| This dissertation addresses the continuing manifestations of patriarchy and androcentrism within the worship practices of North American Christian churches, particularly congregations in The United Methodist Church within the United States. As a system, patriarchy has normalized the male body and experience while labeling women as derivative and dependent. The result is that women's experiences and voices have been silenced and forgotten. Despite decades of conversation, language and images depicting God only as male are entrenched in much of Christian theology and liturgy. Despite the protests of women and men, the church continues to sanction and model relationships that are based on domination and oppression as opposed to baptismal equality.;Using an intertextual method that builds on the work of Mikhail Bakhtin in the area of dialogism, this project investigates how the application of the work of postcolonial feminist theologians Catherine Keller, Wonhee Anne Joh, Mayra Rivera, and Kwok Pui-lan can build on the critique of feminist liturgical theologians Mary Collins, Janet Walton, Gail Ramshaw, and Marjorie Procter-Smith in order to move toward a re-envisioning of God, the community of believers, liturgical language and images. The goal of this study is to offer a constructive way in which the voices of the human Other can be heard and in order to articulate meanings of women's experiences as revelatory of the presence and activity of God. More specifically, this dissertation argues that multivalent, polyphonic understandings of God that are offered by postcolonial feminist theologians will broaden the theological foundation of feminist liturgical theologies and broaden understandings of the human community so as to embrace and honor differences while also providing a basis for a renewed liturgical practice.;This study is intended for liturgical theologians, students of theology, and other religious scholars, both women and men, who are attentive to issues of justice that unfold within and among the gathered community of believers. Using an intertextual hermeneutic that takes seriously the concerns of feminist liturgical theologians and postcolonial feminist theologians, this project foregrounds the political and ethical ramifications concerning the ways in which congregations within the United Methodist tradition in the American context image God and the entire human community. |
