Mrs Murphy's Arising from the Pew - feminist theology

Ecumenical Review, The, Jan, 2001 by Ninna Edgardh Beckman

Liturgical content

With regard to liturgical content, many of the changes being made mirror a dogmatic feminist critique. At the points where feminist theologians have concentrated their critique we will certainly find changes in the content of the liturgies, even if such a theoretical critique has not been the basis of the construction of the liturgies. One area where this is obvious is that of the relation between the human being and God. In a traditional Church of Sweden high mass, the Gathering expresses the fundamental Lutheran principle of "justification by faith alone" in the form of a clear confession of sins and prayer of forgiveness coming at the beginning of liturgy, followed by words of absolution from the priest. The Gatherings in my samples of feminist liturgies have shown quite another basic pattern. Instead of stressing the contrast between God's will and human actions, a close relation between God and human beings has been imaged. Often the prayers have expressed a concern for women not to confess false feelings of guilt. When sins have been confessed, we find many examples of "adverse" confessions, for example not of pride, but of self-denial. Sometimes also violations committed against the participants have been named and rejected as sin.

It is no exaggeration to say that the central place of justification by faith in the liturgies has been replaced by a stress on justice within the community. The people gathered, mostly women, have been portrayed as collaborators with God for the establishing of God's just reign on earth, rather than as sinners pleading for forgiveness. The names for God have evoked images of the motherhood of God's indwelling spirit, rather than images of the almighty Father on a throne in heaven.

These change are not surprising, considering the general changes in patterns of belief outlined above; but they imply major challenges to traditional Lutheran understandings. In addition to this is the feminist exegetical critique manifested in the treatment of the Bible in the liturgies. Generally speaking, we may say that readings from the Bible have a distinctly less prominent place in these liturgies than in the official liturgies of the Church of Sweden. Often scriptural passages have been juxtaposed with other elements, which have relativized the authority of the biblical text.(14) These feminist adoptions of the old liturgical principle of juxtaposition imply a rejection of the Lutheran principle sola scriptura, which in 19th-century Lutheran Protestantism was practised as an exclusive defining principle. Rather than letting scripture correct tradition, women in these liturgies have used their authority as church to correct sexist biblical passages and unjust readings of scripture.

The element of the ordo which has remained most intact in Swedish feminist liturgical adaptation is the Meal. I believe that this is because the Meal is easier to Claim as ritual enactment of just relationships than many other elements of worship. One way in which my liturgical examples differ from the usual ordinary worship in the Church of Sweden is that the eucharistic prayers used in the feminist liturgies regularly include the remembrance of women in the community -- from Mary, the mother of Jesus, to Mothers of the church throughout history.