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ECCLESIOLOGY FROM AN ASIAN FEMINIST PERSPECTIVE

by Seung-Hee Sohn

Professor, Department of Christian Studies, Ewha Woman’s University, Seoul, Korea.

 

 

I.  Doing Theology As A Woman

      Doing theology as a woman is not so acceptable nor comfortable in Korean church context. Since I had committed myself to doing Christian theology, my mind and work have been very often hurt by the sexist and misogynist atmosphere deep-rooted in its patriarchal structure of the church. For a feminist woman as myself, doing theology is much more difficult. My voice has been rejected in the church and theological education simply because I am a woman, and my being has been alienated from the majority of church women because I am a feminist The long experience of being discriminated, oppressed and alienated in the sexist church context has been a starting point of my theological work, and a long journey in the struggle against the patriarchy in the church as well as in the society has been the way of my accomplishing theological ministry.

      As an Asian woman, my senses of social, economic and political reality and my religious spirituality are rather different from those of women in other areas of the globe such as the North America, Europe or Latin America. As a Korean I am deeply committed to the unification of my country; as a citizen of the nation which belongs to the third world, I strongly stand for the national solidarity against the invasion of the first world imperialism through controlling the global system of market economy and communication. My religious spirituality has grown on the rich oriental religious-cultural soils. of course, I had a good western education, particularly the theological education, which has been shaped on the foundation of an empirical-rationalistic and a logical-analytic ways of knowing. In spite of my western training background, I can say that I have a different way of understanding the reality from the western one. As the matter of fact, the great religious-cultural heritage of Asia, such as Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, and even shamanism, had great influence on the formation of my spirituality and eventually of my Christian faith and theology.

       Women’s perspectives on the Christian theology have been examined and formulated by many woman theologians. They are called as feminist or womanist, and among them there are also non-feminist or anti-feminist theologian. Though their concerns and interests in their doing theology are not consistent with each other because of the particular social-political context they belong to, they are definitely in accord with each other in their basic attitudes toward the traditional theologies. For them, all the traditional theologies, such as Christology, Anthropology, Mariology and etc., are to be reconsidered and reflected critically in the light of women’s experiences. Ecclesiology is not the exception. The traditional doctrine of church has been one of the most important targets for the critical reflection of the feminist theologians.

       If Christ is the representative of the victim-sectors and the victim-sectors, from a feminist perspective, are the victimized women under the patriarchy, the Christ should represent the women. Moreover, if women are the victim-sectors in the patriarchal sexist church, Christ must represent the most oppressed, dehumanized women in the church under the patriarchal ideology of the traditional ecclesiology. In this context, the most significant question is how to understand the nature and ministry of the church, for those victimized women, which is symbolized as “The body of Christ”. In the process of answering the question, I will present an argument that the dominant traditional ecclesiologies have, in fact, promoted an ideology for justifying the patriarchal nature and structure of the Christian Church, resulting in dehumanization and victimization of women. Then, based on the argument, I propose that a feminist ecclesiology must be presented which will encourage the church to reflect upon itself with critical eyes on its sexist and oppressive nature and will give the church a new vision of the Christian Community of fully liberated and humanized women together with men. As far as a feminist theology belongs to those praxis theologies which are always expressed in the actions of participating in the struggles for liberation of the victimized, the feminist ecclesiology should describe the church’s ministry as healing the victimized women from their suffering and brokenheartedness under the patriarchal church and as empowering them to participate in the struggle to destroy the ideology of domination for their liberation in solidarity.

 

II.  Ecclesiology As A Patriarchal Ideology

1)  Victimization Of Women Under Patriarchy

– Some of Minjung theologians in Korea would define Korean Women as Minjung, because they are severely oppressed and exploited by men in Korean patriarchal society. Dr. Kim Yong Bock calls them as “Minjung among minjung”. It seems to me that he recognizes not only that women are the victim-sector in the ordinary society where victimizing and being victimized are basic elements of the relational structure, but also that women are the victim-sector even among the minjung group.

       In Korean history, it is said that patriarchy began to appear with its clear shape sometime around 300 AD in the middle of the three Kingdom period. Since that period, the paternal side succession of the throne gradually replaced the previous maternal side of succession system. It is a well known assumption that Aristotle’s political philosophy was articulated originally in order to provide a sort of relevant rational for a patriarchal social structure. Namely, it was a philosophical justification of patriarchy. He prescribed a proper relationship between the ruler and the ruled in the household or in the state not in the name of economic or social condition but in the name of the “nature” of them (the ruler and the ruled, that is man and woman). It is exactly identical with Korean situation. The so-called patriarchal dualism, which is used as an ideology to explain the relationships between the human and the nature, between the domination and the subjugation, between the male and the female, between the soul and the body, and between the reason and the emotion, is responsible for women to be in the place of being dependent to and controlled by men. According to this ideology, woman must be controlled by man, as if the body is to be governed by the soul and the emotion by the reason.

       This kind of sexist dualism could be found in some part of Hebrew thought, and later it was embodied explicitly in the form of Judaism which was the foundation for sustaining as well as building up patriarchy in the Jewish society. The most restrictive patriarchal order which was applied to women in the Korean history was made in the time of the Lee Dynasty (1500 AD - 1900 AD), in which Neo-Confucianism was the dominant political ideology and influenced all the cultural and ethical areas of the people’s life. According to this neo-confucianistic metaphysics, the “reason”(Lee), one of the two basic essences of the human nature as well as of the universe, is the primary principle for moral behavior and the “power”(Kee), another basic essence, always should be under control of the “reason” in order to be protected from going the wrong way. In this connection, the interesting point from a feminist perspective is that the “reason” (Lee) belongs to man, the “power” (Kee) belongs to woman and, therefore, woman has to be controlled by man.

       In the process of absolutizing the patriarchal rights in the patriarchal social formation, women’s absolute obedience was gradually demanded. Women’s jealousy was absolutely forbidden as the worst vice, otherwise it could disturb the absolute sustaining of polygamy. A women’s sexual fidelity to her husband was imperatively demanded, under the name of keeping the purity of the paternal line in the household. Moreover, if a woman could not have a son, she was punished as the most anti-patriarchal sinner who failed to accomplish her most important duty to bear a successor of the household. The expulsion from the family was the only way she had to take. The highest virtues for woman were obedience and sacrifice, because these were highly required for the prosperity of the patriarchal household.

       We can imagine how deeply Korean women’s sufferings were accumulated. We Koreans use the word, “Han”, to describe a state of mind as the suffering is so severe and accumulated that it is felt something like a rock made out of pains and sufferings deep in the heart. Imagine how hard their “Han” became in their hearts under the patriarchal oppression of the lee Dynasty’s confucianistic ideology! The victimization of women was never a result of any natural disaster nor their own destiny. It was entirely due to the unjust social structure shaped by the sexist, androcentric and patriarchal ideology.

2)  Ecclesiology As A Patriarchal Ideology

– A well-known feminist biblical scholar, Elisabeth Fiorenzer, once pointed out that the Christian Church is the representative of patriarchal system and it had a deep contradiction in itself from the beginning.: the church existed between the call to the discipleship of equals and the call to the patriarchal ecclesiastical structures.[1] In the process of its ecclesiastical adaptation to the first century Greco-Roman society and culture, the early Christian community which had not yet been fully yoked to the patriarchal ethos and structures of its society was gradually transformed into the Roman imperialistic-patriarchal church. In the post-Pauline writings and other household-code writings, we can see the values, such as “submission”, “obedience”, contradicting the authentic Christian vision and praxis. These contradictory values were applied not only to the household living of the Christian people but also to the life and order of the Christian Church in general. With no doubt, such patriarchalization of the Christian Church consequently brought forth the victimization of women in the life and order of the church. Women became entirely excluded from the church leadership, discriminated in the ministerial work and insisted to serve male leaders and authorities in obedience and remain at the bottom of the hierarchical church order.

       The ecclesiology formulated by the early Christian theologians implied in itself the patriarchal ideal for the nature and structure of the church from the beginning. The reason was that those theologians were predominantly influenced by the Greco-Roman philosophies and were under the power of the political authorities in their times. The ecclesiology of the Christian Church, therefore, had to have a patriarchal nature and to do the role of a patriarchal ideology in the church as well as in the Christian states. It was used and has been used (until now) by the church authorities as well as by the political authorities as a sacred-religious foundation for justification and absolutization of the patriarchal structure of the church and the states. The universality of the church, the absolute fatherhood of God, and the sonship, not the daughtership, of Jesus Christ as the head of the church... and such other ecclesiological conceptions used to provide the sufficient reasons to rationalize the androcentric, sexist and hierarchical institution of the church and the church’s discrimination and exclusion of women in the ministry and from the leadership in the church.

       As once Rosemary R. Ruether, another well-known western feminist theologian, pointed out, there have been always some groups who stood against the dominating system of the Christian Church and who stood for the anti-cultural Christianity throughout the Christian history, even though they were mostly underground.[2] Among them, there were women’s groups. Rejecting the patriarchal ideology in the so-called orthodox Christianity, they generated many women prophets, women preachers, and women leaders in their ministry. However, it is very recent that the traditional ecclesiology began to be denounced as a patriarchal ideology. A real feminist ecclesiology appeared in 1970’s seeking to do theology entirely from a feminist perspective.

3)  Women In The Korean Church

– Korean Church is not an exception from all the other Christian Churches which are captured miserably by the patriarchal atmosphere. There is a standard text in the Bible most of the ministers usually quote for wedding officiations. It is found in Pauline letter to Ephesians (Eph. 5:22-27) It says, “wives, be subject to your husbands as to the Lord; for the man is the head of the woman, ... Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the church...” The young couple, standing in front of the minister and the congregation, waiting for the grace of God and the blessing of people, and expecting to see a future image of their marriage life, shall receive this message. A husband should love his wife, but his wife should obey him rather than love him. All of the young married couples’ initiation into the household-patriarchy as well as into the church-patriarchy definitely starts from their wedding days.

      As some missiologists used to describe most proudly the Korean Church growth as the most miracle-like successful achievement in the world mission history, the growth of the Korean Church is indeed an amazing phenomenon. However, a more amazing phenomenon is its exclusively anti-feminist character. It is very interesting to see that, from a feminist perspective, the quantitative growth of the Korean Church is in inverse proportion to its qualitative development. A hundred years ago, woman missionaries from the west came to the land and began to proclaim the liberating gospel to Korean women who were under the patriarchal oppression. Unfortunately, they were not able to show Korean women neither the true liberating power, nor the healing power of the Gospel. Of course, they opened the doors for the women to have western education (Ewha is one of the best examples), but they failed to deliver the authentic message of liberation for women. Their messages which represented the fundamentalistic and evangelical tendencies in the North American theologies rather seemed to fit in well with the Confucianist teachings which were entirely suited to a thoroughly women-oppressive teachings. In a sense, the Christianity from the west at the start could not help women be liberated from the oppression, dehumanization and victimization in the Korean society. In the pursuit of the patriarchal culture and social structure, the Confucian men and the most conservative Christians were on the same boat.

     Last May, an epoch-making event happened in Korean Church. One of the largest denominations, Presbyterian church officially approved the women’s ordination. All the feminist church women celebrated the event with a great hope for the future of liberated church in Korean. However, the majority of Korean Church denominations  still do not show any concern for the issue.

     What is the problem that Korean Church women encounter in connection with the ecclesiological issues? What are those characteristics of the traditional theologies which have been used to support and justify the oppression, dehumanization and discrimination of women in the church? Some of the elements in the patriarchal ideology which the traditional ecclesiologies imply are the problems. First, the images of father and son attributed to God and Christ is the first element. It makes people to accept the male-dominating hierarchical structure of church and further to depend on the church authorities who are predominantly male. The male pastors or clergies are always on the top of the structure with absolute authority toward women and laypersons. It is not difficult to understand why most of church women depend on their male pastors’ orders and carry them out almost unconditionally. The second is the dualistic way of understanding reality. Separating soul from body, reason from emotion, and identifying woman with body and emotion, man with soul and reason, this dualistic view allows the church an ideological excuse to rationalize the patriarchal order, which is consistant with the relationships, such as the dominating-the dominated, the ruler-the ruled. Of course, woman must be on the dominated side.

      The fundamentalistic biblicalism is the third element. It is reflected on an attitude toward the Bible, in which the patriarchal writings in the scripture simply are read as Gods’ word itself without any feminist hermeneutical consciousness. In such a way of reading the scripture, it becomes very easy to find the foundation to justify women’s subordination. For instance, according to such a fundamentalistic way of understanding of the Bible, women’s subordination to men is not only natural but also very fair and proper, because woman is the one who caused man to commit the original sin and, by her nature itself, woman is supposed to be under man’s control. Finally, the authoritarianism of the church displays patriarchal ideology and it plays, particularly for women, an oppressive role of the ideology, prohibiting women to see the reality with any critical eyes. People must believe whatever the church says to believe with no doubt. Doubt is sin. This unquestionable belief in the authority of the church insists women in the church not to speak out, not to see, not to hear. Consequently, it prohibits them to discern and recognize the real causes of their “Hans” and prohibits them to find a way of healing their “Hans”. This is why feminist theology starts its work by unmasking the patriarchal ideology. Feminist conscientization is a necessary element for this unmasking work.

 

III. Feminist Understanding Of Christ As The

       “Representative Of The Victim-Sectors”

      If the church is the “body of Christ”, our ecclesiological talk needs to presuppose a certain sort of Christology. How we understand the person and work of Jesus Christ will determine our particular understanding of the ministry and mission of the church. In this section, 1 am going to discuss the meanings of Christ as the representative of the victim-sectors for women and to consider their implications in creating a new feminist ecclesiology in the Asian Context.

1)  The Patriarchal Dualism Eliminated

– When we accept Jesus Christ as the representative of the victim-sectors, it means that he identifies himself with the victimized women in a patriarchal society. He is not up above as a male lord who dominates women, as a holy one who transcends all the worldly areas, but comes down to women, the victimized, and serves them as a servant. Through his incarnation into the world, the Son of God became the son of man, the son of woman, and he is now with us and in us as a co-sufferer, as a healer, and as an enabler for us, women. He became minjung, he became a woman, and he became a victim under the patriarchal oppression His becoming a victim, his identification of himself with the oppressed, alienated women, overcomes the sexist dualism which has been the main ideology used to prevent women from participating in church leadership together with men. If we could eliminate the patriarchal dualism, we could definitely realize that the maleness of Christ is absolutely meaningless in deciding the woman’s rights to be ordained. That is, gender, especially gender of woman, should not be a base for the decision. Nor should the accidental male gender of the Second Person of the Trinity during the incarnate phase should have a say in this matter.

      The elimination of the patriarchal dualism in Christology brings us a new vision of future church. Instead of the hierarchical structure with a male authority on the top, this new vision will show an image of a circular shape structure. Letty M. Russell names this model of church as “round table”[3] one, symbolizing the equal representation of all the members of church in its order and work

2)  Contextualized Christology

– The image of Christ as the representative of the victim-sectors in an area where all sorts of the victimizer-the victimized relationship exist makes us to contextualize our Christology. For Asian woman theologians, doing theology is participating in the struggle of those exploited and dehumanized people in an unjust society for regaining their human rights and achieving their social justice. Sister Virginia Fabella and Ms. Monica Melanchton began their formulating works on Asian women’s Christology from their own particular social-political-cultural context where they are standing on actually and struggling in concretely.[4] Thus women’s experience of suffering and of praxis of struggling is the starting point for doing women’s theology as well as its most important source.

     Our questions, therefore, in doing feminist Christology can be raised as follows: what is the significance of the Gospel of Jesus Christ for us who are suffering under the power of victimizing women in this society of injustice here today? What is the true meaning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ for women who are struggling to realize the idea of justice in this sexist society? Finally, what sort of Christology will promote women’s liberation from the oppressive structures which have been denying the humanity of women.

      These questions contain some ethical implications and the feminist Christology we are to articulate is a contextual one. It also means that, in this feminist Christology, even the most despised, the poorest women who have been victimized by the patriarchal evils should not be ignored. Rather their experiences should be the locus of the Christ-talk and the underlying theme of it.

       Like other contextual Christologies, such as black liberation Christology and Latin American third world Christology, our feminist Christology is the one “from bellow,” not the one “top to down,” which we often see in the traditional western male-created Christology. Most of the feminist theologians reject the image of the one and only Son of God, the perfectly innocent Christ, because they believe that the universalized image of Christ as the perfect Son of God has played a good role in justification of patriarchal ideology. Rita Nakashima Brock, a Japanese-American feminist theologian, strongly objects to the patriarchal belief that people can be redeemed and healed only through the power of Christ who is the representation of the universal, authoritative, perfect, one time, male-human being.[5] On the contrary, the foundation of our feminist Christology has been found in the image of Jesus who lived in Galilee. Particularly in his life style, his image is brought into relief most concretely. He lived in the particular time and context, having a special relationship with all kinds of alienated people who were representations of the most victimized groups in the society he lived. As a teacher, a friend, a brother, or a lover, and as a healer, a political resistant, a social revolutionist, a liberator, or a prophet, he lived among them and confronted their contextual issues and problems. From a feminist perspective, his teaching and life style show that he had a feminist mind which made him love a woman who was one of the victims of sexist power in that society and made him teach the values of equality and justice in man-woman relationship in such a sexist society.

      A model of Church’s mission also has to be found in the life of Jesus. As it was shown in his movement, his followers were in a great diversity in their classical, racial, sexual, religious-cultural, and political backgrounds. We Christian feminist women in Asia, therefore, are in solidarity with women of various cultural-religious heritages of Asia, in order to participate in God’s Mission of humanization of Asian societies. The feminist struggle against the sexist patriarchal powers should not be excluded from the Church’s mission nor be considered as less crucial and urgent, comparing with other liberation struggles. victimization of Asian women is closely connected not only with sexism but also with classism, racism, militarism and colonialism, because they are all entangled with each other in a very complicated web. Moreover, the new globalization movement which is predominantly under the control of the first world is giving impetus to the victimization of Asian women under the influence of capitalistic commercialism through the global communication system. Unemployment of women, prostitution, rape, sexual abuse, sexual harassment in the work place, sexual violence, battered women, comfort women for the military place, abortion, denial of procreative rights of women, ... these are the issues feminist ecclesiology must treat in its talk, especially in terms of the Church’s Mission in this context.

3)  “Body Of Christ”: A Vision Of The Reconciled Community

– Christology which affirms Jesus Christ as the representative of the victim-sectors in the church gives us a clue for a feminist ecclesiology which intends to overcome the repetitive story of domination and subjugation in the church. When we talk about women’s liberation struggle or commit ourselves to the struggle, it is our common sense that “the struggle” is political in nature. Particularly, when we talk about it in the context of those liberation theologies – for instance Minjung theology and feminist theology – , this political meaning of it is most extremely emphasized. How about the religious meaning of it?

      Feminist women have a vision of the day when their struggle will end with women’s complete emancipation from men’s subjugation, and Minjung have a vision of the day when their liberation struggle will be accomplished with their triumph of overcoming the oppressive powers. What does it mean to say “women’s complete emancipation” and “Minjung’s triumph of overcoming the oppressive powers”? Who is actually able to liberate the oppressors of women? Who dares to liberate the liberated Minjung from becoming oppressive to others? Is there any way to overcome the dynamics (in a negative sense) of political power between men and women?

      In this connection, it is important to reaffirm God as the forgiver. Jesus Christ is the victim-collective; Jesus Christ represents the victimized women by the patriarchal sexist power. Therefore, he suffers as women suffer. Jesus Christ is also the healer, who heals our suffering as well as his own. As Son of Man, he was healed by his own endeavor of blood and tears with God’s help. This is why women have to heal our selves through Christ’s help. In his power of healing, the element of forgiveness is implied Women’s “Han” can not be completely healed unless they open their mind and forgive the ones who caused them to have “Han”. His forgiving act was contained in his healing act, and it helped us to be redeemed by God. The Victim’s “Han” can never be resolved entirely unless the victimizer is forgiven by the victim.

      Nevertheless, it does not mean that we should ignore the seriousness of sins caused by patriarchal power. It does not mean that forgiving is to allow them to continue to sin against God’s will for women’s full liberation from patriarchy. Forgiving is an eschatological act, by which the whole situation have been already transformed, anticipating its fulfillment in the future. Forgiving is to overcome the sinful situations through transcending our narrow self-centered reality. Hyun Young Hack, well-known Minjung theologian, once described this as an attitude of critical transcendence which is deeply originated in a religious commitment. He also emphasized that this forgiveness presupposes a critical discernment on the situation, because one can never transcend (forgive) the situation without knowing it. Therefore, in naming the victimized situation of women, such a critical discernment must include a political one as well as an objective discernment. The critical transcendence also requires a vision which will show the values and give the meanings for an alternative, healed situation where men and women are reconciled. In this sense, the forgiveness is an expression  of the mind of inclusiveness, mind of wholeness, transcending the narrow-mindedness centered on one’s own particular or individualistic interests.

      It was the way Jesus Christ redeemed us through and it is the way we are to participate in his redeeming mission. God will forgive the victimizers who have been forgiven by those victims they had victimized. The mind of forgiveness is the ultimate foundation for desisting the endless emulation of victimizing others. Feminist Christology assumes that Christ is the forgiver as well as the liberator and healer.

      One of the essences of Asian women’s spirituality is this mind of forgiveness. Their spirituality has been formed through their experiences of struggling to survive under such oppressive conditions of sexist world. Their “Han” has been accumulated in their hearts so deeply and so firmly, and their brokenheartedness has been so painful, under patriarchal male-dominating religious-cultural situation in Asia. Surprisingly enough, however, they have survived persistently and have found the way how to resolve their “Han”. Through their long journey of suffering experiences they have found profound meaning of life, not as subjugated objects, but as subjects of their lives. In this sense, Asian women are philosophers.

       In Korea, some women go to the shamans when they have problems to be solved. They ask the shaman to perform an exorcist ritual in order to heal “Han” of the dead ones, because they believe that all of their unhappiness or problems are caused by the soul of the dead one who had a special relationship with them and died without any chance to resolve his or her “Han”. The shaman is the one who resolves the “Han” of the dead. Who is the one who resolve the Han in those living women? It is “I” who has to and can heal the brokenheartedness of me, and it is women who have to and can resolve the Han of women’s hearts.

      There are three ways of resolving “Han” Korean women have encountered in their long suffering experiences. The first is the way of renunciation. It is usually expressed in the most negative and passive attitude of the woman toward the objects which had caused her “Han”. In this case, the woman is desperately precipitated into sense of helplessness and feeling of resignation so that she has no desire nor intention to see the reality and to fight against the oppressors who are the cause of her “Han”, because she tries to resolve the Han by accepting it as a result of her destiny. The second way is to revenge for the “Han”. It is mostly expressed in more negative and aggressive attitude toward the objects. In this ease, the “Han”, as a lump of grudges, is full of suppressed feeling of revenge which can be transformed into an explosive power. So, sometimes it can be very destructive.

      The third one is based on the compassionating Han By transforming the potential energy in the Han into more constructive and creative one instead of destructive one, women’s destructive grudge against the victimizers can be transcended Like “a feeling of anger”,[6] Beverly Harrison describes, it as transformed into power of love, power of justice of the prophetic insight. In this way, women’s “Han” is to be transformed into power which mobilizes women’s struggle against the oppressive powers. With the great mind of compassion, women who have healed their own brokenhearted sufferings in this way also will try to heal the oppressors’ wicked minds.

      Asian women are religious. It should be said rather that Asian women can not help but be religious, because their existential conditions make them so. They are religious existentially. They have a very different way of religious knowing from men, whose way is expressed in more intellectual, rational, academic, abstract, and metaphysical way. On the contrary, women’s religious perceptions and understanding are rather concrete, aesthetic, imaginative, sensitive, and intuitive, which are formed in every day living situations intimately connected with all the other family members’ well being. They do not study Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism or shamanism in any scholarly way, like men do, but their everyday living itself is the embodiment of those religious spiritualities. Their wholistic way of sensing the world, their inclusive way of treating the life must come from their religious spirituality. Who can dare to say that Asian women have no capacities to understand and to embody the great oriental religious values, in their nature, such as the sincerity in Confucianism, the self-emptiness of Buddhism, the wholistic mind of Taoism...?

      As far as Christ is mediator of God the forgiver, he is also reconciler of us in conflict, between men and women as well. This Christological understanding of Asian Women’s spirituality will give us a useful insight for a feminist ecclesiology: a vision of a reconciled community of fully humanized women together with men. This will open a way to see the authentic vision of the early Christian communities founded on the basis of discipleship of equals in the newly established household in Christ.

 

 

A Response to the paper

by Nam-Soon Kang

Teaching at Methodist Theological Seminary, Seoul, Korea.