Publication9

Pastoral Ministry: Overview and Perspective

by Mary Austin Doherty and Margaret Earley,

from Women in Ministry: A Sisters' View, National Assembly of Women Religious, Chicago, 1972, pp.135-159.

DOHERTY, S. Mary Austin OSF. PhD, Psychology, Loyola (Chicago). Co-founder of Alverno Research Center on Women; assistant professor and chairperson of Alverno’s Psychology Department; research and lectures on Women in Higher Education, Status of Women in Society, Higher Education.

EARLEY, S. Margaret OSF. PhD Cand. Marquette, Religious Studies; asst. professor, Religious Studies, Alverno; co-founder of Research Center on Women, specializing in role of women in the Church, religion, theology. Will participate in International Congress of Learned Societies in Religion to be held at Los Angeles in September 1972.

One of the purposes of the Alverno Research Center on Women is the sponsorship of research in areas related to the new understanding of women in contemporary society. In the opinion of the Directors of the Center some of the most fundamental factors shaping and reflecting societal and self-images of women are in the areas of religion and theology. Yet, historically women have not participated in the theological process within and out of which religious values, symbols and images emerge.

To provide women in theology an opportunity for serious exploration of theological questions deriving from their own experience and new self-consciousness, the Research Center undertook to identify and contact women theologians in the United States and to raise funds to host a residence Conference for a representative group of theologians. The spontaneous and enthusiastic response from hundreds of applicants enabled us to select twenty-two participants whose diversity in background, life styles, denominational affiliation, age and theological orientation contributed the breadth and depth of experience considered necessary to this initial conference.

Limiting conference participation to a small number was based on the decision of the directors that the conference would function as a workshop in which the women, as their own resources, would raise the questions and themes to be pursued during the June 7-18, 1971 conference. The following pages attest to their ability and willingness to grapple with some of the most basic and controversial issues in the field of theology.

Viewed by the participants as a record of their dialog with each other, these Notes contain the key factors and questions which emerged during the conference. Part of our hope is that these Notes, consisting primarily of questions, will enable the reader to enter into the dialog which took place at the conference and extend it through further reflection and discussion with friends and colleagues.

These Notes may enable groups of women whose concerns are in the areas both of the institutional church and of theology to focus their considerations in a way which will assist women to become a more integral part of the functioning of the churches and of theology.

Purpose of the Conference

The guiding principles and rationale for the structure of the Conference grew out of intensive discussions among several theologians during the past year. Given the acceptance among theologians today that theological speculation is based upon human experience, it became immediately apparent that theologians can draw upon only very limited data concerning the human experience of women in their investigations of theological questions. Like all other aspects of society, theological studies have been influenced by the contemporary emphasis on women and their unique experiences and contributions but progress has been made in only a few areas.

Women’s participation in the theological process is an area which has been given little consideration and is an area of great interest because of its implications for future theological developments. If theology is understood as a process of interpreting life in the light of faith, through reflection on experience and drawing upon revelation, the theologian comes to conclusions which are consequential for the total life of the person, both in belief and practice. Traditionally theologizing has been carried on almost exclusively by men. Not only has the reflection on the faith experience been done by men, but the experience from which they have drawn has been largely the masculine experience, since women have only limited participation in worship, ministry, teaching, and governing. In addition, the sources on which theologians have been dependent—the Scriptures, the works of the early Fathers, the decrees, documents, and codes of commissions and councils—are almost totally the product of man.

Women have not given creative direction or new impetus in the field of theology. When women do engage in the process, it is difficult to discern whether they are speaking out of their own faith experience as women or whether both the questions asked and the method employed are already totally circumscribed because of the controlling influence of male theologians and male experience of the faith. Female experience has been almost totally untouched. To the degree that the experience of women has not been included in the process, the discipline itself is greatly limited as well as the effectiveness of the discipline for the interpretation and activities of life in faith.

It is imperative, therefore, that the community of the future and the theology of the future draw upon the experience, insights, and expertise of women. We have asked ourselves:

How would theology be different if women were involved in the process?

How would the direction of the human community with respect to contemporary social problems be different if women participated?

In light of this situation, we came together for a two-week conference, in order to explore together, out of our own experience as women and our own lives in relation to God, some major areas of concern in the moral-ethical and spiritual aspects of today’s world. It is our belief that women theologians have a distinctive contribution to offer.

The following notes are an attempt to highlight recurring themes and major questions that evolved out of both general and small-group sessions.

Notes of the Conference

The participants themselves were the resources for each other when they met together to explore their potentialities as women engaged in the theological enterprise. The starting point of the newness of the approach was the fact of its being a group of women together theologizing. Most often the theological process is carried on by a single individual, even if he is working within a group. Seldom, if ever, is the group process itself an integral part of the theological process. We, however, created for ourselves a setting in which we could engage in communal theology. Oriented toward serious theological work, we set for ourselves the task of investigating the following questions:

What is this new consciousness of self that women have today?

How does the new consciousness of women affect their doing theology?

What are the implications of their theology for the social-political world of today?

These three key questions will form the foci for the development of the Summary.

What is This New Consciousness of Self That Women Have Today?

The women approached this topic chiefly through reflection upon personal history and experience, in dialog and interaction with the total group. This process itself contributed to the self-identification expressed as follows: Women see themselves—as full persons — they reject a male-centered cultural and religious heritage which continues to assume that man sets the standards and is the norm for being human; with a history—they understand that this history is largely unexpressed and not in the mainstream of the theological tradition; as part of a sisterhood—they experience a new relation to each other, one of mutual support rather than one of sexual or professional competition; with new power— as they come to know themselves as dispossessed and self-alienating persons and band together, they sense a new power which frees people with which they can confront false power which subjects people; as autonomous persons — they feel the need of creating new life styles adequate to this new self-concept, not emulating man as norm or competing for masculine roles.

These considerations were pre-theological but provided the basis for theological discourse on the immediate task for the future: How does one begin to use and communicate this new consciousness to lead into new dimensions of life? How does one help persons achieve a different source of identity? How can the new self-awareness best serve as source of new theological models? Does the new coming-to-awareness of women as persons have anything to say to theology and the means of achieving Christian self-identification?

How Does the New Consciousness of Women Affect Their Doing Theology?

Because the renewal in theological studies coincides in time with the new self-awareness of women, it is possible for theology to serve a unique function in empowering women to construct new models for interpreting themselves and their roles in society. Theology must begin to recognize not only the functions of modeling and re interpretation of models that it has performed in the past, but recognize also the source of its models and their effect on self-identification of past models which brought about women’s self-oppression and a critique of the source of those models. Then theology must reconstruct or propose new models for women’s self-understanding out of the sources available. Because women are the ones experiencing this specific change of consciousness, it is women who are in the best position today to do the theological reflection necessary.

Some theological sources of oppression of women are cultural and societal—God as He, as Father, as Lover, as male Creator; Christ as King, as Ruler, as Savior; Church as male-dominated power structure; Christians as Sons of God; grace as Sonship—while others engender self-oppression—internalization of sexuality as somehow sinful, tainted; woman as historical source of sin (sense of guilt); symbol of Mary as simultaneously virgin and mother; attaching of submissive virtues to women only; idealizing of sacrifice of self for others; double standard in sexual morality.

Some theological sources of liberation of women stem from cultural transformation—incarnational anthropology which understands human persons not only as sexual beings but as full persons, which affirms this world and creation and understands the divine in relation to and as significant for the human; the unity of the human race as starting point of contemporary religious study and the relativizing of Christian history within larger human history; a recapturing of the Judeao-Christian source of the notion of human stewardship of this universe; conscious development of communal forms of living, reflecting and worshipping—others from personal liberation, inner conversion, freedom—new hermeneutic in Scripture, possibility and availability of new interpretation, development of previously unstressed themes; value and meaning of the human person; relational rather than individualistic notion of human wholeness; rediscovery of the mystical and prophetic tradition; history of great women and movements of the past; possibility of a new approach to the understanding of Mary, mother of Jesus.

Key factors

In the course of the discussions certain elements emerged as key factors to be considered in theological method and content. Each of these factors gave rise to questions, the pursuance of which were viewed as essential to the formation of a new theology. The questions came not from the understanding of who the women were in the Church, but of who they were as persons. They came out of situations of conflict in which the women found themselves. The women felt that to ask a wrong question was to alienate the other; but the right question frees the other and opens the other to new possibilities. This process, applied to the theological endeavor, meant that questions were aimed at opening the whole theological tradition to the reinterpretation coming from the contemporary consciousness of women. Knowing that questions themselves highly condition what is found, the women thought the most crucial aspect of their self-defined task at this point was the questioning process. Key factors and their corresponding questions for theological investigation were as follows:

a) the question of methodology

b) the importance and significance of experience

c) concern for communal experience and process

d) centrality of historical perspective

e) use of language and literary forms

f) contribution of theological models

g) problem of authority

An elaboration of these seven factors, together with the questions to which they gave rise, follows. For the most part, the discussions were not focused on these seven points as such. They represent rather recurrent themes which seemed to be underlying every topic and to be at the core of the problems and difficulties which women experience in the theological world. The question is then whether they provide us with the material for the first level of approach to women’s specific participation in the process of theologizing.

The Question of Methodology

Factor	Questions
The categories and assumptions usually utilized to articulate and to answer questions about the religious experience of women are inadequate to women’s new consciousness and experience.	1) Can new modes of theological and religious reflection other than the systematic and analytic be developed to a greater extent, e.g., a religious autobiography, poetry, drama, story, parable?
Since theologies deeply influence the culture in which they predominate, the question of theological approach concerns society beyond the confines of the church and the theologian. Theologians today are interested in new theologies speaking to many movements and attitudes, e.g., the theology of hope, of leisure, of play. But the question of theology in relation to women remains below the surface.	2) Are current theologies meaningful for women? Has theology ever been as meaningful for women as it has been for men?
The whole framework for interpreting materials must be revised. Not only popularly accepted answers to questions about women’s religious experience must be challenged, but also the questions themselves need to be completely rethought.	3) How do we as women avoid taking on the male standard of what is good academic work? Do we have something different to offer as an alternative? Can we avoid reinforcing the male idea of scholarship? What are the criteria of competence?
Consideration was given both to methodological approaches for the investigation of theological questions and to methods or modes of communication most adequate to the situation.	4) What are the possibilities of feminine critique of historical, contemporary theologies? How might we reconceptualize historical concepts out of feminine experience, or correct, re-create, or create them?
	5) Is there something endemic to theology which subordinates woman or assigns her to the role of wife and mother as the only normal state?
	6) Is there a feminine theology? Could there be? Ought there be? Would women do theology basically different than it is now being done?
	7) Can the intellectual tradition in theology be separated from the ecclesiastical tradition in theology?
	8) What is the place of the prophetic and the charismatic in theology?

The Importance and Significance of Experience

Factor	Questions
Experience is to be taken seriously as a source of theological thought.	1)In what sense is experience self-authenticating?
The starting point for theology is contextual, from the stance of : Who we are; Where we are.	2) What is the relation between human experience and divine action?
There are almost no affirming experiences of women as full human beings built into developmental stages, institutional experiences, or cultural encounters.	3) What experiences would we identify as religious experience?
	4) What is the relation between religious experience and theological science?
	5) What is the nature of feminine experience? How are feminine experiences conceptualized? What do they say to philosophical, theological, and cultural world views?
	6) How can women learn to be self-affirming out of feminine experience—learning how to trust their own experiences, feelings, and ideas as women?
	7) How do women experience Christian existence?
	8) How have the varieties of religious experience affected women’s self-image?
	9) How is the interpretative scheme women use to evaluate experiences influenced by male images and categories?
	10) Are we willing to reflect out of new sets of experiences
	11) How can religious language and categories serve as effective interpretative schemes for experiences identified as non-religious?

Concern for Communal Experience and Process Factor

Factors	Questions
As a community of women, by shared reflection, we arrived at questions, methods, and sources for our theologizing.	1) Is it possible for theology in the future to be the lone production of a single person?
We experienced a shared, communicable way of examining, questioning, affirming personal experience.	2) How does group process affect theological method and content?
Since no single theological method was found to be adequate to the questions being discussed, the interaction of all was essential in the process; no attempt was made to reduce one method to another or to put approaches in a hierarchical order. Recognition and acceptance of polarities were part of the process.	3) Is it possible for a group of persons with different methodologies and content areas of interest to produce a unified theological work based on a common question and goal?
Concern for wholeness manifested itself in the hope that the theology of the future be characterized by the inclusion and assimilation of the charismatic, of affectivity as well as intellectuality, or both male and female perspectives.

Centrality of Historical Perspective Factor

Factor	Questions
The historical perspective was affirmed as a necessity for the analysis of experience— “the significance of having been there before.”	1) What history? Whose history? How do we experience and appropriate history? Where is woman in history? (Like all minority groups, women do not know their own heritage. E.g., Theresa of Avila was reinterpreted harmlessly and her thought not allowed to influence the social order of the time.)
The importance of guarding against the imperialism of history was also emphasized.	2) What place has the feminine experience in religion and faith had in the history of theology? (It has never appeared in the primary strands.)
One’s personal standpoint in history was seen both as a limiting as well as an illuminating factor. To use the term standpoint at all is to realize the finiteness of standpoint. However, there is a creative aspect to limitation viewed as a framework within which one can see more clearly what is there and can be more effective.	3) To what extent is remembrance a part of liberation? Is remembrance one of the sources of life? Why, how, and when do we remember? (Rahner speaks of dogma as that which the Church considered worth remembering.)
The ability to transcend involves the ability to change one’s perspective.	4) To what degree is the feminine experience already contained in the Biblical tradition? Can we locate a new starting point for reinterpretation of this tradition?
Personal history, self-conscious reflection on one’s own tradition as reflected in personal history of faith and theology is central. A re-examination of Biblical themes and Biblical method together with their interpretation in the development of theology was understood as essential.

Use of Language and Literary Forms

Factor	Questions
Language is inseparable from experience, for it functions: in reflection on experience; in interpretation of experience; in conditioning of experience.	1) How does theological language perpetuate man’s primacy over women?
	2) What is the relation between experience and language and what is the process by which experience is translated into language?
	3) What are the controls of the coming into being of language? What authority actually operates within experience and life processes? (If known, could we direct them?)
Linguistic issues considered were: Philosophical questions— origins of language; relation of language to experience, to value; language as the point of engagement with the world; Genre, symbol, imagery (especia11y sexua1 imagery); use of story, metaphor, parable, since these literary forms allow the unfamiliar to be rendered in terms of the familiar; metaphor particularly as the way new meaning is created; Presence of the transcendent through language: disclosure of ultimate reality through language and the description of religious reality in technical terminology; Question of body-language.	4) Do certain forms of expression allow us to participate in the original experience in a better way than others? Should theology then look to more varied forms of expression than it has heretofore incorporated into the mainstream of its thought? (Modes of theological discourse)
	5) Since language formation is symbolic, is new meaning always metaphorical in the sense that we always have to deal with the unfamiliar in terms of the familiar?
	6) Are Scriptural forms part of the metaphorical tradition which has emerged out of culture?
	7) Will religious language be one way of interpreting the new liberation movements today? Can it be?
	8) What is the relation between language and action, involvement in the world?

Contribution of Theological Models

Factors	Questions
After identifying elements in theological content that possibly have contributed to the alienation of women, we attempted to explore suggestions for theological models that would be more adequate to the developing consciousness of women today.	1) Are there controlling images of what it means to be human that are operative in the theological process and that reflect only the male experience of what it means to be human? How do we change images?
A suggestion, with respect to new models, is to put greater emphasis on verbs rather than on nouns in attempting to arrive at and give expression to the model, e.g., to speak of ruling rather than king. This takes it out of the exclusively masculine area. Since men have traditionally exercised these functions in the public order, the noun-form is usually masculine. Women, however, have carried out these functions, albeit in a different manner, In other areas of life. Since the verb is a more dynamic form, it is more open to additional meaning that women’s experience may bring to it.	2) What are the archetypes of the female?
	3) Are some of the overriding motifs and images in Scripture capable of lending themselves to women’s vision of themselves today?
Need for new images for God: these must emanate from the evolving reality.	4) What are the images of God In popular conceptions and in theology? Do these reinforce sexual prejudices?
The human person, in relation to God, is in a situation of dependency. Traditionally, theology has spoken of the whole community, including the male, in this relationship as “she.” The Church is “she,” feminine before God. Both men and women experience dependency in life, but the societal situation of women is interpreted as belonging to the nature of woman and therefore a person in a situation of dependency is “she.” Here is a clear example of theology in its language structure and function reinforcing stereotyped images. A further dimension of this same example is that the male, in addition to having the relationship of dependency to God also has that of identification with him in his exercise of power and authority in society. The female does not experience this identification and therefore her relationship in dependency is placed in a light other than that of the male.	5) What are the options in understanding God with respect to a women’s self-understanding today?
	6) Do women and men transfer societal relations with men to their relations with God?
	7) Do we need anthropomorphic images of God?
Need for new images for the Trinity: We do not see as a viable option to the present male imagery for the Trinity, the substitution of female imagery. Equally non-viable are attempts to place both masculine and feminine qualities in God especially if they are somehow identified as such and personified. This would be to eternalize what we now understand as social and historical cultural conditioning.	8) Will God be less meaningful to women in images that are non-sexual?
	9) Are there polarities fundamental in human existence which are not sexual and which would give us another base for distinctions and relationships within the Trinity?
When we use images we tend to idolatrize. In communal process we clarify, refine, and change images and create an atmosphere so paradigms can continually change.	10) Is God as male an image which affects a woman’s relations and role with respect to men?

Problems of Authority

Factors	Questions
The complex problem centers upon devising an adequate formulation (not solution) of what the contemporary problem of authority is.	1) Does the concept of obedience perpetuate external authority?
	2) Can one really trust one’s own experience? How does this experience enter into history and the community of faith?
It became further narrowed to a theological problem which is precipitated by women’s new consciousness of themselves and of an oppressive religious heritage.	3) Does one need something “out there” to tell one what this experience is?
	4) Does the reality that the human person projects out of his own consciousness correspond to a reality that is external to him and which his consciousness reflects?
The question is one of verbalizing and evaluating the actual functions of authority in the new consciousness of women in these areas: biblical authority theological authority authority of faith authority of religious symbols , language authority of religious experience	5) Can we add to reality? Can we give to history a new consciousness that it once did not have
	6) In the quest for authority, did Israel see what was there? Or was Israel creating its God?
	7) In the history of theology, why were male styles the official style of theologizing? Is there a political issue here?
	8) Did theology develop out of faith experience or out of ecclesial experience? Must faith be ecclesial?
When authority is necessary to validate our experience, we use authority to confirm where we are. Real authority breaks through where we are and opens us to the future, to the other.	9) What has been the effect of institutionalized theology on the development of women’s understanding of themselves?
	10) What is the relation of the prophetic experience to the institution?

What are the Implications of Women Theologizing for the Socio-political World of Today?

The questions of political and social implications following from the new consciousness and roles of women were posed continually in the course of the discussions dealing with theological method and content. No sessions precluded these areas. However, it was evident that at this point in our study and investigation, we are giving primacy to the issues indicated in the question, “How does the new consciousness of women affect their doing theology?” We understand that much reflection on feminine experience is essential and preliminary to the step of women moving as theologians into the areas of political and social analysis.

The theologians addressed themselves to the question: What is the special sense of finding oneself as a woman theologian vis-a-vis the world?

Our main thrust was to ask ourselves how to develop a process of talking about female consciousness. What is the female consciousness in terms of such things as the military, consumerism, advertising, extended life span, reproduction, child care? What are the biological characteristics of women and how have they been institutionalized? How have these characteristics affected our awareness of time and our consciousness of our environment? What do we know about the sexuality of women? For that matter, what do we know about the sexuality of men? But perhaps awareness of our sexuality is even more important to women because society forces women to involve themselves in the biological more than it forces men to do so. But can we continually set our experience over against the experience of men, or isn’t our task to discover what we uniquely experience as women? For instance, our culture views women as going through certain periods during certain stages of life. Is this accurate according to our experience? Our culture also gives some states of life a certain status and our whole way of socializing has developed around this. What are our reflections on this as a value and shaping norm? Is there such a thing as a maternal instinct or is there simply a parietal instinct? What relationship is there between the structure of the body and the theme of dominance?

Life styles, institutions, and issues became the three foci of the discussion. In this context, the following questions emerged:

What are the necessary conditions for me to develop as an autonomous person and what are the social implications of these conditions?
Is it necessary that religion and theology sanction certain life styles today? Does Sacrament do this?
Can women more easily appropriate certain theological categories (e.g., freedom, community, supportiveness, fidelity, conservationism) as an oppressed group? One of our potentialities may be certain experiential awarenesses that others are not at this point in history conscious of in the same way.

In attempting to deal with the social function of theology, we tried to assess the present condition to discover what was necessary to put it in balance. It was not a matter of putting feminine patches on a male theology, but of creating a new vision of the future together with the masculine perspective.

As evidenced in these notes, we recognize that at this point our considerations remained undeveloped theologically. Theology itself has only recently entered into dialog with the social sciences and we look to our immediate future for the delineation of these issues and questions in a theological perspective. It is our conviction that the future will take its direction from those who can bring to bear upon the theological world the fruits of their experiences and reflections.

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