This thesis reclaims the eschatological future in light of and for feminist theology. It is mindful of critiques which expose the patriarchal, androcentric, and futuristic tendencies of traditional eschatological thought. Themes are detected amongst these critiques that pertain to the process, content, and time of eschatology: feminist theologians have proposed that traditional models of eschatology present the process as known and controlled by God alone; the content as fleshless and static; and the time as dislocated from present realities and concerns. Feminist theologians respond by attending to and affirming the complexities and significance of present embodiments. Three aspects of existence that are typically associated with women emerge as integral to this pursuit; namely embodied relationality, fluidity, and sensuality. I detect in these responses both potentials and problems. Reclaiming aspects of existence that have been excluded from and therefore devalued by eschatology, specifically because of their association with women, is affirmed as a necessary and important contribution. However, I note that the overwhelming (if understandable) reluctance amongst feminist theologians to speak of eschatological finality, or to grasp at specificity about the future, prevents us from hoping for fulfilled experiences of these aspects, and robs all of creation of a usable and hopeful future. The eschatological future is ultimately left in the hands of patriarchy. I attempt, therefore, to reconstruct the process, content, and time of eschatology in such a way that it not only affirms embodied relationality, fluidity, and sensuality, but also offers new and beneficial ways to think about these values. My thesis is thus firmly rooted in present feminist perspectives on, and some women’s experiences of, embodiment. What is more, it converses with these by negotiating some ways in which a reconstructed eschatology can be open to and changed by our present existences, even as it is able to inform and direct them. My ultimate goal is to uncover in the eschatological future a way in which to take and transform patriarchal constructions of female bodies in order to uncover a real and present hope for all bodies.

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The influence of feminist theology upon Christian pastoral practice and theological discourse has been growing in significance since the late 1960s. The critical impact of feminism has been to challenge many of the received traditions and conventions as sectional and androcentric; and its reconstructive impetus has exposed neglected areas of pastoral need, generated novel patterns of ministry, and articulated more inclusive models of religious language and theological metaphors. However, such practices and debates are also conducted within a social context of relations between women and men, and concern the experience of inhabiting a culture as a gendered person. Thus theological reflection on pastoral practice cannot pursue its deliberations in isolation from wider debates concerning questions of gender ontogeny, gender relations and the cultural representations of women and men. This thesis, therefore, considers the significance of theories of gender for Christian pastoral practice and theological formulation. It begins by interrogating a comprehensive selection of material from a wide range of disciplines in the human and social sciences. This reveals a model of human nature, agency and self-understanding that is necessarily self-reflexive; gender emerges not as an ontological category, but as the product of human practices by which culture and social relations are constituted. Cultural values relating to the nature of human ontology, epistemology, subjectivity, agency and teleology construct the norms by which such practices are organized. Christian pastoral practices are also embodiments of values and truth-claims. Historical and contemporary writings in pastoral theology exhibit a diversity of sources and norms by which models of pastoral practice have been directed and informed. If human experience as gendered renders the core truth-claims of purposeful human practices as contingent, contextual and provisional, then the articulation and evaluation of the normative principles of purposeful pastoral practice must rest upon forms of practical reasoning generated by the intentional community itself. The work of several social theorists is examined in order to construct critical criteria for a model of phronesis sufficient to reflect the contingency of human experience without collapsing into self-absorption or relativism. By regarding practical knowledge as positional, relational and embodied, communities may affirm the specificity and integrity of their own truth-claims, whilst recognizing the alterity at the heart of human identity. Part Three concludes by proposing a new disciplinary identity for Pastoral Theology; in the light of the preceding engagement with theories of gender, it is to be characterized as a critical phenomenology of pastoral practice. Pastoral practices sensitive to human experience as gendered will aim to build communities which resist the foreclosure of gender hierarchy and ontological difference, and see to realize a community grounded in the shared humanity of women and me. Such practices are theologically disclosive, too, in that a recognition of the 'Other' beyond the boundaries of our own particularity points to the possibilities of a transcendent, divine dimension amidst, and beyond, the immediacy and concretion of the pastoral encounter.

Thesis (Th. M.)--Dallas Theological Seminary, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 64-67).

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This thesis seeks to account for virginity as the source of Mary's power to attract. The point of departure is the syncretistic culture of the classical world. Here, patristic use of Old Testament typology recognises the distinctive work of grace in Mary's virginity, thus allowing it to become the determining quality by which her experience is subsequently perceived and universalised. The thesis divides its exploration into the three categories by which Mary is portrayed in the gospels - woman, spouse, mother - concluding its investigation with the end of the nineteenth century and its new understanding of human identity in gender and sexuality. In each category the thesis attempts to identify ways in which the attraction of virginity has functioned through ambiguity (Mary as virgin and mother, mother and spouse of her son) as a positive quality of potency and freedom, rather than as a strictly biological human condition with negative association in contemporary culture. In order to assess the extent of Mary's attraction in periods that lacked the modern forms of articulating self-awareness, the thesis has considered the fabric of devotional practice in religious texts, art, drama and ritual, seeking to allow the perceptions of earlier periods of history (a medium in itself) to challenge our own. As expressions of attraction to Mary, these media have yielded an insight into the power of virginity as a statement of paradisal, heavenly life accessed by grace through male and female human experience. They have also shown virginity to be a source of power that can be exploited for political ends. Finally, the thesis suggests that the power of Mary's virginity has been subversive and liberating in Church and society, thus indicating its neglected significance as a statement about the ambiguity of our nature as human, gendered, and sexual beings.

Thesis (MA)--University of South Australia, 1998

Thesis (MA)--University of South Australia, 1998