108 - Gender, Doctrine, and God: The Shakers and Contemporary Theology

Gender, Doctrine, and God: The Shakers and Contemporary Theology
by Linda A. Mercadante
Nashville, Abingdon, 1990. 202 pp. $19.95.

Linda Mercadante, Associate Professor of Theology at Methodist Theological School in Delaware, Ohio, has made a timely contribution to the contemporary question of gender and language for God. Gender, Doctrine, and God mines the historical experience of the American religious group known as the Shakers for resources for the contemporary reconstruction of God-language. Mercadante's interest in the Shakers was piqued when she discovered that they spoke of a dual God who was both Father and Mother. The value of the Shakers' two hundred-year experience is summed up by Mercadante when she notes that "...the Shakers understood God as encompassing both male and female, worked out this belief theologically, celebrated it in liturgy, and lived it in social structure." In particular, she was interested in how the use of female God-language affected the community's life and religious experience, in order to provide resources and raise questions for the contemporary Christian feminist movement. Her research on the Shakers as a historical group, however, led her to refocus her interests so that the book became, as its title suggests, "a reflection on the relationship between experience, imagery, and doctrine in the issue of gender and God."

Her interest in contemporary questions is reflected in the structure of the book. In the first and final chapters, she presents contemporary perspectives on the use of gender-inclusive language and imagery for

109 - Gender, Doctrine, and God: The Shakers and Contemporary Theology

God. The middle three chapters contain the results of her research into the Shaker use of gender-inclusive language for God.

Chapter two considers the evolution of Shaker ideas about God from the earliest days, when Shaker leaders did not articulate a gender-inclusive model for God, through the development of the Shakers' elaborate theological system, as published in their major doctrinal writings, to the nineteenth and early twentieth-century interest in the American women's rights movement.

Chapter three takes up, in considerable detail, the official Shaker doctrine of God as found in three major publications, two by male theoreticians and one by a woman "instrument," whose writings were given to her by divine inspiration from Holy Mother Wisdom, the female aspect of God. This is the richest chapter of the book, since this material has been little studied and since Mercadante does such an admirable job of delineating the theological issues expressed in these publications, their agreements and dissimilarities, and particularly their weaknesses. This chapter is important for contemporary feminist thought on gender and God-language, largely because of Mercadante's ability to identify the options and to critique them. But it is also important for Shaker scholars who may not share Mercadante's contemporary interests. Mercadante's training as a theologian enables her to work through complex theological problems in these difficult texts with ease and to provide an important critique of their positions.

Chapter four deals with the image of Holy Mother Wisdom (as the Shakers came to designate the female aspect of God) in Shaker worship and in personal religious experience as recorded in testimonies of individual Shakers. This chapter gives the reader an engaging glimpse into the inner spiritual life of the ordinary Shaker believer.

For the reader unfamiliar with the Shakers, this book serves well as an introduction to Shaker beliefs about God, Christ, and the nature of community. For readers interested in contemporary feminist theological issues, particularly the vexed question of God-language, this book has important messages regarding the limitations of some contemporary approaches (although I would have appreciated some more specific constructive proposals than Mercadante seemed willing to offer). Ongoing self-criticism is an important part of feminist reflection, and, for readers with an interest in Shaker studies, Mercadante's book offers the most thorough and critical assessment of Shaker theological doctrine available. Many of us will be in Mercadante's debt for the contributions she makes through this useful and readable book for many years to come.

Marjorie Procter-Smith
Perkins School of Theology
Dallas, Texas