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I certainly agree with you that actual workers for Satan exist and are increasing in number biscuit; however, so are many honest souls who are just ignorant or misinformed. Whatever their state of conscience is with respect to God, they are diminishing or refusing to accept the fact that God carefully chose those He gave His revelation to not erring with respect to the person nor the message.
Feminists assert their unique unifying axis in everything they do including how they intepret the Bible. So feminists, due to their ideological axis, naturally seek to confront patriarchy in society, the church, and scripture.
Furthermore, feminist develop portraits of Jesus on the basis of their experiences of oppression which they use to illustrate the interaction between text and social context that characterizes feminist hermeneutics.
Their interest in the historical Jesus is different from scholars who are involved in the so-called quest of the historical Jesus. Feminists are not content to establish objective data to recover precisely what Jesus said and did. Rather they seek to insert their axis bias into the historical Jesus to leverage Jesus as a justification and tool for their political objectives.
What they do is challenge the assumption that academic training is the primary criterion for determining who is qualified to interpret the Bible. They seek to undermine the historical orthdox exegesis in genuine biblical scholarship because, they assert, it is a predominantly Caucasian, male guild whose training takes place in North American and European universities.
It's a fallicious position for them to take, of course, for the historical orthdox exegesis in genuine biblical scholarship is the historical orthodox exegesis in genuine biblical scholarship regardless of the who or where. And, "feminist theologians" are themselves not free from the charge of bias and elitism receiving their degrees and credentials primarily from North American and European universities in their bias
.
Analogously, feminist theologians, usually are not oppressed economically. As a result, African-American women have developed an alternative to feminism, called “womanist theology,” which is in part a protest against the social and economic elitism of many feminist theologians.
Obviously, the vast majority of educated feminist elitists are not willing to make the transition from an educated elite who speak on behalf of the oppressed to an oppressed who give voice to their own alternative interpretations. They enjoy the elitism and wealth the world showers on them for reinventing Jesus and scripture to fit their ideological axis.
Furthermore, feminist theologians assert that no exegesis is neutral and that presuppositions that arise from a particular social context determine how a text is interpreted. This viewpoint challenges the assertion, held by evangelical exegetes, that a biblical author’s original intent is ascertainable and normative for today. Feminists view social context as important as the original text and do so from the viewpoint of their axis. That's disingenuous by definition and obviously not all interpretations that arise out of human experience are equally valid.
The criterion normally employed by "feminist theologians" to distinguish between correct and incorrect interpretations is whether an interpretation is oppressive (hence the hermeneutic of suspicion). But the notion of oppression or justice is vague and liable to countless varieties of definition.
Therefore, the challenge of avoiding pure subjectivism confronts feminist hermeneutics as well. A cogent hermeneutic that does not allow interpretation to dissipate into pure subjectivism requires a concerted global dialog about the meaning of Jesus for today. I would argue that to be genuine, it need conform to the historical orthdox exegesis in genuine biblical scholarship the consequence of which should be intuitive (e.g. interpretation adheres to the biblical text without respect to feminism as a worldview)..
All of that said, certainly the biblical study of women and gender is important and desirable. But approaching it with a modern feminist ideological axis is analogous to approaching an ice cream tasting with a giant heater. The inherent bias destroys exactly what you're trying to accomplish before you begin and leaves a real mess to clean up afterwards.
Feminists assert their unique unifying axis in everything they do including how they intepret the Bible. So feminists, due to their ideological axis, naturally seek to confront patriarchy in society, the church, and scripture.
Furthermore, feminist develop portraits of Jesus on the basis of their experiences of oppression which they use to illustrate the interaction between text and social context that characterizes feminist hermeneutics.
Their interest in the historical Jesus is different from scholars who are involved in the so-called quest of the historical Jesus. Feminists are not content to establish objective data to recover precisely what Jesus said and did. Rather they seek to insert their axis bias into the historical Jesus to leverage Jesus as a justification and tool for their political objectives.
What they do is challenge the assumption that academic training is the primary criterion for determining who is qualified to interpret the Bible. They seek to undermine the historical orthdox exegesis in genuine biblical scholarship because, they assert, it is a predominantly Caucasian, male guild whose training takes place in North American and European universities.
It's a fallicious position for them to take, of course, for the historical orthdox exegesis in genuine biblical scholarship is the historical orthodox exegesis in genuine biblical scholarship regardless of the who or where. And, "feminist theologians" are themselves not free from the charge of bias and elitism receiving their degrees and credentials primarily from North American and European universities in their bias
.Analogously, feminist theologians, usually are not oppressed economically. As a result, African-American women have developed an alternative to feminism, called “womanist theology,” which is in part a protest against the social and economic elitism of many feminist theologians.
Obviously, the vast majority of educated feminist elitists are not willing to make the transition from an educated elite who speak on behalf of the oppressed to an oppressed who give voice to their own alternative interpretations. They enjoy the elitism and wealth the world showers on them for reinventing Jesus and scripture to fit their ideological axis.
Furthermore, feminist theologians assert that no exegesis is neutral and that presuppositions that arise from a particular social context determine how a text is interpreted. This viewpoint challenges the assertion, held by evangelical exegetes, that a biblical author’s original intent is ascertainable and normative for today. Feminists view social context as important as the original text and do so from the viewpoint of their axis. That's disingenuous by definition and obviously not all interpretations that arise out of human experience are equally valid.
The criterion normally employed by "feminist theologians" to distinguish between correct and incorrect interpretations is whether an interpretation is oppressive (hence the hermeneutic of suspicion). But the notion of oppression or justice is vague and liable to countless varieties of definition.
Therefore, the challenge of avoiding pure subjectivism confronts feminist hermeneutics as well. A cogent hermeneutic that does not allow interpretation to dissipate into pure subjectivism requires a concerted global dialog about the meaning of Jesus for today. I would argue that to be genuine, it need conform to the historical orthdox exegesis in genuine biblical scholarship the consequence of which should be intuitive (e.g. interpretation adheres to the biblical text without respect to feminism as a worldview).
.All of that said, certainly the biblical study of women and gender is important and desirable. But approaching it with a modern feminist ideological axis is analogous to approaching an ice cream tasting with a giant heater. The inherent bias destroys exactly what you're trying to accomplish before you begin and leaves a real mess to clean up afterwards.
