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Disruptive Christian Ethics
Interpreting the Real Lives of Poor Women and Girls
To formulate public policy that does not consist of so many demeaning
and disciplinary measures for poor women, we need to pay attention to
the current sociohistorical circumstances of their actual lives. The act of
truly listening to their stories is held hostage by the politics of represent
ing their actual lives.
Just as scholars have provided clues about the historical Mary and the
lives of women in the communities of gospel writers such as the author of
Luke-Acts, so, too, current researchers have unearthed a mountain of evi
dence about the real lives of poor women and girls. While feminist bibli
cal scholars have sought to escape the limitations of “male textuality,”
many feminist and liberal social scientists have sought to undermine and
refute racist and inaccurate caricatures of poor women in public policy
discussions. In relationship to written texts, however, there is an impor
tant difference between these two pursuits. One group primarily probes
written texts for evidence while the other creates textual evidence. The
feminist
biblical
researchers scour texts and sometimes other sources doc
umenting women’s subversive responses to the prevailing patriarchal
social order. The feminist
social policy
researchers create texts in response
to debasing, punitive social practices aimed at poor women. The strategy
by some of the feminist biblical scholars of suspiciously probing scripture
texts to inquire how and why they may have upheld the ancient social
order offers guidance for contemporary studies.
As well-intentioned, skillful researchers create texts about the lives of
poor women and girls, how is their work affected by the degrading views
articulated by officials in our society? Researchers and activists valiantly
dispute viewpoints by our political leaders, such as those I have mentioned
accusing poor women and girls of hindering the nation’s achievement of
its goals in the twenty-first century, of greedily producing babies in order
to get welfare funds, or of being homicidally prone mothers who put their
children in Dumpsters. Dedicated scholarly efforts to challenge such ideas
may also produce an unintended effect that undermines those efforts.
When refuting these ideas, there is a danger of becoming too accommo
dating to the assumptions one is trying to oppose, that is, of becoming
entrapped by the terms that those degrading assumptions set. I realize that
there is a critical need for accurate information. When Christian ethical
choices are made about supporting specific public policy initiatives regu
lating access for people who are poor to resources necessary for their