The Bride of Christ: a feminist reading

Victoria,
Yours is a clever (feminist) reading. One of my own (feminist) mentors, Sister Carolyn Osiek, RSCJ,, won’t have the metaphor of the Bride of Christ. She rightly notes several issues (in “The Bride of Christ (Ephesians 5:22-33) : A Problematic Wedding“):

Men certainly do identify not with the church in this metaphor, as members of it, but with Christ, because such identifications suit male interests. Herein lies the great danger posed by this ecclesiological metaphor: it encourages men to identify with Christ, women with the church….

I would argue that casting the church as feminine, and above all as bride of Christ, far from enhancing the dignity of women, has in fact done harm to perception of the capacity of women to image the divine, and thus of women’s fundamental human and Christian dignity…..

There are other biblical metaphors that have never attained the status or power that this one carries. It conveys the power it does, not only because it taps into the primal human energy of sexuality, but also because it serves certain interests that are closely related to the confusing ambiguity we experience between the desire for connection and the desire to control. In the Second Testament, 1 Peter 2:18-Z5 does something very similar to Ephesians 5:21-33 in that it holds up the unjust suffering of slaves as a mirror of the suffering of Christ, and enjoins slaves therefore to submit even to cruel masters. We have long ago rejected that comparison as illegitimate. It is time to acknowledge the same dangers in the wedding of the bride of Christ.

Daringly, you face some of the dangers Sister Osiek addresses, and you try something fresh. I’m not trying to keep readers from clicking on over to your other blog, but I do want to post your conclusion here:

The image of the Bride of Christ needn’t be viewed only through the patriarchal perception of woman’s nature as inherently passive, docile, compliant, and receptive. Centering the perspective and agency of the bride transforms her from passive object to active subject: a subject characterized by “fully conscious and active participation,” one might even say, in her wedding and in her marriage. In a feminist reading, the Bride of Christ is seen as an ardent woman who loves, desires, and reaches for her Spouse.

I wonder if you’d allow this language:

In a feminist reading, the Spouse of Christ is seen as an ardent woman who loves, desires, and reaches for her Spouse.

Lest anyone accuse me (or you) of giving a progressive and contemporary option out of gendered language, I’d like to remind all English readers that for some 400 years at least, the Bible has used this gender neutral term “spouse.” In the KJV, Song of Solomon 4:11 reads as follows:

Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue; and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon.

Here singing is an ardent person who loves, desires, and reaches for his spouse. Such agency and perspective, as you show, can be given to women (just as to men), to spouses, to grooms and to brides.