I.

Summary of Chapters 3 & 4

Ellen Wanda proclaimed the following words in chapter 3 of Mark Medleys Imago
Trinitatis: feminist theology stands as one, highly significant voice at the margins, critically
analyzing the relegation of women to the status alien and subjugated Other, and using that
otherness as the foundation of new construal of all aspects of human existence1
Feminism has three goals: (1) to identify the various manifestations of sexism, misogyny,
and androcentrism in ecclesial praxis and theological discourse. (2) To expose how sexist
discourses and praxis supports and legitimizes violence against women. (3) To subvert sexist
praxis and discourse by means of a variety of constructive strategies in order to offer a renewed
vision of Christian practice as well as personal, social and planetary flourishing. 2 The first and
second goal suggests feminists theologians attempt to critique the role, meaning, and power a
patriarchal social-symbolic order plays in the maintenance of sexism, classism, racism, and other
structures of social malice. The last goal suggests feminist theology is more than critique. It
seeks to legitimate new understanding of religion, theology, and spirituality through the
construction of names, ideas, symbols, and images for the divine and the human.
According to feminist theologians, feminist theology serves to clear a space for women to
write and name their own experience, and from that experience to construct new and imaginative
theological positions.3 One issue that emerged is the subjectivity or selfhood.4 Some feminists
said that the nature of womens experience as distinct from mens experience and the need for
theology to reflect upon the experience of woman. In effect, this opened the way for feminist
scholars of religion to become increasingly interested in the self as a theological subject.
Feminist theologians stand today are using the position of the marginality of women to
deconstruct the patriarchal construction of women and the basic tenets of modern
anthropological construct which perpetuate patriarchy defined personhood: that the human being
is individual, autonomous and disembodied.5 In the andocentric model, women are viewed as the
Other, inferior because she represents all the lesser value such as rationality, passion, drive,
embodiment and inter-dependence.6 But for the feminists, personhood is essentially relational,

Mark Medley, Imago Trinitatis (USA: University Press of America, 2002), 69.
Ibid.,70.
3
Ibid.,71.
4
Ibid.
5
Ibid.,71.
6
Ibid.
2

inseparable from the limiting and enriching contexts of body, relationship, community and the
larger community of living things.7
Towards the middle of his paper, Medley presented the concept of complementarity
which is two-nature anthropology, each with identifiable differences that are essential to each
sex. The sexes complete one another in all aspects of human existence. 8 It establishes a mans
way of being and a womans way of being. This, in a way, answers the issue on marginalization
of women.
According to Carr, womens feminist experience is a response to womens socialized
experience. She presented seven elements of womens experience: (1) feminist experience is the
experience of suspicion and of questioning, (2) feminist experience is the experience of
conversion, (3) feminist experience is a historical experience, (4) it calls for a womens
experience of religion, (5) it can also be referred to as womens unique, individual experience,
(6) it also identifies Christian religious experience of women, and (7) feminist experience is the
experience of relationality.9 This relationality is at the heart of all things according to Beverly
Harrison. This is further explained by the metaphor of a web- women often describe their
experience in terms of interconnection and relatedness. This relatedness is also used to describe
the self. Medley speaks of a connected self, not only of a separate self, which is identified with
men and understood to have the capacity to self-actualize; and a soluble self, which is not
exclusively and necessarily identified with women. The connected self does not come from a
parochial absolutizing of womens interpreted experience of connection, nor is it an
encouragement to retrench and build fixed residences in the domesticity of patriarchy. Rather it
is a vision centered on a liberating commitment to others that emerges out of liberationist
recognition of the fracture of gender oppression.10 In short, the connected self tears the fabric of
the separate and soluble self binary but still acknowledging our differences. In that matter, our
differences serve as crossroads, the new and possible meeting grounds where persons can
creatively engage one another.11
The next chapter highlights the image of God as its main basis for the values of
relationality, mutuality, connectivity and participation. The author suggests an iconic metaphor,
imago Trinitatis can be expressed in terms of imago Christi and imago Spiritus.12 The christic
7

Mark Medley, Imago Trinitatis (USA: University Press of America, 2002), 71.
Ibid.,78.
9
Ibid.,79-80.
10
Ibid.,93.
11
Ibid.,97.
12
Mark Medley, Imago Trinitatis (USA: University Press of America, 2002), 123.
8

dimension can be characterized as emancipatory solidarity and the pneumatic dimension of

human personhood should emphasize koinonia as participation in community.13
An authentic Trinitarian vision sees women and men as image bearers of God called to an
existence of solidarity, mutuality and communion. According to LaCugna Jesus Christ serves as
a criterion of human personhood and the Spirit as the means by which authentic personhood is
achieved.14 In early Christianity, Jesus is the image of the invisible God seen in Colossians and
Corinthians. The followers of Jesus were also exhorted to be icons of Christ in all aspects and
dimensions of living.15
Emancipatory solidarity is one highlight in this chapter. This emancipatory solidarity
can be defined as the effect of Jesus life-praxis upon others which empowers persons to express
their authority by being with others, and to move beyond connections that enforce bondage to a
freedom that occasions a new kind of communion which creates and sustains liberation. 16
Emancipation means a concrete struggle for freedom and solidarity; while solidarity refers to
Jesus call to a moral, religious, intellectual and political conversion whereby we open ourselves
to the embrace of difference rather than rejection and exclusion of the other, especially the
oppressed other.17 Solidarity also means a communion or fellowship of shared interests and
concerns. Solidarity can be properly being understood when considered two independent
elements: (1) mutuality, and (2) praxis. This Kingdom of God or basileia tu theou is manifested
in Jesus experience of Gods Spirit. Jesus is not only a Spirit-filled prophet of Wisdom but also
as her incarnation. Also the basileia is seen in Jesus life-praxis in his healings and exorcisms;
practice of table fellowship; ethnic and gender inclusivity; servant-hood; and definitely also seen
in Jesus death and resurrection.
The pneumatic dimension of Human personhood is also a highlight in this chapter.
According to the Scriptures, it is the work of the Holy Spirit that performatively extends Christs
existence within the ever-changing parameters of the world.18 It is the Spirit who gathers persons
and unites them in a body-politic of Christ.19 The Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ, vivifies,
nurtures, and empowers true communion or partnership between God and all creation, between
persons and others.20
13

Ibid.
Ibid.,125.
15
Ibid.,126.
16
Ibid.
17
Ibid.,127.
18
Ibid.,145.
19
Ibid.
20
Mark Medley, Imago Trinitatis (USA: University Press of America, 2002), 147.
14

This entails the idea or the concept of koinonia which expresses a participation,
indwelling, mutuality and friendship which the kinetic energy of the Spirit makes manifest.
Koinonia also expresses the liberating activity of the Spirit by virtue of the fact that she disrupts
hierarchical and imperialistic view of community.21 So, the Spirit gathers together persons in
communion making possible a true fellowship, the ground of which is in the very being of the
triune God.22

II. Critique & Pastoral reflection

It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner
therefore, a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife,
and they become ONE flesh.
Gen 2: 18; 24 (NRSV)
In the book of Genesis, we are very familiar with the creation account especially that of
the man and the womans creation. God said, It is not good that the man should be alone so
He created the woman, I will make him a helper as his partner. Yes, scholars argue that the
woman is secondly created to man but it does not mean that God highlights the man as superior
to woman. Later in the passage we can read that and they become ONE flesh. This invitation
of God to be one flesh is a clear manifestation that the oneness of the man and the woman is a
one-ness of equality. One cannot be One or cannot united if the other is subordinate from it or to
it. What God said did not stop in the phrase I will make him a helper, which gives us a
notion of subordination or lordship, but continues as his PARTNER. This is an indication
that God created woman to be in equality with man. The term part-ner has its roots in the word
part. In Filipino, kabahagi- therefore, hindi kumpleto kung wala ito o ang bahaging nito. The
man-hood and the woman-hood are both different in many aspects, but these differences should
not be emphasized as weaknesses and limitations. Rather, to see it as a jumping board to the
One-ness of both created being, either man or woman, as possessing Person-hood. Mark Medley
speaks of the Complementarity, that is, the sexes complete one another in all aspects of human
existence.23 The man completes the womans limitedness and the same way with the woman
who completes the mans weaknesses, in all aspects of life: social, personal, religious, political,
economical, what not. It establishes a mans way of being and a womans way of being. Our
21

Ibid., 148.
Ibid.
23
Mark Medley, Imago Trinitatis (USA: University Press of America, 2002), 78.
22

differences then must serve, neither as blocks nor hindrance but as crossroads. The crossroads
are the new and possible meeting grounds where persons can creatively engage one another. 24
These differences of the man-ness and woman-ness are the entry point of the ONE-ness and
unity of both Persons as a Complete Self. And the two shall become one-Gen 2:24 (NAB)
In todays news is a report on the death of our first woman president, Pres. Corazon
Aquino. Weeks ago, which was continuously aired, was a monitor of her health condition. It was
the headlines of the media almost everyday. It stayed there for a while because many were
watching. Why? This is because she is loved by all. Everyone wants to be a part of her life and
healing. All are enticed to pray for her in their own special way. Why is that? It is because of her
very life and example that she stood for the people of the Philippines in times of despair and
hopelessness. May ibinuga si Cory! May pinatunayan siya! May ipinakitang angking galing na
nagbigay pag-asa sa maraming mamamayang Pilipino. And not only that, Cory Aquino showed
the people that a WOMAN can stand in position and lead the people in democracy. Ang
pagiging babae niya ang nagbigay ng malakas na dating sa mga tao upang suportahan siya sa
paglaban patungong demokrasya. Surely in her wake many people, even those she did not
know, will cling to seeing her and pay their last tribute and respect to this great woman in
Philippine history. She made it to the finals and won the race!
This is also pastorally relevant to the Church. Many times, we consider women as weak
or limited. Sometimes we bear a mentality or culture that a woman is a created person which
cannot do a lot just like a man. But these examples and analogies presented are witnesses to the
greatness which woman can do to us and to our times. Yes they have their own limitedness and
their differences compared to priests and men-leaders, but we too, even priests, are limited and
weak. Mark Medley reminds us to acknowledge one another as complements to each other
especially when it comes to our pastoral needs and works. If this culture of equality is absorbed,
then a culture of good relations will be born, which can lead us to know our faith more, through
the doctrine of the Trinity- a doctrine of relations and a doctrine of equality.

24

Ibid., 97.