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BOOK REVIEWS 153 Feminist Reconstructions of Christian Doctrine: Narrative Analysis and Appraisal. By KATHRYN GREENE-MCCREIGHT. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Pp. 175. $29.95 (cloth). ISBN 0-19-512862-1. In this book Kathryn Greene-McCreight undertakes to evaluate the truth and adequacy of certain feminist reconstructions of Christian doctrine. It concerns her that feminist theologians wield so much influence today in seminaries and churches when the reconstructions they propose often seem novel and even alien. She worries that the backlash they invite will destroy the gains that women have made in the Church's life. She recognizes that her evaluation must take into account more than feminist reformulations of the "primary" Christian doctrines; she must first stake out a position from which to assess their "governing" doctrines, namely, the principles and rules that characterize feminist theology. The latter is the really daunting task. The strength of the book lies in the careful attention Greene-McCreight gives to setting out such a position. She identifies a standard of evaluation, and then uses this standard (1) to examine feminist biblical hermeneutics and (2) to analyze and appraise selected feminist reconstructions of the doctrines of sin, Christ, and the Trinity. In chapter 1 Greene-McCreight brings the resources of the "Yale School" (the work ofWilliam A. Christian, in addition to that of Hans Frei, and George Lindbeck) to bear on the questions before her. She takes from this school her standard of orthodoxy, "the biblical narrative identification of God," and a series of important distinctions related to method (e.g., between the narrative and nonnarrative interpretations of Scripture, between dogmatics and apologetics, and between authentic doctrines and alien claims). By means of these tools, she lays out for comparison two different (and opposed) patterns by which religious communities respond to novel claims. For GreeneMcCreight , feminist claims can be properly assessed only by a narrative reading of Scripture (i.e., one that incorporates the present reality into the biblical world) that gives primacy to dogmatics (the logic of belief) and uses the community's authentic doctrine as a test of what is true and right. She points out that in feminist theologies, by contrast, the interpretive flow is "nonnarrative," primacy is given to apologetics (the logic of coming to belief), and an "alien claim" regarding what is true and right is used to judge the authenticity of the community's doctrine. By noticing the way theological inquiry proceeds according to these two patterns, she develops a helpful scheme to use in her analysis. Greene-McCreight recognizes the strategicimportance of clarifying not only what a religious community holds to be true ("primary doctrines") but also 154 BOOK REVIEWS how it determines what counts as true and who has the authority to decide ("governing doctrines"). In chapter 2 she discusses the "governing doctrines" of feminist theology: its intellectual families of origin (modern theology and the feminist movements), its explicit and implicit commitments and principles of interpretation, and its implicit commitments borne out in practice. "The full humanity of women" is a governing doctrine because it functions as the norm. "Women's interpreted experience" (interpreted, that is, by their "feminist consciousness," their experience of and stance toward oppression) functions as the authority, or ultimate court of appeal when it comes to determining what is true and right in Christian doctrine and practice. This authority takes precedence over text, tradition, or reason. In mainline feminist theology, then, feminist claims supplant biblical authority and are "elevated to the status ... of governing doctrines" (55). The feminist critique of Christian doctrine serves as a critical principle for rendering judgments on primary doctrines and even on their biblical source. Like Francis Martin's pioneering work, The Feminist Question: Feminist Theology in the LightofChristian Tradition (1994), Greene-McCreight'sstudy spends considerable time examining feminist biblical hermeneutics. In this analysis-perhaps the highlight of the book-she cites telling examples to challenge those feminists who regard the biblical text itself as an enemy, a dangerous "vehicle for the furtherance of patriarchy." Those who take this view, she asserts, reverse the proper "flow" of interpretation, judging the revelatory value of the text by the "authority" of their own experience; they "pull the...

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