Luke for women then and now: Friend or foe? An engagement with the gospel of Luke from a Filipino feminist perspective

Abstract

This paper is a response to the feminist challenge of the times to develop new ways of studying and interpreting the Gospel of Luke, so that the liberating word of God can still be heard and proclaimed even by women whose suffering and victimization may have been, in one way or another, perpetuated and legitimized through the oppressive text of the Lukan material. This work then is an attempt to engage with the Gospel of Luke from a Filipino feminist perspective, by combining the historical-literary investigation of the Gospel with the hermeneutics of feminism. It is an example of a feminist biblical scholarship which ties together the historical-literary approach in dealing with the Gospel of Luke, and a feminist theological-practical framework that can be an appropriate approach to engage the Gospel of Luke particularly for Filipino women. The Filipino appropriation of this study, however, does not appear in the conventional way of having a separate section of generalized thoughts on the topic. Instead, the application is implied all along in the entire work, particularly in the way the key texts are re-told in different chapters. The Filipino application then, is found in the re-reading and re-telling of Lukan texts that are potentially oppressive to women. Chapters III and IV of this work present a separate section on Re-reading, given at the end of each chapter, specifically for this purpose. The study is introduced with the presentation of the ongoing debate whether Luke is women-friendly or not. The claims of some feminist biblical scholars, like Jane Schaberg, that Luke has a deliberate negative agenda regarding women which is to keep them in their passive and subservient roles, is presented hand in hand with the opposing claims that Luke is women-friendly and intends to liberate women. The investigation proceeds by looking at the women in Luke using Acts as a window, in Chapter II. This chapter reveals that glimpses of women in the book of Acts afford rich information that women (e.g. Lydia, Priscilla) also occupy various leadership and other prominent roles in the early church. In Chapters III and IV the investigation show that in spite of the positive attitude of the author of Luke-Acts towards women, the fact remains that Luke is an androcentric and patriarchal component of an androcentric and patriarchal Bible, which is potentially oppressive to women. The narratives about the woman who anoints Jesus' feet, and the story about Martha and Mary, for instance, are taken as representative Lukan materials that are seen as anti-women by some contemporary feminists. It is shown in these chapters, however, that the Lukan texts that are taken as potentially oppressive to women can be engaged in ways that make them liberating. When read with suspicion, remembrance, and liberative vision and imagination, for instace, the so-called “texts of terror” become liberating stories of women-struggle for equality in a repressive world. The investigation ends with Chapter V that continues to uphold the positive attitude of the writer of Luke-Acts towards women. In this chapter we find that in the Gospel of Luke itself women (e.g. Martha and Mary) are given leadership and other prominent roles. Women are accentuated by the writer as faithful followers and disciples of Jesus, who have time and again exemplified extraordinary dimensions of church leadership from the beginning to the very end of his public ministry. In its entirety this study shows that since the Gospel of Luke continues to shape women's lives, the Gospel must therefore be engaged and properly pursued for a more meaningful appropriation, particularly for the lives of contemporary Filipino women. It must always be approached with caution for its possible androcentric and patriarchal elements that are detrimental to the upliftment and emancipation of women, even in engaging with texts that are commonly accepted as women-friendly. Likewise, it must also be approached with heightened consciousness to see and hear God's liberating word even in narratives that are reckoned as anti-women. The entire work maintains that notwithstanding current scholarly debates whether or not the Gospel of Luke is women-friendly, as part of God's “liberating word,” the Gospel of Luke is affirming and liberating for women then and now.