Power For: Feminism and Christ's Self-Giving

by Mercedes, Anna

• ISBN13: 9780567303455
• ISBN10: 0567303454
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-11-24
• Publisher: Bloomsbury T&T Clark

Summary

Feminist theologians have established that the self-giving doctrines can disempower women and other oppressed persons, teaching passivity and evasion of one's own self-development. Christ's kenosis, or self-emptying on the cross offers a central example of sacrifice for others to the detriment of one's own self-care. And yet, in contrast to previous feminist theologies, this book argues for the power available in self-giving. This feminist christology affirms that we come into ourselves through our own kenosis. Drawing on diverse sources, including traditional voices like Luther or Balthasar, contemporary feminist theologians such as Rosemary Radford Ruether or Marcella Althaus-Reid, and studies of abuse survivors, the book explores passionate self-giving as a power for divine and human revelation, a power for resistance of abuse, and a power for the continued anointing of Christic presence in a postmodern context. Self-giving engages a force that differs from both the "power in mutual relation" common to feminist theology and the "power over" of patriarchal thought. Christic self-giving conveys a power for: for God's thriving in the world, and for our own.

Author Biography

Anna Mercedes is Assistant Professor of Theology at the College of Saint Benedict, Saint John's University, Collegeville, Minnesota, USA.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. viii
Introduction: Dangerous Doctrine	p. 1
Christ's Kenosis and God's Power over Us	p. 12
Pauline Identity Politics	p. 14
Imperial Omnipotence	p. 21
Abstinence or Masquerade	p. 24
"Gentle Omnipotence"	p. 30
Toward Other Modes of Power	p. 34
Beyond "Power Over": Relational Christology	p. 39
The Dissolution of God's Power over Us	p. 40
Theology of the Cross as Relational Christology	p. 46
Power for Ourselves: Kenotic Erotics	p. 63
Divine Kenosis and Human Subjectivity	p. 65
Trinitarian Erotics	p. 70
Human Kenosis and Divine Subjectivity	p. 77
Kenosis and the Kinetics of Subjectivity	p. 80
Beyond "Power-With": Martyrs and Masochists	p. 85
Feminism and Masochism	p. 88
Reading Masochism in Christian Asceticism	p. 92
The Suffering Self	p. 99
Power for Resistance: Abuse and Self-Giving Care	p. 110
Self-Giving Care as a Resistance Strategy	p. 114
Theological Recognition of Power for Resistance	p. 121
Power for Christ: Self-Giving and Incarnation	p. 129
A Yielding Power	p. 132
Chrism Conveyed	p. 137
Passionate Christ	p. 148
Bibliography	p. 154
Index	p. 165
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