A Just and True Love: Feminism at the Frontiers of Theological Ethics: Essays in Honor of Margaret Farley

Part 1: Freedom-in-relation: Autonomy, Relationality, Solidarity

Part 1 Freedom-in-relation: Autonomy, Relationality, Solidarity INTRODUCTION The essays in this first part treat the implications of globalization for contemporary Christian ethics and explore resources in feminist thought for a global Christian ethic. Together, they capture the landscape that Christian and feminist ethics now confront, as massive changes in the flow of people, information, and capital have generated both a growing sense of global interdependence and a heightened awareness of the diversity of moral contexts and languages across cultures and the risks of “moral imperialism.” Lisa Sowle Cahill ’s essay traces the development of Margaret Farley’s sexual ethic, showing first how it came to incorporate fundamental “second wave” feminist concerns for autonomy and embodiment (and thereby to challenge traditional religious norms for sexuality, marriage, and the family) but also how new global realities, for example, the AIDS pandemic , are giving rise to new forms of sexual ethics. Cahill shows how a long-standing focus on the social, economic, and political dimensions of sexuality in feminist sexual ethics allows it today to transcend the personal or private in a more radical sense, as it becomes “socialethical action” across national borders. Essays by Serene Jones and Letty Russell draw on experiences of transnational feminist dialogue to explore the challenges and the promise of efforts to engage in practical feminist solidarity. Jones’s reflections on a gathering of North American and Arab scholars in Women’s Studies trace a path between the promise of common ground (more “a shared aesthetic and the space of imagination than principled moral claims”) that coalesces in a “restless sense that the ‘world is not as it should be’ with respect to women’s lives,” and the impotence of theory to generate meaningful dialogue on the imperatives of justice. Russell sets her argument for the importance of developing a “feminist postcolonial practice of hospitality” (incorporating attentiveness to the power quotient within different cultural and racial groups involved, the perspective of the outsider, and the unfolding nature of God’s promise of justice) within the experience of the Third Pan African Conference of the Circle 18 Freedom-in-relation of Concerned African Women Theologians. Both essays are realistic about the hard work involved in developing the sort of international partnerships for action against AIDS, poverty, and various forms of gendered violence suggested by a new, global sexual ethic, as well as about the perils of engaging in cross-cultural exchange. At the same time, we find in both essays the certainty that conversation and imagination can bring women (and women and men) together for a shared future in hope. Also set in the African context, David Hollenbach’s essay, “Human Rights and Women’s Rights: Initiatives and Interventions in the Name of Universality,” takes a feminist-inspired “common sexual morality” as a starting point for exploring the legitimacy of interventions in the name of women’s rights. He argues that honoring cultural difference suggests humility in our conclusions about universal goods and harms. At the same time, following Farley’s insistence on the possibility of “locations” of shared moral experience, he shows that some injustices “cry out over the borders,” calling for careful but courageous alliances. Introduction 19 ...