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ABSTRACT
Drawing on feminist perspectives and pentecostal-charismatic pneumatology, this article suggests that understanding God's power as inclusive, life-giving love has the capacity to reshape gender roles and foster a more egalitarian future for both ecclesial and social spaces. It examines theological models that link God's power to hierarchical control as perpetuating gender inequalities and discrimination, suggesting that reframing divine empowerment might contribute to not only personal transformation, but also to oppressive structures or hegemonic control. The article then highlights pneumatological research which shows that the baptism of the Spirit, regarded through the framework of divine power as love, can be retrieved as a source for human flourishing. It concludes with a proposal for examining the connections of Spirit empowerment and divine love in light of gender oppression, suggesting that this may offer possibilities for feminist theological constructions.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 McFague, Models of God, 3. McFague challenges a traditional attribute of God that views omnipotence as an all-powerful, dominating force. Instead of a distant yet authoritarian deity, she envisions God as deeply engaged with all of life. While her work includes a departure from a classic use of omnipotence, interpreting divine power through a lens of contemporary uses and abuses of social power, this article maintains that God’s power is unlike anything in the human imagination. Thus, God is not the highest authority in a hierarchical structure of dominance; rather, God’s power is the vitality of God’s own essence that brings about life and the flourishing of creation.
2 McFague, Models of God, 67.
3 Ibid., 16–8, 68–9.
4 Ruether, ‘Sexism and Misogyny in the Christian Tradition,” 87.
5 Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk, 19.
6 Ibid., 19.
7 Ibid., 94–7.
8 Johns, “Spirited Vestments,” 170.
9 Ibid., 176.
10 Alexander, “When Liberation Becomes Survival,” 331.
11 Ibid., 336.
12 Ibid., 342.
13 Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit, 258.
14 Ibid., 259.
15 Ibid., 260.
16 Ibid., 116.
17 Redick, “Spirit Baptism as a Moral Source in a Secular Age,” 47.
18 Ibid., 47.
19 Moltmann, The Spirit of Life, 259.
20 Redick, “Spirit Baptism as a Moral Source in a Secular Age,” 50–1.
21 Ibid., 57.
22 Pinnock, Flame of Love, 60–1.
23 Ibid., 157.
24 Moltmann, The Spirit of Life, 218.
25 Ibid., 217.
26 Archer, The Gospel Revisited, 55–6. The Spirit does not alone unify humanity with God; Jesus, sent by the Father to the world, both sends and baptizes humanity into the Spirit, who baptizes humanity into the body of Christ. Archer further summarizes the event as “The Spirit proceeds from the Father through Jesus to the community and draws the community into a new dimensional relationship with the Spirit, thus grounding the community into the relational essence of God via the ministry of Jesus.”
27 Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit, 258.
28 Nothwehr, Mutuality, 96. Here I draw from Nothwehr’s description of mutuality as equitably sharing “power-with” others in ways that affirm full personhood and work toward common good.
29 Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit, 264.
30 Dempster, “Eschatology, Spirit Baptism, and Inclusiveness,” 156–60. Dempster argues that many classic and most contemporary pentecostals link the empowerment of Spirit baptism with eschatological urgency to preach the gospel globally in missiological terms rather than a holistic view of mission as empowerment to integrate social concern and evangelistic efforts.
31 Augustine, The Spirit and the Common Good, 80.
32 Yong, Spirit of Love, 59–74.
33 Ibid., 158–9. Yong names racial reconciliation, gender emancipation, socioeconomic justice, and the abolition of hierarchicalism, elitism, and classism as examples of powers that are already eschatologically redeemed but not yet fully realized in the present.
34 Yong, Spirit of Love, 98.
35 Augustine, The Spirit and the Common Good, 115.
36 Stephenson, Dismantling the Dualisms for American Pentecostal Women in Ministry, 167–90.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Lauren Raley
Lauren Raley is a PhD researcher at the University of Birmingham (UK) Department of Theology and Religion. She is an alumna of Southeastern University, where she currently works as both staff andadjunct professor specializing in theology and ethics.