Agent or Icon: Scriptural Images and the Anthropology of Women

by Marie-Eloise Rosenblatt, R.S.M.

from Where can we find her?
searching for women’s identity in the new church
edited by Marie-Eloise Rosenblatt , pp. 37-54

Published by Paulist Press, 1991.
Republished on our website with the necessary permissions

The task of articulating a viable theological anthropology of women challenges those who grapple with the issue of ecclesial sexism. Official documents, whether episcopal(1) or papal,(2) may be one avenue for challenging a sexist interpretation of scripture. Official spokespersons in the church certainly reflect a broad social movement when they counter an androcentric perspective, whether in Genesis or in the gospels. Many ecclesial voices are now challenging the theological reinforcement of women’s inferior ecclesial status and traditions which have “been used to justify women’s subordinate social status and subjugation to men.”(3) The meditation of John Paul II, for example, was scripturally grounded in his rereading of Genesis I-3.(4) The U.S. bishops, on the other hand, cited the creation account in Genesis, but located their primary scriptural base within the example of Jesus toward women and a Pauline theology of baptism.(5)

A hermeneutical difficulty, not merely an argument over which texts to cite, is apparent in any attempt to propose a scriptural keynote. As Winquist suggests, “In engaging in any serious work, part of the function of an interlocutor is to think what is unthought in the given text.”(6) The two very different scriptural bases in these documents suggest how abidingly problematic is the interlocutor’s search for a theological starting place, itself the proclamation of a controlling hermeneutic, to rethink an anthropology which will redescribe women’s nature, vocation and mission.

It is probably most fair to commend recent ecclesial efforts at a scriptural reformulation. Evident to even cursory readers are efforts to retrieve and reclaim for the church’s consciousness those passages in which women appear in dialogue with Jesus, or receive mention as sharers of the apostolic mission after the resurrection of Jesus. At the most fundamental level, acknowledgement has been made directly or indirectly that women have suffered theological burdens because of the way the scriptures have been interpreted. Resistance to and revision of this centuries-old tendency is to be commended wherever that occurs.

However, certain issues, crucial for rethinking the anthropology of women, make claim on a theological reflection which must courageously continue beyond the level of articulation in past ecclesial documents. In reference to the use of scripture, I would invite serious reflection on the following four themes.

1. A tendency in ecclesial documents to choose scriptural images which reinforce woman’s spiritual passivity, or her “iconic” posture and receptivity rather than her agency in the external world. As Ulanov warns, “The symbols of the feminine as meek, mild, and gentle, when severed from their obvious opposite signs, those that are excited, heroic, or forceful, undergo such distortion that the feminine comes to be equated with only one extreme.”(7)

2. A problematic with the creation-fall narrative, the example of Jesus toward women and Pauline theology as starting places for rethinking the nature and destiny of women.

3. An over-arching analogical hermeneutic which creates a symbolic triad of Eve-Mary-bride as a framework within which to consider the theological identity of woman. These traditional metaphoric pillars bypass the historical record of women in scripture. Does an analogical hermeneutic, or a-historical mode of appropriating the tradition about women in scripture, assist the construction of a more viable anthropology of women?

4. Woman’s fundamental nature, vocation and mission in the church described as spiritual extensions of her social and biological role as mother. Is it an accurate reclaiming of the gospel message that woman’s identity as spouse and changeless role as mother be the lens through which to reread the scriptures and reclaim her dignity as person and disciple of Jesus?

Passive Presentation of Women and Implications for Mariology

The first concern may be categorized as the passive representation of women. Women are distinguished from men because women are the receivers of life, the receivers of love, the ones acted upon, the bearers of children, the ones to whom the generation and preservation of life is entrusted in a special way. Women are the ones who are wooed by men, who say yes to someone else’s initiative. Like Mary, they are obedient to God’s movement in their lives. Physical and sexual characteristics, focusing on the openness and receptivity of the reproductive organs, are metaphorical expressions of women’s emotional nature and unique spiritual giftedness. Their nature is to be receivers, to receive from men, to signify all humanity’s dependence on God, who is the giver of life to both men and women.

The principal problem with this representation of women’s passivity and receptivity is that it doesn’t acknowledge the capacity of women to be initiators in the same way men are, to be subjects of their own lives, or authors of their own destiny. It does not acknowledge the many contributions they make to church and society by work unrelated to child-bearing.

Idealization of women’s traditional domestic setting, and non-questioning acceptance of woman’s “receptive nature,” can narrow the scope of theological reflection on her spiritual destiny. When women’s roles in the New Testament are rehearsed in ecclesial documents as receivers of the forgiveness or healing action of Jesus, as those welcomed into his presence, or as those listed among those who assist the male disciples to carry on the mission, their passivity is inevitably reinforced.(8) Initiative and agency belong to Jesus, to the Holy Spirit, or to the male disciples. Women remain those who gratefully respond to Jesus, after receiving his forgiveness or healing, or “are included” in the ministry.

Citation of the compassion of Jesus toward women as an example for men can reinforce this passive portrayal of women. In the story of the adulterous woman ( Jn 8:2-11) Jesus sets the example for all men.(9) As he respected the person of the arrested woman, so men are to imitate his reverence and behavior. The story can validly be used to call men to Christ-like moral fairness, gentleness and regard for women’s dignity.

However, the object lesson is still a sinful woman, trapped in a patriarchal culture which endorses a moral double-standard, a woman alone, victimized and nameless. She is remembered because of the nature of her sin, her reception of forgiveness, and the fact that her life was spared because of a man’s intervention as she stood there, in Ulanov’s phrase about the passive portrayal of women, “weak and trembling like a frightened rabbit.”(10) The example has as many problems as it has possibilities. Moltmann-Wendell reminds women that “the basic presupposition of feminist theology is not the existence of the individual as a sinner. Pragmatically its concern is to counter contemporary pressures which get in the way of true humanity.”(11)

Particularly in relation to Mary, the construction of a convincing and liberating portrait is needed, one which will resonate with the real-life issues of women and challenge conventional assumptions about women’s predominantly passive nature. Once Mary’s role at the annunciation as model of a spirituality of receptivity has been affirmed, can a theology of women’s discipleship be constructed without translating women’s mission in church and society as some kind of responsive and faithful motherhood, whether physical or spiritual? Carr calls attention to the historical data of the gospels:

What little can be known of the historical Mary shows her to be a very human figure. Mary, like the rest of Jesus’ family, was probably not originally a follower of Jesus but, by the end of her life, came to have faith and to become a member of the believing community. (12)

Besides a search for more active mariological language and imagery, one approach here might involve an historical recontextualization of the portrait of Mary within the larger New Testament narrative. It would involve a reading of the New Testament record about individual women with more attention to the memorable examples of their active faith as expressive of the truth of the meaning of church. Mary remains as icon, model and personification of the church. Her willingness and responsiveness before God, expressed at the annunciation, can be read as reembodied, recreated and revisioned in the continuing account of faith-moments in the lives of many other individual women in the New Testament. The abundance of their active expressions of faith enlarge the meaning of Mary’s and all women’s discipleship.

In other words, Mary’s faithful response at the annunciation does not exhaust or completely encode all other expressions of women’s faith in relation to Jesus, the various expressions their following of Jesus takes, or the particular character of women’s apostolic mission. Mary’s role is primal in that she launches a process of re-creation, which the synoptic and johannine narratives illustrate through encounters with Jesus initiated by many other women who come after Mary in the gospel narratives. Such an explicit “resocialization” of Mary might move toward the ideal Carr expresses:

Mary as virgin and mother need not be understood as an impossible double bind, an inimitable ideal, but as a central Christian symbol that signifies autonomy and relationship, strength and tenderness, struggle and victory, God’s power and human agency – not in competition, but in cooperation.(13)

Mary’s Magnificat is also primal in that her prayer incarnates the celebratory voice of Israel’s women who preceded her in courage, fidelity, fruitfulness and thanksgiving. She stands in a line of presider-women, not only with Hannah, but with Deborah, Judith and Esther who all became “canonized” as official proclaimers of the public prayer of the believing community.

Creation-Fall Narrative and Pauline Theology

Articulation of a viable theological anthropology of women involves a search for a scriptural starting place. It is evident that a rereading of Genesis 1-3 can be attempted, one sympathetic to women’s and men’s shared dignity and fullness of personhood. Individual texts in the creation-fall narrative can be cited as reinforcement of this conviction, such as, “Male and female they were created” (Gen 1:28).

Such an alternative reading of the creation-fall narrative, however, encounters the weight of centuries of interpretation of the same texts from the opposite perspective. As evidenced even in the first generations of the church, ecclesial consciousness has been shaped by an androcentric reading of Genesis 1-3 which reinforces the lesser nature of women and the superior nature of men, the greater culpability of women for sin and therefore the greater weakness of their sex (1 Tim 2:13-15). Rereadings of the Yahwist and Priestly recasting of the creation-fall mythology might be judged in light of Tracy’s criterion for calling a theory critical: explicit rendering through cognitive reflection to “throw light on systemic distortions, whether individual or social, and through that illumination allow some emancipatory action.”(14)

One can shift attention to Pauline theology in the New Testament as an alternative starting place, rooted in the preaching of the church which preceded the writing of the gospels. It is true that Paul’s thought in his authentic letters can be read in significant contexts as an affirmation of women’s equality with men and as a legitimation of their dignity and gifts. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28). Women and men have received gifts which come from the same Spirit for the same purpose of serving the common good (1 Cor 12:4-7; 14:26-33).

However, many adult believers either don’t know Paul’s writings very well, or regard Paul as someone who is no champion of women. Exegesis of Paul’s thought requires theological skill. Some study is needed to identify Paul’s own theology, as distinct from the theology of the pastoral epistles attributed to him but written by others, for example, “I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent” (1 Tim 2:12). Paul’s own ideas about women are not systematically presented in his seven authentic letters. In responding to a diversity of pastoral situations, he sometimes seems to contradict what he said in Galatians 3:28. It seems some “pre-catechesis” for interpreting Paul needs to be undertaken before Pauline theology can provide a universal and viable scriptural starting place for redescribing the nature, mission and vocation of women.

Another consideration is that first century theological assertion of baptismal equality in Christ did not mandate a rethinking of social anthropology which distinguished slaves from masters. Paul can, for example, ask a slave-owner Philemon to take back his runaway slave Onesimus and receive the slave as a brother because Paul has baptized the slave (Phlm 16-17).The slaveowner and the slave share a common spiritual giftedness. As XXXX has indicated, Paul’s use of familial language does suggest new application for the phrase “in Christ,” and the familial metaphors provide a model for new ways of relating in the Christian community.(15)

The emphasis on “brother” in such a case reinforces Paul’s pastoral plea that the slave’s return be met with forgiveness and welcome instead of punishment. However, Paul never says that it is now time for Philemon to rethink Onesimus’ status as a slave and grant him emancipation from slavery when the slave returns home. In discussing the matter of servants and slaves, Osiek succinctly observes, “It often comes as a surprise to modern readers that the New Testament writers never seem to have questioned the institution of slavery . . . .”(16) The slave continues to be slave and the master the master, even though both are baptized in Christ. By application, there seems no guaranteed mandate in the first century Pauline theology of baptism for questioning women’s inferior social status in the church just because they are baptized in the same way men are.

The Non-Historical Character of the Eve-Mary-Bride Triad

A third problem in the quest for an anthropology which will redescribe women’s nature has to do with the theological method traditionally used to appropriate scripture about “universal woman.” Women’s religious nature, destiny and vocation are commonly interpreted within a threefold framework of scriptural metaphors for the meaning of woman: Eve, mother of the living according to the flesh (Gen 3:20); Mary, mother of faith and spiritual life in Christ (Lk 1:35; Jn 19:26-27); ecclesial bride, personification of the redeemed church, coming down from heaven beautiful and spotless, to greet her spouse who is Christ (Eph 5:21-32; Rev 21:2).(17)

Analogies limited to the spousal and maternal roles of women, as definitive of their special being and nature, contribute to the theological domestication of women. Women in such a metaphorical structure belong fundamentally to a world in which men choose them, wed them, and father their children. An analogical trinary comprised by Eve, Mary, and the ecclesial bride reinforces an innately spousal or maternal understanding of women’s identity and vocation. Such metaphors of bridehood and eternal motherhood may not be women’s choice of names for their own nature, their experience of their giftedness as persons, their accomplishments as agents of action on behalf of others, their ideal relationship with men, or their exercise of apostolic roles in the church.

Do these three symbols exhaust what being a woman means to women? As Conn has suggested, women’s religious experience must be expressed in women’s own words and ideally capture something of their “struggle for self-affirmation, self-definition, and autonomous self-donation” as “intrinsic to their conversion and progress in holiness.(18)

It is well to consider some major consequences of confining theological reflection about women to three metaphors. First, the trinary bypasses the historical record of many women between Eve and Mary, and between Mary and the bride, whether of Ephesians or of Revelation. What sacrifice of the scriptural record is made when no one between Eve and Mary can serve as a viable and compelling symbol of woman’s nature, identity and vocation? The problem is compounded by the fact that Eve and the bride are mythical symbols, not historical persons. Conn notes that “because so many notable women are missing from traditional history, especially from religious history, this continues to be a long-term undertaking.”(19)

Many of the women protagonists in scripture, such as Ruth, Deborah (Jgs 4:4-5:31), Abigail (1 Sam 25:2-44), the prophetess Hulda (2 Kgs 22:14-20), Judith and Esther, are remembered because of some historical or historicized action. Views may be divided on the question of whether these women personify viable and recoverable ideals for Christian women, or whether, as Ochs maintains, they simply are heroines who “either function in traditionally masculine modes, as Deborah (a judge) and Judith (who decapitates an enemy general), or fulfill a male ideal of femininity, as does Esther (beauty). ”(20) ^{A hermeneutic such as Swidler’s, which emphasizes the importance of women in the New Testament, in preference to those in Hebrew scripture, may give briefer and quite ambivalent treatment to such heroines as Judith, Esther and Ruth.(21)}

However, on the side of history, such women assume a narrative reality unlike that of Eve or the prototypical bride. They have specific, individualized personalities, and they are celebrated because of their initiative, their daring, their autonomous and inspired action. Something stood out in their character and decisions that bespoke personal freedom and care for their community. Critical moments at which these women acted proved empowering to both men and women who remembered them.

A second consequence of relying exclusively on the analogical triad of Eve-Mary-bride is the matter of age-bias implied by the symbols. Women in their twenties or thirties might expect to be brides and mothers. By the time mothers reach their forties or fifties, most of their children do not need the mothering they once required. It may be a matter of sociological research to determine what percentage of women in this latter age-group dream of personal fulfillment by becoming brides again. However needed the affirmation of women’s dignity and worth as mothers, another perspective is needed to integrate the labor of childbearing and work of motherhood within the evolving spiral of a woman’s lifetime.

The symbolic triad, necessarily focused on the sexual appeal and potential generativity of younger women, leaves half of women’s lives unaccounted for symbolically: midlife and elderhood. What shall the scriptural symbols be for the midlife and older woman? By what images shall women explore the meaning and various possibilities of spiritual self-development as they become older? Spencer, in a helpfully annotated reflection, proposes that women’s life-cycle be considered as a series of seasonal stages, from spring to winter.(22) Christ claims that a significant feature of goddess symbology serves the need of reflecting the sacred power within both women and nature, “suggesting the connectedness between women’s cycles of menstruation, birth, and menopause, and the life and death cycles of the universe.”(23)

What are the analogical possibilities for women who cannot describe themselves as virgins, brides or mothers? In middle age and elderhood, a woman’s tasks and possibilities can be much different than they were in the earlier years when she might have been a parent responsible for children. The timelessness of Kaufman’s “ageless self” as spiritual paradigm and her description of the “inner work” of elderhood are nevertheless rooted in the particular and concrete experiences of each person’s history:

The construction of a coherent, unified sense of self is an ongoing process. We have seen how old people express an identity through themes which are rooted in personal experience, particular structural factors, and a constellation of value orientations. Themes integrate these three sources of meaning as they structure the account of a life, express what is salient to the individual, and define a continuous and creative self. The sources of meaning which the themes integrate are continually reinterpreted in light of new circumstances.(24)

A third consequence of the triadic Christian symbol system is its thematic exclusion of many women who suffer social stigma because of race, physical condition or social status. Widows and divorced women may well question whether they have an ecclesial identity linked only to the husband they no longer live with, or the husband who has died. Are their identity, vocation and mission linked only to the children who may have long grown up and care for children of their own? A psychological and mythological approach to the symbolization of these many life situations is taken by Bolen, who proposes that the various developmental stages, personality features and relational tasks of women be considered around their “personification” in seven Graeco-Roman goddesses, including Artemis, Athena and Demeter.(25)

In comparison with other fields of exploration and symbolmaking, the church’s traditional theological language presently seems limited in its ability to propose spiritual and social paradigms, other than wifehood or motherhood, by which women can describe themselves within the community of faith. Only by imaginative acrobatics can the triad suggest scriptural analogies which specifically dignify childless women, homeless women, abused women, imprisoned women, educationally or economically disadvantaged women, unpartnered women, aging women, or sick and disabled women.

While the biblical tradition shows that God favors the repentant sinner and the poor, and that Jesus was responsive to many unfortunate and disadvantaged women, a woman’s sense of herself needs to expand beyond the ego-limiting and disempowering images of female sinfulness, poverty, and disadvantage. These factors may suggest part of a rationale for rethinking the workability of the triadic symbol-system.

Reclaiming stories about women in leadership roles may provide one way to exit from the limitations of the triad. The urgency of telling the story of women’s leadership is connected with women’s “need to picture their own past and have role models to support their vision for the future.”(26) Another necessary direction seems to address the terrorization and victimization of women portrayed in scripture, as Trible has done, and to ask what counter-examples of femininity and masculinity are “divinely revealed” through the survival of such stories in the canon.(27) A scriptural anthropology, finally, needs to reflect a more realistically diverse representation of women of all ages who hold a place in the imagination and heart of the community of believers.

Motherhood Not Normative for Discipleship

Apart from the infancy narratives in Matthew and Luke, the gospels, surprisingly enough, give little attention to marriage or motherhood. The legal issue about divorce (Mk 10:2-9) is a discussion among men, largely about their desire for more freedom from women who seem physically absent from the discussion. “Marriage” and “wifehood” are discussed, not linked to any actual woman present, but to an imaginary, “what-if” woman, abstract and object of a hypothetical legal problem proposed by male religious leaders in the context of their theological argument about resurrection. To which of seven men will such an incredible, long-lived, survivorwoman belong as his exclusive property? (Mk 12:18-27).

The evangelists most often present actual women in roles of discipleship or leadership which are quite distinct from their childbearing role, or their sexual identity as partners in marriage. With some exceptions, women who follow Jesus, or who come to him for healing, appear in the gospels unaccompanied by husbands. Men, too, appear without wives in view. It is rare that there is a forgiveness or a healing story, a parable, or a saying of Jesus that features a conventional family unit of husband, wife, and children. The story of Jairus’ daughter, with the mother present at the raising of her child and told to give her something to eat (Lk 8:40-56), is an exception.

In John’s gospel, for example, the Samaritan woman at the well (4:1-42), Mary and Martha of Bethany (11:1-44), and Mary Magdalene (20:1-18) are all single women and no mention is made of their maternity or their children. It could be said that John emphasizes the non-spousal identity of the woman at the well humorously enough, for she has had five husbands, and the sixth effort has not made her a bride or a wife either. She has spoken truly and indeed has no husband, i.e. is undeniably unmarried ( Jn 4:16-18). All four unspoused and childless women are prototypes of discipleship and leadership in the community of faith.

In acknowledging the length of text devoted to their interactions with Jesus, it should probably be proposed that their personalities and the dialogues they have with Jesus seem more definitive for the Johannine theologian, as analogies for discipleship, than is the mother of Jesus. If the evangelist wished to emphasize that Mary the mother of Jesus is the primary feminine model for discipleship in the fourth gospel, would he not have given her greater dramatic presence than her brief appearance at Cana (2:1-12) and silent presence at the crucifixion (19:25-27)?

The story of the resuscitation of Lazarus reinforces the observation that women most often appear sexually unpartnered, without husbands. In addition, the sisterhood of women as disciples and their leadership in the community are emphasized in the account of Mary and Martha at the scene of Lazarus’ revival from the tomb (Jn 11:1-44). If it is women’s province to be life-givers, that function is not limited to a spousal or maternal role. No mention is ever made of Martha’s or Mary’s husbands or children. The exigency of the story does not concern widowhood or childlessness, or the need to perpetuate the family name. Martha and Mary are not seeking to find a husband or bear a child. That is neither the condition nor the symbol of their being close disciples of Jesus.

The story suggests that the sisterhood of two women gives life and proves a powerful agent against the forces of death and loss of future. It is not a sisterhood that subordinates them to men, but, as Russell would maintain, a sisterhood of service and partnership that is true diakonia and power of humanization.(28) Life-giving transcends physical actions of conceiving and birthing. Martha and Mary are “spiritual mothers” or “brides” only by strained analogy. They have sistered their brother into new life, rather than mothered him. Women’s partnership as a sisterhood, the gospel of John suggests, has generative power equivalent to physical childbearing. Two women, unmarried sisters, are agents of resurrection life. They sister, not mother their brother.

In the gospels overall, Jesus doesn’t make much use of marital imagery, or of “mother” or “wife” as thematically emphasized metaphors for faith or discipleship. Women are praised by Jesus, not for modeling faith as an iconic, passive spiritual posture, but for their agency as believers. They acted on their faith, verbalized it, and expressed it in concrete situations that had visible aftereffects. They were agents in the reversal of suffering. Their identity as believers was legitimated in various proofs of their vitality and power. They experienced healing within themselves as did the risk-taking woman with an issue of blood (Mk 5:25-34). People they loved returned to health because of their persistent appeal, such as the daughter of the Canaanite woman (Mt 15:21-28). Their testimony and confession opened the way for others to reach Jesus, as that of the Samaritan woman (Jn 4:39-42). A man returned to life after his sister Martha confirmed by her own conviction the power of Jesus (Jn 11:20-24). Women in the gospels are praised as agents, not icons.

It may be proposed that a woman’s capacity for discipleship and her ecclesial agency are not intrinsically bound to her social role as spouse to a man, or to the physical act of giving birth to a man’s children. Reflecting what is certainly the gospel vision, Kasper notes, “She does not receive value, dignity, prestige, or position through man. In herself she has value and dignity.”(29) Woman’s dignity as a person in the gospels finds its expression first in her soul-features, such as her capacity for engaging in selfrevelatory dialogue with Jesus, for risk-taking love, for commitment, for initiative, and for her ability to conceive possibilities greater than the number of her children. Only secondarily is her anthropological nature to be located in her embodiment as a person who has a womb, or as someone who marries, conceives and mothers children.

Conclusion

If scripture is to be a source of a liberating anthropology of women, it must first honor the diversity of images of women which appear throughout Hebrew and Christian writings. Many women who participated in God’s saving activity undertook risks which were not essentially dependent upon their role as bride, spouse or mother. Thus, expanding the possibilities for describing women seems truer to the biblical record rather than focusing on only three analogies.

Second, the anthropological project might look less to symbol and more to historical setting and life-story, perhaps focusing less on the three metaphors and their theological interrelationship within a doctrinal world. Such an approach would reclaim and reconstruct the historical narrative which the scriptural canon memorializes. As Schussler-Fiorenza has attempted for the New Testament, a record of women in Hebrew scripture too must be reclaimed by Christian women, even while they acknowledge scripture’s patriarchal minimization of the record of women’s physical, spiritual and intellectual agency in the human community.(30)

Third, it should acknowledge the gifts and capacities proper to youthful, middle-aged and elder women, noting the fact that women undergo significant changes throughout their life-cycle. Women’s nature, vocation and mission are not static realities or reducible to a single role. Rather, woman’s nature is an evolving phenomenon, with changing modes of expressing her female self, from childbearing years through menopausal middle age and childless old age. Images of women’s discipleship and leadership in the community of faith should affirm the many ways women are fruitful and life-giving. Bearing and raising children are two of the powerful actions a woman accomplishes earlier in her life. There are many other life-generating actions and self-defining sorts of work that she is capable of then and afterward.

Fourth, a redescription of women’s nature, vocation and destiny should acknowledge the unique features of the gospel presentation of women. Women with husbands and children are not excluded from the company of Jesus, and they often appear, but generally as spousally unpartnered women. It remains a curious but intriguing fact that neither wifehood nor motherhood was proposed by the evangelists as a condition for either women’s discipleship or their witness to the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Notes

1. “Partners in the Mystery of Redemption: A Pastoral Response to Women’s Concerns for Church and Society. First Draft of U.S. Bishops’ Pastoral Response to Women’s Concerns for Church and Society,” Origins 17:45 (April 21, 1988) 757-88.

2. Pope John Paul 11, “Apostolic Letter ‘Mulieris Dignitatem’ on the Dignity and Vocation of Women on the Occasion of the Marian Year,” Origins 18:17 (October 6, 1988) 261-83.

3. Carol Ochs, Women and Spirituality (Totawa: Rowman and Allanheld, 1983) 33.

4. Mulieris Dignitatem, #6-7, 9-11.

5. Partners in Redemption, #32-38.

6. Charles E. Winquist, “Analogy, Apology and the Imaginative Pluralism of David Tracy,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion LVI:2 (Summer 1988) 317.

7. Ann Belford Ulanov, Receiving Woman: Studies in the Psychology and Theology of the Feminine (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1981) 35.

8. See the extended summary of women in the gospels welcomed into the presence of Jesus, spoken about and healed, in Mulieris Dignitatem, # 1213, with a review of their apostolic presence, # 15, which is far lengthier than that in the U.S. document. Partners in Redemption lists the women in the N.T. called to a discipleship of equals, #205, and compresses the list of those who were healed or who ministered to Jesus, as well as those who participated in the life of the early church, #237-38. The emphasis in the conclusion of Partners, #239-246, is on Mary, while the image of Mary as virgin, mother, bride and new Eve dominates the entire presentation of Mulieris Dignitatem.

9. Mulieris Dignitatem, # 13, calls the passage about the adulterous woman (Jn 8:3-11) “the most eloquent” of the situations which show how Jesus relates to women. Examples of “sinful women” dominate the meditation of John Paul II in # 12-14, notably the Samaritan woman (Jn 4:5-30) and the woman taken in adultery.

10. Ulanov, Receiving Woman, 35.

11. Elisabeth Moltmann-Wendel, A Land Flowing with Milk and Honey: Perspectives on Feminist Theology, translated by John Bowden from the German Das Land, wo Milch and Honig fliesst, Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, 1985 (New York: Crossroad, 1988) 71.

12. Anne E. Carr, Transforming Grace: Christian Tradition and Women’s Experience (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1988) 192. The author has reference to Raymond Brown et al., eds., Mary in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978) 284, 286.

13. Ibid. 193. See the chapter “The Salvation of Women: Christ, Mary and the Church,” 180-200. “But this ability [Mary’s] to trust God’s word and keep it was balanced by her ability to believe first in herself, and then to make this trusting confidence the basis of her collaboration with others”: Sheila Carney, R.S.M., “Women of Presence, Women of Praise,” in Claiming Our Truth: Reflections on Identity by United States Women Religious, ed. Nadine Foley, O.P. (Washington, D.C., Silver Spring, MD: Leadership Conference of Women Religious, 1988) 113.

14. David Tracy, Plurality and Ambiguity: Hermeneutics, Religion, Hope (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987) 80.

15. (Name removed at the author’s request), “The Theology of Philemon,” Society of Biblical Literature 1987 Seminar Papers, edited by Kent H. Richards (Atlanta: Scholars Press) 505-06.

16. Carolyn Osiek, “Slavery in the New Testament,” The Bible Today 22:3 (May 1984) 154.

17. Mulieris Dignitatem roots the imagery of the bride not in Revelation, but in Ephesians 5:21-33, and provides a textual history of the theme in O.T. and N.T. as it relates to the “great mystery” of the church’s relation to Jesus, as a development of the marriage metaphor of God’s relationship to Israel. See #23-27, 29-30. The symbol of “bride” applies to both men and women, and describes the mission and destiny of all human beings; cf. #30.

18. Joann Wolski Conn, “Women’s Spirituality: Restriction and Reconstruction,” in Women’s Spirituality: Resources for Christian Development, edited by Joann Wolski Conn (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1986) 21.

19. Ibid.

20. Ochs, Women and Spirituality, 23.

21. See Leonard Swidler, “Positive Elements in Hebrew Jewish Tradition,” in Biblical Affirmation of Woman (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1979) 75-110, which discusses Eve and, rather briefly, Miriam, Huldah, and the possibly female composer of the Song of Songs. Other heroines, some of whom dominate book-length portions of Hebrew scripture, and who might fall into the “positive elements” category, are interpreted in a negative or compromised light. See, for example, the brief discussion of the dramatic portraits of jael, Judith, Esther and Ruth in “Ambivalent Elements in Hebrew Jewish Tradition,” 111-138. The much longer and more detailed listing of women who appear in New Testament texts, in “Positive Elements in Christian Tradition,” 161328, supports the thesis that the gospels affirm the presence of and activity of women. While this is a welcome interpretation, it is offered at the expense of a less-than-adequate reclamation of the potential and tradition in Hebrew scripture about women.

22. Anita Spencer, Seasons: Women’s Search for Self through Life’s Stages (New York: Paulist Press, 1982).

23. Carol P. Christ, “Why Women Need the Goddess: Phenomenological, Psychological, and Political Reflections,” in The Politics of Women’s Spirituality: Essays on the Rise of Spiritual Power within the Feminist Movement, edited by Charlene Spretnak (Garden City: Anchor Press, Doubleday, 1982) 76.

24. Sharon R. Kaufman. The Ageless Self., Sources of Meaning in Late Life (New York and Scarborough, Ontario: New American Library, 1986) 149.

25. Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D., Goddesses in Everywoman: A New Psychology of Women (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1984).

26. Conn, “Women’s Spirituality,” 20-21.

27. Phyllis Trible, Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984).

28. Letty M. Russell, Human Liberation in a Feminist Perspective: A Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1974) 142-47.

29. Walter Kasper, “The Position of Woman as a Problem of Theological Anthropology,” in The Church and Women: A Compendium, edited by Helmut Moll (Ignatius Press: San Francisco, 1988) 58. Kasper’s essay is the moderate voice in this otherwise weighted collection of previously published German articles, mainly concerned with reinforcing the position taken in Inter Insigniores (1976) defending the tradition of male priestly ordination against movements in feminist theology.

30. See especially “The Early Christian Missionary Movement: Equality in the Power of the Spirit,” in Elisabeth Schüssler-Fiorenza, In Memory of Her (New York: Crossroad, 1983) 160-204.

Recomended Reading

Conn, Joann Wolski, ed. Women’s Spirituality: Resources for Christian Development. Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1986. This collection of essays remains useful for introducing readers to voices within the Catholic tradition, both contemporary and from the spiritual tradition, who are reflecting on women’s spirituality, their psychological development, and their experience of God.

Kaufman, Sharon R. The Ageless Self: Sources of Meaning in Late Life. New York: New American Library, 1986. The author takes several case studies of elder men and women as prototypes of the various ways spiritual, historical, philosophical and relational issues are addressed in the last years of life. While not all are specifically Christian in their religious orientation, the elders illustrate dimensions of spiritual growth possible when their lives are related to the historical period through which they have passed as individuals.

Kraemer, Ross S., ed. Maenads, Martyrs, Matrons, Monastics: A Sourcebook on Women’s Religious Activities in the Greco-Roman World. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988. This collection of primary documents and inscriptions in English translation provides an enlightening mosaic of women’s religious activities in the Greco-Roman world. Of particular interest is documentation of women’s leadership in rituals and festivals, and the long-standing unfavorable view of their activities presented by men who refer to them, from both Roman and Christian perspectives.

Moltmann-Wendell, Elisabeth. A Land Flowing with Milk and Honey: Perspectives on Feminist Theology. New York: Crossroad, 1988. This will remain a normative statement of Catholic feminist theology and theological reflection on women’s image in scripture, theology, ethics and society. It is theologically disciplined, directional and inspirational.

Osiek, Carolyn, R.S.C.J. Beyond Anger: On Being a Feminist in the Church. New York/Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1986. Osiek speaks to women of faith who choose to remain in the church in spite of injustice done to them. Feminists can take several stances; rejectionist, marginalist, loyalist, symbolist, revisionist and liberationist. She offers strategies for surviving and thriving within church structure.