c. 1996 Religion News Service

(Rabbi Rudin is the National Interreligious Affairs Director of the American Jewish Committee.)

(RNS)-No one is neutral about feminism’s impact on contemporary Judaism and Christianity.

Today, women rabbis, women priests and women ministers are increasingly doing the pastoral work once strictly the domain of men. Women are leading congregations, counseling troubled families and offering valuable spiritual guidance.

For some people, feminism represents a threat to the traditional values and practices of religion. But for others, it marks the beginning of a liberation movement, which seeks to end the centuries-old attitudes that forced women to play a minor role.

Women clergy already have transformed religious life by helping develop new and inclusive language for the Bible and liturgy and by enhancing our understanding of God as a loving, nurturing force.

But a recent interreligious conference I attended on the influence of feminism on Judaism and Christianity revealed a startling downside to this phenomenon-and a formidable challenge.

As women clergy offer alternatives to the patriarchal traditions that have historically shaped everything from our depictions of God to the way clergy go about their work, they also risk being typecast into another kind of sexual stereotype.

Too often, conference participants agreed, women clergy are content to present themselves as celebratory Dr. Feelgoods, dispensing warm and fuzzy blessings at life-affirming rituals like birth ceremonies and weddings.

Congregants, too, often relegate them to a female ghetto, calling on women clergy to officiate at life’s happier moments, but preferring the authority of male clergy at times of tragedy, sickness or death.

Warm and fuzzy blessings have long been a staple of many women religious leaders. But how useful are they in helping people cope with the cruelties and jagged edges of life? Women clergy, participants at this gathering concluded, have to be more than religious cheerleaders promoting the idea of a nurturing God.

The conference on feminist theology was co-sponsored by the National Council of Churches, Auburn Seminary, and the American Jewish Committee.

Two distinguished professors-Judith Plaskow of Manhattan College and Elisabeth Schussler-Fiorenza of Harvard Divinity School- described how male leaders of Judaism and Christianity have systematically excluded women from positions of real power and responsibility for centuries. As part of that policy of exclusion, many notable contributions made by women to religion have been devalued or ignored.

Plaskow, who is Jewish, and Schussler-Fiorenza, a Catholic, showed how masculine language has been the dominant voice of Jewish and Christian prayers, teaching and preaching. This language also gave rise to an idea of a God with manly qualities.

With that manly depiction of God came the strict requirement that all priests, ministers and rabbis be men. It is a requirement that still holds for traditional Judaism, Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox Christianity and some Protestant denominations.

While fully recognizing the significant gains feminism has achieved in religion, Plaskow and Schussler-Fiorenza warned that there are no easy answers for achieving the feminist goal of religious equality between men and women.

Merely changing or adapting ancient prayers is not going to end discrimination against women in churches and synagogues, they said. Removing sexist language from hymns and Bible translations, while necessary, is insufficient. Women clergy who play the role of Reverend or Rabbi Feelgood will not solve the problem.

Plaskow said it was important to include the matriarchs of ancient Israel-Sarah, Rebecca, Leah and Rachel-in Jewish prayers, but it is not enough. Schussler-Fiorenza urged that new emphasis be given in churches to the roles of New Testament women, including Martha and Mary. But such emphasis, while welcomed, is not adequate.

Schussler-Fiorenza called for a radical reformulation of the power structures that currently exist within Christianity. In such arrangements, men are always at the top, either unable or unwilling to share real power with women.

And Plaskow warned that genuine equality in the Jewish community now and in the future must go beyond simply amending or adding words to prayers and rituals. True equality between the sexes means real power-sharing.

This gathering differed considerably from similar meetings because the participants clearly understood that the feminist movement, only in its infancy, will not achieve its goals with easy answers, meaningless cliches or quick theological fixes.

There is much real work to be done.

LJB END RUDIN