Of Humility and Feminist Theology

This post will discuss humility in Evangelical Christianity. It first looks at how the term is tacitly defined in the faith. Considering the normative definition’s limitations, the following post (Part 2) suggests the possibility of a redefinition.

I turn to humility (and sin) well-understood in Evangelical Christianity.  For this, I draw on a feminist theologian lens emphasising, in my own opinion, gender/sexual dignity in honouring female contributions to the Body of Christ.

It is argued that the Christian church and theologians have persuaded and encouraged women to believe that the ultimate sin is pride, and conditioned women to respond to sin with humility. Humility translates into “obedience, self-effacement, and self-negation” (Hinson-Hasty, 2012, p. 109). (“Yeah I’m so stupid for this mistake” “Ah, I can’t do this. I think women aren’t natural leaders. My husband is so much better.”) But as women occupy the margins of the faith and are excluded from discourse, what is understood as sin reflects the male experience.

Contemporary theological doctrines of sin and love were constructed by men “amid the tensions of a hypermasculine culture” (Goldstein, 1960, p. 36). The so-called “modern era” witnessing the Renaissance and Reformation, alongside capitalism, the industrial revolution, and imperialism, harnessed human qualities “peculiarly significant to men” (Goldstein, 1960, p. 36). This era also saw the separation of man from nature, “laissez faire competition and economic uncertainty” and “widening of the gulf between family relationships, on the one hand, and the public life of business and politics, on the other” (Goldstein, 1960, p. 37). The anxieties of this “masculine era” (Goldstein, 1960, p. 37) are reflected in sin’s definition, “pride, will-to-power, exploitation, self-assertiveness” (Goldstein, 1960, p. 37).

Conversely, women with child-bearing capacities may know the mystery of transcending themselves to love and care for a child. Yet, to become a whole person, a woman must also dedicate herself to the enrichment of her individual personhood; “A mother who rejoices in her maternal role – and most mothers do most of the time – knows the profound experience of self-transcending love. But she knows, too, that it is not the whole meaning of life” (Goldstein, 1960, p. 38). Hence, the struggles women face would be distinctive from men. She would be drawn to the dependence on others for self-understanding and self-definition, the “lack of an organizing centre or focus” (Goldstein, 1960, p. 38). The necessity of suspending one’s needs to meet the needs of her husband and her children, “to merge her selfhood in the joys, sorrows, hopes, and problems of those around her" (Goldstein, 1960, p. 49), is the beauty of the maternal role.  At the same time, it facilitates dependence on others to define her values. Goldstein’s point is not to add to the burden of guilt women already have but to “awaken theologians to the fact that the situation of the woman, however similar it may appear on the surface of our contemporary world to the situation of man [is] at bottom, quite different” (Goldstein, 1960, p. 39).

Today, women can be “both feminine and fully developed, creative human beings” (Goldstein, 1960, p. 39). Married women enter and excel in the workforce, and some even become managers (though I won’t discuss the glass ceiling effect as this isn’t the aim of the current post). Yet women are subjected to the same pressures of undivided devotion to “the task of nurture, support, and service of their families” (Goldstein, 1960, p. 39). Meanwhile, theology premises the argument of sin on men's experiences, as I highlight earlier, “pride, will-to-power, exploitation, self-assertiveness” (Goldstein, 1960, p. 37). A woman who subscribes to the definition of sin theologians typically propose would succumb to squelching desires in herself, for having chosen marriage and children, “she has no right to ask anything for herself but must submit without qualification to the strictly feminine role” (Goldstein, 1960, p. 40). Humility becomes self-negating and self-denigrating, without agency and internalised guilt. "Ah how could I be so selfish about leaving the baby behind with the husband so I can go for a couple of drinks with my friends?"

We've heard about the idea of 'mothers guilt'. I respect motherhood, love the company of babies, children, and kittens, and wish to become a parent at some point, God-wiling. But as a Christian, I wonder if this is the wish of the Creator for women to constantly subscribe to a notion of humility that suffocates and disempowers. My next post talks about alternative definitions of humility that are emancipatory.

References

Charmaz, K. (2016). The Power of Constructivist Grounded Theory for Critical Inquiry. Qualitative Inquiry, 23(1), 34–45. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800416657105

Goldstein, V. S. (1960). The Human Situation: A Feminine View. The Journal of Religion, 40(2), 100–112. https://doi.org/10.1086/485231

Hinson-Hasty, E. (2012). Revisiting Feminist Discussions of Sin and Genuine Humility. Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 28(1), 108–114. https://doi.org/10.2979/jfemistudreli.28.1.108

Oliphant, S. M., & Bennett, C. S. (2020). Using reflexivity journaling to lessen the emic–etic divide in a qualitative study of Ethiopian immigrant women. Qualitative Social Work, 19(4), 599–611. https://doi.org/10.1177/1473325019836723

Rich, A. (1980). Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence. Signs, 5(4), 631–660. https://doi.org/10.1086/493756

 

 

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