The purpose of this study is to reveal the implications of the Models of God Mother, Lover, Friend by Sally MacFague as the feminist pastoral counselling for overcoming Misogyny within Christianity.
Misogyny means a holistic cultural attitude to hate ...
The purpose of this study is to reveal the implications of the Models of God Mother, Lover, Friend by Sally MacFague as the feminist pastoral counselling for overcoming Misogyny within Christianity.
Misogyny means a holistic cultural attitude to hate or loathe women and appears in numerous ways including discrimination against women, hostility, belittling, violence, sexual objectification, etc. Especially misogyny appears as despise of women to men and self-hate to women, which makes women internalize inferiority feeling and helplessness while criticizing themselves constantly. This makes us infer that misogyny acts as principle of perception that strengthens subjugation of women beyond the simple affective dimension.
The problem is that such misogyny became rationalized within Christianity and encroached secretly in every corner of church. Misogynistic texts in the Bible and theologies of suppression of women in history of Christianity functioned as important themes for forming the identity of Christianity. Traditionally, Christianity established the tradition that they excluded women from the public area, considered female body and sexuality a sin, and regarded women as target of hatred based on the dualism that spirituality is superior to physicality. Especially in Korean churches where the majority of church members are women, misogyny influences women more secretly and unknowingly as religious conviction.
Therefore, it is necessary to seek for the feminist pastoral counseling-based therapeutic interventions for overcoming misogyny within Christianity. Especially the fact that feminist pastoral counseling deals with not only personal experiences but also social-power system surrounding women lays the foundations for misogyny that should be approached with feminist pastoral counseling beyond the general pastoral counseling. It’s because misogyny is not simply a woman’s individual experience but also a complicated and accumulated result of male-centered historical, social, political, and cultural structure.
Based on such feminist pastoral counseling-based insights, this researcher considers the Models of God as Mother, Lover, and Friend by Sally MacFague as an alternative model for overcoming misogyny within churches. MacFague suggests the Models of God as Mother, Lover, and Friend as alternative to the traditional male-centered language. Each Model provides an opportunity to re-discover the values that have been underestimated by the Christian tradition so far and through the process of expressing the names of God in various ways, women can re-form the relationship with God as independent agent based on their own experiences and voices. In the end, this study aims to reveal the therapeutic values of the Models of God as Mother, Lover, and Friend suggested by Sally MacFague in feminist pastoral counseling aspects and this is expected to be helpful for diversifying the ways how church women recover their hurt.