Re-visioning Gender in Philosophy of Religion: Reason, Love and Epistemic Locatedness

Last updated on: March 21, 2013 at 11:50 am by Andre E. Johnson

Re-visioning Gender in Philosophy of Religion: Reason, Love and Epistemic Locatedness 2013-03-21T11:50:00-05:00 Andre E. Johnson

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

*Re-visioning Gender in Philosophy of Religion: Reason, Love and Epistemic Locatedness.*Ashgate, 2012.

Pamela Sue Anderson has just published her second full-length book on the feminist philosophy of religion and I would argue that it has been well worth the wait! The ruling metaphor of the book is taken directly from an essay by poet/feminist Adrienne Rich (“When We Dead Awaken,” 1971) who wrote about the necessity of ‘re-visioning’ the past. Re-visioning indicates the vital life-giving work of looking back at the traditions of the past, ‘seeing with new eyes,’ entering from a new critical – in this case, feminist – direction. Only by confronting powerful past assumptions about women contained within their styles and stories can we hope to move on from the distortions all of us – men, women, the transgendering – have suffered on the account of sexist or misogynistic structures and systems.

In this spirit of re-visioning Anderson provides us with a range of meticulously worked through examples. Feminists of course have been discussing the issues for a while – in 1998, the year in which Anderson’s first essay into this area – A Feminist Philosophy of Religion phil, Blackwells – was published, another feminist philosopher of religion, Grace Jantzen proposed her own solution – Becoming Divine, Manchester University Press – to the problem of sexist or misogynistic structures in ‘religion’ by suggesting that what women needed was a parallel concept of the feminine divine, that could contest the violent, death-obsessed stories of masculine divinity in the Christian west. Now as then Anderson resists this path on the grounds that divinity is not a free-floating concept, but one already caught up in a web or gendered interpretation. Yet for those who think the issue is ‘over and done with’ Anderson’s book shows clearly that she thinks a kind of scepticism and complacency about gender still very much exists, not the least in discussions that take place under the heading of the academic study of the philosophy of religion. It is a kind of scepticism or complacency made apparent, for example, in the words of a theologian like, T J Mawson, who claims that ‘“no sensible theist has ever thought that God really does have a gender”’ or in the view that provided one is ‘clear-headed’, patriarchal bias can be avoided (Anderson, 2012, 176). As Anderson patiently but quite relentlessly, persists “the point is to question whether ‘clear-headed’ thinking can avoid any gender-bias in the traditional philosophical arguments for Christian theism, especially when such terms as person, action and love, along with adjectives like personal, incorporeal, loving and the pronouns he, his and him are all applied to God’ (Anderson, 2012, 176).

There are also many references in this book to the work of French philosopher, Michèle Le Doeuff and to her idea – the ‘philosophical imaginary’ – that whilst gender bias and sexism are not very often on display in plain sight in our civilised western society, they invariably inform the spaces behind or inbetween, where we find ‘stories about men and women, myths about divine and human, imagery and asides about male omniscience and female humility’ (205-206). In other words, the fact that someone like Mawson can afford to ignore his own ‘epistemic locatedness’ has as much to do with the philosophical imaginary that is sustaining his unacknowledged privilege as a male academic theologian – the assumption of male neutrality – as it has to do with any genuinely universal validity to his argument, philosophically interrogated.

Read the rest here

Uncategorized

Previous Post

March 21, 2013

Why Unmarried Christians Are Having Sex

Next Post

March 21, 2013 Book Review: A Faith Embracing All Creatures

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Amy Steele Andre E. Johnson Book Reviews/Series Brian Foulks Call for Chapters Carol Howard Merritt Classes Conferences Contributors Crystal St.Marie Lewis Daniel White Hodge Earle Fisher Eulogy Fredrick Robinson Guest Contributions Henry McNeal Turner Institutes Interviews Joseph Boston Katherine Whitfield Kimberly Peeler-Ringer Lectures/Roundtables Natalie Bullock Brown R3 Book Series R3 Contributor Rashad Grove Readers Reflections Symposiums Teaching Traci Ellis Travis Harris Uncategorized Video

Select a Month June 2020 February 2020 December 2019 November 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 October 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz