May the Source of All Life nourish us and bind us together,
May the Wisdom of the Holy One enlighten us and enable our sharing,
And may the Courage of Holy Fire inspire is as a network of love and freedom
today and always…
And we the people say: Amen
New Testament Keynotes – Chair: Kylie Crabbe
Clean and Unclean: Multiple Readings of Mark 7:24-30/31 – Dorothy Lee
1. MISSIONAL READING
- Gentile mission
- Priority of Israel
- Postcolonialism
- Inclusion
2. PEDAGOGICAL READING
- who is teacher?
- woman as teacher, Jesus as student
- peirastic iroy
- Jesus and woman as co-teachers
3. PARADIGMATIC READING
- discipleship
- spirituality
- courage
- women and outsiders
- communtiy of faith
- clean and unclean
4. CHRISTOLOGICAL READING
- God and suppliant
- Identity of Markan Jesus
- subversive authority
- shame and suffering
- divine guardian and protector
- Eucharist
CONCLUSION
These four ways of reading the text overlap and invite us to take the story seriously. especially in our thinking around inclusive table, diversity, cleansing and expanding borders.
‘The text is not out to get me.
There’s a radical inversion of power.
I’m not trying to rescue Jesus or the woman –
but see them through Mark’s eyes.
Dorothy Lee
The Leadership of Women in Early Christianity – Adela Yarbro Collins
Referencing mention of females in literature and inscriptions it is evident women have held positions of leadership since the very earliest days of Christianity: House churches (leadership, hosting), Apostles (commissioned by risen Christ or local community), Episkopoi (head of house churches, financial and administrative organisers), Diakonoi (messengers, envoys, mouthpieces, delegates), Presbuteroi (elders, presenters and priests)…
‘Evidence is so rare…
but indicates there would have been more’
‘Women in the early church ministered in a variety of functions, including as apostles. The literature and inscriptions only serve as evidence of what they were trying to suppress. Female leadership was approved of and recognised by both male leaders and those communities whom they served’
‘It would be great to see the Catholic church restore women to the diaconate and then to priestliness… I don’t think I’ll see that in my lifetime but I’m willing to be surprised.’
– Adela Yarbro Collins
Three short papers – Chair: Stephen Burns
Desolate, devastated, redeemed, restored: Feminist visions of Daughter Zion reframed in Deutero-Isaiah and the conversation around domestic violence in Australia today – Angela Sawyer
Key passages: 
- Isaiah 49:14-26; 50:1-3; 51:17-52:6; and 54
- Zion’s personification – what is her identity? her role?
- Dealing with metaphors
- Zion, violence and trauma theories
Responses:
- raising the profile of a poetic character such as Zion
- Zion’s voice and Zion’s silence
- Cognitive approaches to metaphor theory, trauma theories and biblical studies
- the benefit of this combination when reading with those in contexts of violence and trauma
- Contextual Bible Study, creativity of expression – Zion’s metaphorical image can offer something to women experiencing domestic violence in Australia.
‘We need to reappraise texts of violence.
When we “make nice” these texts. We “make nice” the issues’
[domestic violence]
‘There is distorted and false teaching speaking to issues of family violence, male authority, divorce… we need biblical criticism not literalism to reinterpret, reframe or reject these passages.’
– Angela Sawyer
Are You Shaved? A Hermeneutic of Hair Removal – Caroline Alsen
“equality feminism”, “radical (justice) feminism”, “biblical feminism”…
‘The Bible might offer answers to questions
but it’s not a women’s liberation document’
– Caroline Alsen
- engaging critique of asymmetric power structures
- move from authority to function
- awareness, not author-ity
- key to power = key to feminist reading
Bible talks a lot about piercing, circumcision, purification rituals… and the idea that when you lose hair you lose strength. Enemies were shaved to feminise and shame them (2 Samuel 10:4) … also ritual liminality, social humility for priests, Israel elite male gaze.
For Egyptians and Assyrians shaving was normal – when Joseph decides to shave is it an imperative of Israelite survival? assimilation? participating in the colonising? being “civilised”?
Father (Jacob) and son (Joseph) alter their hair at moments of transition of power but at the same time are feminising their Israelite identity.
“But he would not listen to her”: Revisiting the story of Tamar in 2 Samuel 13 – Rachelle Gilmour
Does Absolom kill Amnon as revenge for the rape of Tamar or for his own ends?
The rape of Tamar is an act against David, challenging his position as King. Absolom kills Amnon for the threat to his father and protection of his inheritance and to assert his masculinity (strength). Absolom is presented as hero and avenger but is really serving his own ends. Tamar is silenced and has no comforter.
Parallels between 2 Samuel 13 and the concubines of 2 Samuel 16 are broken by God intervention in the latter. But God’s intervention comes too late for Tamar or the concubines. Is God listening to Tamar? In these passages whose voice do we hear? Who is voiceless? Who has a voice but is silenced?
‘Rape is more to do with men’s power over other men
than men’s power over women’
[if the husband or father were “strong” it wouldn’t happen]
‘It’s our role to critique society then and now’
– Rachelle Gilmour
We sit in silence – holding space for brief moments to acknowledge all the complexity arising from these topics and texts…
Old Testament Keynotes – Chair: Katharine Massam
Rape, Royal Power and Resistance in 2 Samuel: Intersecting gender and class in biblical text and South African context – Gerald West
African feminist women’s theologies ‘struggle’ to emerge fro within African ‘father’ theologies: African Theology, Ujamaa Theology, SOuth African Black Theology, South African Contextual Theology.
Culture, Economics and Race are the core systems of these African liberation theologies (it’s difficult to get gender in as a point of intersectionality).
African Feminist/Women’s Theology adds ‘Patriarchy’ as a core and intersecting system.
African women tracking intersections… between gender and economics (Makhosazana Nzimande and Musa Dube)
Letters Longing for Intersection
- From Bathsheba to her grandfather Ahithophel
- From Tamar to Ahithophel
- From the Pilegeshim (wives of David) to Ahithophel
- Graffiti on the wall of Jerusalem
David has taken,
Amnon has taken,
Absolom has taken,
Ahithophel was taken…
your daughters!
Vuka!
The narrative builds tension, waiting for Ahithophel to speak.
“What shall we do?”
“Rape your father’s wives.”
Locating Ahithophel socio-historically and narratively and looking at the advice he offers what can we understand of his motivations and intentions? There are intersecting injustices… are there intersecting resistances?
Terror of texts: Talanoa on three letters around Numbers 27:1-11 and 36:1-12 – Jione Havea
“If we save the planet and have a society of inequality,
we wouldn’t have saved much” – James H. Cone
Talanoa – story, telling, conversation
LETTER ONE
Somewhere at the meeting place of the Kulin nations:
Wurundjeri
Boonwurrung
Taungurong
Dja dua Wurrung
Wathurung
May 04, 2018
Just passed midnight
Dear Ana Loiloi…
A story is told of five named sisters: Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milkah and Tirzah.
They raise 6 things and the Lord answers… 1.
Talanoa has the capacity to create history and truth.
Talanoa ridicules the private-public divide.
LETTER TWO
Dear Sela Kakala…
We hear your name and we remember you. I’m wandering and wondering tonight how your children lives will be different without you.
Where is the mother of these 5 sisters? Their mother is nowhere in their story.
- do they share the same Mum?
- would the story be different if she was alive?
- are they making this claim for their rights at their mothers’ urging?
We give her a name. That name is: Kulin.
We resist by reclaiming her, giving her a name, and putting her back into the story.
Talanoa is not about telling everything
- talanoa is particular
- talanoa is partial
- talanoa holds back
LETTER THREE
Dear Diya Lakai…
If the sisters are married into mother Israelite tribe, then their inheritance will go with them. Moses adjusts the rules so that the sisters must marry one of their own tribe, keeping the wealth within their tribe.
- See, judge, act for yourself and your company
- Resistance is good. Find company. Solidarity is empowering.
- Challenge the written [laws]. Don’t limit yourself to those causes which affect only humans. See islands lost. Grieve. Try and save others.
- Beware of materiality. Read Maya Angelou’s ‘Still I Rise‘
- Find more mother’s for Kulin’s daughters.
- Marry who you want when you grow up. See, judge, act for yourself. Live beyond the shadows of your father.
P.s. read your Bible carefully.
“I like letters – you can tear, hold, keep, read, share them…
but they can be a resistance too.”
– Monica Melanchthon
“Reading texts and doing bible study with marginalised
people brings their voice, that of ordinary women,
and brings them to the conference.
We need to run bible study that
ordinary people can access.”
– Gerald West
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