1

Article Review:
1. Words limit: 1500 (ca) words
2. Date of submission: 9th September, 2023 (5pm)
3. Marks: 15 marks

Title: Patriarchal Colonization of Imago Dei: Towards a Theological Anthropology of Human

Wholeness in the Church and Family

Author: Andrew H. Laltlanliana

Journal: Mizoram Journal of Theology
Volume - IX, Issue Number - 1 (January – June, 2018)
Pages Number: 1-16

Editor: Rev. Dr. C. Lalhlira

Published by Mizoram Journal of Theology Editorial Board
Aizawl, 2018.

1. Introduction
For centuries, theologians were keen of answering the question of what is meant to be human.
From the very beginning of historical traditions, we find theologians wrestling with key
issues like body-soul dualism, Imago Dei, human free will and the purpose of human life.
However, patriarchal traditions in the church and society have influenced these theologians
and their theological interpretations. Among such interpretation is the exclusion of women in
the Image of God (Imago Dei) that subsequently leads to sexism from the earliest period till
today. Therefore, this paper is an attempt to solve the binary between men and women by
analyzing theological anthropology in the light of Imago Dei giving special reference to the
problems faced by women in the church and family.

2. Methodology: Feminist Hermeneutics of Deconstruction and Reconstruction

Feminist Hermeneutics of Deconstruction and Reconstruction is the methodology employed
in this paper. The holistic concept of Imago Dei which was colonized by the patriarchal
interpretation needs to be deconstructed and subsequently an egalitarian theological
anthropology needs to be reconstructed.1 Hermeneutics of deconstruction and reconstruction
goes together with the hermeneutics of suspicion, imagination and critical analysis. At the

1
Atula Ao, “Feminist Hermeneutics: A New Methodological Reflections,” in Contextual Theologies, compiled
by Wati A. Longchar (Kolkata: SCEPTRE, 2013), 248.
 2

same time, reconstruction has not only the deconstructive but also constructive task.2 While
using this methodology, there are three things we should note. Firstly, feminist hermeneutics
is the empowerment of women by using new interpretation. Secondly, deconstruction does
not only mean ‘to destroy’ but ‘to expose’ the issues for transformation.3 Thirdly,
reconstructing is not for women’s upliftment alone but to see both male and female share
equal opportunity in every aspect of life realities.

3. Interrogating Theological Anthropology

3.1 What is Theological Anthropology?
Anthropology comprises of two Greek words ‘anthropos’ and ‘logos’ which literally means
‘study about human beings’. However, when it comes to theological anthropology it has
different connotation. Theological Anthropology is the religious teaching concerning human
and is dealing with the theological reflection on human person. The used of an adjective word
theological shows that this study differs from the study of humanity as a social-scientific
dimension. Although religious understandings of anthropology have been formulated
variously yet the term theological shows that this field of study explores what it means to be
God’s creation in a religious dimension.4 At the same time, theological anthropology should
not neglect the other dimensions of anthropology. Since, the basic task of theological
anthropology is to understand the human person. It is therefore necessary to pursue
knowledge of human nature from their life realities.5

3.2 Issues in Theological Anthropology

Theological anthropology deals with various issues and among which the major and central
issues of theological anthropology is the understanding of Imago Dei and sin.6 Imago Dei is
often considered as the starting point of theological anthropology and the central concept in
the understanding of divine-human relationship. When human falls into sin, God’s image in
human was distorted and then comes the questions of sin and the meaning of humanity in
such a situation. The other issues concerned in theological anthropology are the

2
Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, Wisdom Ways: Introducing Feminist Biblical Interpretation (New York: Orbis
Books, 2001), 184.
3
Deconstruction is a central term in the work of French Philosopher Jacques Derrida. For Derrida, by
deconstructing, dualistic structures are uncovered, elicited and shaken, thereby disseminating new forms of
writing and knowledge. See Amy Hollywood, “Deconstruction,” in Dictionary of Feminist Theologies, edited by
Letty M. Russell and J. Shannon Clarkson (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996), 64.
4
Kristen E. Kvam, “Theological Anthropology,” in Dictionary of Feminist Theologies, 10.
5
Marc Cortez, Theological Anthropology: A Guide for the Perplexed (London: T&T Clark International, 2010), 6.
6
Cortez, Theological Anthropology, 10.
 3

anthropological significance of Jesus Christ, the role of the Holy Spirit in human life, the
story of redemption and its eschatological dimension.7 Among these issues, we will be
emphasizing Imago Dei which is considered to be the basis of human relationship where
Gregory of Nazianzus remarks, “One same Creator for man and for woman, for the same
clay, the same image, the same death, the same resurrection.”8

4. Gender and Theological Anthropology

In 1960’s, liberation theology came into the arena of theological studies which emphasizes
preferential option of the marginalized in the society. This theology calls for the rewriting of
the bible and reinterpretation of history for the emancipation of the weaker sections. Among
such section are the women’s community who faces discrimination both in the society and the
church. The invisibility of women within religious history and institutions fuelled the outrage
and fervour behind feminist theology. Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza rightly says, “Women are
not only the silent majority but also the silenced majority in the Church.”9

The creation account in Genesis was not only central for Christian understanding of humanity
but also for feminist claim of egalitarian theological anthropology. When the concept of
human dignity was integrally linked with the concept of Imago Dei, Gen 1:27 was the proof
text for those who seek to defend the status of women.10 But this was totally dismantled by
the patriarchal interpretations that create dominant attitude towards women. Feminist
theologians believe that the patriarchal interpretation of theological anthropology based on
androcentric view is one of the causes of women’s subjugation. Therefore, it is our tasks to
uncover the patriarchal notion of theological anthropology taking the concept of Imago Dei
and construct an egalitarian theological anthropology.

5. Understanding Imago Dei

The concept of Imago Dei plays a significant role in theological anthropology because human
considered their existential being in the Image of God. Therefore, a flawed understanding of
the Image of God can have a negative connotation to the people especially to the sexually

7
Cortez, Theological Anthropology, 10.
8
Elizabeth Behr-Sigel, “Woman Too in the Likeness of God,” in Mid-Stream XXI/3 (July, 1982): 374.
9
Michelle A. Gonzalez, Created in God’s Image: An Introduction to Feminist Theological Anthropology (New
York: Orbis Books, 2007), xviii.
10
Maryanne Cline Horowitz, “The Image of God in Man-Is Woman Included?” in Harvard Theological Review
72/3-4 (July-October, 1979): 176.
 4

minorities in particular.11 Therefore, let me give three points of approaching Imago Dei for
our further studies:

5.1 Structural Imago Dei: One of the important ways of understanding the Imago Dei is the
human capacity of rational thought. Milliard J. Erickson says, “There has been a long history
of regarding reason as the unique feature which distinguishes human from the other
creatures.”12 Hence, the structural view posits that the Imago involves something essential to
the nature of the human person, some capacity or set of capacities that characterize what the
human person is.13 However, this structural understanding of Imago Dei creates a problem to
the people who cannot have rational thought for e.g infants and disabled person. It can
assume that only the matured, perfect and abled person can claim to possess this type of
Image.

5.2 Functional Imago Dei: This understanding of Imago Dei focuses on what the humans do
rather than what human beings are. This image is not something present in the makeup of
human beings or the experiencing of the relationship between God and human. But, this
understanding posits something that we do to other creations.14 In Gen 1:26, we see humans
created so that they may rule over other creations and this forms the basic theological stand
point for interpreting Imago Dei in a functional dimension. However, like the structural
Imago Dei, this functional understanding of Imago Dei gives a feeling of domination and
subjugation for other creations and also between male and female relationships.

5.3 Relational Imago Dei: The final understanding of Imago Dei is to explicate the image in
terms of relationship. Many modern theologians do not conceive the Image of God as
something within the human nature but as an experiencing of a relationship.15 They believe
that the true meaning of Imago Dei is to be found in relations i.e human relation to God, to
other humans and to creations. The fundamental relational nature of human persons is seen
more clearly in the male-female differentiation of humanity.16 Since the above understanding

11
R.C Jongte, “Rethinking Imago Dei in the Context of Marginalization,” in Relocation of Mission and
Ecumenism in the Context of the Margins, edited by P. Mohan Larbeer (Bangalore: BTESSC, 2014), 78.
12
Milliard J. Erickson, Introducing Christian Doctrine, 2nd edition, 1992 (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic,
2001), 173.
13
Cortez, Theological Anthropology, 18.
14
Erickson, Introducing Christian Doctrine, 173.
15
Erickson, Introducing Christian Doctrine, 173.
16
Cortez, Theological Anthropology, 24.
 5

of Imago Dei seem to be inadequate because of its exclusiveness and dominion in nature the
paper therefore shall focus the concept of Imago Dei towards its relationality.

6. Imago Dei: Colonized Theological Anthropology

The basic concept of Imago Dei is holistic and relational. But, this understanding was totally
misinterpreted by the patriarchal theologians resulting in the flawed conceptualization of
women and simultaneously has given rise to the issues of sexism and domination. In the
following, we will see various patriarchal interpretations of Imago Dei by selected
theologians who were influential in their respective era. Moreover, their view points were
passed down for posterity by both the canon law and theological traditions.

6.1 Paul: Paul is the most cited writer in the New Testament when it comes to the issue of
women. Human created in the Image of God is seen both in the Genesis creation account and
also in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. However, the motifs behind these two texts are totally
different. The Genesis account talks about human created in the Image of God whereas Paul
talks about the domination of men over women in Corinthians as given below:
A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the Image of God; but woman is the glory of man.
For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman
but woman for man.17

Craig S. Keener also says, “For Paul, woman reflects man’s image because she was taken
from man and therefore, she ought to cover that image in worship lest it distract observers
from attention to God’s image.”18

6.2 Augustine: Augustine is considered to be the greatest theologian of the Patristic period.
In Augustine’s anthropology, women occupy the lower orientation of the human mind and
because of their weakened intellectual powers they are incapable of reflecting the Image of
God. They can attain the Image of God only when they are united with men or their husband
in marriage.19 For this, he states:
...The woman together with her husband is the Image of God so that the whole substance may be
one image, but when she is referred to separately in her quality as a helpmeet, which regards the

17
See I Corinthians 11:7-9
18
W.H Leslie, “The Concept of Woman in the Pauline Corpus in Light of the Social and Religious Environment
of the First Century” (Ph.D Dissertation, Northwestern University, 1976), pp 107-108. As cited by Craig S.
Keener, Paul Women & Wives: Marriage and Women’s Ministry in the Letters of Paul (Massachusetts:
Hendrickson Publishing Inc., 1992), 37.
19
Gonzalez, Created in God’s Image, 38.
 6

woman alone, then she is not the Image of God, but as regards the male alone, he is the Image of
God as fully and completely as when the woman too is joined with him in one (De Trinitate
7.7.10). 20

In his confession, Augustine also mentions that the rational man which is made in the Image
of God controls over the irrational animals including women. For him, “woman had a nature
which is equal in mental capacity of rational intelligence but made subject by virtue of her
sex.”21 Thus, under Augustine’s schema, men represent higher intellectual and women the
inferior level. It is also said that “Augustine paves the way for an understanding of reason and
rationality as fundamentally masculine attributes.”22

6.3 Thomas Aquinas: Aquinas, a great medieval theologian accepts the Aristotelian
biological definition of woman as a ‘misbegotten male’23 defective in nature and unfit matter
to receive a full sacramental life in the church.24 Like Augustinian tradition, he also believes
that women are created only for the sake of procreation. For he says that another man could
have been a better helper than woman and so procreating is the only reason of women
existence on earth.25 It is for this and this alone that a separate female member of the human
species has been created by God.26 When asked whether God’s image is found in all men,
Aquinas answers:
Man is said to be made in the Image of God in virtue of his intellectual nature, he is chiefly in
God’s image as his intellectual nature is able to intimate God. His intellectual nature chiefly
imitates God in this.27

20
Rosemary Radford Reuther, Sexism and God-Talk: Towards a Feminist Theology (Boston: Beacon Press,
1983), 95.
21
Genevieve Lloyd, “Augustine and Aquinas,” in Feminist Theology: A Reader, edited by Ann Loades (London:
SPCK, 1993), 91.
22
Beverley Clack “Augustine,” in Misogyny in the Western Philosophical Tradition: A Reader, edited by
Beverley Clack (New York: Routledge: 1999), 60. As cited by Rochhuahthanga Jongte, “Imagining Redemptive
Masculinity: Towards a Tribal Theological Anthropology” (M.Th Dissertation, Senate of Serampore College,
2014), 38.
23
According to Aristotelian biology, the male seed provides the form of the human body. Women reproductive
role contributes only the matter that fleshes out this formative power of the male. See Ruether, Sexism and God-
Talk, 96.
24
Collen O’Reilley, “Study on Anthropology: Christian Feminist Perspective,” in Theological Anthropology: A
Collection of Papers Prepared by Faith and Unity Commissioners of the National Council of Churches in
Australia (www.ncca.org.au).
25
Gonzalez, Created in God’s Image, 45.
26
Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk, 96.
27
David Cairns, The Image of God in Man (London: SCM Press Ltd., 1953), 114.
 7

Aquinas also locates the Image of God in the rational capabilities of human being, which is
considered as the locus of God’s image. Thus, for Aquinas, rationality is identified with men
while feeling and emotion is for female and considered lower than reason.28

6.4 Martin Luther: “Women are created for no other purpose than to serve man and be their
helper. If women grow weary or even die while bearing children that does not harm anything.
Let them bear children to death; they are created for that.”29 This statement of Luther, a great
reformer of the 16th century clearly portrays women as secondary in the Image of God. Luther
believes that women lost their original Image of God because of their disobedience. In his
commentary in Gen 2:18, he says, “If the woman had not been deceived by the serpent and
not sinned, she would have been equal to Adam in all respect.”30 Further, he says that females
are lower than males in the hierarchy and less rational than males which make them unable to
have high reasoning power. Thus, for Luther, women’s anatomy shows their destiny as
mothers rather than thinkers.31

6.5 Karl Barth: Karl Barth, the great theologian of the 20th century based his anthropology
on Christology and Jesus Christ as the starting point of his anthropology. Barth’s
anthropology is a gender complimentary and his notion of the Imago Dei is relational. For
him, the image and likeness of God in humankind seems to consist in male and female.32 So,
for Barth, “To be human is to be in community with God and with ourselves.”33 At the
beginning of his career, Barth does not define the Image of God as co-humanity.34 Later, he
changed his mind as he believes that “God is not the solitary God but the Triune God... so
humankind is created for the genuine mutuality and reciprocity of I-Thou relationship.”35
However, though Barth supported the equality of humans in God’s image, he distinguishes the
function of male and female in two roles. He says:

28
Jongte, “Imagining Redemptive Masculinity: Towards a Tribal Theological Anthropology”. 39.
29
Merry Wiesner, “Luther and Women: The Death of Two Marys,” in Feminist Theology: A Reader, edited by
Ann Loades (London: SPCK, 1993), 123.
30
Jaroslav Pelikan, ed., Luther’s Work, vol-1 (St Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1958), 115.
31
Susan C. Karant-Nunn and Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks, eds., Luther on Women (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2003), 10.
32
Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics III/1: The Doctrine of Creation, translated by J. W Edwards, O. Bussey and
Harold Knight, edited by G.W Bromiley and T.F Torrance (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1958), 186-187.
33
Gonzalez, Created in God’s Image, 64.
34
K. Thanzauva, “The Image of God as the Basis of Human Freedom and Responsibility” (M. Th Dissertation,
Senate of Serampore College 1983), 33.
35
Elizabeth Frykberg, Karl Barth’s Theological Anthropology: An Analogical Critique Regarding Gender
Relations (Princeton: Princeton Theological Seminary, 1993), 32.
 8

Man should humbly occupy as leader and inspirer of woman...Woman must be mature enough to
accept her place as obedient. She must stay true to the order of creation...women are ordained for
man and to be for man in her whole existence.36

7. How Can We Sing God’s Song in a Strange Land? A Woman’s Lament

The patriarchal interpretation of Imago Dei projected women as the lower part of human
nature and their dignity was considered only when taken together with men.37 This
understanding of Imago Dei makes women inferior and at the same time promotes male
domination. Women are not considered as human being but a material which can be handled
by their owners. Female experiences a number of subjugations both in the church, society and
family. Of course, there are some females who achieved a high position. But they are always
measured and compared along with the male members of the same position. At the same time,
the gap between male and female ratio is still wide. Moreover, society is still patriarchal in
nature. In a patriarchal society, activities that revolve around men are the focus of attention.
Major events revolve around the activities of men. The things that are commonly done by the
women are ignored whereas the things done by men are given credit and attention.38

Female participation in the church is welcomed and recognized but only few are given a place
in the higher bodies of decision making. Many churches took Bible literally giving no space
for the women and considered them only as a passive and submissive observer. It is because
of these experiences that some of the Feminist Theologians like Letty M. Russell find it hard
to adjust themselves in the church and made her cry out saying, “I have always found it
difficult to walk away from the Church, but I have also found it difficult to walk with it.”39
Similarly, Daphne Hampson finding herself alienated from the patriarchal domination says,
“How can we sing God’s song in a strange land?”40 Looking at the problems faced by the
women in their everyday’s life, it is indeed difficult to sing God’s song in an alienated place
where they are not recognized as a normal human being.

36
Gonzalez, Created in God’s Image, 66
37
Elizabeth A. Johnson, “Image of God,” in Dictionary of Feminist Theologies, 149.
38
Eleazar S. Fenandez, Reimagining the Human: Theological Anthropology in Response to Systematic Evil
(Missouri: Chalice Press, 2004), 107-108.
39
Letty M. Russell, Church in the Round: Feminist Interpretation of the Church (Kentucky: John Knox Press,
1993), 11.
40
Bongani Blessing Finca, “The Decade: A Man’s View,” in Ecumenical Review 46/2 (April, 1994): 192.
 9

8. Towards a Trinitarian Imago Dei: Constructing Feminist Theological Anthropology

Equality is the objective and task of constructing Feminist Theological Anthropology. If
women cannot find wholeness in the Image of God, then what is the meaning and relevance
of this image for women? What is the significant of God’s redemptive act for humanity?
Thus, a Trinitarian concept is necessary for human to understand their existential being within
the Imago Dei. For understanding the Trinitarian Imago Dei, we shall focus on three
important natures of Trinity:

8.1 Perichoresis: Christian tradition, in combating heretical teachings makes use of the
consubstantiality of the three persons of the Trinity. Eventually, the Council of Florence sum
up this tradition by declaring, “The Father is wholly in the Son and in the Holy Spirit; the Son
is wholly in the Father in the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit is wholly in the Father and in the
Son.”41 This statement shows the interpenetration of the three persons in the Trinity which is
termed ‘perichoresis’. Hence, for Boff, “Perichoresis is the relationship of communion
between the three Persons, one totally within the other, the fact of Father, Son and Holy Spirit
being consubstantial, allow contemplation of the fully interpenetration of one Person by
another.”42

Jurgen Moltmann also explicates that on the perichoretic level none of the person precedes
the other, not even the Father. It is a non-hierarchical community where it combines threeness
to oneness is such a way that they cannot reduce each other.43 Thus, perichoresis is mutual
indwelling of persons in spirit of communion which transcends narrow particularism and
embraces multiplicity and differences.44 It replaces the historical legacy of Trinitarian
theology that emphasizes more on the rationality of Trinity. As feminist theologian Michelle
Gonzalez asserts, “Relationality replaces rationality and it is through our relationships that we
most concretely reflect God’s Image.”45

8.2 Embodiment: Body theology cannot be ignored when it comes to the issue of sexism.
Women’s experience of male-female binary in the patriarchal society is the issue on the body.

41
Leonardo Boff, Trinity and Society (New York: Orbis Books, 1988), 135.
42
Boff, Trinity and Society, 93.
43
Jurgen Moltmann, Experiences in Theology: Way and Forms of Christian Theology (London: SCM Press,
2000), 317.
44
R. Sahayadhas, Hindu Nationalism and Indian Church: Towards an Ecclesiology in Conversation with Martin
Luther (New Delhi: Christian World Imprints, 2013), 324-325.
45
Gonzalez, Created in God’s Image, 155.
 10

Men control women’s bodies in several aspects like sexuality, reproduction, pornography,
work place etc. These concerns of women’s bodies and the alienation of women’s bodies
contribute to the oppression of women.46 Their bodies are often regarded to be passive,
submissive and a material to enjoy for male. Women’s experience of life is also closely
linked to the notions of their bodies. Thus, their experience of psychological oppression is
often related to their bodies and their own sexuality.47

In the Trinitarian concept, all the three persons are always interwoven, mutually
interdependent and inseparable. Trinity consists precisely in the harmonious coexistence
between the three divine persons.48 Though the three divine persons exist in their own unique
nature as Father, Son and Holy Spirit but continue to determine by their relationship.49
Likewise, humans created in the Image of God should not be differentiated by their external
bodily structure. Biological sex view humanity equally yet distinctively. Male and female
may have difference in their functional roles but these embodied differences should not lead
them to sexism. While women’s sexual and reproductive roles play a central part in women
lives, still women cannot be reduced to reproduction and sexual act.50

8.3 Egalitarian: One of the important characteristics of Trinity is the nature of egalitarianism
which is also the main task of the feminist theologians in their theological construction.
Christian teaching uses symbol such as equalitarian triangle which has all three equal sides.
This symbolizes the unity of the three divine natures as well as the equality of the three
persons.51 The main foundation for the feminist theologians in retrieving Trinity is to
emphasize the non-hierarchical relationship.52 Some feminist theologians criticize the
doctrine of Trinity because of its reinforcement of hierarchy among the three persons. But,
the original motif of Trinity was to subvert the hierarchical concept of Godhead and to
underwrite the spirit of equality between the three Godheads.53

46
Fenandez, Reimagining the Human, 121.
47
Meenakshi Thapan, “Feminity and Its Discontents: The Woman’s Body in Intimate Relationships,” in
Embodiment: Essays on Gender and Identity, edited by Meenakshi Thapan (New Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 1997), 172.
48
Boff, Trinity and Society, 108.
49
Jurgen Moltmann, The Trinity and The Kingdom of God (London: SCM Press, 1981), 172.
50
Gonzalez, Created in God’s Image, 145.
51
Boff, Trinity and Society, 109.
52
Gonzalez, Created in God’s Image, 156.
53
Janet Martin Soskice, “Trinity and Feminism,” in The Cambridge Companion to Feminist Theology, edited by
Susan Frank Parsons (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 138.
 11

Susan Ross in her book Extravagant Affections: A Feminist Sacramental Theology also
mentions mutuality as the foundation of egalitarian community. She says:
Feminist conceptions of self and community challenge the hierarchical model of relationship that
tends to characterize the magisterial Catholic understanding of the church as community. In
contrast, the feminist principle of mutuality suggests an egalitarian model of community. This
principle also demands that human beings cannot see themselves in isolation from each other but
rather in positions of mutual responsibility.54

Thus, the mutual relational love of the Trinity becomes the basic concept for the egalitarian
understanding of relationship between male and female where both share equality in the
Image of God.

9. Re-Imagining Church and Family in the Light of the Trinitarian Imago Dei
9.1 Existential Issues: In many churches, women are the majority yet they are still
marginalized in the power structure and in the life and ministry of the church. The patriarchal
colonization enforces them to be the secondary citizen within the church. Although there are
few women’s pastor, bishop etc, the ratio of the male-female is still wide. Church women are
often asked to fulfil stereotypical roles such as keeping the altar clean, Sunday school
teachers, refreshment in charge and beyond these women don’t have much participation. The
Roman Catholic Church rarely asked women to serve on consultative bodies for the Bishop’s
conference, to participate in the decision making process and to share in the ministry and
liturgy as equal partners with male.55 The fact of Jesus’ maleness, the teaching of Paul that
women should not speak in the church (I Cor 14:34-35) and the Genesis story of Eve’s second
creation but sinned first are some of the reasons of women’s subordination within the life and
ministry of the church.56

Women also don’t find peace and security in some family too. Male domination extends its
power not only in the church but also in the family household. In some families, women
experience wounds, hurt and abuses from their husbands, fathers and brothers. Whatever
comes into the life of the women is often considered to face it passively and with obedience.
Though they go out for help, their voices are muted and moreover they are asked to be
submissive to their sufferings as it is considered to be the way of following Christ as

54
Susan A. Ross, Extravagant Affections: A Feminist Sacramental Theology (New York: Continuum, 1988), 59.
As cited by Gonzalez, Created in God’s Image, 158.
55
Kwok Pui-Lan, Introducing Asian Feminist Theology (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press Ltd., 2000), 99.
56
Pui-Lan, Introducing Asian Feminist Theology, 100.
 12

Zachariah also says, “Women who undergo violence of abuse in their homes come to the
sanctuary in search for help, in search of solace, comfort, courage and empowerment. But
they are indoctrinated by the Church to endure the violence as a sacrificial lamb, following
the crucified Lord.”57

9.2 Church as Communion Being: Communion is the beautiful image we can see in Trinity
which should be the role model of every human in the church. There is no true being without
communion and nothing can exist individually in itself. John Zizioulos, the great
ecclesiologist of Eastern Orthodox Church in his book ‘Being as Communion’ says, “From
the fact that a human being is a member of the Church, he/she becomes an Image of God,
he/she exists as God Himself exists, he/she takes on God’s way of being. This way of being is
not a moral attainment, something that human accomplishes. It is a way of relationship with
world, with other people and with God”.58

Moreover, church is a relational church. The church never exists alone, it exists for other and
therefore it is a serving church. Moltmann fervently argues, “The church cannot understand
itself alone. It can truly comprehend its mission and its meaning, its roles and its function only
in relation to other.”59 Relationality means openness in which the church should be open to
everyone irrespective of their gender, caste, colour or language. Thus, the church main
priorities should always be the empowerment of the minorities through its intimate
relationships and not over exercising their powers within the community.

9.3 Family as Fellowship of Equals: Hierarchy is the one of the problems we face in the
family matters. Family structure is often predicted as a pyramidal model where the father is at
the top followed by the mother and their children. In some society, male child has higher
privileged in the family even though he may be the youngest among the children. However, if
we mirror Trinity, we can see these beautiful images of egalitarianism and interpenetration
between the three persons of the Trinity. All the family members of the Trinity are
interconnected and there is no hierarchy among themselves. Their functions may differ yet

57
George Zachariah, “Church: An Inclusive Community of Hospitality, Fellowship and Solidarity,” in Borders
and Margins: Re-visioning Ministry and Mission, edited by Dexter S. Maben (Bangalore & Tiruvalla: United
Theological College & Christava Sahitya Samithy, 2015), 458.
58
John D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion (New York: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1997), 15.
59
Veli-Matti Karkkainen, An Introduction to Ecclesiology: Ecumenical, Historical & Global Perspectives
(Illinois: IVP Academic, 2002), 129.
 13

they have the same ‘ousia’ (substance). Likewise, each member of the family has their own
functional roles. But these roles should not be performed for subverting others.

Father, mother and children together constitute the member of the family. Similarly, God,
Jesus and Holy Spirit together also make up the family of Trinity. Father and mother love
each other which are seen by the child. The child is the witness of this loving in the eyes of
the parents. For Boff, the relationship of love and mutual intimacy dwells in the heart of the
Trinity. Holy Spirit is the proof that the Creator and Redeemer loved each other. The three
together form the family of God just as the family of humans. Hence, there should not be sex
discrimination which can threaten the unity of every family.60

10. Conclusion:
This paper is only a theoretical framework of empowering women from their prejudices. It is
the role of the church and society to see how theories can come out alive and witness the
wonderful changes that can be practised in our society. The mission of the Church is not only
to safeguard and create doctrine, creed, liturgy and structural offices in the church. Rather, it
has to leave their comfort zones and become a helping hand to those who are ostracized,
destroyed and excluded in the society. As Letty M. Russell says, “A church should be a
household where everyone gathers around the common table to break bread and share table
talk and hospitality.”61

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 14

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