To know by heart: Toward a theology of remembering for salvation

Flora Angel Keshgegian, Boston College

Abstract

This study lays foundations for developing a Christian feminist liberation theology of remembering as a way to understand the dynamics of salvation. By exploring the role of remembering in the process of adult recovery from childhood incestuous sexual abuse, I seek to reveal the ways that memory functions as both problem and resource in healing and to demonstrate the thesis that right remembering which enables healing provides a concrete instance of the experience of salvation, defined as right relation with ourselves, one another, the world and the divine. Through detailed analysis of the writings of Johann Baptist Metz, Mary Daly and Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, I discern their specific understandings of the relationship of memory and salvation. Their contributions give further theological definition to the thesis and to a theology of remembering. Such a theology holds important implications for rethinking a Christian understanding of the dynamics of salvation and for redefining the relationship of Christianity and feminism. My study reveals several crucial elements of remembering for right relation. Taking the term "dangerous memory" from Metz and refining its meaning in engagement with Daly's and Schussler Fiorenza's understandings of memory, I distinguish between endangered memories, which are threatened and need to be preserved and transmitted, and dangerous memories which foster action for change. Drawing on the experience of survivors of incestuous abuse, I examine the differences between memories of victimization and those of resistance and agency. While memories of victimization may be endangered, it is more often the remembering of agency that leads to resistance and transformation. Critically important for the evoking, preserving and transmitting of all memories are communities of remembrance which demonstrate that right relation also makes possible right remembering. These communities of right remembering practice an epistemology which recognizes knowledge as historical, perspectival, critical and committed. I thus find remembering for right relation to be a complex and dialectical process of reconstructing personal and societal existence and meaning in a way that can illuminate and point to new ways to understand salvation.

Recommended Citation

Flora Angel Keshgegian, "To know by heart: Toward a theology of remembering for salvation" (January 1, 1992). Boston College Dissertations and Theses. Paper AAI9217453.
http://escholarship.bc.edu/dissertations/AAI9217453