I’ve wrestled with my response to another part of Wilson’s testosterone-choked comments on women in ministry, part of which — the “ordaining donkeys” part — is quoted in my previous post. That observation of Wilson’s was simply stupid. But in another part of his June 20 “Silly Women” essay, he says something offensive beyond measure about feminists and their “rape culture.” Let’s let the would-be Bishop of Moscow speak for himself:
“At the same time, we don’t want to assume that any position that ticks feminists off must be biblical. That can’t be right—it is far too easy to do. And, as with so many issues, we have to distinguish different levels and layers. If, as have noted, our holy fathers used to listen to wise women in ancient times, this is scarcely an argument for us to listen to silly women now. I might have no problem with Queen Arwen sitting by the fountain, singing a song of Valinor, and yet have a great deal of trouble with a feminist theologian writing with furrowed brow about the privileged hierarchies of rape culture, with the attendant observation that any coitus whatever is inherently colonial, racist, and abusive, especially if both parties have a good time.” Doug Wilson, Blog and Mablog, June 20, 2009
Yep. This man, blossoming into the evangelical world’s newest pop idol, said that feminists obsess about “. . . the privileged hierarchies of rape culture, with the attendant observation that ANY COITUS WHATEVER IS INHERENTLY COLONIAL, RACIST, AND ABUSIVE, ESPECIALLY IF BOTH PARTIES HAVE A GOOD TIME.”
That’s how he characterizes “silly women” and “feminist theologians,” and that’s his joke about how we silly feminist theologians view sex. It’s a terrible joke on so many levels, as would be any joke about “rape culture” and the everyday abusiveness feminists, he posits, find in marital sex. It’s a witty, filthy observation that no real man of God would make, and my response to it, which certainly could include silence, is something that has weighed heavily on me the last couple of days.
But a little dose of ugly reality might be in order here. You see, the “rape culture” he finds so amusing produced a man who raped me in 1980. Yeah. A man took me violently and against my will and did so expecting that neither culture nor law would condemn him. I now am happily married — this is my counter to the “inherently abusive coitus” part. No victim of sexual violence ever confuses it with loving, giving, mutual sexual expression. I know loving sex, and I know rape. It doesn’t take a feminist or a victim of rape to condemn Wilson’s putrid witticisms. They reveal their author’s heart by their stinking rot.
He stands convicted, and not by me but by a Holy God, neither male nor female, who demands account for the use of the gifts the Spirit bestows, as well as account from the men who rob women of their expression of those same gifts.
With charity you could avoid reading misogyny into Wilson’s statements, but your theological discourses suck because of your inability to keep personal and theological issues separate. It is easy to find statements by feminists like those Wilson mentions. For example, Mary Daly is a veritable shitmine of blasphemy and man-hating bile. “If God is male, then the male is God.” Deep down, Daly really wants to be a Muslim, although she doesn’t know it yet, because she calls the Bible’s “anthropomorphized” God demonic. She sees the “God of explanation” (divine providence), “God of otherworldliness” (focus on eternity) and “God who is the judge of sin” as idols to be overthrown. Daly accepts Satan’s claims: “To exist humanly is to name the self, the world and God.”
In Gyn-Ecology: the Metaethics of Radical Feminism, she rejects the term “God” entirely, as it can never be purged of male imagery. In Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy she calls women to ignore taboos imposed by “phallocracy’s fabrications/fictions” and to embrace witchcraft/paganism as the best expression of female spirituality, a theme continued in Webster’s First New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English Language which condemns all aspects of conservative theology as demonic. She says the incarnation of Christ is the “symbolic legitimization of the rape of all women and all matter.”
Daly was forced to retire as a theology professor at (Jesuit) Boston College, not because of the heretical, blasphemous content of her teaching, but rather because she refused to allow men into her classes on feminism.
Comment by Dontbia Nass — June 24, 2009 @ 9:21 pm
Thanks for telling us all how distasteful and misguided Mary Daly’s theology is. I think she’s creepy. I don’t like her. She’s wrong on virtually every point. She is a blasphemer and a loon. OK? But she has nothing whatsoever to do with evangelicalism or evangelical feminism, which you know. She certainly exists nicely as a straw man, though.
But anyone too afraid to engage in discourse using his real name probably only has straw men to offer. That is what you’ve done here, and you know damned well that Mary Daly has nothing to do with the theology of evangelical feminists.
You are a coward.
Comment by Keely Emerine Mix — June 24, 2009 @ 10:41 pm
It’s not a straw man at all. I was not lumping you together with Daly, and neither was Doug Wilson. Daly is definitely not an evangelical, but she is a feminist theologian — one of the best known — and it is not “out of bounds” or unfair for Doug Wilson to speak the way he spoke as long as people like her exist. The existence of people like her mean that Doug Wilson can say what he said without thereby demonstrating himself to be a misogynist. Or do you believe he is specifically targeting you when he makes such statements?
Comment by Dontbia Nass — June 24, 2009 @ 11:24 pm
He absolutely meant for readers to infer that “Biblical feminist theology” is represented by Daly. You know it and I know it; there would be no reason to mention her if not in the service of his argument. No, I don’t think he’s responding to me. But I really don’t care. His arguments are dishonest and you are a coward. Keely
Comment by Keely Emerine Mix — June 25, 2009 @ 1:08 am
Keely, I bet Doug Wilson is familiar with Mary Daly, if only through books like Mary A. Kassian’s The Feminist Gospel: The Movement to Unite Feminism with the Church (Crossway, 1992), but he has never once referred to Daly by name on his blog. Moi was offering Daly as a likely example. Other examples could have been given, albeit perhaps not quite as moonbattish, but still very wrong. Even if one only accuses patriarchical Christianity of inevitably formenting a climate of misogyny and oppression of women, that’s too close to suggesting that women are being raped by patriarchy.
Ruether blames patriarchy for the rape of the earth, and says of it “Let us break up that great idol and grind it into powder; dismantle the great Leviathan of violence and misery who threatens to destroy the earth.” She says that when men no longer lead then we can “transform” the earth into a paradise of “peace and plenty” where “all the children of earth can sit down together at the banquet of life.”
And here is one feminist theology student at a Methodist seminary who seems to have been influenced by Daly-like thinking, or is perhaps speculating along parallel lines:
http://tinyurl.com/mp6gq7
From your perspective, feminism is not only not incompatible with the gospel, if the presented gospel is not feminist, the presentation is distorted (at a minimum). So from your perspective, referring to a character like Daly as somehow representative constitutes virtually a slander.
On the other hand, if one takes that perspective that feminism is inherently incompatible with the gospel, then referring to a character like Daly is not a slander at all: she would be seen as God’s poster child for what happens in the most extreme cases of people who embrace the feminist lie.
Comment by Dontbia Nass — June 25, 2009 @ 12:06 pm
The only valid point you’ve made is that I erred in saying it was Wilson who referenced Mary Daly. You’re right. It was you. It’s not something for you to be proud of, but you’re right — it was you, not Wilson.
You deliberately ignore the multitude of fine evangelical scholars, female and male, who are egalitarian. That’s convenient for you, albeit dishonest. But I suspect you prefer to bed down with the strawmen rather than engage in honest debate. Debate, by the way, you participate in as an anonymous coward.
What are you so afraid of that you persist in hiding behind a pseudonym, and a predictably juvenile one? Until you answer, I’m done with you.
Keely
Comment by Keely Emerine Mix — June 25, 2009 @ 3:36 pm
What are you so afraid of that you persist in hiding behind a pseudonym?
You tell me, Keely. I can’t see any problem in it. I like Dontbia Nass because it makes a statement that is as important as it is general. If you have an asthetic issue with such an identifier appearing in our comments section, perhaps I could find a way to change it to Dontbia Phool or Dontbia Nutter, but in any case what is clear is that we have been able to exchange opinions without any problem numerous times since Jan. 10, the first time I commented (and when, by the way, you referred to Dontbia Nass as “Funny”). I’m trying to be sincere and constructive in my comments, and I hope we will be able to continue to interact productively.
Comment by Dontbia Nass — June 25, 2009 @ 8:45 pm
The thing is, Nass, it’s hard to interact with someone who’s mastered the art of snarkiness and obfuscation, and who exhibits it without the guts to identify himself. Also, classically educated as I’m sure you are, you must have realized that when I called “Dontbia Nass” “funny,” it was sarcastic. I’m happy to engage with you when you have valid points to make — such as examining, say, Catherine Clark Kroeger’s work and commenting on it — but if you continue to act disingenuously, it would be silly of me to encourage you.
I have a hard time with pseudonyms, frankly. I can see why protesters in Tehran resort to them, but this usage of a fifth-grade-level nom de plume demonstrates a tactic that we’ve all seen from Kirk men who want to join the debate — “contribute” is usually too generous — by peppering it with half-truths and snotty comebacks, without having to reveal their names. I consider that childish. I think it’s stupid. And, most of all, I think it’s disgraceful that covenant men lack whatever body parts are necessary to engage in real debate. You are known as a Christian by the fruit of your interaction with others, and the fruit you’ve offered hints at something other than full Christian maturity.
It’s no wonder you hide behind “Dontbia Nass.” The question is, how little do you value basic integrity?
Comment by Keely Emerine Mix — June 25, 2009 @ 10:09 pm