Feminist and Womanist Essays in Reformed Dogmatics

Amy Plantinga Pauw, Serene Jones, Amy Plantinga Pauw, Serene Jones

• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Year: 2006
• Print ISBN: 9780664238230
• eBook ISBN: 9781611647730
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

This book is a collection of essays by thirteen feminist and womanist authors who locate themselves within the Reformed tradition. Topics explored include: the Trinity, creation, election, atonement, the church, fear, resistance, and vocation. This book will be of great interest to scholars and students interested in feminist theology.

The Columbia Series in Reformed Theology represents a joint commitment by Columbia Theological Seminary and Westminster John Knox Press to provide theological resources from the Reformed tradition for the church today. This series examines theological and ethical issues that confront church and society in our own particular time and place.

1

FEAR IN THE REFORMED TRADITION

Lynn Japinga

In her memoir A Girl Named Zippy, Haven Kimmel describes her minimalist childhood religious beliefs: “I believed that the baby Jesus had gotten born, and that was all lovely. Christmas was also my favorite time of year, in part because of the excellent speech, ‘Fear not: I bring you good tidings of great joy.’”¹ Perhaps “Fear not” is such an excellent speech because most human beings are afraid of something. Children fear bullies, the dark, and monsters under the bed. Adults fear loss, disease, danger, terrorist attacks, and the collapse of the stock market. Institutions can be fearful also. A nation, a corporation, a church, or any other group fears danger from without and within. They fear that they will die, or their identity will be compromised, or they will be taken over, or the group will self-destruct from internal conflict.

Fear can paralyze. It can make us sick. It can make us avoid activities we like. It can cause us to be cautious and closed. It can make us hide in a cocoon and try to avoid risk. Fear can be defined as an emotional response to a specific danger or the possibility of danger, such as a mugger, a tornado, or a car careening toward ours. In these cases, fear may produce the physiological responses associated with “fight or flight” mechanisms. The heart beats faster, the adrenaline starts to pump, and the body prepares to escape or engage in battle. More often, though, the object of fear is not easily identified or dealt with. We fear what might happen. Losing a job. Losing financial security. Losing a child. Becoming ill. We fear we will not be good enough at marriage, parenting, or our vocation. We fear that we will not be happy. We may even fear that we will live our lives bound up in fear. Consider these examples.

First Samuel 17 describes a frightening event in the life of the Israelites. Goliath the giant had terrorized the Israelite army. Forty days in a row Goliath came to jeer at the Israelites and suggest they send one of their soldiers to fight him, winner take all. And every day the Israelite army “fled from him and were very much afraid.” Goliath threatened their safety, their national identity, and their faith. Fear not only made the Israelites run away; it also made them question their courage, their identity as soldiers, and their trust in God.

Contemporary North American culture also finds it difficult to cope with ongoing anxiety. We want to do something now, whether that means going to war, taking antianxiety medication, or dulling the pain with alcohol. When I wrote this chapter in 2002, the nation was debating the wisdom of a preemptive strike on Iraq, in part out of fear that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Military and political leaders were anxious because they did not know for certain and they could not control the situation. Still no weapons have been found, and it is clear that fear helped to lead the country into a very difficult war.

During one of our meetings in preparation for this book, we ate lunch with an educator who was planning a video about feminist theology and wondered if we would be featured in it. We discussed several possibilities and generated many creative ideas. Because of the controversy that has occasionally surrounded feminist theology, some members of the group wondered whether being linked with feminist theology would harm their chances of getting tenure or promotion. Others wondered whether they would be respected as theologians of the church if they were identified as feminists. Fear of disapproval or backlash can keep us from doing important but risky things. Fear can cause our lives to be constricted, narrowed, shut up.

A discussion of fear may seem an unusual way to begin a book of essays about womanist/feminist perspectives on the Reformed tradition. After all, fear is not a doctrine. But fear can be found at the root of many of the issues feminist and womanist theologians address. Scholars have noted within the Christian tradition many examples of the fear of women’s bodies, women’s minds, and women’s power.² Fear has at times led the church to limit and control women’s lives. Opponents of women’s ordination often fear that men will stop coming to church if women are ordained, or they fear that having women in leadership roles violates the authority of Scripture. Fears about women’s sexuality also appear in this debate. Similar dynamics occur in discussions about race. Predominantly white denominations fear the consequences of giving people of color genuine institutional power. Feminist and womanist theologians respond to these fears in their work. The other essays in this book will demonstrate some of the ways they do that. This essay will discuss fear itself.

The Reformed tradition has been stereotyped as particularly fearful through much of its history.³ John Calvin is portrayed as a pinched, sour man who delighted in telling the people of Geneva what not to do. Calvin’s descendants have been labeled as anxious, even a bit neurotic. Calvinism is described as a high-demand and high-achievement tradition, whose members feel guilty for the evil they have done, and even guiltier for the good they have left undone. The Reformed tradition emphasizes the fear of God and is dubious about fun-loving and joyful attitudes. One critic described the Puritans as obsessed with the idea that someone, somewhere, might be having fun. One of the most famous sermons in the Reformed tradition is Jonathan Edwards’s “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” Edwards compared a human being to a spider God dangled over a flame, leaving students of American literature a fascinating and disturbing example of what it means to be Reformed.

It is ironic that the Reformed tradition is theoretically deeply confident about God and salvation. The Westminster Shorter Catechism asks, “What is the chief end of man?” and answers, “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” The Heidelberg Catechism asks, “What is your only comfort in life and in death?” and answers, “That I belong, body and soul, in life and in death, not to myself, but to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.” Is it possible to be comfortable in the hands of an angry God? Is it possible to enjoy a God who does not want people to have too much fun?

If it is true that Reformed churches demonstrate a high degree of fear, it poses an interesting question. Why is a church that claims to be confident about the grace of God so fearful about its future? Why is fear such a common theme in the Reformed tradition?

Some fear is rooted in theological beliefs. The Reformed tradition has emphasized the sovereignty and transcendence of God, describing God as a Judge who must be feared, respected, and obeyed. Humans should be in awe of God and never treat the relationship lightly. God is gracious and merciful but also a demanding critic with high expectations for human beings. A common image of God is a father who loves his children but strongly disapproves of disobedience or even independent thinking. God is gracious in the Reformed tradition, but God is not easily satisfied.

The doctrine of election was intended to promote confidence in the grace of God, but it does not always succeed. The Reformed tradition insists that salvation comes from God, not from human effort. Election is mysterious, and the elect are ultimately known only in the mind of God. People wonder how they can be certain they are saved. Calvin warned against such speculation, but his descendants expressed a great deal of anxiety over who would be among the elect and how they could know for certain.

The strong emphasis on sin also helps to explain the presence of fear in the Reformed tradition. The Fall damaged all human capacities. Although unredeemed human beings are capable of good, they are more likely to be selfish, arrogant, greedy, and lustful. In the political context of the sixteenth century, Calvin was legitimately fearful of the various powers and authorities around him. He believed Geneva was a fragile community, threatened by Roman Catholic powers, the forces of irreligion, and apathy. Its survival was by no means assured. Despite the stereotypes, Calvin did not rule Geneva with an iron fist, eliminate all the opposition, or always get what he wanted. Calvin felt that he was constantly battling with sin and that it often won.⁴

This chapter will attempt to map the shape of fear in the Reformed tradition, using historical examples from several denominations. What are we afraid of and why? I will argue that Reformed fears generally fall into three categories: fear of the Other, fear of being wrong, and fear of being irrelevant.

FEAR OF THE OTHER

The Reformed tradition has generally been confident that it knows God’s truth and how best to live it out. Unfortunately, there have been many others who do not know God’s truth or claim to know it in a different way. Reformed Christians have occasionally tried to create a pure community where they could avoid disagreement, but they were rarely able to sustain such isolation. For most of their history, Reformed denominations have had to live with pluralism despite their desire to eliminate it.

The phrase “the Other” has been used in contemporary analyses to refer to those groups who are different or who disagree.⁵ One group of people might label as the Other anyone who looks, thinks, or behaves differently. When a group feels threatened or insecure, it is more likely to actively resist or critique the Other. At times the Other is frightening because it represents the powerful majority, but the Other is equally ominous when it poses a small but potent threat to a group’s identity and stability. Some historical examples may illustrate the varied role of the Other.

In the hymn “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” Martin Luther wrote, “And though this world with devils filled should threaten to undo us, we will not fear for God has willed his truth to triumph through us.” Calvin expressed similar confidence in the power of God to protect the truth. But Luther and Calvin found it difficult to live out this confidence in the midst of threats from many fronts. Even more problematic than “devils” were the beliefs and actions of several groups that threatened their tenuous security during the Reformation. They may have trusted God to triumph, but they did not leave it to chance. Luther and Calvin stated their views of the truth at every opportunity, often in the form of condemnations that were sharply worded critiques of the wrong beliefs of the Other.

The Roman Catholic Church was the most obvious Other. It was powerful and influential not only in religion but also in politics. In the minds of the Reformers, the Roman Catholic Church was wrong and a danger to the true faith.⁶ The early Protestants feared the Roman Catholic Church because it threatened not only their beliefs but also their lives.

It would seem logical in the face of this dangerous Other that the various Protestant groups would band together against Catholicism, but they did not. Luther and Calvin condemned Anabaptist convictions about believers’ baptism and pacifism. They criticized Zwingli for his views of the sacraments and his willingness to fight physically for the faith, and they criticized social reform movements that developed out of poverty and frustration. They feared that by introducing more radical social and religious ideas, these groups might endanger whatever stability Protestants had attained. Lutherans and Calvinists also disagreed with each other, particularly about the sacraments.

The condemnations offered a way to deal with disagreement and fear of the Other. If another group was wrong, even on one point, there was no reason to engage in discussion or cooperate with them. The integrity of the gospel was at stake. Its truth and purity needed to be preserved by naming wrong beliefs. Given the circumstances of the sixteenth century, this strategy is understandable; but it left an unfortunate legacy among Protestants, who felt they could not simply disagree with another group but had to condemn them. Once schism began it was difficult to stop, and even more difficult was reuniting groups that had separated. Complete doctrinal agreement seemed essential for Christian unity.

A century later another group of Reformed Protestants had a slightly different experience of the Other. In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries the Puritans were a minority group within the established Church of England. They criticized the state church for being too papist and insufficiently reformed. They vigorously protested encroachment upon their religious freedom. The Church of England had no right to tell them how to worship or what to believe. For the Puritans, the Other was the powerful state church, and it had to be opposed.

In 1630 a group of Puritans left England and settled in Boston, intending it to be a “city set on a hill” that would show the world how a truly committed Protestant community could be built. The power dynamics were reversed, and the Puritans were the dominant group. They attained their religious freedom but were not willing to grant it to others. They believed that a stable and successful community required everyone to conform to a single set of behavioral standards and beliefs. A dissenter threatened to corrupt the identity and mission of the entire community and therefore could not be tolerated. Because uniformity seemed essential to the ideal community, the Puritans frequently acted exactly as the Church of England had done. Quakers, Baptists, and advocates of religious liberty were killed, punished, or forced to leave. The Puritans insisted that the Massachusetts Bay Colony was a covenant community and those who did not share the community’s values and beliefs did not have to live there. In this context, the Other, simply by being different, threatened the well-being of the community and needed to be eliminated.

One of the most infamous examples of fear in a Reformed community occurred about sixty years later in Salem, Massachusetts. The Puritan community encountered inexplicable and terrifying events. Young girls experienced fits and trances and blamed their troubles on witches. Dozens of women (often elderly and crotchety) and a few men were accused of causing pain, disease, crop failure, and the girls’ fits. Historians have since identified many possible causes for the hysteria, including disease, tainted food, adolescent boredom, interpersonal conflicts, and economic distress. But the Puritans had no other means of explanation than the work of the devil. They were convinced that the devil was real and worked primarily through weak and vulnerable women. Fear of evil and the unknown thus led to the execution of nineteen women and one man. The Puritans were unable to seek out more complicated explanations for the apparent presence of the devil among them.

This event illustrates one of the most negative consequences of the fear of the Other. When people are afraid of something, but are not quite sure what, it is easy to scapegoat outsiders or problematic people as the cause of the danger. It is generally easier to blame the Other than to search for more complicated explanations of social disorder. In the 1950s, it was easier to scapegoat possible Communist sympathizers than to deal with the anxiety that Americans felt about the Soviet Union and the threat of nuclear war. Joseph McCarthy damaged many careers and reputations because he appealed to people’s fears rather than to their reason.

For the Dutch immigrants in the Reformed Church in America (RCA) and the Christian Reformed Church, fear of the Other was deeply rooted in their ancestors’ experience in the Netherlands. In the 1830s, some Dutch Reformed church members became involved in revival and renewal movements at the same time that the state church required more conformity. A number of them immigrated to the United States seeking greater religious freedom and economic opportunity. One group that was led to Michigan by Albertus Van Raalte eventually founded the city of Holland. Van Raalte appealed to the Dutch Reformed churches in New York and New Jersey for financial aid. The eastern churches provided the aid and invited the immigrants to join the Reformed Church, which they did.

A decade later a schism occurred. A few congregations left the RCA because they feared it was too Americanized and ecumenical. The presence of hymns along with psalms in the RCA hymnbook meant it had been infected by a nonbiblical practice. Thirty years later ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Contributors
• Introduction
• 1. Fear in the Reformed Tradition
• 2. Glorious Creation, Beautiful Law
• 3. “Ever to Be Reformed According to the Word of God”: Can the Scripture Principle Be Redeemed for Feminist Theology?
• 4. Scandalous Presence: Incarnation and Trinity
• 5. “Chosen by Grace”: Reconsidering the Doctrine of Predestination
• 6. The Imago Dei and a Reformed Logic for Feminist/Womanist Critique
• 7. Calvin and the Personal Politics of Providence
• 8. Resurrecting the Atonement
• 9. Transformative Grace
• 10. Always Reforming, Always Resisting
• 11. Between Vocation and Work: A Womanist Notion of a Work Ethic
• 12. The Graced Infirmity of the Church
• 13. The Gifts of God for the People of God: Christian Feminism and Sacramental Theology
• 14. Some Last Words about Eschatology
• Notes
• Select Bibliography
• Index of Names
• Index of Subjects