Date of Award
2024
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Divinity (MDiv)
Department
Theology
First Advisor/Committee Member
Bo Lim, Ph.D., Professor of Old Testament
Second Advisor/Committee Member
Brenda Salter McNeill, D.Min., Associate Professor of Reconciliation Studies
Keywords
Asian American women; Bible. Ruth -- Criticism and interpretation; Bible. Ruth -- Feminist criticism; Bible. Ruth -- Postcolonial criticism; Chinese American women; Christianity and culture; Ethnic conflict -- Religious aspects – Christianity; Eurocentrism; Evangelicalism – Singapore; Evangelicalism -- United States; Feminist theology; Intersectionality (Sociology); Naomi (Biblical figure); Postcolonial theology; Race discrimination; Racism; Reconciliation -- Religious aspects – Christianity; Ruth (Biblical figure); Sex discrimination; Sexism; Singaporean American women; Social conflict -- Religious aspects -- Christianity; Singapore; Social justice -- Religious aspects – Christianity; Theology, Contextual; White people—Race identity; Womanist theology
Abstract
As a Singaporean Chinese woman who only moved to America in middle adulthood, I discovered that one’s context(s) and the particularities of place and positionality significantly shape one’s reading and interpretation of Scripture. This thesis engages in a transnational reading of portions of the Ruth Narrative (RN) and exposes the hidden normativity of Whiteness and Eurocentric theology that has shaped how Ruth is interpreted within the Asian and Asian American Evangelical Church. It also explores the implications of taking seriously one’s social-religious contexts and developing a lived theology that accounts for one’s personal narratives, life experiences and embodied particularity. To do so, I draw on intersectional theology, that seeks out diverse ways of knowing and being to destabilize entrenched institutional structures and power, as well as the wisdom and approaches of postcolonial and womanist theologians to investigate how gender, power, politics, and location affect our interpretation of a text. The re-reading the RN focuses on Ruth and Naomi’s multiple identities, the wider structural and systemic realities that shaped their lives and actions within the home environment, and what faithful and faith-filled living in the midst of misogyny and/or dominant culture could look like. The goal of re-reading the more ambiguous and problematic aspects of the RN is to offer Asian and Asian American evangelicals new insights to prevent us from slipping into the temptations of nativism, assimilation, and self-preservation at the expense of others. The thesis concludes by discussing the implications of these insights for Asian and Asian American Christians and the Church at individual, interpersonal, structural, and systemic levels. The hope is that by exposing the dangers and limitations of narrow readings that merely lead to moralistic principles for living that benefit some at the expense of others, we can engage in more expansive readings that animate our welcome and valuing of all peoples in God’s beloved community.
Recommended Citation
Lin-Sawyer, Eunice, "Re-Examining What I Have Been Taught about Ruth and Naomi as an Asian and Asian American Woman: A Re-Reading of Ruth through a Postcolonial Womanist Lens That Calls Asian and Asian American Christians to the Ministry of Reconciliation and Biblical Justice" (2024). Seattle Pacific Seminary Theses. 22.
https://digitalcommons.spu.edu/spseminary_etd/22
Copyright Status
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Additional Rights Information
Copyright held by author.
Included in
Comments
Completed in late 2023; approved by Prof. Salter McNeil on 23 January 2024; promulgated by Seattle Pacific Seminary and the School of Theology on 22 August 2024. Hence 2024, despite the title page.