Speaking the Christian God: The Holy Trinity and the Challenge of Feminism, by Alvin E Kimel, Jr.

A searchable, downloadable PDF of the original review appears below. Jeffrey Greenman is a Regent College alumnus who is currently pursuing doctoral studies in religious ethics at the University of Virginia. This review appeared first in CRUX, the journal of Regent College, and is here by permission.

Speaking the Christian God: The Holy Trinity and the Challenge of Feminism. Edited by Alvin F. Kimel, Jr. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1992. 337 pp., pb., $30.95.

The valuable collection of 18 essays vigorously reasserts the categories and concepts of orthodox Christianity’s trinitarian discourse in the face of the recent challenges to that traditional language posed by feminist theologians. Contributors to the volume represent an impressive breadth of ecclesiastical traditions, including Anglican, Reformed, Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Methodist. Within the diversity of the theological approaches taken by the authors, there is an unmistakable consensus: that feminist revisions of trinitarian language must be rejected; that changing of traditional language will result in the creation of a new religion; and that the church must renew its theological and liturgical commitment to the classical grammar of the Trinity.

The editor, a young Episcopal priest, writes in his introduction that a “theological revolution” is now taking place in the theology and worship of English-speaking Christianity, one that “seeks to alter permanently the face and constitution of Christian faith” (ix). Many contributors echo this sense of dire emergency Garrett Green states that “not since ancient times, when the church first formulated its central dogma in the face of challenges from the religions and philosophies of Greco-Roman culture, have basic Christian concepts been subjected to such scrutiny” (p. 45). Robert Jenson suggests that “the current crisis” is “equalled in the previous history of the faith only by the gnostic crisis of the second and third centuries and by the crisis of vulgar Enlightenment at the hinge of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries” (p. 96). Colin Gunton describes the basic choice posed by feminist revisions of God-language as between the Gospel and a “different gospel” which is no gospel at all (p. 80).

This volume makes a powerful case for the urgent need for Christians who uphold biblical orthodoxy to take seriously the reformulations of Christian faith being proposed by feminist thinkers. By changing the language used to refer to God, these thinkers are urging a fundamental transformation of the church’s life and worship. Some feminists have demanded that inclusive language be used to refer to the deity (“Father and Mother” or “Heavenly Parent” to replace “Father”) while others have asserted the need for feminine language to replace masculine language (“Mother” rather than “Father”). The standard line of argument for these sorts of changes asserts that traditional language for God drawn from an androcentric Bible that enshrines masculine male domination and oppressive patriarchy, making it difficult, if not impossible, for women to relate to the divine in a religiously meaningful manner.

The view of thinkers such as Sally McFague, Rosemary Radford Reuther, and Mary Daly are discussed throughout the volume. The basic assumptions, specific arguments and practical implications of feminist theology are subject to theological analysis. For example, McFague’s “metaphorical theology” with its claim that “theology is mostly fiction” is rejected as rooted in the essentially Feuer- bachian view that religion is merely a “projection” of the human imagination. Several essayists compare “projectionist” theology with idolatrous attempts to fashion God after our own image. Reuthers statement that “feminist theology cannot be done from the existing base of the Christian Bible” is often cited as revealing feminisms reversal of orthodoxy’s commitment to biblical authority: the adequacy of the Bibles teaching is judged by how well it supports feminist theology. The operative norm of Reuthers theology is shown to be the “revelatory experience” of women. Several writers rebut Daly’s famous assertion “since God is male, the male is God” by explaining that the God of the Bible and of Christian doctrine is neither sexually male or female. Elizabeth Achtemeier argues that the Bibles masculine language for God is grounded in the assertion that God is distinct from his creation and that creation has its own intrinsic nature. Contemporary proposals suggestion female imagery for God (such as God “giving birth” to the world rather than creating it) would open the door to the identification of God with the world, a return to the worldview of Canaanite Baalism.

As well as providing some probing critiques of contemporary feminist theology, many of the contributors provide thoughtful articulations of classical trinitarian theology. In particular, Thomas Torrance’s exposition of the interrelated doctrines of Revelation, Incarnation arid Trinity is outstanding (and much more accessible than most of Torrance’s work). Several authors discuss the “scandal of particularity” that so often proves a stumbling block to feminists. Christianity is based upon historical particularities that cannot be reduced to mere universal “symbols” for imaginative speculation. A Jew in first century Palestine called Jesus of Nazareth as God’s incarnate Son “introduces” us to the true knowledge of the Father. On this basis we know that God has chosen to make himself known as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, addressing us in language that accommodates his truth to our capacity and need. As Alvin Kimel’s essay puts it: “The triune God has named himself, and he likes his name” (p. 188). If God has revealed himself in and through the particularities of the biblical narrative, then the nature of the Father is to be discovered within the biblical context and specifically from his self-disclosure in and through Jesus Christ. The common feminist suggestion that Father-talk is “oppressive” to women is plausible only when taken out of biblical context.

Several essays discuss the enormous issues at stake in the feminist challenge to the basic nature of theological reflection. Contrary to McFague, theology does not engage in “remythologizing” language for God or “trying out new pictures” for God. The classical view of the “givenness” of God’s self-disclosure in Christ implies that theology is “controlled” by the biblical language for God corresponding to ontological realities. To be a Christian theologian is to faithfully speak of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

As with any collection of this sort, there is some unevenness in the quality of essays. Although the entire collection is fairly accessible to non-specialists, the volume will be most helpful to readers with some previous familiarity with feminist theology. And despite the wide variety of specific topics among the essays – biblical interpretation, the nature of metaphorical language, the doctrine of creation, Christology, trinitarian worship – there is a fair bit of overlap (if not repetition) that suggests a selective sampling of the rich contents of this book probably will be sufficient for most readers.

We should allow the volume’s editor to have the last word. Kimel provides an urgent call for the church to embrace anew the classical trinitarian theology that is truly good news: “To abandon or reject the trinitarian naming is to create a new religion, a new God. Yet this crisis carries within itself a wonderful opportunity: it may and indeed must provoke our theological reflection to a radical appropriation and reformation of the trinitarian dogma. When this occurs, we will see that the triune God is not a deity of sexism and patriarchy but the God of the gospel who saves men and women from their sin and liberates them for love, discipleship, and joyous fellowship in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit” (p. 208).