Feminist Mysticism and Images of God

S. Knight Dr. Jennie

Description

Feminist theologians often claim that "women's experience" is their starting point. However, most feminist theology is remarkably void of analysis of particular women's experiences of imaging God. In this book, Knight provides practical recommendations to help people transform images in the context of religious practices. What difference does it make whether we picture God as an elderly white grandfather, a nurturing African American mother, or a stranger on the bus? Jennie Knight says our image of God affects how we see ourselves, how we worship, how we treat one another, how (or whether) we work for justice, and a host of other life practices. But after years of knowing intellectually that God transcends a specific human type, Knight still struggles to make an emotional connection with God in different forms. She suspects that that struggle is why many seminarians who wrote papers about thea/theology abandon nontraditional God images once they hit parish ministry, perpetuating the practice of seeing God as a European male on a throne and all the accompanying problems that such imagery creates. Knight believes that personal and critical reflection in the context of a supportive learning community, combined with experiences of diverse images for the divine in worship, can lead to profound changes in self-image, relationship with the divine, and agency in the world. This book aims to demonstrate why and how this transformation is both possible and necessary. The popularity of The Shack, The Secret Life of Bees, Joan of Arcadia, and other works with nontraditional God-figures reveals a culture ready to embrace God in many forms. Knight examines how the church can do the same.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Christian theology
• Theology
• Christianity

Informations

• Publié par: Chalice Press
• Date de parution: 28 février 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780827210523
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

Feminist Mysticism and IMAGES of GOD

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Feminist Mysticism and IMAGES of GOD

A PRACTICAL THEOLOGY

JENNIE S. KNIGHT

Copyright ©2011 by Jennie S. Knight

All rights reserved. For permission to reuse content, please contact Copyright Clearance Center, www.copyright.com, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone].

Bible quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from theNewRevisedStandard VersionBible,copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

The opinions expressed in this work are those of the authors, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the editors, the publisher, Chalice Press, Christian Board of Publication, or any associated persons or entities.

Cover image: iStockPhoto Cover and interior design: Elizabeth Wright

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Visit Chalice Press on the World Wide Web at www.chalicepress.com

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EPUB: 9780827210516  EPDF: 9780827210523 Paperback: 9780827210509

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Library of Congress Cataloging–in–Publication Data

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Knight, Jennie S. Feminist mysticism and images of God : a practical theology / by Jennie S. Knight. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 978-0-8272-1050-9 1. Feminist theology. 2. Feminist spirituality. 3. Christian women— Religious life—Georgia—Atlanta. I. Mary and Martha’s Place. II. Title. BT83.55.K66 2011 231—dc22 2011005124

Printed in the United States of America

Acknowledgments

Contents

Introduction  1. Psychology and Imaging the Divine  2. First Story: Theresa  3. Christian Feminist Spirituality  4. Second Story: Julie  5. Inclusive Language Is Not Enough: Imagining the Divine, Religious Experience, and Thea/ology  6. Third Story: Rosalyn  7. Exploring the “Sacred Imaginary”: The Black Madonna and Her Representations  8. Fourth Story: Marie  9. Practices for Transformation Notes Index

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for Sela, joy of my heart

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Acknowledgments

This book could not have been written without the guidance, support, and inspiration of many along the way. I am grateful for the myriad ways that my work has been shaped and informed by those who have mentored me at Emory University both during my doctoral work and then as my senior colleagues at the Candler School of Theology. I particularly want to thank Mary Elizabeth Moore, Brian Mahan, Kimberly WallaceSanders, Bobbi Patterson, Joyce Flueckiger, Rodney Hunter, Thee Smith, James Fowler, Elizabeth Bounds, Gail O’Day, Mark Jordan, Ted Brelsford, and Carol Lakey Hess for guiding me to important insights, questions, sources, and clarifications during the process of forming this work. Mary Elizabeth Moore has shaped me as a scholar, teacher, and minister since the begin ning of my seminary days at the Claremont School of Theology more than fifteen years ago. Her influence can be seen throughout these pages and continues to push me in all of my work. I am grateful to the women of Mary and Martha’s Place for sharing their lives with me and for allowing me to share their wisdom with oth ers through this work. Thank you to the women of the Christian feminist spirituality movement whom I have not yet met and to those who have gone before. This book aims to represent a piece of the wisdom that you have discovered through years of struggle and laughter. May it be a source of affirmation and a resource for continuing the journey. I am grateful to the many feminist, womanist, andmujeristascholars who have influenced my work and life and the lives of countless others. Many are quoted and some are challenged in the pages that follow. However, without your immense contributions, this work would not be possible. I am also grateful to the wise women of the Divine Feminine Sunday School Class and the Mothers of Young Ones Sunday School Class at Oakhurst Baptist Church in Decatur, Georgia. Amy Benson Browne of the Author Development Program at Emory University and Pablo JimÉnez at Chalice Press provided invaluable edito rial guidance for this project. Thank you. Students in my classes at the Candler School of Theology have taught me more than they could ever know. Thank you, especially to the students in my “Images of God” classes in 2009 and 2010, for wrestling through these ideas with me and with each other. I am particularly grateful for the diligence, insight, and kindness of Kyndra Frazier and Jenna Strizak, who worked as research assistants with me while editing the manuscript.

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I am overjoyed to have a group of women friends who can laugh with me about absolutely anything. Meryl Franco, Stacy Mattingly, Ilise Cohen, Cyndi Cass, Andrea White, Maggie Banda Compton, and Renee Harrison: you keep me sane and inspire me with your kindness, courage, grace, and wisdom every day. Thank you to Marjorie Blum and Kimberly Bonde, my wise mother teachers, for helping me find my way home. To my parents, Jane Hall Harmon Knight and William Donald Knight, Jr.: I am so grateful for your unfailing love and support in all the seasons of my life. And finally, thank you to my family, Rouslan Elistratov and Sela Rouslanovna Knight. You keep me dancing and surround me with grace. Love.

Introduction

As a feminist theologian, I had read a great deal of writings about God as mother, and I was committed to speaking this way on principle. It had not been clear to me, however, why such language had not helped my prayer, but rather, had filled me with a sense of grief and loss. Now I understood the reason for my grief. To know myself as a woman in the image of God, to know God as Mother, and to know my own mother as a window into God: these three are inseparable. If one is implausible, to the heart, the other two are, as well. —R OBERTA C. B ONDI ,M EMORIESOF G OD : 1 T HEOLOGICAL R EFLECTIONSOFA L IFE

In the late 1990s, Patricia Lynn Reilly danced across the floor before a packed audience, telling the story of creation by a Mother Goddess. After ward, she shared the story of her journey of spiritual awakening as she had embraced feminine imagery for the divine. When the applause subsided, a Christian feminist theology professor turned to me and said, “Didn’t we do this already?” We had not. If we had “done it already,” we would not have seminary students graduating every year who have knowledge of feminist thea/ologies that emphasize the importance of female terms for the divine yet who submit, within months of beginning their ministries, to the pressure 2 from their congregations to maintain exclusively male language for God. Clearly, the discussion of the importance of reimaging the divine has not reached seminary students with the depth, force, nuance, and complexity necessary to motivate them to raise the issue with their congregations and to assist them in the difficult process of examining and playing with images for the divine. Passion for images of the divine as feminine has grown dramatically in recent years. This is evidenced by the increasing number of references to the divine feminine in popular fiction, music, and films, as well as by the significant growth of feminist spirituality movements, both Christian and neopagan. However, in the context of religious practices in Christian churches, little has changed. Feminist theologians have argued for decades about the importance of genderinclusive and/or femalegendered language for God. However, few seminarytrained pastors translate this commitment into action when they serve local churches. Little has changed in the context of worship, even in seemingly progressive churches and denominations. Why do pastors

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