3. Political theology as resistance to entrenched power
Can political theology help understanding this situation and provide route-markers for a way forward? In 1970 Carol Hanisch defended the political importance of groups that create awareness. Personal experiences were located within a system of power relationships, Hanisch argued. Her essay titled, ‘The Personal is Political’, illustrated that you should proverbially always ‘take it personal’ – if you are a woman – because your experiences as a women are never exempt from power systems that create and maintain knowledge (concepts, ideas and language) that inform and is informed by a complex network of the religious, social, economic and cultural. It means that every experience you will have is informed and shaped by an ideology.
Let me be clear: political theology is not about legitimizing ‘the political’ in theology, it is about exposing the power of political ideology in theology. That is the first step. Then political theology should ask how theology (religion too) may become involved in civil society movements protesting against dehumanization, and for the purposes of this essay, the dehumanization of women. It is a challenge to reflect on the political function of theology while admitting that Christian religion plays a pervasive role in maintaining patriarchy. As Dorothee Sölle has stated, ‘the rules of theological language … know how to differentiate between the God of the philosophers and the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, [but] are still ignorant of the God of Sarah, Rebecca and Rachel’[15] .
Johann Baptist-Metz once asked, ‘is there any such thing as a theological paradigm change independent of reformative processes in the context of the church?’[16]. The political challenge of our time, within the scope of this essay, is a more concerted response (particularly by Christian theology and the Christian church) to entrenched gender inequality, the violence that results from it and the power from which it emanates. For this to happen, there needs to be a shift from, what Hannah Pitkin[17] [18] described as ‘power over’ to what Amy Allen described as ‘power with’.
It was Hanna Pitkin who coined the terms, ‘power over’ and ‘power to’, in the field of political theology[19]. ‘Power over’ refers to power over other people and the way in which one’s own intentions are enforced over the intentions of others[20]. ‘Power over’ always yields negative results, because it limits the agency of those subjected to it in the forms of domination, oppression and subordination. ‘Power to’ refers to one’s ability to do or achieve something by themselves, independent of others[21]. This power is not about enforcement of power, but rather on the restoration or acknowledgment of the agency to act autonomously. Amy Allen[22] goes further and suggests ‘power with’ as an approach for collective resistance as well as individual empowerment. In reference to Hanna Arendt, ‘power with’ is power understood as the human ability to act in concert. Collective power can generate conceptual, normative and psychological resources toward social change.
Protest is both a political and a Christian theological phenomenon. It is political because protests are a critique of the real life results of the mixture of ideology and power. It is theological because at its very heart, Christian faith, as articulated in theology, which is the grammar of faith, is based on the reality that Jesus Christ was crucified as a political and religious rebel. He was crucified because he conveyed a message of reconciliation and restoration to people who were suffering under political, religious and economic oppression. The reality of the intersectionality of women’s differing experiences and contexts can become a hurdle to concerted resistance – if it is not situated in the framework of a ‘power with’ approach. If intersectionality becomes a driving force of reconciling diversity of women across the globe, interlinking protests could become a movement towards a lasting change. It is the task of political theology to remind religion (for this essay – Christian religion) about the havoc created by a power-over approach – even amongst women. For the price of freedom is constant vigilance.
[15] D. Sölle,’Fatherhood, power and barbarism: Feminist challenges to authoritarian religio’, in W.T. Cavanaugh /J.W. Bailey/C. Hovey (eds.), An Eerdmans reader in contemporary political theology, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 2012, p. 327.
[16] J.-B. Metz, ’Theology in the new paradigm: Political Theolog’, in W.T. Cavanaugh/ J.W. Bailey & C. Hovey (eds.), An Eerdmans reader in contemporary political theology, Grand Rapids. Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2012, p.317.
[17] G. Göhler, ‘”Power to” and “Power over”‘, in S.R. Clegg/ M. Haugaard (eds.), The SAGE Handbook of power, London: Sage Publications, 2009, p. 28.
[18] H. F. Pitkin, Wittgenstein and Justice, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972, p. 277.
[19] Ibid.
[20] G. Göhler, ‘”Power to” and “Power over”‘, in S.R. Clegg/ M. Haugaard (eds.), The SAGE Handbook of power, London: Sage Publications, 2009, p. 28.
[21] H. F. Pitkin, Wittgenstein and Justice, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972, p. 277.
[22] A. Allen, ‘Gender and Power’, in S.R. Clegg & M. Haugaard (eds.), The SAGE Handbook of power, London: Sage Publications, 2009, p. 295.
Author
Tanya van Wyk is Senior Lecturer in Spirituality, Systematic Theology and Ethics at the Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Pretoria. Her research focuses on political theology and the relationship between identity and diversity, by utilizing perspectives from trinitarian theology, feminist theology and spirituality-studies. She is an ordained minister of the Netherdutch Reformed Church.