Mary Hunt, of the Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual, has remarked of Daly’s legacy, “Even those who disagreed with her are in her debt for the challenges she offered.”
This fact might be nowhere more evident than in an assessment of Daly’s importance to contemporary Christianity, from a most unlikely source. Writing in his Crosswalk.com blog, Albert Mohler, president of the conservative Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, observed of Daly: “She must be given credit for her honesty in accusing theological liberals of lacking the courage of their convictions. … She saw the entire structure as hopelessly patriarchal and called for a complete break with Christianity and theism. … Many of today’s liberal denominations and seminaries have absorbed and accepted her basic critique of Christianity, but lack her boldness and intellectual honesty.”
All too true, alas. But thanks to Daly’s life and work, there is no turning back from the realization that the connection between the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man has never been good for us, and has always worked against the interests of women. We will never talk about God in quite the same old ways, because of the Spark (another of her favorite words, and always capital S) she brought both to American Christian theology and to the women’s movement. That is her prophetic legacy.
Stange writes that, “In contemporary theological circles, the term ‘prophetic’ continues to refer to those progressive thinkers whose seemingly crazy utterances serve to bring us to our collective senses.†In contemporary theological circles, I’m sure that is what it means. Unfortunately, it keeps getting trotted out by its users into the Christian mainstream in which they know “prophetic†will be understood as, “the voice of truth crying in the ignorant wilderness,†rather than what it really means: “I hate my religious tradition, but I don’t have the integrity to leave it, so instead I’ll try to destroy it from within.â€
Phil, I remember Donald Nicholl, a gentle and wise professor from the UK who for many years taught at UC Santa Clara before going on to head the Tantur Institute near Jerusalem. One semester he had a tenured professor of biblical studies from England teaching at Santa Clara. The man, who was of radical leanings, proudly told the UC students how he had been a prophet in his bold biblical criticism. ‘Really?’ replied some of the students. ‘Prophets usually have to suffer for their prophecy. Tell us how some of your prophetic utterances have brought you suffering.’ The result was one very uncomfortable visiting professor, who suddenly had nothing to say.
Nice story, Terry. It reminds me of the dialogue between the Apotate Bishop and his Christian friend Dick in C.S. Lewis’s THE GREAT DIVORCE:
Daly did suffer for her unpopular theology.
Terry Tee – Santa Clara Univ. (SCU) is a Jesuit school in Santa Clara, near San Jose. It is the oldest university west of the Mississippi. It is not part of the UC system. May be you are confusing it with UC Santa Cruz or some other school in the Univ. of Cal system.
John (#4), according to Wikipedia:
[blockquote] In 1998, a discrimination claim against the college by two male students was backed by the Center for Individual Rights, a conservative advocacy group. Following further reprimand, Daly absented herself from classes rather than admit the male students.[5] Boston College removed her tenure rights, citing a verbal agreement by Daly to retire. She brought suit against the college disputing violation of her tenure rights and claimed she was forced out against her will, but her request for an injunction was denied by Middlesex Superior Court Judge Martha Sosman.[6]
An out-of-court settlement was reached in which Daly agreed that she had retired from her faculty position.[7] Daly maintained that Boston College wronged her students by depriving her of her right to teach freely to only female students.[8] She documented her account of the events in the 2006 book, Amazon Grace: Recalling the Courage to Sin Big.[/blockquote]
Is this the suffering that you are referring to or something else?
RE: “But thanks to Daly’s life and work, there is no turning back from the realization that the connection between the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man has never been good for us. . . ”
It hasn’t? Who is “not turning back” from that silly assertion? I and the other women I know have never even “gone there” much less “turned back” from such vacuity.
RE: “We will never talk about God in quite the same old ways. . . ”
We won’t?
Who? Where? How?
Who are all the people who won’t be “turning back” and who won’t be talking in the same way that Stange is talking about?
. . . Oh . . . yeh . . . fellow libs who are, oddly, attempting to remind everyone of Just How Important A Person Daly Was.
Sarah, I think the real conclusion to be drawn is that the teaching of Ms Daly was not good for us or anyone else for that matter.
John A – No, not then. Much earlier.
However, eventually she just didn’t care.
Mary Daly will probably not be remembered well, although she did recover a few suggestive nuggets that would resonate with individuals studying theology at various liberal arts and research universities. She was flatly wrong about a couple crucial ideas, and had a poor sense of history. That said, for most feminist theologians remains a crucial dialogue partner, even if feminist theology is going a different direction.
What she has done in my own ministry is force me to explain to others, new Christians, why the standard Trinitarian blessing is crucial, even in its “patriarchal” form. I can’t simply say “because we’ve always done it that way.” I have to explain why, from the ground up, to individuals who don’t understand the trinity, much less its formulation.
#9 OK. What is the suffering that she experienced?
The author of the article is apparently in the typical western secular strait-jacket mindset with little knowledge of cultures beyond its boundaries. Her complaint about how the Christian “Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man” has never been good for women and has always worked against the interests of women disregards the fact that our culture has become deadly with an oppressive feminism.
How oppressive?? How deadly?? Prime example–a child can be slaughtered by its mother without any input, any sayso, any involvement on the part of the father. Under American law fathers are didlysquat, irrelevant. A child- which is as much his as hers– can be ordered to be offered up as a child sacrifice and its blood poured out on feminist sacred altars no matter what the father says or is willing to do for the child.
The columnist and I went to the same Catholic high school. For awhile, she was my debate partner (there are some minor trophies with our two names on them, I believe). She was also a romantic involvement, in the chaste way of the mid-1960s. After over 40 years, I re-discovered her last year, while searching the Internet for a photo of a feminist academic holding a gun. Since then, I’ve located her online musing and read some of her printed work. Needless to say, I’m appalled.
For reasons might astound Catholics or Anglicans, I recently requested formal separation from the Roman Catholic Church, in writing. It’s called “Actus formalis defectionis ab Ecclesia catholica,” and you can look it up online. I’m not a “progressive.” I sing in Catholic choirs! But I decided that there was something inherently wrong about being a cafeteria Catholic when there are some professors of religious studies, particularly the feminists, who seem to be engaged in a food fight.
It is my guess that if the columnist attends any church, it would be Lutheran (ELCA) with her second husband in Montana; but I am not really sure. Surely that information ought to be divulged by the columnist if she insists on writing about Catholics or any sort of “patriarchs.”
The original USA Today article allowed comments, and I mentioned “Actus formalis defectionis ab Ecclesia catholica” there. The comments are directed to a general audience, not the columnist, but I am hoping that any feminist groupies will see that, and think about where they really are at in terms of religion.
A few months ago I (rather rudely) requested that the columnist voluntarily send my $13 back, in the name of feminist equality. That’s an estimate of how much I spent on her, years ago (dates were inexpensive back then). I didn’t get the money. Apparently, $13 worth of suffering for prophecy is too much.
Follow-up to my above post, after having nightmares about this:
Year: 1965, perhaps. Place: Seton Hall, a Catholic prep school in New Jersey. Situation: National Forensic League debate event, but not a major trophy. Dramatis Personae: Myself (Robert Allgeyer), and Mary Zeiss Stange, then known by her maiden name of Mary Martha Zeiss, both of us from another non-prep Catholic school. I am a sophomore. She is a freshman. We are debate partners, and still on good terms otherwise. Chorus: A faculty member at Seton Hall, who is the debate judge in a particular round. He has heard Mary and I debate before, earlier in the term.
Our opponents are affirmative, Mary and I are negative (our best side). As the opening speaker makes his speech, Mary and I realize that he is not very good. In a note, I advise Mary to be gentle, and I will be gentle too, rather than humiliate our opponents. After all, we have a certain morality to uphold. She is gentle, with her first negative. The second affirmative speaks, and likewise he is not very good.
I begin my second negtive presentation. After a couple of minutes, I am stopped mid-speech by the judge (almost never happens). He says that he has heard us before, and knows that Mary and I have backed off. He tells us that he insists that we be as relentless as before, regardless of our opponents (this, with our opponents listening). If I do not upgrade my speech, he won’t listen. After a moment to re-align my thoughts, I go to relentless mode, and Mary later follows with a relentless rebuttal.
There you have it. Mary (and I) had the opportunity and willingness to be gentle, but were told to be relentless by a faculty member at Seton Hall. If Mary is a relentless anti-Catholic feminist in adulthood, who taught her that? Is it divine payback?