That They May be Many: Voices of Women, Echoes of God (Religious Studies: Bloomsbury Academic Collections)

"The relationship of 'The Word' to notions of unity and oneness has often served as a tool of tyranny and oppression in Christian history. Static, authoritarian religious institutions have formed and developed the central tenets of their faith, excluding from participation the voices of those who do not mirror the reality of the power brokers - overwhelmingly white, Western, heterosexual and male. Yet other voices have continually emerged in multiple locations to challenge the hegemony of 'The Word' and to claim authority and agency in the struggle for basic rights and justice. Some of these voices are explicitly religious, others not. All challenge the adequacy of a unilateral 'Word' to embody the dynamic and all-encompassing movement of the sacred in the world. This book suggests that a metaphor of 'voices' provides possibility for the intercourse of many diverse expressions of holy power in the world without insisting upon either a primal or an ultimate oneness. The implications of this shift are many. The sources where such revelations of the divine appear are broadened to include many texts not traditionally seen as theological. Conceptions of community are revolutionized, to include not only groupings of like-minded individuals coming together for support and nourishment, but also coalitions of diverse persons, who share no particular social or cultural identity but rather their commitment to work together for a more just world. Traditional theological categories are renamed and redefined, as their original definition and subsequent development are disclosed as limiting and inadequate. And the God whom we have been told is One is revealed as many-faceted and articulate, speaking through and among a radical multiplicity of created and creative beings who struggle together to live authentically in the world."--Bloomsbury Publishing. Cover Half-title Title Copyright Contents Introduction Chapter 1 Power in Language Laying the Groundworkf or Inclusive Discourse Language: Toward More Adequate Definition Language as Contextual and Historical Language as Relational Language as Dynamic Criteria for Selection and Use of Sources Differences, Mot Otherness Passion Responsibility/Relationship Beyond Identity to Praxis Transformation of Theological Method Chapter 2 And the Word Was Made Man Challenging the Monopoly of the Word in Ghristian History Problematic Conceptions of the Word The Reification of Logos Logos and Authority The Word of the Bible Roman Gatholic Monopoly of "the Word" Metaphor: The Word of the Church The Triumph of the Word The White Christian-Feminist Search for Alternative Metaphors Sophia Sharon Welch: A Feminist Ethic of Risk Susan Thistlethwaite: Sex, Race, and God Chapter 3 Voices of the Kin-dom of God Voices of Authority and Agency Claiming the Authority to Speak Claiming Agency in the Ghoice of Expression Claiming the Truth in Oral-Aural Wisdom Voices of Revelation Sin and Grace Salvation and the Kin-dom of God Chapter 4 Boundaries of Knowledge, Barriers to Knowing Transforming Epistemologies Embodied Knowing: The Practice of Freedom Feminist Theory: The Personal Is Political Organic Knowing Liberation Theology and the Hermeneutical Spiral Creative Knowings The Genre of Theo-ethical Discourse Chapter 5 Boundaries of Identity, Barriers to Voices Transforming Our Praxis Community and Identity Community Identity and the Struggle for Survival Community, Identity, and Exclusion The Promises and Problems of Standpoint as Praxis Standpoint Praxis and the Privilege of the Oppressed Objectivity and Socially Situated Knowing Questions Raised by Standpoint Theory Beyond Standpoint to Coalition The Meed for Coalition Motivating Factors for Goalition Barriers to Goalition Chapter 6 Voices of Struggle, Echoes of God Methodological Challenges An Articulate Gods Word or Voices? God as Speaker God as Communities in Solidarity God as Movement in Connection Notes Index