Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza and the Future of Native Feminist Theology

My work has focused on the intersections of indigenous studies, feminist theory, and theology. While Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza's work has not so directly engaged Native feminist theology (which is an emerging field), her work and methods can make important contributions to what this field could be. Native studies has generally centered on the theory and practice of decolonization. While Schüssler Fiorenza's work has not, her feminist praxis demonstrates the importance of developing a decolonization framework that is not solely identitarian, entrapped within colonial/anticolonial binaries, or detached from political praxis.

When In Memory of Her was first published, it was a helpful intervention into feminist theology's tendency to essentialize the Bible.¹ Many evangelical feminists tended to imagine the Bible as completely unproblematic for women. As an evangelical, I am sympathetic to this perspective, but I also recognize that the Bible cannot be so sharply distinguished from how it has been used to support patriarchy, white supremacy, and genocide. Even if we agree that the Bible is inerrant in the original autographs (the statement of faith of the Evangelical Theological Society), it is also true that (1) we do not have access to the original autographs; and (2) there are no inerrant readers of the Bible. We still need to wrestle with the text in all its complexity and not simply gloss over seemingly oppressive passages.

On the other end of the spectrum are those strands of feminist theology, such as that represented by Mary Daly, that see the Bible as nothing but oppressive.² While this perspective is understandable given the manner in which the Bible has been used as a weapon against women, a Foucauldian analytic of power problematizes this approach as well. To argue that any text in particular must be rejected completely implies that there is a pure space of freedom and liberation from which we can stand. This argument also implies that power operates in a binary fashion—that some texts, individuals, and institutions are wholly oppressive and that others are wholly oppressed. However, in this post-Foucauldian era, it is clear that there is no space of pure resistance and that all texts are imbricated in prevailing power relations. At the same time, no text can be completely reduced to an object that solely reifies prevailing power relations because even the most oppressive texts contain the seeds of their own deconstruction. To quote Michel Foucault, "Where there is power, there is resistance."³ Power always simultaneously undoes itself from within, because there is not outside from which to resist. Consequently, the Bible is neither essentially oppressive nor liberatory. Its meanings are socially constructed and therefore, subject to change. Schüssler Fiorenza's approach to the Bible mirrors this understanding of the Bible that allows those who support social justice to address it in its full complexity.

Native studies can be informed by this approach in its treatment of Christianity and the Bible. Although trends are changing, Native studies has often treated Christianity and the Bible simplistically. Despite the undeniable genocidal impact of Christianity on Native peoples, a large percentage of Native peoples are Christian, and in some areas, overwhelmingly so. If those who are Native and Christian are simply dismissed as dupes complicit in their own oppression, then it will not be possible to engage them in the process of liberation and decolonization. Certainly, many Native conservative evangelicals espouse social and political positions at odds with principles of social justice. But as Jennifer Denetdale's work demonstrates in her analysis of tribal bans on same-sex marriage, Native peoples who purport to be traditional and anti-Christian also do so because, according to Denetdale, their understandings of tradition are unwittingly Christian-influenced.⁴ Furthermore, this dualistic analysis also occludes the work of many Native Christians who are now and have historically been active in organizing for the sovereignty of Native peoples. Liberation theologies have been particularly influenced by the trenchant critiques of Robert Warrior and Vine Deloria Jr., who have argued that Christian theology and biblical narratives are inherently colonial. Their work...