by
Abby Noll, Institute of Religion and Democracy
*The church’s traditional theology and practice are garbage*
Dr. Delores Williams declared that the special task of feminist theologians
is to be the church’s “theological garbage collectors,” adding
that”someone’s got to take out the trash”–“trash” referring to the church’s
traditional theology and practice.
Williams and the Reverend Dr. Carter Heyward were keynote speakers, with
Bishop Barbara Harris from the diocese of Massachusetts as the chaplain, at
a four-day conference entitled “A Feminist/Womanist Perspective on Jesus”
sponsored by Kanuga Episcopal Retreat Center. Kanuga, located in the hills
of Hendersonville, N.C., is supported by the several dioceses in North
Carolina and the southeast.
*The Re-Imagining Conference was the best conference ever*
Undermining almost every basic tenet of classical Christian theology, the
speakers presented their unsatisfying alternatives to the Christian story.
Representing various denominations, the 60+ speakers and participants were
largely informed about and sympathetic with the concerns of radical
feminism. Many cheered when Williams referred to the notorious 1993
Re-Imagining Conference as the “best conference ever.”
The conference focused primarily on different “heresies”(term of
self-definition embraced by conferees) related to Jesus. However, Heyward
opened the first morning session with a premise of revisionist theology that
relates to the nature of God. Feminist theology holds an immanent view of
God, rejecting God’s transcendence and sovereignty. Heyward shared her new
discoveries about the “mutuality” of God with us.
*We’re put here to help increase God*
There is “a love that is beyond God that God is even yearning for. This
yearning is a yearning for mutuality. God is in the depths of the
yearning-God is the yearning. This yearning led to Christ.” She continued,
“The Christian Right is trying to fill that hole that can’t be filled…the
only way to live fully is to embody God’s own yearning.” According to this
process theology that says, “God is growing,” we are “put here to help
increase God.” The Christian life is “not about obeying the Spirit from
above, but living in God.”
Feminist theologians pride themselves on the inclusive nature of their
theology. Promoting an exclusively immanent view of God and upholding a
universal call to “justice-love,” Heyward expressed that the “kingdom of God
is a very spacious place, no one is too different.” Further, she claimed
that “admission is entirely in the hands of the one entering.” She qualified
this later when she said, “We all come to God through Christ, though very
few of us call him Christ. If we love others, we are living Christic lives.”
*The exclusive claims of Christ are imperialistic*
Williams rejects the “imperialism” that is associated with “exclusive
claims” of Christ. When a participant asked her view of salvation, Williams
said, “I’m going to leave salvation alone.” She would permit individuals to
say “Jesus is best for me” but any claim beyond such personal relativism
constituted classic imperialism, she said.
Heyward and Williams then continued to flesh out their revisionist agenda on
the theology of the incarnation and the atonement. The traditional
understanding of the incarnation and atonement are troubling to the
feminists because these doctrines imply that human beings are sinful beyond
self-restoration.
When Williams was asked, “How would you define evil?” her answer, “my first
boyfriend,” brought gales of laughter. However she went on to say that evil
“is the use of power to deny, deplete, and destroy the resources of
another.” Feminist theology embraces the evil of corporate sins and
injustice, but tends to reject the notion of personal sin that requires
God’s forgiveness. Heyward admitted that while “salvation, liberation, and
redemption” were relatively interchangeable, she preferred “liberation”
because “redemption is problematic, all tied up with a sacrificial history.”
*Myriad types of human sexuality defended*
Heyward, quick to defend myriad types of human sexuality, reinterprets the
meaning of Christ’s “incarnation” as a sign of God’s approval of all that is
sensual and physical. Heyward, in an offhand comment, poked fun at the
orthodox understanding of Christ’s virgin birth, “as if Mary couldn’t have
gotten pregnant by a man….” She further dismissed the mysterious paradox
of Christ’s nature as man and God, to a “dualistic reality” that
“presupposes that Christ is very other than us.” This, she claims, is
unacceptable because it leaves “humans powerless.”
*The atonement is “Bull****”*
Feminist theologians especially deplore the atonement. In the most graphic
instance, Heyward referred to a recent sermon she had heard on the atonement
as “Bull****.” Heyward admitted that as a priest, “the rubber hits the road”
with the liturgy. She deletes “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us”
when celebrating the Eucharist. Instead she teaches that we are the “living
sacraments” of atonement when we show “compassion and non-violence.”
Forgiveness does not come through “blood sacrifices” but through compassion
and solidarity.
Likewise, Delores Williams said she cannot “condone violence” and
consequently rejects the “sacred” and “surrogate” violence of the atonement.
An African-American, Williams considers herself a “womanist,” a term coined
by Alice Walker who said, “Womanism is to feminism what purple is to
violet.” The African-American heritage, steeped in Gospel hymns and the
blood of Jesus, offers a stubborn resistance to Williams’ rejection of the
atonement. She admitted that Martin Luther King, Jr. would “die all over
again if he heard me.” In another anecdote, she shared about a rural black
woman who admonished her, “Don’t mess with my Jesus.” Williams earnestly
asked, “How do we stay in relationship with those who still find meaning in
the blood?”
*You can be a heretic, too*
After Delores Williams’ exhortation to be “God-inspired heretics on behalf
of the marginalized,” the speakers and attendees joined in a song written by
the conference coordinator, Rosemary Crow. Sung in the spirit of humor and
good feminist solidarity, almost everyone joined the chorus “You Can Be a
Heretic, Too.”
____________________
* A transcript of an interview that Abby Noll conducted with Carter Heyward
is available upon request from the IRD, 1110 Vermont Avenue, NW, Suite 1180,
Washington, DC 20005
1. VOW elected to reprint this article because Delores Williams is listed as
a speaker on theology at the Millennium Re-Imagining Gathering in October of
2000. She was also a Bible study leader at the Women’s Ministry Program
Area’s “Conference on Economic Justice” that took place in March of 2000.
In June, the General Assembly approved a Commissioners’ Resolution that
allows staff (with a supervisor’s approval) to participate in the
Re-Imagining conference using church funds that have been budgeted for
professional development.