A searchable, downloadable PDF of the original review appears below. Dr. Jerry and Reverend Elizabeth Zook have conducted a class in “Christianity and Feminism” at the local college in Prince George, B.C.
Battle for the Trinity: The Debate over Inclusive God-Language. Donald G. Bloesch, Servant Publications, 1985. (see the excerpt in this issue)
Dr. Bloesch’s twenty-second book wades into the growing conflict with ideological feminism. He unleashes a well-placed critique which finds its target in an eroded, devalued Trinitarianism. It is Nicene orthodoxy itself which triumphs over Baalism and Gnosticism – feminism’s attempt to both make God an imminent goddess and resymbolize the faith in current cultural dress. He sees the doctrine of God at stake.
A Presbyterian seminary professor at Dubuque (Iowa), Bloesch ably sketches recent attempts of radical feminist theology to alter the language of worship and spirituality. He categorizes feminist theologies as conservative, reformist and radical.
A resurgent Gnosticism informs ideological radical feminism in that God is seen as bisexual, not as a trinity; salvation is enlightened consciousness; the sacred is feminine; Neoplatonic mysticism is anticipated by naturalistic fertility cults and pre-Christian gods.
Remember the religious language debate of 15 years ago? From his arsenal, Bloesch commandeers Barthian theology, Ricouer, Jewett, Torrance, and commendably, Kenneth Hamilton, one of our Canadian theologians (Words and the Word).
Radical inclusive language attempts to improve upon given, biblical language. Bloesch develops a rationale for excluding some terms which feminists prefer: “Heavenly Parent” depersonalizes God; the NCC Lectionary’s advocacy of the Father/Mother metaphor images God as a hermaphrodite, androgynous and bisexual, a dyad, not a trinity. The God/ess imagery of radical feminists (e.g., Rosemary Ruether) “imputes sexuality to a God who is beyond sexuality. It also denies the transcendence of God . . . [It] means a new religion.”
Some experimentation with worship language is legitimate, he argues, but invocations and benedictions risk Sabellianism if they employ functional terms for the Godhead such as “Creator. Redeemer, Sustainer” or “Shepherd-Helper-Refuge.” Baptism in these names should never substitute at baptism in the traditional, ontological Trinitarian formula “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” which communicates who God is in terms of organic personal relationship.
Bloesch suggests that feminism has a disturbing precedent in its movement toward cultural accommodation. He points out that German folk/cult movements of the Nazi era attempted a resymbolization of biblical Christianity. Bloesch’s primary research into this arena discovers parallels between such aberrant “denominations” and ideological feminism: 1) both are forms of natural theology, measuring the Bible by experience; 2) both regard salvation as liberation from political and economic oppression; 3) both denigrate the Old Testament legacy of the church; 4) by revising biblical and liturgical language, one attempted to de-Judaize and one to de-patriarchalize the Bible; 5) both have a “pronounced utopian thrust – the illusive expectation that a new social order free of exploitation and oppression is a viable possibility within history.”
In his seventh and last chapter, Bloesch contends that conflict within the church is a conflict of theologies. Feminist theology risks the dangers of process theology’s modalism, Rahner’s subordinationism, Moltmann’s immanentalism, Pannenberg’s “dyadic concept of God”, Tillich’s God beyond personality, McQuarrie’s Jesus of “authentic humanity”, and Ruether’s God of “great collective personhood.” All devalue and erode Nicene orthodoxy.
Doctrine and ethics become something other than Christian when immanental and natural theologies substitute philosophical terms for canonical terms. Philosophical meditation may reflect on “Ground of being,” “creative process” and “Spiritual Presence,” “the Womb of God” and “World Soul” may not always be excluded if used carefully and rarely.
The book is an aid to spiritual warfare. It informs that language, to be helpful in prayer, must be equivalent to biblical formula. It clarifies appropriate innovation in liturgy. It draws a line between inclusive language and language used exclusively outside the prayers of private devotion, but which is not improper for philosophical meditation. In the middle of the battle, Bloesch’s book is a clear communiqué.