance, that searches out women's history, to reconstruct the heritage of
today; and (4) a hermeneutic of creative actualization that helps women
reclaim (biblical) history by the use of historical imagination and through ritual
and art.5 Fiorenza applies these principles to her Biblical studies, but the
concepts are equally useful in other disciplines, such as pastoral theology.
Being human is not simply one's created nature - it is also the experience
of being human. The experience of women as women (and men as men) is
important to an understanding of the human experience. In feminist theology
the starting point and perspective is often women's experience. This may be
bodily experience (pregnancy, giving-of-birth), social experience, or historical
experience. It may refer to women's unique individual experiences, or to their
experience in community. It also refers to specifically Christian experience -
women's special contribution to Christian life, and women's experience of
exclusion from much that is church. Margaret Farley effectively encapsulates
the program of feminist theology under three themes: (1) relational patterns
among human persons, (2) human embodiment, and (3) human assessment of
the meaning and value of the world of 'nature'.6
Feminist theology draws attention to the interrelationship between the
experience, theory and practice, which are the heart of much contemporary
thinking about pastoral theology. A distinctive of the feminist contribution, in
common with other liberationist perspectives, is that it places experience and
praxis at the centre of theological development. The challenge is to interpret
experience, believing that the Word of God and the life of the spirit are
incarnate in the experience of all Christians.

II
In addition to the general perspective of feminist theology, it also
contributes specifically to pastoral theology and practice. Valerie DeMarinis
offers reasons why feminist theology and psychosocial theory provide a unique

5
See Carr, op.cit., p.18.
6
Farley, Margaret A. "Feminist theology and bioethics" in Feminist theology: a reader / edited by
Ann Loades. - Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1990, pp.238-254, at p.240.
 3

resource for pastoral theology and psychology. First, feminist theology seeks
to investigate carefully the core of beliefs, symbols, assumptions, and
categories of meaning-making. Feminist thinking challenges us to recognize
the need for nurture, sustenance, growth and the development of the whole
person in the context of community. Secondly, DeMarinis argues, feminist
thinking offers access to the wisdom that comes by challenging existing
perceptions and disciplinary boundaries. Third, feminist theology and
psychosocial theory understand belief systems and their influence to be an
essential part of the way human life and relationships come to have meaning.
Within a feminist framework, both theology and psychology respect the need to
include religious belief and spirituality in our understanding of health and
healing. Fourthly, feminist theology incorporates a praxis methodology, which
demands that action and reflection work together. Theory is regarded as
prototype rather than archetype - it must be open to critical questioning and
change.7
DeManaris has developed a concept of " critical caring". Though as basic
as life itself, caring is not always health-producing. A critical approach
(careful judgement and crucial intervention) is required to ensure that caring
(appropriate concern) is also healing.8 One's worldview and one's
understanding, for example, of human nature and instincts will determine one's
approach to healing and pastoral care. "The critical question is: can a
hermeneutical foundation create a worldview that understands and nurtures the
relational and religious instincts?"9 DeMarinis argues that a feminist
hermeneutic can create such a worldview. Some worldviews, on the other
hand, do not recognize or nurture human growth and instincts, but rather work
against them.
Critical caring understands human beings as persons whose health, hope, and
happiness are based on attention to the relational and religious instincts.
Recognition and nurturing of these instincts brings liberation from oppression
both within the human being and among persons. Life's vision is one of
liberation from oppression.10

7
DeMarinis, Valerie M. - Critical caring: a feminist model for pastoral psychology. - Louisville:
Westminster John Knox Pr, 1993, p.18.
8
Ibid., p.17.
9
Ibid., p.34.
10
Ibid., p.35.
 4

Elaine Graham notes that, "One of the most contested areas in

contemporary pastoral literature concerns those persons deemed fit to dispense
care; the methods by which such care is administered; and the locus of
purposeful care."11 In the past, pastoral theology has tended to concentrate on
the attributes of the good pastor. This necessarily means that pastoral theology,
so understood, restricted itself to the work of male ordained persons. The
needs of the client and relationships within the Christian community as a whole
have not been central. Feminist theology criticises this traditional perspective
of pastoral theology, shifting the agent and the locus of care away from the
ordained minister and the ecclesiastical institution towards less structured
settings and alternative communities of faith.
Though not negating the use of pastoral counseling, which tends to
emphasize scientific and medical models of care, feminist reconstruction of
pastoral theology seeks to use sacrament, prayer, sermon, and community life
as sources for healing and community. Restoration of pastoral activity from
feminist perspective encompasses not only individual care, but a diverse and
complex set of pastoral practices.12

III
Hierarchical imposition of moral authority and norms is inappropriate in
the postmodern era. The twentieth-century tradition of non-directive
counseling aims more towards achievement of personal ethical sensibility and
autonomy than conformity to external moral codes. As a result, "contemporary
pastoral care finds itself with an impoverished vocabulary of moral
discernment - in relation to the individual and the collective."13
The response of feminists (and others) to moral and ethical uncertainty
has been twofold. The first response has been to focus on the social and
political dimensions of care. A personalized approach to care obscures the
extent to which social and economic factors impede our growth to full
personhood. A liberationist perspective brings the impoverishment and

11
Graham, Elaine L. - Transforming practice: pastoral theology in an age of uncertainty. - London:
Mowbray, 1996, p.47.
12
Ibid., p.48
13
Ibid., p.50.
 5

oppression into critical focus. Pastoral theology is encouraged to move its

priorities away from models of personal amelioration to promote strategies of
social change and political intervention.14
A tension arises within feminist thinking between a desire for social
change and community action and the importance of personal freedom to
develop one's life and spirituality. The feminist desire for social and political
equality is sometimes resolved through increased regulation and oversight.
The actions thus inhibited may well have been unhelpful. But there is also a
danger of hierarchy and institutionalization negating the very liberation the
feminist seeks. (Just such a tension has arisen in the development and
oversight of Clinical Pastoral Education, for example.15)
The freedom to develop an inner sense of self, based on one's own desires
and understanding, has been an achievement of feminism valuable to both
women and men. Therefore, feminism is itself challenged to avoid stereotypes.
Women's reconstruction process is an inner movement which has profound
spiritual implications. It revises traditional models of spirituality and traditional
models of society. Not all women want to work on the side of the oppressed in a
society which denies that oppression exists… Not all women choose to or can
move in a dialectic direction which questions 'the-powers-that-be'. We cannot
judge those women who wish to remain in foreclosed identities. […] Free
women can also choose to be guardians in society, tending to hearth and home as
women have done for centuries but they are doing it freely. These choices are to
be valued. There is no 'right way' to be free. There are only many ways, as
many as there are female hearts and souls.16
A second, closely-related, strategy for pastoral theology in the face of
moral uncertainty is to draw on critically evaluated pastoral practice as a
source of ethics and norms. Elaine Graham examines feminist practice for its
own contribution and as an example of a liberationist approach to pastoral
practice.
Criteria for authentic Christian pastoral practice as determined by a model of
liberatory praxis locate human identity within history, and identify theological
knowledge as arising from a specific context and harnessed to transformatory
and political ends. Models of Christian pastoral practice within liberation
theology ground the normative principles for social transformation in a model of
action and reflection upon experience and social context. The criteria for

14
Ibid., p.51, 136.
15
See Gleason, John J. - "The impact of feminism on Clinical Pastoral Education" Journal of pastoral
care 52(1):3-5, Spring, 1998.
16
Slattery, Maureen - "Women and the new spiritual consciousness" Pastoral sciences 17:121-144,
1998, at p.141 (my emphasis).
 6

authentic practice - the values of liberation - are both the sources and the objects
of pastoral practice.17
Identity and knowledge as grounded in practice, Graham argues, bring into
focus methods that are self-reflecting, yet still maintain ethical and political
integrity - despite the absence of transcendent truth-claims.18 Critical self-
understanding and practical wisdom are formed within a network of
relationships, values and practices from which meaning is constructed and
acted on.19
In Transforming practice, Graham draws on an analysis of feminist
pastoral practices - in liturgy, spiritual direction, and preaching - to set out a
"critical theory of pastoral practice".20 Graham notes the benefits of women's
stories being told by these means21. There is healing, reconciliation and
empowerment. The naming of women's needs and experiences reveals the
distortions and universalized prescriptions of androcentric practice. The
rendition of women's experiences places them into their social and political
context.
This emphasis on women's experience, Graham says, "may be understood
as a plea for all theological discourse to recognize itself as situated, or as
theologians more usually term it, contextual."22 The contribution of feminist
theology has been to exemplify liberating practices and ways of thinking which
benefit pastoral theology and practice in its ministry with all oppressed peoples.

IV
Ironically, postmodernism, by focusing on the social location of theory
and acknowledging the plurality of human existence, has limited us to local
systems of belief and values. Yet many feminists would claim a status of
politics and advocacy for feminist thought and would seek a set of agreed
principles so that ministry praxis can be developed. Christie Neuger,
introducing a collection of case studies, suggests three approaches to this
dilemma:

17
Graham, op.cit., p.139.
18
Ibid., p.156.
19
Ibid., p.159.
20
Ibid., p.171.
21
Ibid., pp.193ff.
22
Ibid., p. 194 (original emphasis).
 7

(1) claim the particularity of both theory and the situation where it is
applied;
(2) acknowledge that a theory is built of some generalizations and note
the need for contextualization;
(3) work at the meta-theory level - creating ways to guide the
development of a theory of practice that takes seriously the diversity
of people and the importance of particularity in pastoral work.23
Though there may be difficulties in constructing a generalized ethic,
feminist Christians have made strong and effective contributions to ethical
reform in issues of pastoral concern. In discussing sexual ethics, for example,
feminist writer Lisa Cahill moves away from narrowly defined, act-centred,
definitions of morality and emphasizes the positive function in community
building served by biblical teachings on sex.24 Feminists also draw attention to
sins easily hidden by an acceptance of the heterosexual, marital and procreative
norms.
Consider, for example, domestic violence; sexual abuse; marital rape;
callousness of men to the daily burdens of their wives; wives' and mothers'
emotional manipulation of husbands and children; sexual objectification or
coercion by men or women; neglect and abuse of children; narcissism of family
members in their relations to one another; narcissism of families in relation to
those outside their family, church, or community; consumerism; drugs and
alcoholism; sloth toward the commitment it takes to sustain a marriage and be
responsible parents; and the irresponsible divorce.25

Not all feminists have abandoned the search for a common ethic. A paper
by Linda Hogan,26 for example, examines other authors' ideas for a non-
relativist ethic and posits the legitimacy of a common morality. Suggested
sources for such an ethic are (1) shared human nature, (2) non-relative virtues,
and (3) abstract principles. But such attempts at a foundation for ethics
encounter the essential feminist / post-structuralist critique that all such
developments of ethical norms are but constructs of power and language.

23
Arts of ministry: feminist-womanist approaches / Christie Cozad Neuger, ed. - Louisville:
Westminster John Knox Pr, 1996, pp.4-5.
24
Cahill, Lisa Sowle. - "Sexual ethics: a feminist Biblical perspective", Interpretation 49(1):5-16,
January, 1995.
25
Ibid., p.14.
26
Hogan, Linda - "Boundaries and knowledge: feminist ethics in search of sure foundations", in
Bodies, lives, voices: gender in theology / edited by Kathleen O'Grady, Ann L. Gilroy and Janette Gray.
- Sheffield: Academic Pr., 1998, pp. 24-39.
 8

Neither are all feminists convinced by attempts to develop agreed-upon

principles. Given the destabilized subject of post-modern feminism, Elizabeth
Cady questions how normative judgements (theological or otherwise) can be
made. She rejects an abstract unified subject. The identity of "woman" is
multiple, but in each instance anchored in a limited time and place.27 On this,
Sarah Coakley cautions:
[As] the heady shift to post-modern relativism becomes an attractive
philosophical option for increasing numbers of feminists, we may well question
whether the Enlightenment demand for global principles in ethics (as opposed to
purely local political agendas) can be lightly discarded when what we surely
must still dream of is an abolition of the sex class system tout court.28
Thus contemporary developments in philosophy and cultural theory
temper the feminist contribution to theology. Modernist liberal feminism
tended to assume a unified subject woman, but postmodernism proposes
diversity and fragmentation. Thus Sue Thornham, writing on postmodernism
and feminism says:
If feminists seek to construct a universal, 'essential' woman as subject and/or
object of their own thought, then that figure will be as partial, as historically
contingent and as exclusionary as her male counterpart. […] Feminist theory
cannot claim both that knowledge and the self are constituted within history and
culture and that feminist theory speaks on behalf of a universalized 'woman'.
Rather, it must embrace differences between women and accept the position of
partial knowledge(s). And once it occupies this position, feminist thought would
seem to move away from its Enlightenment beginnings and to have much in
common with postmodernist theory.29

Yet again, the importance of difference is debated. Rebecca Chopp describes

the theoretical dilemma thus:
Feminist theorists criticize from a variety of perspectives the notion of an
essential, universal structure of the human subject. Feminism, as a cultural
movement, had its initial impetus through a banner of women's equality that
presumed a universal category of woman which included all women. But
feminist theorists soon realized that there is no such thing as one structure of
woman. Cross-culturally what is represented as woman can vary widely. And
woman or gender cannot be separated from other constitutive factors such as
race, class, and religion.30

27
See Cady, Elizabeth Linell. - "Identity, feminist theory, and theology" in Horizons in feminist
theology: identity, tradition and norms / edited by Rebecca Chopp and Sheila Greeve Davaney. -
Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997, pp.17-32.
28
Coakley, op.cit., p.82.
29
Thornham, Sue. - "Postmodernism and feminism (or: repairing our own cars)" in The Icon critical
dictionary of Postmodern thought. - Duxford: Icon, 1998, pp.41-52, at pp.43-4.
30
Chopp, Rebecca S. - "Theorizing feminist theology" in Horizons in feminist theology: identity,
tradition and norms / edited by Rebecca Chopp and Sheila Greeve Davaney. - Minneapolis: Fortress,
1997, pp.215-231, at p.219.
 9

Among the foci for debate in theory on the nature of the human subject, Chopp
observes, is the question of the very usefulness of gender as a category for
theory. Gender is a useful category in some cases and problematic in others.
"How do we then employ the category to make sense of present structures of
power and, at the same time, deconstruct the category so as to transform the
way present structures require gender construction and regulation of gender?"31
The feminist claim to the imago Dei risks becoming an assertion that
humankind is divided into two equal genders, male and female. This does not
seem particularly startling, but has been seen by some32 as deployment of a
hegemonic heterosexual binary. Thus Fulkerson finds that feminist
theologians, when developing an understanding of the imago Dei, must
continually ask who is being excluded.33
This epitomizes the contribution made by feminists to pastoral studies.
We ask, "who is being excluded?" and insist that all humankind must be
included when we ponder who God has made us to be and who God desires
that we become.

SOURCES

Arts of ministry: feminist-womanist approaches / Christie Cozad Neuger, ed.

Louisville: Westminster John Knox Pr, 1996.
Cady, Elizabeth Linell. "Identity, feminist theory, and theology." in Horizons in
feminist theology: identity, tradition and norms / edited by Rebecca Chopp and Sheila
Greeve Davaney. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997, pp.17-32.
Cahill, Lisa Sowle. "Sexual ethics: a feminist Biblical perspective", Interpretation
49(1):5-16, January, 1995.
Carr, Anne E. "The new vision of feminist theology," in Freeing theology: the
essentials of theology in feminist perspective / Catherine Mowry LaCugna, ed. San
Francisco: Harper, 1993, pp.5-29.
Chopp, Rebecca S. "Theorizing feminist theology." in Horizons in feminist theology:
identity, tradition and norms / edited by Rebecca Chopp and Sheila Greeve Davaney.
Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997, pp.215-231.
31
Ibid., p.220.
32
Such as Judith Butler in her Gender trouble: feminism and the subversion of identity. - New York:
Routledge, 1990 [cited by Mary McClintock Fulkerson in "Identity, feminist theory, and theology" in
Horizons in feminist theology: identity, tradition and norms / edited by Rebecca Chopp and Sheila
Greeve Davaney. - Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997, pp.17-32, at p.109.
33
Op. cit. I am assisted by Chopp's summary of Fulkerson's essay, op.cit., p.222.
 10

Coakley, Sarah. "Gender and knowledge in Western philosophy: the 'Man of Reason'
and the 'Feminine' 'Other' in Enlightenment and Romantic thought" in The Special
nature of women? / edited by Anne Carr and Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza. London
SCM Press, 1991 (Concilium 1991/6), pp.75-83.
DeMarinis, Valerie M. Critical caring: a feminist model for pastoral psychology.
Louisville: Westminster John Knox Pr, 1993.
Farley, Margaret A. "Feminist theology and bioethics" in Feminist theology: a reader
/ edited by Ann Loades. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1990, pp.238-254.
Fiorenza, Elisabeth Schüssler. In memory of her: a feminist theological reconstruction
of Christian origins. New York: Crossroads, 1983.
Fulkerson, Mary McClintock. "Identity, feminist theory, and theology." in Horizons
in feminist theology: identity, tradition and norms / edited by Rebecca Chopp and
Sheila Greeve Davaney. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997, pp.17-32.
Gleason, John J. "The impact of feminism on Clinical Pastoral Education" Journal of
pastoral care 52(1):3-5, Spring, 1998.
Graham, Elaine L. Transforming practice: pastoral theology in an age of uncertainty.
London: Mowbray, 1996.
Hogan, Linda "Boundaries and knowledge: feminist ethics in search of sure
foundations", in Bodies, lives, voices: gender in theology / edited by Kathleen
O'Grady, Ann L. Gilroy and Janette Gray. Sheffield: Academic Pr., 1998, pp. 24-39.
Johnson, Elizabeth A. She who is: the mystery of God in feminist theological
discourse. New York: Crossroad, 1993.
Slattery, Maureen "Women and the new spiritual consciousness" Pastoral sciences
17:121-144, 1998.
Thornham, Sue. "Postmodernism and feminism (or: repairing our own cars)" in The
Icon critical dictionary of Postmodern thought. Duxford: Icon, 1998, pp.41-52.