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Théologiques
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Théologiques
Psalm of Anger to a Patriarchal god
Sheila A. Redmond
Le pouvoir
Volume 8, numéro 2, automne 2000
URI : id.erudit.org/iderudit/005024ar
DOI : 10.7202/005024ar
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Faculté de théologie et de sciences des religions, Université de
Montréal
ISSN 1188-7109 (imprimé)
1492-1413 (numérique)
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Sheila A. Redmond "Psalm of Anger to a Patriarchal god."
Théologiques 82 (2000): 33–34. DOI : 10.7202/005024ar
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Théologiques 8/2 (2000) 33-34
Psalm of Anger to a Patriarchal god*
Sheila A. REDMOND
8/2 (2000)
God:
You abandoned me
You made promises you couldn’t keep
You were supposed to be all powerful, all knowing –
And more than that
You were supposed to love me and take care of me
Just like you took care of the lillies and the sparrows.
You let me down, you lied to me and I was good,
And I loved you and I got saved and
You were supposed to make everything better!
The pain and the hurt and the guilt were supposed to go away.
But they didn’t.
And I tried and I cried and I looked for you and what did I find
You demanded a man kill his own son to prove his faithfulness.
You destroyed a man on a bet and didn’t even have the
decency to tell him why
You just terrified him into submission.
You even killed your own child!
Don’t tell me you couldn’t have done things differently.
You seem to delight in putting your children through hell –
Hell is for children!
The best you can do is tell me I need to be forgiven –
FOR WHAT!
* Sheila A. REDMOND, «Confrontation Between the Christian God and
an Abused Child: Twenty-Five Years Later», dans Church Council on Justice
and Corrections; Canadian Council on Social Development, Family violence
in a Patriarchal Society: A Challenge to the Church, Ottawa, 1987.
34 SHEILA REDMOND
I didn’t ask to be born in original sin.
I didn’t ask to be raped and beaten and destroyed:
I trusted you and I believed in you.
When the going got rough, you abandoned me!
I didn’t leave you, you left me.
I would rather spend eternity in hell than spend it with you,
You god of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Jesus, Peter and Paul.
I don’t need forgiveness, you do!
And I will never, never repent..
You owe me my life back and you can’t even admit you were wrong.
You are a god who asks too much.
I am buying my soul back. I can never trust you again.
That would be like a battered woman going back to her husband
Or a beaten child needing the love and approval of the parent
who committed the crimes.
You want us to come to you as children.
No wonder!
Only a child would be naive enough to fall for your lies and stupid promises.
I may forgive you, you pitiful god of my childhood
But I will never forget how you abandoned me.
And I will never allow myself to be destroyed by you or you creations
Again!
Where were You when I needed You?
... A rapist and apparently a potential serial rapist and murderer. 17 Who is the god of the bible in my Psalm of Anger to a Patriarchal god? 18 A god who only cares about those who believe in him; a child murderer; a god for whom the end justifies the means; a god who damns children to hell; a god who visits the sins of the father on the children. 19 In the final analysis, the god of the bible is not a nice man: he is cruel; he is capricious, he is vindictive; he is only capable of conditional love. ...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
NOTE: The abstract is what appears in the programme. The paper moves away from the abstract in substantial ways, while adhering to the main thrust of the abstract.A number of questions come to mind when contemplating the relationship between feminist and traditional exegesis. Is the purpose of exegesis (explicitly or implicitly) to “support” given theology, rather than create new theology? Is “feminist” liberation exegesis really offering anything more than gender concerns to the “liberation” exegesis & theology that arises from it? Is “gender awareness” the main thing that differentiates feminist exegesis from traditional exegesis? Is it good enough to stick “feminist” in front of a form of traditional exegetical methods? In this paper, I want to focus on the question: “Does feminist exegesis create a different weltanschauung than traditional exegesis?” If it doesn’t, then it is a surprise that integration hasn’t happened. However, if it does, then the answer is obvious, integration is probably not possible, and we shouldn’t be surprised that it hasn’t happened. Feminist exegesis ultimately destroys the traditional analysis of biblical texts, and has done so since its inception. I will undertake an exegesis of Matthew 18:1-6 integrating a number of feminist methodologies. These will be compared to traditional exegeses of the passage. As a result of my exegesis, I will suggest that feminist exegesis can lead to the uncomfortable awareness that there is a need to restructure Christianity and Christianity’s conception of divinity at its core. There is nothing comforting in an exegesis that turns the world upside down and raises those kinds of questions. Traditional exegetes understand this at some level, I suspect, and give feminist exegesis no more than a token “handshake”. I suggest that to seek integration with traditional forms of exegesis would only serve to water down feminist exegesis.
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