In Jacquelyn Grant's White Women's Christ and Black Women's Jesus, I read about Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, a Christian feminist thinker. Two passages in this chapter stood out to me:
"In terms of her approach to the Bible as a source for theology, Mollenkott describes herself as 'marginal.' This marginality is evidenced by her use of the Bible. As she puts it, she is 'too radical' for most evangelicals, too 'addicted to the Bible' for many people in the mainline churches." (Page 97)
I certainly identify with spiritual alienation!
On pages 99-100, Grant summarizes Mollenkott's approach to Scripture:
"Matthew 19 provides the basis for her approach: The Pharisees came to Jesus and tried to trap him about divorce. If he agreed with the Mosaic law that men could divorce women rather easily, then they had caught him in a double standard. Of course, he did pit himself against the Mosaic law. He says, Moses gave you that law because of the hardness of your heart, but from the beginning it was not so. Then he quotes Genesis 1 and 2 to prove his point. Even the most intrepid traditionalist isn't going to say Jesus was doing away with the authority of Scripture. So why can't we cite Galatians 3:28 and the many passages about the new creation to refute I Corinthians, II and I Timothy 37? That's what Jesus did. How does one verify accuracy in this approach to scripture[?] Mollenkott relies on 'scholarly exegesis' for this verification. In order to interpret scripture accurately, she claims, 'we have to pay attention to word choice, literary forms, who is speaking, and ideas we aren't used to...tools of scholarly knowledge must be brought into play...Then we can tell which passage[s] are God's ideal for all times and places and which are associated with individual church problems.' For example, specific passages regarding women related to specific church problems which were cultural and time-bound, whereas Galatians 3 is theological, having to do with no particular church problem; therefore it is normative."
But didn't Paul in I Corinthians 11 and Deutero-Paul in I Timothy 2 appeal to creation to justify their patriarchal mindset? For Mollenkott, that too is cultural, for Paul is (in Mollenkott's words) "clearly following the rabbinic tradition he has been taught." That position is that "since Adam was created first, he is superior", which Mollenkott does not believe is faithful to Genesis 2 itself, for Genesis 2 does not present women as inferior on account of their status as helpers. Then there's the issue of biblical contradiction: Paul upholds patriarchy by saying that the woman was taken from man---the Genesis 2 account---and yet Genesis 2 contradicts Genesis 1, in which God created man and woman at the same time. And Jesus affirmed that "in the beginning God made them, male and female" (Mollenkott's paraphrase)---the Genesis 1 version---so Paul is contradicting Jesus!
Mollenkott's approach to Scripture reminds me of Gerald Sheppard's article on the Bible and same-sex partnerships (see here). Both say that morality in Scripture is not absolute, since there are voices within the Bible itself that contradict or claim to supersede other biblical voices. Both hold that Paul's understanding of nature was merely his opinion, which was influenced (and in many cases limited) by his historical context. And both believe that other disciplines should have a voice as we arrive at our theology. Unlike Sheppard, Mollenkott can actually build a case for her egalitarianism from Scripture, since there are passages that appear to be egalitarian, whereas there aren't passages that explicitly condone homosexuality (at least to my knowledge). But Sheppard actually grounds his methodology in Scripture, when he says that Paul relied in part on his observations in determining what is natural---and so Christians can do likewise. Sheppard also says that a loving homosexual relationship is consistent with elements of Christian sexual ethics.
I'm not sold on Mollenkort's distinction between universal and contextual teachings in the Bible. She says that Galatians 3 is theological and does not address a specific issue within a community, and so it is normative for Christians. Overall, I guess my issue with Mollenkort is this: Can we divorce the Bible from its cultural and historical contexts? Can we find anything in the Bible that is untouched by culture, or that does not address the concerns of a community? Those appear to be Mollenkort's criteria for accepting a biblical teaching as normative for all time---and yet I'm not sure if anything in the Bible can meet that criteria. Theological claims can be rooted in historical context: there are similarities between the biblical writings and their cultural milieus. In a sense, Galatians 3 (the part about there being neither Jew nor Greek) was addressing a community concern---the inclusion of the Gentiles (though, perhaps, "there is neither male nor female" doesn't relate to that directly). Also, I think that Paul was drawing on what he believed to be normative in shaping his advice to specific communities.
Some say that we should go with what is original to ancient Israel and the early Christian communities. I remember a liberal Christian making that sort of point: that the early Christians reflected the Stoicism of their culture when they opposed homosexuality, but they went against their culture in their practice of pacifism, and so pacifism was a distinctly Christian idea, and is thus normative for Christians. But this doesn't always work for liberal positions, for there were cultures in the ancient Near East that had little problem with cross-dressing, and yet a voice in the Pentateuch is strongly against it, in accordance with a priestly worldview that wants everyone and everything in their proper roles. Should we go with this distinctly Israelite idea (if my understanding is correct that it was distinctly Israelite)?
Some say that we should go with the views that appear throughout the Bible---for those are the views that transcend culture. But patriarchy and opposition to homosexual sex appear throughout the Bible. I doubt that would influence Mollenkort to view patriarchy as acceptable.
Some say we should go with what's earlier. That's one feminist theologian's approach: the Jesus movement was egalitarian, and Paul had some egalitarian ideas, and so we should go with those teachings rather than the sexism of the later pastoral epistles. But what happens when earlier ideas are oppressive? After all, the Pentateuch has patriarchy, along with a number of things that many Christians believe have been superseded!
I'll continue reading Dr. Grant's book to see if other feminist theologians offer something that makes more sense to me. At the same time, I admire Mollenkort for trying to explain why she picks and chooses from Scripture as she does: she does attempt to come up with a system.