TEXTUAL POLITICS - THE BIBLE AND THE "OTHER" IN THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
Johanna W.H.van Wijk-Bos
Lecture delivered on March 8, 2001 at Union Theological Seminary (NY), in the context of a series of lectures presented by the Institute for Democracy Studies at Union Theological Seminary.
In the short span of time we have tonight I want to explore briefly converging discriminatory ideologies and practices in the Presbyterian denomination as these are pursued by the religious right wing of our church. In particular I will examine how the lines of discrimination against gays, lesbians, and anyone not of the prevailing heterosexual persuasion, converge with those of discrimination against women. I will suggest that throughout the fight over ordination issues and sexuality women have been and are a primary target of the far right. We will then look at the Bible as it speaks to the construction of identity vis a vis the "other," and, finally, ways that the Bible may be helpful in the struggle for women and others to achieve a full humanity.
I have a very personal stake in the issues that are before us, not only because of my involvement as ally and advocate in the cause for a more open and inclusive church, a church that involves itself deeply with issues of social justice, and not only because I myself as a woman have experienced the dogmas and stigmas and chastisements of the right wing. The early setting of my personal life is marked by the events of the second world war. I was born in Holland, one of the German occupied countries, and lived the first five years of my life in deprivation and fear. There was during the war years in my country no group that was singled out as clearly for special suffering as the Jewish community. The Jews were created by the German nazis as the dangerous other who actively threatened the well-being of the German nation. The only way of controlling this monster was to declare it less than human and then to annihilate it. The recognition of the shape and extent of the Christian oppression and persecution of the Jews provided me in time with a paradigm for recognizing relations of oppressions elsewhere. The creation of the Jew as a monstrous, hence less than human other, hence a creature that morally should not be allowed to live, serves as a stark reminder in my life of the outlines and the goals of all ideologies of discrimination, including those based on sexual orientation and sexual differentiation. We may sometimes forget that within the context of the nazi ideology destruction of the Jews was advocated as a "moral good." Discrimination thus became a moral task of a "good" citizen.
That women have been and are constructed as the "other" in the broader culture has been argued persistently and cogently by philosopher and theologian alike. Recently, the Princeton theologian Mark Taylor in an essay entitled "Of Monsters and Dances: Masculinity, White Supremacy, Ecclesial Practice" argues that perceptions of women and non-white races as the "other" easily move into perceptions of them as monsters and that from monster-making comes monster-slaying. (in Violence Against Women edited by Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza and M.Shawn Copeland - London: SCM Press, 1994) The church, observes Taylor, "has been involved in making women (and blacks) "monstrous" and then in slaying them. Women, in both Jewish and Christian traditions, begin to be seen as monstrous simply when depicted as "other" to a God who is conceived in male terms only, they were often cast as possessing inordinately "tempting sexuality," unrestrained desire, staining blood, etc. They were thus made monstrous, evoking strategies of containment, and being shut out from both life-giving ministries and life-protecting opportunities."
How much the "othering" dynamic plays a role in discrimination against gays and lesbians and anyone not heterosexual is clear both in the culture and the church. To hear over and over again the comparison of gays to child molesters in the context of the church, to use the reference "homosexual lifestyle" as pointing to a self-evident reality, to refer to people as "self-avowed unrepentant" human beings makes clear to a greater or lesser degree that these folk do not measure up, are other, having a different lifestyle, not only that they threaten our lifestyle, being predators on children, etc.etc. And thus the church in its infinite wisdom during the past 20 years has deprived some of its most talented ministers from "life-giving ministries and life-protecting opportunities." The report Keeping Body and Soul Together: Sexuality, Spirituality and Social Justice issued to the General Assembly of 1991 and neatly buried during that Assembly, clearly linked the oppression of women with compulsory heterosexuality. In making these connections the writers observe: "For example, a heterosexist ethic insists that real men must dominate women, and normal women must be sexually submissive and socially compliant. Patriarchal sex insists that women be forever ready to make their lives available for the service of others, especially men and children. A man who does not properly perform his dominant role vis a vis women is treated as a failed man, a "wimp, and "queer." Similarly, a strong, self-respecting and assertive woman may be labeled "not a real woman," a "man-hater," or a lesbian. This label is applied, not about sexual orientation or preference, but because she does not keep her place of socially constructed inferiority. Heterosexism and homophobia operate in this culture to bolster and maintain gender injustice. Sadly, these dynamics are also to be found with great power in our churches." (Pp.33-34) It seems clear to me that one of the reasons for the strong condemnation of this report by the right wing of the denomination was this clear naming of patriarchy.
How much power these dynamics of gender injustice exercised became crystal clear during the aftermath of the Reimagining Conference. I want to speak briefly of my own experiences at that time. I had been one of the afternoon speakers at that conference, held in early November of 1993. I came home from the event heartened and enlivened, encouraged that there was this much life in the context of the church structures. A few months after the conference I found my name on the front page of the Jan/Feb 1994 issue of the Layman where it was stated that at the conference I had called for "the destruction of traditional Christianity". I was identified as a professor at Louisville Presbyterian Seminary and a "frequent teacher at denominational meetings," though not as an ally of lesbian and gay activists and a supporter of the "homosexual lifestyle," an epithet that had been used for me in an earlier issue. In a further comment inside there was a statement that our Seminary had received a gift from an "anonymous donor to establish a center on campus that will promote "reimagining" ideologies. Professor Johanna Bos is involved in the implementation of that effort." Both these statements constituted a fabric of half-truths worthy of the snake in the garden of Eden. What I had actually spoken about was the interpretation of a text in the context of the politics of her day by the prophet Huldah, as recounted in 2 Kings 22. In my analysis I compared the announced destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in the days of king Josiah of the seventh century B.C.E. to the impending destruction of the house of patriarchy. I mentioned neither tradition nor Christianity but referred rather to the institutions created by them. But then perhaps the Lay committee identified traditional Christianity with the house of patriarchy.
Most importantly, I believe that my being taken to task was a deliberate attack on my academic institution, hence the further reference to the center for the promotion of reimagining ideologies. This reference was actually to our Women’s Center for the establishing of which a four-year effort had been underway long before anyone had heard of Reimagining. I may have been more ready to be suspicious because of the devastation that was taking place in the Southern Baptist Seminary that is just across the street from our Presbyterian school. I believe that the attack on my institution may have been a trial balloon that failed. I received rather a lot of fan mail at that time, some of the letters going to our president encouraging an "investigation into my orthodoxy." These letters were disheartening, especially since there were virtually none that did not contain spelling errors, but in the end I was in a far less vulnerable position than our friend Mary Ann Lundy in the GA offices, who, after all, lost her position during that time. The trial balloon failed for two reasons, one was that my most conservative colleague took exception to the Layman’s treatment of my person and words and wrote an angry letter to the newsletter in my defense. The other reason was that our president defended my right to speak in a non-restrictive fashion, to the members of our Board of Trustees and praised my speech as biblically responsible. I must mention an interesting dynamic that took place afterward. Although I was thus upheld publicly and the Presbyterian Laywolf was kept from our academic doors, privately I was berated and taken to task rather severely, not, interestingly enough, because I had not exegeted the text of 2 Kings 22 responsibly or had spoken other unbiblical truths but because in the course of my argument I had called patriarchy a "pissing contest." You must trust me that there were good reasons for doing so, that I spoke truthfully and even biblically (see 1 Samuel 25 KJV). What is of interest here is that, ultimately, I was treated more like a child in a family than a colleague on a faculty. Like the child I was defended to the outside world, but privately I was taken to task for having said a "naughty" word. If the "monster" can’t be slain, then at least it can be made small and a for women well-known infantilizing process was thus put in place. But there is a kernel of reality here also, in terms of what bothers the right wing; it was after all not my exegesis but my having called patriarchy on the carpet and called it by its name that gave the offense.
If it was not clear before then, Reimagining and its aftermath revealed how much women in the church were a target of the ultra-conservatives. Much more has happened since then, so that today we stare at the ruin of what once was the Women’s Ministry Unit in the General Assembly Offices, we barely survived the assault on young women as evident from the attacks on the national network of Presbyterian College women, Women’s groups as Voices of Sophia are routinely vilified, even by the mainstream Presbyterian press, and I witness the struggles that women face in the professional ministry from close-up. The lines of discrimination are interwoven and they form a strong network against which those of us must take a stand who believe in God’s realm as one opposed to institutionalized injustice and oppression of individuals and groups of people because of their gender, race or any other condition that qualifies them in the eyes of those who would make the rules; who believe, in other words, that such injustice and oppression is unbiblical.
Of course, the conservative wing of the church is well-versed in using the Bible as a political weapon of discrimination. But it has no corner on the right interpretation of Scripture. Scripture teaches many things. Martin Luther claimed that biblical principles could be used to prove that bad beer is better than good wine. The text was from its beginning applied to political use, to construct the identity of the community of believers, whether in Old or New Testament times as hostile to outsiders, to the other. Witness the use of a few select verses in Deuteronomy to send away a small group of women who had intermarried with Jews in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah (Ezra 9 and 10); witness the barring of foreigners from the reconstructed temple as dictated in Ezekiel; witness the often vituperative picture painted of the Jews in the gospels; witness the consistent silencing of women as partners in the leadership of the early church. The text is not alien to the construction of the monstrous, dangerous other. One of the texts that accurately reflects the dynamics of "othering" is the book of Esther where the intertwined othering dynamics represented are those toward women and Jews. Both groups are depicted as dangerous to the stability of the realm, to the status quo, so they must be taken care of. While there has always been an awareness of how much the Jews are the potential victims in Esther, the way women are also depicted as targets has not always been brought out as clearly by commentators and interpreters.
Just a few brief sections from Esther must suffice. Esther 1:15: he (the king) said: according to the law what should be done to Queen Vashti because she did not do what king Ahasuerus said by hand of the eunuchs?
16. Then Memucan said before the king and the ministers: not only toward the king has Queen Vashti acted subversively but also to the ministers, and to all the people who are in all the provinces of king Ahasuerus. 17. For word of the queen will make all women look with contempt on their husbands as they consider that king Ahasuerus said to bring Queen Vashti into his presence and she did not come. 18. On this very day the high-placed women of Persia and Media who hear of the queen’s word will talk back to all the king ’s lords and there will be no end of contempt and rage! Queen Vashti ‘s refusal may have been for all kinds of reasons, she may have been too busy with her own party, too tired, her corns may have been hurting; never mind the reality, she is now perceived as threatening the stability of the entire empire.
And from Haman to the king in the third chapter: There is one people, scattered and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom, whose laws are different from all people, and the laws of the king they do not obey; and it is not fitting that the king should leave them alone. (3:8). Like the Lay Committee of today, yesterday’s Haman weaves a fabric of lies out of truth and half-truth. The first four words are true enough and the fact that this one people is scattered and dispersed is not unusual. There must have been quite a few such groups in the large Persian empire. Yet, the information about scattered and dispersed adds at least one element of discomfort: these people are all over the place! The next statement is a half-truth since differences in diet and dress would constitute customs rather than laws. But Haman has to introduce the notion of the law and this is a way to achieve it. Then he finishes the whole thing up with a lie. It is true that Mordecai has not obeyed the edict of the king in regard to Haman but nothing is known of a general disregard on the part of the Jews for the laws of Persia. In fact, this can hardly have been the case for a minority group that needed to survive. Timothy Beal observes that Haman has constructed "the Jewish problem" and its "final solution" at the same time. (Beal:51)
But there is more than verification of our human situation in the Bible, there is also a word of liberation and to that word I finally turn to trace a biblical path way out of our dilemma. For in the end we must choose what word of God’s word we will live by, the word of exclusion and condemnation or the word of care and justice and protection for the unprotected. This word, represented in more laws than any other in the Torah of the Hebrew Bible, the word in respect to "the stranger" stands guardian over our human tendencies to create, dehumanize and destroy the other. The stranger, the law says, you must not oppress; you yourselves know the heart of the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. (Exodus 23:9) and further You must love the stranger as you love yourself for you were strangers in the land of Egypt (Leviticus 19:34) The Bible says different things about the issue of the outsider; that is the way it is and when the Bible does not speak with one voice about something we must make a choice, we make a choice where we line up.
But we may say, how do we do that? How do we avoid arbitrary choices and ultimately such selective reading that anything goes and anything can be proven? To an extent that danger will always be there, but we are not without guidelines and help. Some of you may know that the largest portion of the Bible, the part that is the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament of the Christian Bible, in the original language is read from right to left. Some of you may know this from their own experience and also know what a barrier this to us westerners unnatural habit is to reading with any kind of ease. Let me suggest to you that as we read from right to left we read always and above all from left to right. Or, in different terms, we read always from below, we are attentive to the voices on the margin, to the voices in the text that are silenced, we reorient ourselves to a different vision of justice, as it comes to us from the ancient Torah, from the stories and the prophets. This perspective we may use as a key to interpreting the text in our context, for the politics of our day.
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