Obedience, Suspicion and the Gospel of Mark: A Mennonite-Feminist Exploration of Biblical Authority

T.D. Regehr is a professor of history at the University of Saskatchewan.
He is the author of Mennonites in Canada, 1939–1970: A People
Transformed, The Beauharnois Scandal: A Story of Canadian
Entrepreneurship and Politics, and Remembering Saskatchewan:

Polarities dominate much Christian theological thinking. Concepts of
good and evil, sacred and secular, spiritual and material, rational and
emotional, divine and human, soul and body, and even male and female are
often perceived as opposites. Harder focuses on a somewhat different
polarity—the different ways in which Christians read and use the
scriptures.

Some Christians read the Bible from a questioning or critical stance,
while others implicitly trust its authority on the basis of individual
or collective experience. Harder has selected two writers who exemplify
this polarization. John Howard Yoder is a Mennonite theologian who
regards scripture as authoritative and the proper Christian response as
one of obedience. Schuessler Fiorenza is a leading feminist theologian
who approaches the scriptures from a much more critical (or suspicious)
feminist perspective, arguing, among other things, that insistence on
obedience to the scriptures, usually by male theologians, often becomes
an instrument of suppression.

As both a Mennonite and a feminist, Harder examines how these two
theologies deal with the authoritative language of the Gospel of Mark.
She tries to avoid the polarities, seeking instead to find common ground
in scriptural interpretations which allow both critical engagement with
the text and personal transformation and change rooted in obedience to
the Gospel. She concludes that the polarities can be reconciled if the
scriptures are interpreted within a context of Christian discipleship.
The struggle to interpret and apply the teachings of the Gospel in
everyday life includes elements of both obedience and suspicion. Harder
draws a distinction between divine and human authority. God’s
authority is absolute, but human understanding and interpretation of the
scriptures is limited and imperfect. Human imperfection, rather than
divine ambiguities, makes suspicion essential when humans interpret the
scriptures.

Harder’s study is the fifth volume in a series that is designed to
serve the needs of established scholars. In fact, the book deserves a
much wider readership, although its use of theological terminology may
discourage some readers.