I’m just finishing The Liberating Word: A Guide to Nonsexist Interpretation of the Bible, edited by Letty M. Russell (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster, 1976), which can be freely borrowed on archive.org. This is vintage feminist theology, and it provides feminist reading strategies that are still used today. For example, Joanna Dewey writes, “Whenever there is a woman or women in a Biblical passage, always reread or retell the story from the viewpoint of the woman…. Frequently, this is all that necessary to give you an entirely different perspective on the passage” (80). While this wisdom likely doesn’t originate with Dewey herself, helpful recommendations like this, among other insights, abound throughout the book. Of course, the book is not without its problems. Readers may note though that Jesus’ ministry and early Christianity are sometimes presented as antidotes to the patriarchal Old Testament and first century Judaism, a framing found in earlier feminist theology (though it probably still survives in places) that was rightly disputed by Jewish readers.
I wanted to bring attention to a passage in the fourth chapter, written by Russell. One of Moltmann’s most cherished essays is his “What is a Theologian?,” Irish Theological Quarterly 64:2 (1999): 189-98 (an open access, earlier, and unpaginated version can be found here by searching “Moltmann”). He develops the thesis that every Christian is a theologian, among other things. Surely similar claims have been made over the centuries. But I was particularly interested in the same sentiment being expressed by Russell in the fourth chapter of The Liberating Word, especially as Moltmann and Elisabeth Moltmann-Wendel were friends of Russell and worked with her on some projects. She writes:
Every Christian is a theologian, and the whole church must be engaged in the theological task of thinking about God as God is known in and through the Word in the world. Only by the action and reflection of the whole people of God will the full possibility of insights into the meaning of the gospel be shared and lived. We all need the help of scholarly research and the tools of interpretation. Yet no amount of learning will help faith to shape life if it is not lived out in hope and love. Professional theologians, like other human beings, have biases and limitations. Only as all Christians join the task of interpretation, and take it seriously as a question of their own identity and maturity of faith, will the difficult task of liberating the Word go forward (95).
Cameron Coombe 