Interfaith Sexual Trauma Institute

Saint John's Abbey and University
Collegeville, Minnesota 56321 USA

web - www.csbsju.edu/isti  email - isti@csbsju.edu
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Power and Gender and Religion

Nancy A Dallavalle The ISTI Sun, January 1996, Vol 2 No 1 The Author, Dr Nancy A Dallavalle, received her PhD in Theology from the University of Notre Dame, and currently teaches in the Religious Studies Department at Fairfield University, Connecticut. Studies of the problem of clergy sexual abuse tell us that such abuse is primarily about power and trust, not sexuality. Given this, those of us who are concerned about sexual abuse - victims, church members, and abusers - might want to ask ourselves about the models of power we practice. We may also want to ask whether our presentation of the Christian tradition unconsciously conveys a story about power at odds with the Gospel message itself. For example, contemporary theologians have observed that some past teachings about sexuality in the Christian tradition are more about protecting the system of patriarchy (literally, the "rule of the fathers") than about life in the risen Christ. And while informed reflections on sexuality clearly repudiate the sexist overtones of earlier formulations, the everyday language of faith - of the Almighty Father, the Prince of Peace, the Lord of the Dance - continues to send messages that support patriarchy. "If God is male," goes the logic, "men must be divine." The convoluted discussion about how to name God is not our focus here. We do need to be aware, however, that language uses meaningful vocabulary and conveys a story about power, and that these stories bear fruit. For example, the confession that Jesus is the Father’s "only-begotten Son" has given some, both inside and outside the church, the impression that the real story of Christianity applies to men in the first place, and to women only secondarily. It’s not hard to see how this metaphor of the heavenly Father and Son, model for all earthly fathers and sons, could be used to support a problematic set of power relations between women and men within Christianity. But the key to this story, I believe, is not just that it is exclusively about powerful and divine male figures, but that it is a drama about a relationship between father and son that authorizes not only how power is allocated in the Christian community but, more importantly, the ethos or emotional tone that reinforces that power structure. The Christian story of the Father handing over his only Son is the epitome of heroic action, calling up resonances from the sacrifice of Isaac to every father who has clapped his son on the shoulder and sent him off to war. Conversely, a woman sending her son to war is depicted as having a private grief, favoring her own maternal tenderness over the needs of the public sphere. And the idea of a father handing over his only daughter, while poignant, doesn’t have the same epic impact - unless she is raped, in which case the emotional focus of the drama still shifts to the outraged father. While women are often stereotyped as overly emotional, it is interesting to find that even this emotional "turf" is finally given over to men in much of our culture. In this culture, women’s lives are viewed as marginal to the epic quality of male relationships - of kings and princes, of masters and apprentices, or, in this age of fatherhood’s ambiguity, the violent bonding of the buddy movie. Make any of these epics into a movie, and any women or children involved are in merely supportive roles. In our attempts to live the Christian life together, one question we might ask ourselves is about the emotional engine of that story in our communities - which emotions are central, and which peripheral; whose emotions are seen as a pointer to the transcendent, and whose dismissed as mere sentiment? In more practical terms, we need to ask ourselves what ethos our church communities are supporting. Do we take seriously the lives and sensibilities of women? Are they fully participants in our public worship and church structures? What is our day-to-day understanding of power and, knowing that we must exercise it, how is it used? What messages do we send our children about their bodies and their own integrity? We who are concerned about sexual abuse - victims, church members, and abusers - know that individual responsibility must be taken for these acts. But our concern must also take into account the power structures we promote, the emotional sensibility these structures instill, and the vulnerability to abuse and to be abused that can result. And what about the hard question: has our theology been shaped as much by the forces of institutional needs as by our fidelity to the Gospel message? ND