"Resisting bodies" as a hermeneutical tool for a critical feminist christology of liberation and transformation.

Abstract

This study is positioned in a context where the ideologies of communities, creeds and genders are marked in violent ways on women’s bodies. It is also located in a context where Christian women, by and large, internalize their subordinate status as Godordained and accept the violence perpetrated on them as normal and natural. In such a context, the christological understanding of Jesus as the “Suffering Servant” serves to reinforce the submissive, docile and subordinate position of women and legitimize the various forms of suffering that are inscribed on them as normal and even as ways to salvation. This study analyses the experiences of women who, in the midst of oppressive regimes, structures and forces, have refused to accept the inscriptions of gender, power and violence thrust on them. They have created an alternate way of speaking with their bodies in order to challenge gender stereotypes, oppressive powers and the denial of life and subjectivity imposed on them and their communities. Using the analysis of women’s resisting bodies, this study argues for an interpretation of christology that is centered on the motifs of struggle, resistance and protest, as evidenced in women’s resisting bodies and in the story of Jesus. Women’s resisting bodies and Jesus’ resistance are paralleled to reconstruct christology as resistance and protest and the resurrection as the continued and ongoing struggle for life amidst continued violence and oppression.