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Response to Sheila McGinn and Yak-Hwee Tan
Cristina Grenholm, Karlstad University, Sweden
Why a feminist perspective on Romans?

From the perspective of scriptural criticism, the purpose of feminist readings is to discover blind spots that patriarchal readings have - as many other readings - and to challenge their implicit or explicit claims to offer the only legitimate interpretations of the text by elucidating the limitations of their perspective. An obvious risk with promoting a different perspective is oversimplifying the relationship between what is criticized and the proposed alternative and of demonizing the other perspective. Catherine Keller has pointed to this tendency in a broad western cultural perspective, but also with specific reference to feminism.1 Against this background I think there is an advantage with studying Paul's Epistle to the Romans and its interpretations: gender issues are hidden there in the same way that they are hidden in life.

However, feminist theologians have not been very eager to analyze Romans. This seems a bit strange to me. Although many have criticized and deconstructed the theological pattern of sin and salvation, they have not been eager to do so in relation to Romans, a primary source for those emphasizing the importance of sin and guilt in theology.

As was said in a similar way in the call for papers to this session: Much can still be learnt from the study of Romans, negatively and positively. As the Romans we are trapped within dualisms (or is it dualities, following McGinn?), trying to establish good relations when entangled in a web of sublime and open forms of oppression. Maybe the interpretations of Romans are the lesson of how patriarchy cannot easily be overcome. But against all odds Paul's epistle might also be read as a claim for inclusion of rich and poor, colored and white, men and women. Maybe there is still an embryo of liberation to be affirmed with reference to Romans, an embryo largely hidden by androcentric and patriarchal interpretations.

A feminist reading of Romans is not necessary in order to liberate us or make us wiser. Liberation and wisdom can be found in many places. Thus my concern is not primarily how to answer the question of whether it is possible to remain faithful to Romans. Rather I want to explore how life can be seen clearer from my point of view as a Christian theologian and a feminist. At the same time, from the perspective of scriptural criticism, it is clear that Romans is as little likely as any other biblical text oppressive through and through, although several of its readings are indeed oppressive. Scriptural criticism helps us recognize that there are many kinds of scriptural readings that can be analyzed and evaluated.
An understanding of revelation
I presuppose a close linkage between "natural" and "biblical" revelation, following Sandra Schneiders:

It is Scripture itself, as a whole, that either is or is not the medium of divine self-disclosure. Just as we cannot regard nature as divinely revelatory only when the sun shines and reject it when it erupts in earthquakes or fires, we cannot confer revelatory status on certain biblical passages while rejecting others.2

Both creation and Bible share in the same inevitable ambiguities of life. In this connection I believe that something can be learnt from deconstructive reading, since it provides a possibility to keep the ambiguities in mind. Philosopher of religion Grace Jantzen uses Derrida and Irigaray in the activity Jantzen calls "double reading"

...a sort of reading which on the one hand pays close attention to a text, but which, in that very attention, discloses a rupture in that text which requires a radically different reading of it, thus destabilizing it and in the undecidability thereby created opens the possibility of thinking otherwise.3

I will not perform such a double reading, but I want to point to a possible theoretical background for explicating my readings of both Sheila McGinn and Yak-Hwee Tan as not giving in to patriarchy or falling prey to essentialism. That would be a standard feminist criticism easy at hand when commenting on those who find Paul not necessarily to be misogyn or relationships between ruler and subject, husband and wife to be capable of mutuality. Following the terminology of Catherine Keller, I rather read them as methodologically promoting a "constructive ambivalence".4 I read the papers by McGinn and Tan as staying closer to the ambiguities of the text (and thereby of life) than many other interpretations do.
Sheila McGinn
Sheila McGinn´s approach is not like Gaventa´s revisionism, which focuses hermeneutically5 on finding theological themes in Romans and then brings the traditional texts (about women) and context into play rather than breaking out of them, criticizing tradition by its own means.

McGinn´s approach is more in line with Castelli´s analytical approach, focusing on discourse analysis and not moving directly to the visible women of the text. Castelli rather provides a wide range of application. For example she points to that there is a discrepancy between the fact that a third of the people mentioned in chapter 16 are women of some importance and that they are invisible in the rest of the letter. In her opinion, this is a sign of women's marginalization, but also an illustration to the gap between the historical and theological, the particular and the universal.6 Concerning the hermeneutical frame, Castelli points out that it is triggering that women are excluded in this letter, one of its main concerns being inclusion.7 There is at least one tension in the epistle concerning gender: women are literally excluded from the body of the letter and theologically included in the theme.

According to Castelli, Paul depends on dualistic patterns with no loose ends: the dichotomies and hierarchies are implied and affirmed. Although women are hardly mentioned and not at all in long sections on the dualism between flesh and sprit, for example, Castelli assumes the gender hierarchy is implicitly there.8 Castelli does not develop the interesting note on the totalizing way Paul has of presenting his dualisms.

One way of reading against the grain could be to confront these absolute dualisms with more flexible categories. This is what Sheila McGinn does. She differs from Castelli in using duality rather than dualism as her primary analytical tool. One aspect of this is her hermeneutical/analytical understanding of God and creation as interdependent rather than held in some kind of contradiction, i.e. dualism.

I would prefer a clearer distinction between the analytical and the hermeneutical levels here. McGinn does provide analytical backing for her hermeneutical conclusions, for example by providing references to other Pauline texts. However, the idea of the interdependence between God and creation is not a necessary implication of her analysis of the text. I think it is more accurate to say that McGinn tries the fruitfulness of a hypothetical combination of non-dualistic analytical and hermeneutical points of departure.

Furthermore, it does not seem to be justified to draw the conclusion she draws from the text alone that the goal of creation is "to have meaning and purpose that is lasting". However, it is an interesting theological idea, which I understand as a possible interpretation of the meaning of eschatology. It is a theological idea at least as interesting, fruitful and plausible as the idea of a conflict between the present era and the coming kingdom.

Let me examine these ideas a little bit further from a theological point of view. What is meant by the interdependence between God and creation? The interdependence concerns the purpose of creation, which is not lasting as long as it remains in bondage. "Nature is an active partner with God. Like an architect without a builder, God could not accomplish the divine purpose without creation. In this sense, one could just as easily say that creation has power over God."9

The change was brought about through Christ, but it also requires some kind of cooperation of creation. Duality refers not to a metaphysical hierarchy, but to an eschatological tension, according to McGinn. On the one hand, revelation in Christ provides something entirely new, which is opposed to the old as a "reversal". On the other hand, this turn is not a destruction but a release and renewal of creation.

I interpret this in the following way: McGinn understands the eschatological fulfillment of the purpose of creation as in continuity with its present state rather than as something entirely different. The notion of this eschatological tension would be worth while exploring further. For example, it would be interesting to know how far she can follow Catherine Keller and her counter-apocalypse.10 Furthermore several critical questions need to be addressed. Is there any critical potential left if renewal is enough? Are there not phenomena and forms of oppression, which call for something entirely different rather than a mere change?

However, Sheila McGinn does not rid herself of every dualism, in my opinion. Rather, she moves dualism away from the relationship between creator and creation and places it at a meta level, i.e. there is a contradiction between viewing creator and creation in mutuality and viewing them in a pattern of domination. These two views cannot be reconciled. These two perspectives are described as radically divergent.11

What about the dualism of gender? McGinn´s critique of Castelli is the following: While Castelli remains within the dualism which has indeed been powerful in history and is thus contextually warranted, McGinn moves to a historical analysis to provide material for a different understanding of the liberating potential in the message of Paul.

This is where Sheila McGinn provides an analysis of adoption understood as claim for inheritance. This is also, as a matter of fact, a possibility opened up for by Castelli. Concerning adoption, she says that although women could inherit, they were not adopted. Furthermore, the imagery requires a two-step procedure for women: first to become sons, second to become adopted.12 But she also underscores that we must assume that Jewish women did think they belonged to Israel and did think that they could obey the law.13

Sheila McGinn disagrees with Elizabeth Castelli on the point of adoption. First, she says that also men were rarely adopted and thus were not implicitly included in the imagery used by Paul. Second, she maintains that the essential element in adoption is inheritance and that marriage is the most common phenomenon to relate to in a historical setting. Women were thus not excluded from the adoption-inheritance theme:

If use of this masculine term [adoption] marginalizes women's experience, it marginalizes that of most men as well. One might as well say that one must become senator before one can become an adoptive heir.14

Is McGinn´s interpretation of the freedom in form of guaranteed inheritance through marriage self-deceptive? She does not look away from the obvious limits in its application. This is how she explains that Paul prefers the metaphor of sons as heirs:

For Paul to use the notion of  "adoption as daughters" along with "adoption as sons" would imply precisely the same inequity in the divine inheritance as already existed in the human.15

One can say that McGinn insists on the eschatological tension, there is both a continuity of the (all too) familiar system and a renewal.

On the one hand, Sheila McGinn´s interpretation may be too optimistic or even too romantic. Is this not just wishful thinking? On the other hand, it could also be that her analysis provides an illustration to the fact that often patriarchy and liberation from misogyny are more closely interrelated than we like to think. Liberation often does not take place outside the existing system, but by renewal of the familiar structures. Whether to take the first or second path is a question at the hermeneutical level.

Which are the reasons for believing in freedom within patriarchy (which may or may not lead to its final overthrow)? One possibility is taking as a point of departure that we need to trust experience of others as they tell it to us. If women indeed found liberation in Christianity from the very beginning, it must be possible to trust them and not simply to say that they were self-deceptive along with all other women who have joined the movement.

This is also something Elizabeth Castelli brings to the fore in emphasizing that we must assume that Jewish women did think they belonged to Israel and that they could obey the law.16 Feminist analysis does not only require suspicion, but a delicate balance between suspicion and trust. Sociologist Ellen Stone criticizes the programmatic suspicion or heresy of feminists, claiming the need for belief:

We need a different stance in relation to the voices of subordinated cultures -- one I call, for the moment "feminist belief". Feminist belief means putting aside our conditioned responses and allowing ourselves to experience total receptivity to "the other". It means before subjecting previously silenced voices to our critical faculties, we need to take them in to find out how they resonate and what their truth might mean for us.17

Feminists have to listen to the others too, including other women. Before we claim that women who say they are not excluded in fact deceive themselves, we have to listen. We also have to ask what is the alternative? Who can claim she or he found liberation outside every boundary? Put in another way: What is the difference between Paul envisioning that daughters can have the inheritance of sons rather than the lousy inheritance of daughters and feminist scholars envisioning the same kind of freedom as their male colleagues and family members have? However, we need to keep in mind that what may have been liberating in one context need not be so in another context.
Yak-Hwee Tan
Yak-Hwee Tan moves one step further towards tradition in exploring whether there is freedom within patriarchal structures. Her contribution focuses on the theological issues in contrast to much Asian theology, which has rather been preoccupied with contextual matters of politics and social economy. As a theologian I find this praiseworthy.

As in Sheila McGinn´s paper I find that the analytical and hermeneutical frames could be more strictly kept apart. Yak-Hwee Tan's thesis is clear: difference should be accepted and celebrated within the Christian community and encompass not only the members of the congregation, but also "cultures" outside it.

The basis for the thesis is provided by a literary-rhetorical analysis. However, it also has a basis in a conviction, which must be placed within the hermeneutical frame: a belief in the absolute need for harmony within a community. This conviction is in its turn related to the Chinese cultural context. It is a Confucian ideal.

A key issue is whether Yak-Hwee Tan is - as she claims in her conclusion - bringing the Confucian perspective to the reading of Romans or whether an interpretation of a Christian theological understanding of the community brings a perspective on the Confucian ideal of khuan-hsi.

Put this way, I would choose the latter reading. But then another critical question must be raised: is this a good description of the Christian ideal of community? Indeed, it is not only Confucianism which has the idea of proper virtues guiding human relationships. The Pauline epistles provide us with household codes, focusing on the proper conduct between husbands and wives, children and parents, slaves and free men (Eph. 5:21-6:9 et al).

Feminist theologians have not found any consolation in these codes. Bringing them in from another culture does not solve the problem. Still, this is what catches my interest from a feminist perspective. If Sheila McGinn moves from dualism to duality, Yak-Hwee Tan takes her point of departure in the community per se, before any distinctions are made between self and other. The community is primary, the individual secondary.

Let me explore her ideal of community, for the moment disregarding whether it should be labeled Christian, Confucian or something else.

What I find attractive is first the idea that there is no escape from the goal of harmonious communities. What else is worth striving for? Nobody envisions a situation of continuous conflicts as a goal, although a necessary prerequisite for attaining that goal.

Second, I like the way Tan explores the potentials of relationships as we conceive of them traditionally. Indeed, there are many suggestions for alternative formations of communities, not least in feminist literature.18 On the one hand, such radical de- and reconstruction is called for. On the other hand, most of us are "trapped" within conventional relationships. It seems hard to envision any human life without women and men as couples. Perhaps their relationships are not life-long, but they exist. Furthermore, as long as there are human beings there will be parents and children, old and young. Some parts of our lives require unequal distributions of power while other parts are based on mutuality on an equal basis.

Yak-Hwee Tan wants us to look upon these relationships in terms of difference rather than in terms of oppression and hierarchy. Is it unthinkable that relationships between parents and children, albeit necessarily unequal in many ways, can be characterized by affection in a way which does not leave room for assault or betrayal? Could not the order between young and old be helpful for both parties?

What about keeping distinction as the characteristic of the relationship between husband and wife? At first glance this seems repelling to me. Is there any way in which I could positively understand this? I think so. If I use the term autonomy I can see a fruitful kind of relationship allowing for both unity and respect for the distinctive character of each individual.

My positive interpretation requires two things. First, that male and female are not understood as totally fixed or determined categories. Second, that we reflect some more of what Daniel Patte and I have called the three modes of existence: autonomy, relationality and heteronomy.19

In brief, the idea is that the opposite of autonomy is not relationality, but heteronomy.20 Autonomy implies independence, relationality the capacity of entering a community and heteronomy is dependence upon somebody or something else, losing control. A mutual relationship is found within the modus of relationality, while an oppressive relationship is heteronomous in a bad sense. However, we do not only have bad experiences of heteronomy. Sarah Coakley describes contemplative prayer in terms of empowering heteronomy.21 Other positive examples of losing oneself concern "getting lost" in a challenging task or losing oneself in the love of another.

All five relationships Tan refers to run the risk of becoming heteronomous in an oppressive sense. Marginalizing and ostracizing are experienced as negative heteronomy. If there are actually three modes of existence, we cannot do with just autonomy and relationality. We have to face heteronomy as well. There is no escape from the risk of loosing oneself in oppression. I understand Yak-Hwee Tan as insisting on this while simultaneously pointing to that heteronomy can also be part of a harmonious community.

I think this may be true in many cases, but not in all. Of course, the relationship between ruler and subject is least likely to be capable of mutuality in any meaningful sense of the word. In my view, Yak-Hwee Tan´s interpretation still calls for careful analysis of the different forms of each relationship she mentions.

The ultimate argument for Tan´s reading is that humans are not to judge each other, but to heteronomously hand over judgment to God. This brings us to two other crucial issues in her paper: the contents of her theology (her image of God, anthropology and concept of faith) and the principle issue of whether her programmatic pluralism is at all compatible with critique.

Yak-Hwee Tan has a clear theological frame, which can be briefly characterized in the following way: God is sovereign. Human beings are heteronomous in relationship to God and in need of God's help. Faith is basically understood in terms of a voluntary act rather than in terms of, for example, trust.

I will not discuss her theological position, but what catches my attention is that this kind of theology is seldom combined with an appreciation of pluralism, but with claims of exclusivism. Tan has a most unlikely point of departure for accepting pluralism. This is possibly explained by the fact that she does not open up towards other views and cultures from a privileged perspective, but from a minority perspective, culturally and genderwise. This makes her position worth while exploring further.

Concerning pluralism and judgment, they are compatible under certain conditions. Accepting pluralism does not equal relativism. While allowing for a multitude of interpretations and points of view, we need not accept all and indeed not accept all as equally valuable. Acknowledging that interpretation is a complex process with many constituent parts, we have to accept that there are many reasonable interpretations. However, we can also analyze the process and critically evaluate the arguments supporting each interpretation. Yak-Hwee Tan´s paper would benefit from presentations of such a critical analysis of both the Christian and the Confucian idea of the harmonious community.
Conclusions
In conclusion I just want to say that I welcome interpretations of Romans from a feminist perspective (McGinn) and including a feminist perspective (Tan) respectively. I appreciate these papers for going into the ambiguities of the text and interpretations of Romans. I rejoice at their courage to take on exploring possible liberating readings of concept generally androcentrically understood, such as adoption and mutual relations. I am not totally convinced by their results per se. However, Sheila McGinn and Yak-Hwee Tan convinced me that there are ways of exploring subtleties of these texts and interpretations which definitively need to be further interrogated.

1 Keller, Catherine. Apocalypse Now and Then: A Feminist Guide to the End of the World (Boston: Beacon Press 1996).
2Schneiders, Sandra M. "The Bible and Feminism: Biblical Theology" in LaCugna, Catherine Mowry (ed.) Freeing Theology: The Essentials of Theology in Feminist Perspective (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco 1993) 49 (31-57).
3 Jantzen, Grace M. Becoming Divine: Towards a Feminist Philosophy of Religion (Bloomington/Indianapolis: Indiana University Press 1999) 61.
4 Keller. Apocalypse (1996) 24.
5 Or to be more precise: on the interplay between analytical and hermeneutical frames
6 Castelli, Elizabeth A. "Romans" in Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza (ed.) Searching the Scriptures, Volume 2: A Feminist Commentary (New York: Crossroad Herder 1998 [orig. 1994]) 276 [272-300]. The whole passage 276-280 is devoted to the women mentioned in chapter 16.
7 Castelli. "Romans" (1998) 284f.
8 Castelli. "Romans" (1998) 285f.
9 McGinn 9.
10 Keller. Apocalypse (1996) 19f.
11 McGinn 9f: "But can one really compromise with a system of thought or a structure of power which is based on domination if one believes that the human project is mutual edification through shared power? Or can one really compromise with a system of thought or a structure of power which is based on mutuality if one believes that the only kind of power that is worthwhile is power over others? (...) This would not be compromise but capitulation."
12 Castelli. "Romans" (1998) 291.
13 Castelli. "Romans" (1998) 292.
14 McGinn 12.
15 McGinn 15.
16 Castelli. "Romans" (1998) 292.
17 Reference in Reinharz 242 to Stone, Ellen. . "Claiming the Third Story: The Challange to White Feminists of Black Feminist Theory", unpublished manuscript, Brandeis University, 1990.
18 See, for example, Carter Heyward´s non-hierarchical model of power or Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza´s ekklesia gynaikon.
19 Grenholm, Cristina- Patte, Daniel (eds) Reading Israel in Romans; Romans Through History and Cultures 1: Receptions and critical interpretations (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Trinity Press International, juni 2000), 1-54.
20 Cf. Hampson, Daphne (ed.). Swallowing a Fishbone? Feminist Theologians Debate Christianity (London: SPCK, 1996), especially her own introductory article "On Autonomy and Heteronomy" 1-16.
21 Coakley, Sarah. "Kenosis and Subversion: On the Repression of ´Vulnerability´in Christian Feminist Writing" in Hapmpson (ed) Swallowing (1996) 82-111.
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