An essay examining gender issues in preaching

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This piece originally served as an addendum to my text on the Theology of Preaching, also to be found here on AuthorsDen. See important postscript information following the essay, too.


Women in the Pulpit

‘The women’s liberation movement is a spiritual movement because it aims at the humanisation of women and therefore of the species.’ – Mary Daly

Male preachers cannot embody or directly experience being a woman in the pulpit. They can often relate on many levels to the pressures and exclusions felt; however, being a male they can often set that aside in ways that women and people of colour cannot. Church practices, as societal practices, continue to waiver between acceptance, tolerance, and resistance, varying between denominations, socio-economic classes, geographic regions, and a host of other factors. However, all have much in common.

If theologies or church practices denigrate the full and sacred humanity of women, then this will impoverish and falsify how we name and address God. It is easy to see God-language as the only obstacle, but we must admit to the ways in which each of us falls away from the risen Christ in whom there is neither male nor female. (LaCugna, p. 107)

Until a recognition of the common humanity of all persons is able to be acknowledged and celebrated, there will be difficulties and issues around women and minorities of all sorts in the pulpit.

Through the feminist and womanist movements, attention has been drawn to people and issues long ignored by the mainstream church, catholic and protestant. This has been true in scholarly pursuits as well as actual church practices such as preaching.

Homiletics literature and the actual preaching content of many men and women reflect little substantial critique of the Christian tradition. Traditional modes of biblical interpretation and theological reflection are still affirmed as normative and inclusive of all human experience and faith. By contrast, Christian feminists engaged in the craft and task of preaching bring a prophetic quality to their proclamation at several levels. (Smith, WS, p. 64)

Through striving for a voice, in academic circles, in society, and particularly in the pulpit, women regain the right to add their perspective and voice their concerns. One can look to the biblical text itself to see that there is a call for an empowering of voice to women (among others). ‘We found in the biblical texts a model for ongoing interpretation that demands that the contextualised voice speak to its world. We found a hermeneutic that makes our own engagement with the text – because it is ours – important and necessary.’ (Turner & Hudson, p. 2) The example of Elizabeth and Zechariah at the beginning of Luke-Acts, and Elizabeth’s interactions with Mary, are given as instances of women’s voices being empowered over those of men. If, as Turner and Hudson state, ‘The purpose of religious life is to assist and sustain the conversation between God and humanity,’ then the silencing of anyone on a categorical basis leads to a brokenness. (Turner & Hudson, p. 50) Each of us can relate to the feelings of women in being silenced, although the correlation is sometimes, given our individual circumstances, an imperfect one – for instance, being a male (white male, besides) affords me other opportunities for voice for which I do not have to fight; however, there are circumstances in which I am silenced by design or by neglect. As we explore the silencing of any individual or group, it gives us opportunity to reflect upon ways in our own lives in which we have been silenced.

Like so many things in the church, preaching can be destructive rather than constructive or empowering. Particularly when blanket exclusions are made for access to the pulpit, the role of the church becomes harmful.

Although preaching has certainly been used in an authoritative and alienating manner, it need not be either. It is a task that women need to claim in its emancipatory capacity. The authoritative, representative speaking involved in preaching is an act that can move us from silence into having a voice as women, both in the church and in the world. (Proctor-Smith, p. 129)

Proctor-Smith draws on the work of the scholars in Women’s Ways of Knowing to discuss the importance and distinction between ‘mainstream’ and ‘objective’ points of view and those of women, particularly at the present. Women have unique ways of understanding the world, and this can add much to the comprehension and empowerment of all those who will listen to sermons by women. Women are, for the most part, more connected, they argue. ‘Connected teachers are believers. They trust their students’ thinking and encourage them to expand it. But in the psychological literature concerning the factors promoting cognitive development, doubt has played a more prominent role than belief.’ (Belenky, et al., p. 227; see also Proctor-Smith, p. 128ff) What is true for connected teachers is also true for connected preachers.

However, it is a mistake to think that there is unanimity of approach and concern among women, much less with minorities, in church practice and theological understanding. Christine Smith remarks on this, referencing the volume of sermons by Ella Pearson Mitchell that figured in our course through the semester. ‘In the majority of the sermons in that volume, very different Christological assumptions abound than one would presently find in many white Protestant women’s sermons, particularly those women influenced by feminist theology.’ (Smith, WS, p. 90) Women must be careful not to fall into the same traps as their male counterparts.

A feminist exegetical “hermeneutic of liberation” within the German-speaking context will have to be attentive to the specific location of feminist exegesis in three of the world’s richest countries. Because of such privilege, it will also need to make every effort to listen and to make known the voices of women from the context of the so-called Two-Thirds World. (Wacker, pp. 46-47)

It is true not only of theologians and preachers outside of Western culture, but also those of colour within the context of Western society.

African-American women such as Sojourner Truth, Amanda Berry Smith, Jarena Lee, Julia Foote, Maria Stewart, or the Quaker Elizabeth (of whom we know only her baptismal name) derived their authority for biblical interpretation and preaching first of all from a mystical experience in which they encountered G-d or Jesus directly. It was this confidence in the privileged nature of their relationship with the Divine that compelled African-American women to transcend the limits imposed upon them by the patriarchal gender-race system. (Schussler-Fiorenze, pp. 153-154)

The gifts of these women derive in large part from their being outside the ‘objective mainstream’, and the authority they claim is that of any creature of God, any fellow human-being with the right to be in relationship with God, which is often denied as is their basic humanity.

Often, women have had to deny or suppress their gender/sexual identity to be accepted and respected in patriarchal society. This is not true simply of Christian societies, but is a more general tendency in world cultures past and present. ‘Ascetic and monastic women from the Therapeutics to Thecla to the desert mothers found it necessary to repudiate the body and its female associations, becoming male both in theory and in aspects of appearance in order to achieve self-determination.’ (Kraemer, p. 208) Those women who become good at mimicking the structures and attitudes of the patriarchy sometimes succeed, but only within the framework of the patriarchy, and often with severe limitations. This is the power that would make the society of the United Kingdom accept a female monarch and a female prime minister, who have authority to appoint leaders of the Church of England, but refuse them the right to appoint female bishops in positions of leadership for that church. When women refuse to be bound by these rules and structures, they are often vilified, much as Jesus was by his opponents. The example of Ann Lee serves this point well:

And this same testimony equally assures me that Ann Lee, that despised female, who is equally accused by rebellious sinners, and modern scribes and Pharisees, of intoxication and lewdness, was anointed of God as the second heir in the all important work of redemption, as all can bear witness who, from the heart, have obeyed her heavenly precepts, and followed her Christ-like example. (Lee, p. 275)

Women must continue to challenge the patriarchy and strive for equality, even in the face of such recriminations.

One final caution: as with many theologies, feminist and womanist theologies run the substantial risk of being purely or primarily academic exercises, with little impact outside seminary and university walls. Jacqueline Grant, in a lecture at Christian Theological Seminary in 1999, said that try as she and other womanist theologians might, it was still true that Billy Graham had more access to her community than they had, and that would not likely change soon. Other theologians have noted this danger. ‘I conclude that until the shift from women’s experience to women’s faith practices in discursive totalities is accomplished, feminist theology presents its own ruminations as a form of realist representation, not necessarily emancipatory discourse.’ (Kraemer, p. 200) A common complaint in introductory theology classes is that the differing perspectives explored are distracting from ‘the real issues’ of theology. Some scholars also speculate on the removal of such considerations. ‘When gender is denied as a meaningful distinction, we may suggest that by virtue of the similarity of their social location, women and men will tend toward more similar perceptions of the cosmos and to shared rituals in which gender distinctions figure little or not at all.’ However, I propose that this is not the best way to approach the issue. Instead of ignoring or rendering meaningless these differences, they should be explored, celebrated, honoured, and utilised for enlightenment and empowerment of all people. This should be the final goal: when any person—regardless of gender, race, disability, sexuality, or any such meaningful yet secondary distinction—any person can enter the pulpit and be seen first as a human being, created in the image of God.


Bibliography

Belenky, Mary Field, Blythe McVicker Clinchy, Nancy Rule Goldberger, and Jill Mattuck Tarule. Women’s Ways of Knowing: The Development of Self, Voice, and Mind. New York: Basic Books, 1986.

Daly, Mary. ‘The Spiritual Revolution: Women’s Liberation as Theological Re-education’, in Feminist Theological Ethics: A Reader, edited by Lois K. Daly. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1994.

Fulkerson, Mary McClintock. ‘Feminist Theology’, in Theology After Liberalism: A Reader, edited by John Webster and George P. Schner. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2000.

Kraemer, Ross Shepard. Her Share of the Blessings: Women’s Religions Among Pagans, Jews and Christians in the Greco-Roman World. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.

LaCugna, Catherine Mowry. ‘God in Communion with Us’, in Freeing Theology: The Essentials of Theology in Feminist Perspective, edited by Catherine Mowry LaCugna. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1993.

Lee, Ann. ‘Testimonies’, in In Her Words: Women’s Writings in the History of Christian Thought, edited by Amy Oden. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994.

Proctor-Smith, Marjorie. In Her Own Rite: Constructing Feminist Liturgical Tradition. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990.

Reiger, Joerg. God and the Excluded: Visions and Blindspots in Contemporary Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001.

Schussler-Fiorenza, Elisabeth. But She Said: Feminist Practices of Biblical Interpretation. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992.

Smith, Christine M. Preaching as Weeping, Confession, and Resistance: Radical Responses to Radical Evil. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1992.

Smith, Christine M. Weaving the Sermon: Preaching in a Feminist Perspective. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1989.

Turner, Mary Donovan and Mary Lin Hudson. Saved from Silence: Finding Women’s Voice in Preaching. St. Louis: Chalice Press, 1999.

Wacker, Marie Theres. ‘Feminist Exegetical Hermeneutics’, in Feminist Interpretation: The Bible in Women’s Perspective, by Luise Schottroff, Silvia Schroer, and Marie Theres Wacker. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998.


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This was written in honour of and as part of a series entitled 'Support Our Breasts', conceived by dedicated women at EpinionAddicts. Each year, 182,000 women and men are diagnosed with breast cancer. Of these, 40,000 women and 240 men die from it. The ten super women of Team EA decided to make a difference, and raised thousands of dollars as part of the Avon Breast Cancer Crusade to fund research and provide early detection and awareness to medically underserved women. The event was planned to take place walking from Bear Mountain State Park to Manhattan, New York, October 11-13, but was called off due to bad weather part way into the event. Watch for it again next year!