Feminist theologian calls for ‘re-imagining Christ’
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, November 5, 2001
PASADENA, Calif. – The Covenant Network of Presbyterians opened its 2001 Conference in Pasadena on Nov. 1 by urging an estimated 300 people to make diversity and inclusiveness a reality by ending the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s ban on the ordination of self-affirming, practicing homosexuals.
The turnout was smaller than expected, Network officials said, because several people canceled travel plans after U.S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft warned Americans that more terrorist attacks might occur.
Nonetheless, the turnout was a disappointment in view of the fact that 1,400 Presbyterians with opposing views about ordination attended Gathering VI sponsored by the Presbyterian Coalition in Orlando just three weeks after terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center’s twin towers in New York City.
During the opening day of a three-day conference, the Network presented a lesbian and feminist theologian as the key speaker and introduced PCUSA Moderator Jack B. Rogers, who drew a standing applause.
The major speaker Nov. 1 was Dr. Letty Russell, a retired professor in the Yale Divinity School and a high-profile feminist theologian.
Russell, a leader of the ReImagining God movement that gave rise to the worship of a goddess named Sophia (Greek for wisdom), echoed some of the themes of that movement without using the kind of language that prompted the 1994 General Assembly to declare Sophia worship beyond the boundaries of the Christian faith.
Instead, she used wisdom as a “metaphor” for God and Christ – and she declared that wisdom evolves in different cultural contexts.
As Biblical evidence of that evolution, she said Israel in exile – deprived of the Temple, the priesthood and the monarchy – had to learn a new wisdom to live among people who believed in other gods.
Likewise, Jesus, the wisdom of God, adapts to new cultures today and welcomes all who call on him, she said.
Without the assurance that she was welcome by Christ, Russell said she – as a feminist theologian, a Harvard graduate, a divorcee and now a lesbian – would have never felt welcome herself in a denomiantion that has at one time or another excluded all four.
“I would not stick around except for my deep trust that I am welcome,” she said.
She called for re-imagining Christ in a cultural context. “Re-imagining Christ has the potential for speaking to the hearts and minds of a growing diversity, not only in this country but abroad.”
Christ relates to culture in different ways, she said, including times when “situations change.”
One of the arguments of the Covenant Network in favor of ordaining homosexuals follows that line of thinking: that today’s cultural acceptance of homosexual practice is different from the cultural taboos of Scripture.
“We must change our interpretation (of Scripture) so that it makes sense,” Russell said. “From God’s point of view, it would seem that there is no higher or lower culture.” In taking on human form, Christ also takes on the changes in culture and the “rainbow of diversity,” she added.
The opposite of Christ’s view is the “fundamentalist view that religion is against culture,” she said.
Also during the opening day, the Covenant Network presented a slide show that was prepared by More Light Presbyterians and used at the 2001 General Assembly to persuade commissioners to call for a end to the ban on ordaining homosexuals.
The commissioners approved that measure, which is now before the denomination’s presbyteries. If a majority of the presbyteries vote for Amendment 01-A, the “fidelity/chastity” clause will be removed from the Book of Order and sessions and presbyteries will be allowed to ordain practicing adulters and homosexuals for the first time in the denomination’s history.