From male domination to partnership

A liberating pastoral approach

Sara Baltodano-Mahecha

It is common to find separation between men and women in societies and even in Christian communities, although several biblical texts teach the contrary. For example: 'There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.' (Gal 3.28); 'Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord.' (1 Cor 11.11). This separation is based on an individualistic and hierarchical understanding of human beings. God's mission needs a more holistic and systems-oriented approach that includes socio-political action wherever there is oppression and dehumanization.¹

Male domination in Latin America?

Male domination in Latin America is usually called machismo, a Spanish word with a connotation of brute power.² Its main elements are masculinity, superiority and ostentation.³ It is difficult to know the origin of machismo. González⁴ asserts that although the oppression of the woman precedes capitalism, it has been strengthened under this system. When private property appeared, social life was divided into public and domestic, with men in charge of public life and women confined to domestic life. The restriction of women was based on maternity and child-rearing. Around this function was created the myth of femininity,⁵ with attributes such as affection, resignation, fondness and fragility specially ascribed to women. This myth hides the economic benefits of domestic life, where the woman works without pay, providing for the material needs of her working husband, cooking meals, cleaning and bringing up the children. Her 'invisible work' relieves her husband's boss of this responsibility and, because it is unpaid, his profits are greater. Although work in domestic life is not considered part of the economy, through their invisible work women restore the energy of the workers, thereby keeping the economy going.⁶

These two social lives, public and domestic, have developed unequally. There have been enormous economic, political and social changes in public life. The major change in domestic life has been the establishment of the nuclear family. Accordingly, the difference in work and promotion between men and women has become exaggerated.⁷ There are about 219 million women in Latin America: 61 and 157 million in rural and urban areas respectively.⁸ The role a woman plays depends on whether she is educated or uneducated, young or old, single or married, poor or rich, with no children or eight children, working in or outside the home, divorced or widowed.⁹ Her oppression is multiple: because she is a woman, is black,¹⁰ is poor, is from the Third World.

In the ecclesiastical field, many Latin American theologians consider that both Protestant and Catholic churches have maintained the idea of a masculine church.¹¹ The lack of opportunity for women to play their full part in the church or to study theology is unjust; it causes disequilibrium and incompleteness in the church; it also causes lack of emotion and desire, lack of life, and a lack of poetic dimension: feelings, desire, flavour and pain.¹² The basic Christian communities, however, give an opportunity for female leadership.¹³

The general consensus of these theologians is that the liberation of the woman in Latin America has to be different from its counterpart in the first world, in that it has not to be a fight against the man but a fight with him against the global system which has oppressed men as well as women.¹⁴ Both need to be helped to discover their own values and capacities and to become aware of their own oppression in order to confront their situation.¹⁵

Women in Latin America have demonstrated many times that they are not passive but active elements of history. Nevertheless, for them, woman's liberation 'is fundamentally linked to the socio-economic, political, and cultural liberation of the people.'¹⁶ We can cite examples from Cuba,¹⁷ Nicaragua,¹⁸ Argentina,¹⁹ Guatemala,²⁰ and Bolivia.²¹

Partnership: basic Christian communities

Basic Christian communities in Latin America form the church with a preferential option for the poor, where women and men are partners in God's mission. In these grass-roots communities the people do theology at a popular level, without any dualism between secular and religious life. There is no division between secular history, which is not interested in the theological implications of events, and sacred history, which is interested only in the actions of God. There is only one history.²² God saves through an encounter in historical events both with Him and with the poor and oppressed who are earnestly seeking liberation. Hence secular life and religious life are united.

Women and men in these communities reach an acute social awareness, not because of leftist ideological infiltration, but through the effort to understand the Bible in the context in which it was written-in communities of poor people. Their faith generates a commitment to transform society as a way to begin the kingdom of God here and now.²³ Signs of the presence of the kingdom among them are: those who were silent now speak; those who felt rejected, alienated and self-depreciated now feel liberated and joyful and feel that they have become the 'host of the feast'; those who were discredited now participate; those who were individualistic and divisive now are cooperative.²⁴

The communal praxis of solidarity affects the whole society, impelling it towards a new form of social coexistence, opposed to bourgeois society.²⁵ Women and men are partners in that mission which is to ponder and live the faith in a liberating way, to commit oneself to the oppressed, to fight for their dignity, and to build a society more in conformity with the gospel's standard.

Barbé explains in great detail how to work with the poor in the creating of a basic community.²⁶ The first step is to live with them, embracing their cause, winning their confidence and breaking with one's former class position. During this period, it is important to pray together with them, because it is a common language-even among those who do not know each other-and because prayer distinguishes a Christian group as Christian.

The next step is to restore their voice. The poor usually have the habit of self-depreciation. They think that their word does not have worth and that they know nothing. Barbé gives an example of a woman who at the beginning, when she was asked what had happened to her this day, she answered, 'Who, me? Nothing interesting. As usual. Washing the laundry. Cooking...' She was asked to give more details, such as what time she got up, how many times she got up at night to feed her baby, how much time she spent doing one thing or another. This is a way to give importance to what women do and to get rid of their feeling that they have 'nothing interesting' to share.

With time and confidence it is possible to listen to a woman telling how she was placed as a domestic servant at the age of thirteen, how her patron took advantage of her, and how she never told her mother anything about that because she was an important source of income to her family. Or a young man who can tell about his hunger when he was child during a journey to the big city looking for a 'better life', and how his father and he did not see each other because his father knew that he was hungry and he knew that his father did not have any money to feed his family. These two examples show that women and men who are poor share similar situations. Both must work together in order to change unjust socio-economical systems.

It is important to relate the past of the people to the history of the nation or the world. An easy way is to write down in a column (or, if the person is illiterate, tell) important events of each one's history and in a parallel column to note some important events in the life of the country. 'Thus the very poor learn to find their place in general history; historical memory is amplified.'²⁷

They must also evoke their future. In a first column they can write (or tell) what they would most like to get for themselves and their families, in a second one the obstacles to each 'dream', and in a third the rudimentary solutions. In these three columns they are using the liberation theology method at a popular level: 'seeing', 'judging' and 'acting'.

The poor also need to restore their power of action. Basic Christian communities, therefore, have an organizational structure: a coordinating team (elected or chosen),²⁸ a common fund, a monthly or yearly programme, regular general assemblies, and several meetings each week. They are churches led by lay women and men which look for a decentralization of power from one person (a priest) to the community.²⁹ Men and women share intra-church tasks (Biblical groups, catechesis, liturgical celebrations) and extra-church tasks (e.g. people's struggles in the barrio). The analysis of the problem in a specific situation and the search for solutions is also liturgy.³⁰

Even so, in grass-roots communities the political aspect and the faith aspect can sometimes diverge. Both have to be united and deeply rooted in the biblical message and the people's situation. This unity 'must be pondered, worked out, and systematized. This complex reality conditions our work, but it also points up a task.'³¹

Members of basic Christian communities consider that the main cause of their poverty is the current economic system in Latin America. Communities denounce as unjust and contrary to God's will the individualistic spirit of accumulation: 'this does not mean Marxism, it just means gospel-the gospel read in the context of inequitable oppression.'³² This leads the basic Christian communities into relations with popular movements. It is clear that a church community cannot turn itself into a party cell. Community members, nevertheless, can maintain a critical position towards the different parties and support those which defend the rights and interests of the people.

The mission that Latin America needs is radical, more than any political party could propose. It demands, not just an economic, but a thoroughly social revolution, which involves all realms: politics, economics, family, culture, and religion. The partnership of Christian women and men in this mission may inaugurate a model of a new society, an alternative to the models of capitalism and Marxism which are chained to patterns of gross materialism and truncated humanism.³³

Where popular movements are strong, basic Christian communities must be careful to maintain their separate identity, their specific difference.³⁴ But basic Christian communities can often make up for the lack of popular movements, civil rights organizations, literacy campaigns, legal advice networks, or cooperatives. Galdámez gives an example from El Salvador.³⁵ A community started a cooperative on its own, with great difficulties, to lend money to its members.³⁶ Cristina was left by her husband and did not know how she would survive with three children. With a loan from the cooperative she set up a lunch stand. She made tortillas (flat round corn-cakes), filled them with cheese or beans, and sold them. The loan included everything she needed: corn, beans, cheese, crackling, a jug for water, a frying plate, and a bit of kindling. It was not a big loan, but she was able to make a living right away. She found a good location on the pavement near the bus stop. Also, somebody helped her to learn to give change, because she did not know arithmetic.

'The grassroots communities are discovering that they can be Christian without being conservative; that they can be human beings of faith and, at the same time, deeply committed to the destiny of the society; that they can hope against hope, and hope in eternity, while still keeping their feet on the ground and involving themselves in the struggle for a better tomorrow here within our present history.'³⁷

A liberating pastoral approach

As it was said in the introduction, the church needs more holistic and systems-oriented approaches to the mission of God. Individualism keeps men and women separated, therefore, the mission cannot be completed. Leech criticizes the highly individualistic emphasis in pastoral work.³⁸ A lack of social concern is noticed. Social adjustment to the establishment rather than discontent has become a goal in pastoral care. Campbell also joins Leech when he states that pastoral care must be broader in order to include the communal aspects of human experience 'in which politics means not just activism and changing things but finding a true being in this world which is ours to receive, to experience, to suffer in and to rejoice in.'³⁹

Howard Clinebell presents a 'holistic liberation-growth model' that can be summarised in three principles: wholeness, liberation and growth.⁴⁰ The first principle, wholeness, is found in individuals, in their significant relationships with others, such as their family, with groups, and with institutions. The core of all human wholeness is spiritual and ethical wholeness. 'The overarching goal of all pastoral care and counselling (and of all ministry) is to liberate, empower, and nurture wholeness centred in the Spirit.'⁴¹

Liberation, the second principle, must be sought by people as fully as possible in their own relational and social contexts. 'Liberation is the unifying motif of the Christian life-style. The gospel is experienced as good news whenever it frees and empowers people to live out God's dream and intention that they have life in all its fullness. The essence of liberation, in the Hebrew-Christian context, is the freedom to become all that one has the possibilities of becoming. The unifying motif of the diverse liberation movements around the planet is the insistence that all persons have an opportunity to discover and develop their maximum possibilities.'⁴²

Growth toward wholeness is the third principle of Clinebell's model.⁴³ This growth is to be sought in six interdependent aspects of men and women's lives: (a) enlivening their minds (to expand intellectual, artistic and personality resources); (b) revitalizing their bodies (to learn to experience and enjoy the body); (c) renewing and enriching their intimate relationships (relational healing is important in a ministry of wholeness because human personality is formed, deformed and transformed in relationships); (d) deepening their relationship with nature and the biosphere; (e) growth in relation to the significant institutions in their lives (to awareness of the prophetic dimension of ministry about the hitherto-ignored social roots of racism, sexism, ageism, classism, speciesism, nationalism, militarism, economic exploitation, and political oppression that have crippled human wholeness on a massive scale in all societies); and lastly, (f) deepening and vitalizing their relationship with God (to intersect the other five aspects with their unifying bond: an open, trustful, nourishing, joyful relationship with the loving Spirit who is the source of all life, all healing, all growth.⁴⁴

To facilitate such Spirit-centred wholeness, pastoral carers require an integration of resources from psychosocial sciences and psychotherapy. Pastoral counselling must be open to new growth-centred therapies such as Gestalt, Psychosynthesis, Transactional Analysis, body therapies, behaviour action therapies, feminist and other radical therapies, and the systems therapies including conjoint couple and family counselling.⁴⁵

Political actions are not always well accepted in Christian communities around the world. Against this, Stephen Pattison argues that if pastoral care 'is truly to alleviate sin and sorrow and to nurture human growth, it must widen its concern and vision beyond the suffering individual. Psychologically-informed, individually-focused pastoral care has become unnecessarily narrow and straightened, sometimes with consequences bordering on the disastrous.'⁴⁶

Pattison gives six arguments against the sometimes arbitrary individualistic emphasis in pastoral work, and in favour of the inclusion of socio-political action and awareness in pastoral care.⁴⁷ (a) Holistic thinking. This suggests that people cannot be separated from their context in either their concepts or actions. (b) The inevitability of socio-political involvement. It is a fallacy when a pastor claims to be politically neutral. To do nothing about a political issue leaves things as they are. It maintain the status quo. In this case, the pastor in fact has a political position and becomes an agent of social adjustment to the prevailing system, as stated above. (c) Ethical and theological context. Pattison affirms with Browning⁴⁸ that pastoral care ought to be rooted in the values that the church seek to promote, not excluding justice and peace. (d) The experience of pastoral care. When effective pastoral care is done, people gain self-respect and learn to be responsible for themselves, for others, and for their world. As a consequence, social and political awareness and involvement could follow. This means that pastoral care could be valued as subversive of the social and political order, specially in communities and situation when there is oppression. (e) Bible teachings. According to Pattison, the Scriptures have significant socio-political themes in Exodus, Ezekiel, and the ministry of Jesus to whole communities rather than to individuals, specially in his teachings of the kingdom of God. (f) The pastoral care tradition. After a historical study of the pastoral work of Augustine and Calvin, Pattison concludes that a social and political dimension to pastoral care is not as alien as might be expected. Although some political actions have been disastrous, 'in at least some circumstances, history suggests, the social and political aspects should be allowed a more prominent part both in understanding and action.'⁴⁹

Peter Selby also maintains that the inner and outer worlds are connected -but not in a simple or direct way. 'It is simplistic and a gross insult to the world's suffering to speak as though poverty and war will be eliminated by means of the progressive conversion of the hearts of individuals; it is also simplistic, and no less insulting, to suggest that personal maturity and inner resourcefulness are dependent on, or follow automatically from, better living conditions. The connection is more complex than that, but it is there nonetheless.'⁵⁰ Pastoral care, however, has commonly given predominant importance to the inner world and individual concerns at the expense of the outer world and public struggles.

When Christian men and women are faced with public struggles, they cannot be neutral. Inevitably they take sides.⁵¹ This means going beyond the individual to encounter the world. Four attitudes are possible: (a) One avoids extremes and takes the centre of the political spectrum. For Selby, the virtues of the political centre are the virtues of the social middle-class. These virtues support their own vested interests. At the same time, they are the virtues which have been fostered in pastoral care. (b) Another way to avoid extremism is to show a detached attitude to the struggles of the main political parties, and to support such issues as conservation of the environment or opposition to nuclear energy. Such issues appear more exalted than 'the very specific or material concerns of more wages, more jobs, better houses and schools'; to be involved with them 'may look like a way of being political without having to be involved in the partial solidarities of class or ideology'. (c) Others opt for the politics of the personal: the politics of homosexual or heterosexual preference, or the treatment of children.

Selby considers that all these issues are important and need to be treated and studied; but he shows a fourth way, where men and women can be partners, in which politics is linked to the struggles of the poor and oppressed about power and economic well-being.⁵² This way is rarely taken by those who practice pastoral care. Their whole training inclines them towards a politics of the universal on the one hand, or a politics of the intimate on the other hand, that are spiritualized politics in so far as they are not linked to the struggles about power and economic well-being that dominate the lives of the poor and the oppressed. To take this fourth way would involve the strict demands of solidarity, discipleship, empathy and spiritual openness in order to renew the face of the earth in justice and peace. Therefore, the children of God will be immersed in situations of struggle.

Conclusion

It is not my intention to idealize the basic Christian communities. Without doubt, however, they propose a fresh idea of partnership and mutuality. Some may think that the women and men in these communities have been forced to be together by poverty and lack of power. Nevertheless, in their communities they have found a new way and have learned to be partners in God's mission. Peter Selby reminds us that we cannot escape taking sides. All side-taking, especially for those who place pastoral care into the context of people's struggle for justice and participate with them, implies risk-taking.

Sara Baltodano-Mahecha of the Fraternidad de Iglesias Evangélicas Costarricenses is a psychologist currently teaching at Fortaleza seminary in northern Brazil.

Notes