Korea  Presbyterian   Journal  of  Theology  Vol. 42

Redeeming Relational Metaphors for God in the Korean Church: A Pastoral Theological Perspective

Gyeong Kim,  Th.D. Full-time Instructor, Christian Studies Seoul Women’s University, Korea

I. Introduction II. Why Does the Patriarchal Metaphor for God Matter to Some People? III. Nurturing Creative Imagination Through Intersubjective Relationships IV. Psychological Approach to the Formation of Individuals’ God Image V. Redeeming Relational Metaphors for God in the Old Testament VI. Conclusion Korea Presbyterian Journal of Theology  Vol. 42, 195-215

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Abstract

This article is a study about the role of metaphors for God in forming individuals’ relationships with God and others. This theme is based on the theological reflection of my pastoral engagement with the victims of oppressive relations in a Korean context. Using Jones’s psychology of religious experiences and Williams’ feminist approach to Hagar’s experience with God in the Old Testament, I examine how metaphors play a significant role in shaping the Koreans’ religious experiences with God. A psychology-theology dialogue, focusing on a common religious experience of the wounded individuals, reveals that some of the dominant metaphors used in the Korean church are inevitably affected by some of the dominant metaphors manipulated for “rule,” in the dominant Korean culture. When dominant metaphors such as “father” for God are manipulated for a political purpose, they become even an instrument to reinforce and perpetuate the wounded individuals’ psychological and spiritual entrapment. This research reveals that God is intimately and empathically “relational” to Hagar, the victim of the abuse of power, and points out that the Korean church has neglected rich, liberating, and redemptive metaphors in the Bible due to its collusion with the patriarchism embedded in their culture. This study also points out the responsibility of the Korean church to redeem neglected redemptive metaphors for God, to play a prophetic role in challenging the oppressive structure of “dominators-subordinators,” and to promote the relational justice for coexistence in the wider society.

Keywords Pastoral theology, relational metaphors, God representation, internalized victimization, imagination

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I. Introduction 1 The metaphor for God has a powerful impact on our personal relationships with God and others. Some of the dominant metaphors for God used in the Korean church have been inevitably imbued by the dominant metaphors in the culture. Some of the dominant metaphors in the Confucian culture, unfortunately, have been misused as an ideological manipulation for social control. A careful examination on the subjective experience of the victims of patriarchal social relations clearly unveils the oppressive role of some dominant metaphors, which are used even in the church. This observation points out the need for unmasking misused metaphors and redeeming neglected metaphors to help wounded individuals free themselves from oppressive relations, and construct meaningful relationships with God and others. The purpose of this article is to provide readers with insights into how some dominant metaphors for God in the church are manipulated for political purposes, to unmask those metaphors to reveal their true meanings, and to propose alternative metaphors that are helpful for the wounded individuals in liberating themselves from abusive relations and developing intimate relationships with God and others. The scope which I intend for my claim to be heard is broader than the field of pastoral care and counseling. I attempt to raise this claim, from a pastoral perspective, to the Korean church and the dominant society because healing of individual victims of unjust social relations requires compassionate response of the society’s dominating group. This research is carried out through a pastoral theological method. Pastoral theology takes concrete human experience seriously as a source for doing theology. As a pastoral theologian and practitioner, I use a theological reflection on my pastoral engagement with many victims’ real experiences of abuse and their yearning for intimate relationship with God. I use a disguised vignette of Ms. Hong, which reflects a common religious and psychological struggle of many other victims in the Korean society. Using this vignette, I am engaged in the psychologytheology dialogue to examine the role of some metaphors for victims’ experiences with God. I use psychoanalytic theory of James Jones and Delores Williams’ feminist perspective on the story of Hagar in the Old Testament. Out of this dialogue, I raise a theological voice on behalf of 1   This work was supported by a research grant from Seoul Women’s University (2011).

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the victims to the wider circle of faith communities, which have been called to pay special attention to the silenced in the violent and unjust society.

II. Why Does the Patriarchal Metaphor for God Matter to Some People? A Vignette Ms. Hong is a 37 year old married woman, and a mother of two children. She has seen a pastoral counselor for over a year, and her initial presenting issue was her intense guilt and rage related to her past experience of sexual assaults by several males with whom she had had close relationships. She related every single unhappy event in her marital life to her past, believing it as a punishment from God. Going further back to her early life, she was physically, verbally, and emotionally abused by her own father. Even in her present life as an adult, she felt helpless about her inner entrapment caused by the actual abuse in the past. Out of her desperate yearning for healing, she began to devote herself to religious practices at a local church. She tried to attend every program, Bible study session, worship service, prayer meeting, and all sorts of other meetings. She gave her time, energy, and money to the church. Without knowing the limitation, she attempted to surrender and conform herself to the authority of her church. After some years since she started doing that, Ms. Hong noticed that she was experiencing entrapment even in her church. She did not feel encouraged to bring up all her doubts, questions, and emotional pains on the table to deal with in her church. Instead, she was overwhelmed by all the demands and impositions that she could not take any more. No matter how hard she tried, she felt no touch, no intimacy, and no connection from this community and God. Her anger was intensified when she noticed this. However, she could not leave her church and God because of her intense guilt and fear. She was trapped. A significant change in her relationship with God happened to her when Ms. Hong gained a new perspective into her inner entrapment. She discovered that even though she was a victim, she viewed herself through the lenses of the perpetrators. Through the help of her counseling relationship, she was encouraged to see herself, others, the Bible, and

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God from a different perspective. In the year long process of counseling relationship, she was able to get out of her entrapment and relate to God and others in more meaningful ways.

1. The Role of the Metaphor in Many Victims’ God-experiences Why do certain metaphors matter to some individuals? For those who have been harmed by abusive patriarchal relations, the metaphor such as the ‘father’ is not helpful at all in developing meaningful relationship with God and others. The father metaphor, for the victims, often creates the image of punitive, judgmental, authoritative, violent, aloof, and apathetic God. The real problem, though, lies in how metaphor is taught by the community and internalized by individuals rather than the metaphor itself. Manipulation of the metaphor really matters. Manipulated metaphors have the power to entrap the inner lives of individuals. For example, Ms. Hong’s patriarchal image of God in her mind is directly related to her ambivalent experiences with God. This is partly due to the metaphor taught by her church that overemphasized obedience to authority. It played a pivotal role for her to internalize victimization. Even when she was in the position of a victim, Ms. Hong had never compassionately treated herself as a victim. My preposition out of this observation is that the metaphor, when manipulated for a political purpose, reinforces the victim’s internalization of victimization. The manipulated patriarchal metaphor makes the victims see God as aloof, remote, apathetic, punitive, inaccessible, and judgmental. Helping them to free themselves from their relationship entrapment and to move forward to life-enhancing relationship with God requires primarily deconstruction, and then reconstruction of their metaphors for God. This discovery also speaks about the important role of the church to use proper metaphors for God for the believers. When the church imposes certain metaphors for organizational control, it can be turned into an instrument of evil, colluding with the dominant society to oppress the abused. The metaphors, when manipulated, have power to perpetuate the victims’ social position in the oppressive society and further hinder them from healing.

2. Dominant Metaphors for God in the Korean Church In the Korean church, due to the influence of the cosmological

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world view which is deeply embedded in the Eastern culture, God is perceived as the supreme substance of the cosmos, endorsing the structure of power in the church and society. “Rule” is the primary metaphor in Korean culture. Farley’s argument offers a theoretical foundation to explain the patriarchal nature of the Korean church’s dominant metaphors for God. He writes: Two metaphors dominate traditional Catholic and the Protestant ways of understanding God’s relation to the world: absolute creation and sovereign rule. As absolute creator, God is self-existent, perfect, and complete from which are derived other divine perfections. Sovereign rule was a way of understanding God’s ongoing and teleological activity in the world. Widespread is the metaphor of kingly rule throughout ancient Western religions. In Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, rule is the primary metaphor that gathers together and interprets metaphors of love and mercy.2

Dominant metaphors used to describe God-human relationships, such as father-son, king-subject, husband-wife, owner-servant, and parent-child in the Korean church are all imbued by the Confucian’s five cardinal values for human relationships.3 Even if there is a possibility for mutuality and benevolent use of power in the Confucian human relationships, these rules are very vulnerable to political manipulation in the hands of the corrupted ruling individuals. They have misused these Confucian values to legitimate the established power structure of “dominator and subordinator” in the society. The Korean church, as a social institution, has been also affected by this excessive authoritarianism in that many leaders use dominant metaphors to impose sacrificial obedience, submission, and conformity to the authority as primary attributes of the standard for “good” faith. Unfortunately, the nature of faith that reflects these attributes reinforces the victims to conform themselves to the oppressive structure. In this aspect, these metaphors play an oppressive role rather than a redemptive role. This observation speaks about the responsibility of the Korean 2  Edward Farley, Divine Empathy; A Theology of God (Minneapolis Fortress Press, 1996), 42. 3  For five cardinal values, refer to Kwang-Kuo Hwang, “Constructive Realism and Confucian Relationalism,” in Indigenous and Cultural Psychology: Understanding People in Context, ed. Uichol Kim, Kuo-Shu Yang, and Kwang-Kuo Hwang (New York: Springer, 2006), 96.

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church in unmasking oppressive metaphors and discovering redemptive metaphors. The Korean church needs to overcome the one-sided distorted interpretation of the Scripture, and redeem abundant metaphors that help people to get closer to God and others. Leaders of faith community have weighty responsibilities for proper usage of languages, metaphors, and symbols beyond the limitation of cultural metaphors. Here, I provide an example of how the church’s language is influenced by culture. In Korean culture, the father is a dominant metaphor in society as well as in the church. The authority of the father is sanctioned by the Confucian ethic of filial piety in that the father-son relationship is taught to be the unquestioned obedience of the son to the authority of the father. For the son to develop himself, he must learn to suppress his own desires, wishes, thoughts, and feelings. His receptivity to his father is thus the result of his concerted effort to please his father. This attribute of the father metaphor is extended to many Korean believers’ relationships with God. Many victims, even in the midst of their victim’s stance, cannot raise a question to any authority figure. They, as Ms. Hong did, attempt to surrender themselves endlessly to gain acceptance from God, suppressing their own desires, wishes, thoughts, and feelings. Sin is also understood by them as a failure to conform to the God-given power structure. Furthermore, God is viewed as being judgmental as they are not able to conform to the abusive structure in their genuine inner experience. Even if father metaphor is used numerously in the Scripture to depict God, the real meaning of this metaphor can be different from the surface meaning interpreted through patriarchal lenses. For example, in the New Testament, Jesus is described to use the metaphor of father for God. Jesus drew upon the deepest parent-child relationship from the father metaphor. This language also conveys the intimate relationship between God and humanity. This view asserts that the same metaphor can be grasped differently by individuals based on their cultural experiences.

III. Nurturing Creative Imagination Through Intersubjective Relationships Then, how can a pastoral counseling relationship be a source to help individuals free themselves from entrapment of oppressive meta-

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phors, and be able to utilize redemptive metaphors to make a change in their lives? I have noticed in many wounded individuals that the influence of internalized abuse is much stronger and lasts much longer than the actual abuse. They tend to internalize the metaphors, languages, and symbols that their perpetrators use, and accept their current misery passively. Korean words woon-myung and phal-za denote the problem of this passive acceptance of misery. It is my contention that creative imagination is an essential source for victims to make a change. Change is possible when we are able to utilize our capacity for imagination. Existential therapist Viktor Frankl, the survivor from the Nazi concentration camp, affirms the power of human inner capacity as he contends that “everything could be taken from a person except one thing: the last of human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”4 Creative imagination is central to this human freedom and has power for us to move beyond our concrete experiences of misery and unhappiness with on-going oppressive relationships in the family, community, or society. By using imagination, we can distance ourselves from oppressive relations. It also enables us to see rich metaphors in the Scripture from our own lenses and to create a new reality through those metaphors. Levy claims that imagination is our capacity to receive and respond to God’s revelation in our everyday realities. She defines it as following; Imagination as the inherent human power to transcend the concrete, to create new images or ideas that can open up new possibility and promise – the not yet of a future we can envision, the revaluing of a remembered past. Ultimately What I mean by imagination is that human capacity to receive and respond to God’s revelation in our everyday lives.5

The capacity for imagination in the Korean church, however, has been neglected or discouraged by overemphasizing sacrificial obedience. Careful examination of various metaphors in the Scripture discloses that this tendency is the result of one-sided interpretation with political motivation for ruling.   Viktor Franlk, Man’s Search for Meaning (Boston: Beacon Press, 2006), 66.  Sandra Levy, Imagination and the Journey of Faith (Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2008), 3. 4 5

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The use of imagination in faith development is strongly encouraged by Jesus as seen in many healing stories in the Gospels. The faith of wounded individuals that moved Jesus to heal them does not imply culturally bound conformity to the tradition or established social customs, but imply creative imagination that goes beyond the limits of givens as seen in Mark 2:1-12 and other many healing stories in the New Testament. The metaphors conveyed in many of Jesus’ healing stories are associated with liberation, creativity, imagination, and intersubjective interaction. These are all essential for wounded individuals to make a change from their entrapment. How can we nurture imaginative capacity? There are many ways to nurture imaginative capacity in the church. In art works, films, literatures, rituals, music, and the Bible, we could find rich sources of redemptive metaphors and themes of faith. It is, though, beyond the scope of this study to unfold these various ways. I focus on the resource in pastoral counseling. In pastoral counseling, imagination plays a significant role. Pamela Cooper-White, professor at Columbia Theological Seminary, argues that “imagination is necessary for us to be truly, empathically present with a patient from moment to moment.”6 She sees empathic imagination as the bridge that helps us to connect with the other’s internal state, and to detect the dynamic impact of the other within ourselves.7 The counseling relationship that nurtures the counselee is an intersubjective interaction. The term “intersubjectivity” is developed by Stolorow and Atwood based on Kohut’s self psychology, and they see interpretation of transference is an intersubjective process involving a dialogue between counselor and counselee. They stress the importance of Kohut’s notion of empathic relationship, which serves to reinstate developmental processes that had been aborted during the patient’s formative years: Essential to the psychoanalytic treatment of psychotic patients is that the therapist strive to comprehend the core of subjective truth symbolically encoded in the patient’s delusional ideas, and to communicate this understanding in a form that the patient can use.8

  Pamela Cooper-White, “Imagination in Pastoral Care and Counseling,” Vantage vol. 6 no. 2 (Spring 2008). 7  Ibid. 8  Robert D. Stolorow, Bernard Brandchaft, and George E. Atwood, Psychoanalytic Treatment: An Intersubjective Approach (Hillsdale, NJ: The Analytic Press, 2000), 134. 6

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Empathy, for Stolorow, is the process of understanding another’s personal subjective world from the inside. For him, psychoanalytic understanding is curative, but not because it gives the patient intellectual insight into his/her repressed drives. Rather, for Stolorow, Lachmann, and Atwood, psychoanalytic understanding is inherently relational. It involves an archaic bond with the analyst as selfobject. Empathic understanding is the very essence of that bond. It mobilizes the blocked developmental process of the patient. Grasping another’s personal subjective world is the most powerful remedial agent.9 In one directional relationship, the counselor’s subjectivity is imposed to the counselee as an objective. As a result, the counselee’s capacity for imagination is discouraged. However, in the intersubjective relationship, subjectivity of the counselee is respected through which the counselee’s imaginative capacity is encouraged. In Ms. Hong’s case, her ability to see herself and God through the lens of victim’s position, not perpetrator’s, is the result of enhanced capacity for imagination nurtured by intersubjective interaction with her counselor. Therefore, it is my contention that intersubjective relationship is an essential source to nurture our imaginative capacity.

IV. Psychological Approach to the Formation of Individuals’ God image Now, I use psychology to examine how Koreans generally form images of God in their minds and how those images affect their real relationships with God and others. Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, and some Object Relations theorists after Freud have linked individual’s representation of God with parental representations that he or she has experienced in the early childhood. Object Relations theory is a helpful discipline in understanding the correlation between one’s relationships with significant others in developmental process and one’s experience with God. Ana Maria Rizzuto, a major contributor to psychological discovery of the correlation between a child’s early experience with parents and her formation of God representation, claims that the formation of God representation is deeply affected by one’s childhood relationship experi Ibid., 26.

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ence with important others, primarily with parents. How the child’s parents talk, feel, respond, touch, pray, sing, and talk about God affects how the child makes the representation of God. Even before a child enters an institutionalized church, she already has her own representation of God. The quality of primary care provider in childhood plays a pivotal role in shaping a child’s God representation and pattern of relation to God.10 This psychological claim points out the role of Confucian “father” in forming one’s God representation in Korean culture. In a patriarchal family, a child learns one directional obedience to her father. Even if the child’s primary care provider, in most cases is her mother, she internalizes her mother’s adaptation to the patriarchal system. A child’s receptivity to her parents is dependent on her conformity to the Confucian norm. When the nature of the father’s authority is benevolent, however, there is a possibility for mutuality and intimacy in the relationship between father and child. This also means there is a possibility for mutuality and intimacy in her relationship with God and others, too. When the nature of the father is abusive and one directional, a child’s experience with the father is likely to lead her to ambivalence. On the one hand, she has to depend on his authority for survival. One the other hand, she does not feel safe with that authority at all. This experience is also projected and extended to her experience with God. Ms. Hong’s ambivalent experience with God in the vignette, thus, can be explained by this psychological perspective. Her life was imbued with emotional abandonment, physical abuse, and excessive anxiety caused by her parental conflict and sexual attack by male figures. What she has been searching for at her church is unconditional acceptance and understanding, but she actually experiences the burden of overwhelming demand for surrender and conformity to the organizational structure. This imposition of one directional image of God takes away from the victims, the ability for creative imagination for change and transformation in their lives. This case analysis also explains why the patriarchal image of God matters to some people. Another useful insight into the relationship between early childhood experience and God experience is found in the concept of transference. James Jones uses the concept of transference to explain how a person’s interpersonal relationship pattern is extended to his or her 10  Ana-Maria Rizzuto, The Birth of the Living God: A Psychoanalytic Study (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1981), 41-45.

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relationship with God from his clinically based research result in Contemporary Psychoanalysis & Religion. Jones argues that an individual’s God representation emerges from the tension between his or her own private experiences and the images and metaphors for God provided by his or her culture.11 In transference,12 a patient’s basic patterns of relating and making sense of an experience are acted out and modified. How one relates to God has an inseparable relation with this transference, as one relates to God as he or she relates to others. His or her relationship patterns are also transferred to the relationship with God. This means a shift in one’s transference parallels the course of the transference in the sacred realm, too. Jones offers some possible explanations for the apparent prevalence of the judgmental image of God in the Korean church. According to him, this image develops when a child’s parents use God as a means of social control, which is then internalized and serves as the basis for the child’s image of God.13 Nunn also offers an interesting insight into how punitive God image is formed in children. It happens when parents use God as a social control. For example, some parents, those who tend to feel powerless, engage in this “coalition with God” to secure obedience from their children. These parents tell their children that “God will punish them if they misbehave.”14 Freud focused on paternal characteristics and projection to God with the resulting image of God being not only as a father but also punitive, in commenting on parental threats of divine punishment by which “many children still acquire their first religious concepts,”15 with God being a “portable punisher.”16 This insight also unveils the serious problem of the patriarchal metaphor in the Korean church. The father image, if inappropriately used, can even be a main instrument to perpetuate the victims’ ambivalent   James Jones, Contemporary Psychoanalysis & Religion: Transference and Transcendence (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1991), 40. 12  Ibid., 9. Jones uses Freud’s concept of transference which means “the patient sees in his analyst the return -the reincarnation- of some important figure out of his childhood or past, and consequently transfers onto him feelings and reactions that undoubtedly applied to this model.” 13  Ibid., 81. 14   Clyde Z. Nunn, “Child-Control Through a ‘Coalition with God’,” Child Development vol. 35 no. 2 (Jun. 1964), 419. 15  Hart M. Nelsen and Alice Kroliczak, “Parental Use of the Threat ‘God Will Punish’: Replication and Extension,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion vol. 23 no. 3 (Sept. 1984), 267-77. 16  Ibid. 11

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relationship with God. This is especially true when this image is used as a means of organizational control, which is a serious problem of the Korean church. It causes internalized victimization, which is far more destructive than the actual victimization done from outside. If some individuals are not strong enough to resist against the misuse, they tend to internalize victimization. As a result, they experience psychological impotence before any authority figures or dominant systems. Internalized victimization is powerful enough to make the victims hate themselves more than their abusers. In spite of their victim’s position, they tend to suffer tremendous amount of guilt and shame as seen in the case of Ms. Hong. The victims tend to believe that their obedience to authority is never enough and force themselves to be more submissive, which usually perpetuates their destructive relationships and social position. This psychological analysis on formation of God’s image reveals how closely one’s culture contributes to the formation of partial, biased, and one-directional image of God. Furthermore, this analysis also points out the need to transform major metaphoric languages in order for the church to be the community of healing and coexistence.

V. Redeeming Relational Metaphors for God in the Old Testament The story of Abraham in the Old Testament is most often used by the Korean church to teach about the nature of faith. The traditional interpretation of this text stresses sacrificial obedience as the highest value in the practice of faith and as a precondition to receive God’s promise. Many victims like Ms. Hong, however, have difficulty in identifying themselves with this story. From the victims’ perspective, this interpretation raises a lot of questions such as these; Is God on the side of Abraham, the powerful, who mistreated Hagar, the powerless victim? Is it sacrificial obedience that God demands even from the individuals who are in subordinate positions like Hagar? Is God present with the victims of the patriarchal power abuse? Is God supportive of the established power structure in the society? These questions reflect the voices of many victims in their resilient search for God. Examining this story from a reflection on the real experiences of victims reveals the possibility for alternative interpretations and meanings of this story. It is a significant role of pastoral theology to discover and offer new theological

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truth as a result of theological reflection on people’s real life experiences. Williams’ creative and imaginative engagement with this story presents a new theological truth about God who is intimately present with the suffering individuals. For anyone who tries to free himself or herself from inner entrapment, Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutics of suspicion is a useful term to consider. Paul Ricoeur stresses the need of the “hermeneutics of suspicion” to unmask surface-level meaning of the text which has been used to conceal the political interests of the powerful, striping off the concealment, unmasking those interests.17 This is what I try to achieve in this part, drawing upon Williams’ critical work from a feminist perspective. Attempting to stretch the issue of God experience from the eyes of victims of abuse, I focus on Genesis, chapters 16 and 21. Here, the activity of abuse is described between the rich, established, secure, and patriarchal couple, Abraham and Sarah, and the poor, powerless, and insecure Egyptian slave girl, Hagar. The traditional interpretation of this story, and the story of Isaac’s birth, is focused on “Yahweh’s election and covenant with Abraham and therefore with Israel.”18 What is emphasized in the traditional interpretation of these texts is the unquestioned obedience to the authority of God. This is one of the surface level meanings of this text. This story serves to reinforce the ethic of the Confucian father-son, male-female, and dominator-subordinator relationships in which one has the obligation of unquestioned obedience to the other who has more power in the Korean society. However, in the ears of many victims of abuse, this story sounds doubly oppressive. The surface level meaning of this traditional interpretation can cause an extended religious oppression to those who have been already oppressed by the powerful. Those who internalize this view often feel judged as having no faith or weak faith when they question their pain, complain, and cry. Consequently, having no way to release their inner struggles properly, these persons are often likely to develop psycho-somatic as well as spiritual illnesses. It is difficult for many victimized individuals who identify more with Hagar and Ishmael   D. G. Myers, Glossary of biblical interpretation, Texas A&M University, Department of English, http://www-english.tamu.edu/pers/fac/myers/hermeneutical_lexicon. html (accessed July 28, 2011). 18   Delores S. Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist GodTalk (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2000), 18. 17

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than Abraham and Sarah to relate to the patriarchal God who participates in, condones, and rationalizes the act of injustice and abuse of the oppressors. In order to unmask surface level meanings attached to this story, we need to redeem the subjective experiences of the oppressed, Hagar and Ishmael. Particularly Hagar’s subjective God-experience should be redeemed in order to find fuller meanings of this text. First of all, we need to notice that Hagar is the victim of power abuse by Abraham and Sarah. In this story, Hagar is introduced as a solution to the biggest threat that a wealthy, Hebrew, slave-holding couple (Abraham and Sarah) could face. They did not have a male child, and in the patriarchal culture, “the survival of the clan and their own future depended on having a child [male child].”19 Williams also asserts that Sarah’s barrenness was the biggest challenge to the maintenance of their power and status in their tribe. “There was no greater sorrow for an Israelite or Oriental woman than childlessness.”20 The text describes that, after Abram lived in the land of Canaan for ten years, Sarai “took Hagar her Egyptian slave-girl and gave her to Abram as his wife. He went into Hagar and she conceived” (Genesis 16:2-4a). Sarah’s action is in accordance with the custom in contemporary culture. As soon as Hagar was pregnant, the persecution from Sarah began. Hagar’s pregnancy elevated her to a new status above that of a handmaid, and Sarah was faced with a serious threat to her own status in the tribe. With Abraham’s permission, “Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she ran away from her” (Genesis 16:6). According to Williams, Abraham also has actively taken charge by allowing Sarah to avenge Hagar. He has acted according to the law. Poling suggests that issues of race and social class were the main factors between Sarah and Hagar in this text. Hagar, the Egyptian, was a woman from a different racial and social class that had few rights within society. As a powerless woman, she was brought by Sarah to deal with the anxiety that Sarah and Abraham were experiencing, and when she became pregnant she stirred the equilibrium of the power balance in the family. This caused escalated anxiety, which was temporarily resolved by excluding Hagar from the family. She was the victim of power abuse by Sarah and Abraham, and she unjustly became the scapegoat.   James Newton Poling, The Abuse of Power (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1991), 159.   Delores S. Williams, 16.

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As a character in the story, God intervened with Hagar and sent her back to Sarah for what would become further abuse: “Return to your mistress, and submit to her” (Genesis 16:9). Traditional interpretations would use this text to rationalize the obligation or duty of the readers to submit to authority even in abusive relationships. Poling also recognizes this possibility, as he sees this text describing a God who was silent about the abuse done to pregnant Hagar and then was supportive of the oppressive structure by bringing Hagar back into the family, in submission to Sarah, which eventually resulted in additional abuse.21 Poling sees this as a serious theological problem. Williams, though, offers a solution to the theological problem that many people including Poling struggle with. She suggests a different interpretation of God telling Hagar to return to the abusive structure. In the wilderness, the issues of survival and quality of life come to the surface in Hagar’s story. God is at work in this process. The text reports that “the angel of Yahweh found her by a spring in the desert, the spring on the road to Shur” (Genesis 16:7). Williams suggests that in most ancient texts, the angel of Yahweh is not a created being distinct from God but God himself in visible form. Therefore God was with Hagar in the midst of her personal suffering. And Hagar is obviously on the way to Egypt, for Shur is thought to have been located on the northeast border of Egypt.22 God’s plan was not to place Hagar in a system of oppression. Elsa Tamez describes Yahweh’s intention as follows: What God wants is that she and the child should be saved, and at the moment, the only way to accomplish that is not in the desert, but by returning to the house of Abraham. Ishmael hasn’t been born…Hagar simply must wait a litter longer, because Ishmael must be born in the house of Abraham to prove that he is the first-born (Deut. 21:15-17) and to enter into the household through the rite of circumcision (chap. 17). This will guarantee him participation in the history of salvation and will give him rights of inheritance in the house of Abraham.23

Williams considers two important facts: first, the high infant mortality rate in the ancient Near East and, second, the redactors’ intention   James Poling, 161.   Delores S. Williams, 20. 23  Elsa Tamez, “The Woman Who Complicated the History of Salvation,” in New Eyes for Reading: Biblical and Theological Reflections by Women from the Third World, ed. John S. Pobee and Barbel Von Wartenburg-Potter (Oak Park: Meyer-Stone, 1987), 14. 21 22

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to preserve “promise” and “covenant” as major themes in the Hebrew testament. We can also speak of the quality of life with regard to God’s concern for Hagar at this point, as God apparently wants to secure Hagar’s and her child’s well-being by use of the resources Abraham has to offer.24 God also makes a promise to Hagar, similar to the promise God makes to Abraham: “The angel of Yahweh further said to her [Hagar], ‘I shall make your descendents too numerous to be counted’”(Genesis 16:10). This means Hagar is given hope not only for the survival of her generation but also for the possibility of future freedom for her seed. This is a blessing, suggesting that Ishmael will be free and become a warrior. He will be able to help create and protect the quality of life he and his mother will later develop in the desert. Hagar’s God-experience is more clearly discovered in the last few verses of chapter 16. After she experienced God’s presence in the wilderness, she named God: “So she named the Lord who spoke to her, ‘You are El-roi’; for she said, ‘Have I really seen God and remained alive after seeing him?’” (Genesis 16: 13a). In the name that Hagar gave to God, there is a very significant clue that shows that to the eyes of the oppressed (Hagar), God was not a patriarchal God. By quoting Phyllis Trible’s work, Williams claims that Hagar is the only person in the Bible, who is attributed the power of naming God: The expression is striking because it connotes naming rather than invocation. In other words, Hagar does not call upon the name of the deity. Instead she calls the name, a power attributed to no one else in the Bible….The maid…after receiving a divine announcement of the forthcoming birth, sees God with new vision….Her naming unites the divine and human encounter.25

This study shows that the images of God discovered in Hagar’s resilient faith journey are much different from the images that traditional interpretations portray. It offers and suggests an alternative metaphor for God who is relational. Focusing on Hagar’s God-experience, this view redeems many relational attributes of God who is present with the suffering individual, neither condones the systems of oppression nor demands conformity to it from the oppressed, and leads us to liberation from oppression but with a deep concern primarily for the quality and   Delores S. Williams, 21.  Ibid., 23.

24 25

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preservation of our lives. The redeemed “relational metaphors” for God in this study can be a powerful resource to redeem many lost souls like Ms. Hong.

VI. Conclusion The outcome of this pastoral study asserts how important the role of metaphors for God is, especially in the lives of victims of oppressive relations. Unmasking some traditional metaphors and redeeming relational metaphors have been performed from a pastoral perspective. In empowering victims to utilize redemptive metaphors for God to make a change out of their entrapment, both internal and external changes need to go hand in hand. This study puts emphasis on the role of “creative imagination” as the primary source within a person to be able to make a change in spite of on-going oppressive relations. Pastoral counseling can be a useful source to enhance one’s imaginative capacity in expanding rich redemptive metaphors when the relationship between the counselor and the counselee reflects the characteristics of “intersubjective interaction.” Psychological investigation, especially from Object Relations Theory, unveils the crucial role of primary care providers, parents, leaders, and authority figures in the communities in forming a person’s God images. There is unavoidable influence from one’s relational milieu in internalizing God images whether they are oppressive or redemptive. Church leaders in Korea, who are interpreters and introducers of metaphors for God for believers, have primary authority for people in shaping their God images. Being aware of this heavy responsibility, church leaders need to use redemptive metaphors properly in the cooperative worships, seminary education, interpretation of the Bible, church music, liturgical language, church rituals, and other practices of faith. They need to be aware of great dangers in manipulating those metaphors for social or organizational control and have to refuse this temptation. Theological investigation, especially from an Old Testament theology with the victims’ perspective, reveals that traditional interpretation of dominant metaphors in the Old Testament are associated with the “rule” which is deeply embedded in the Confucian heritage. These metaphors endorse and reinforce one directional power structure of “dominators-subordinators” which is more intensified by capitalism-based

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globalization in today’s Korean Society. Imaginative works of some theologians point out that traditional interpretation of some important metaphors in the Christian tradition is biased. This study redeems some neglected relational metaphors for God. The God revealed in various relational metaphors is intimately present in the pains of the abused. These relational metaphors are powerful sources for the abused to create new reality of “coexistence.” This pastoral study is an attempt to let the cries of many “Hagars” in the society today be heard and responded by the Korean church. A clear message implied in their cries is that the church is called to transform the oppressive social structure and construct communities of justice and coexistence as it redeems rich redemptive metaphors for God.

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Bibliography

Fretheim, Terence E. The Suffering of God: An Old Testament Perspective. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984. Hunter, Rodney, ed. Dictionary of Pastoral Care and Counseling. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990. Jones, James, Contemporary Psychoanalysis & Religion: Transference and Transcendence. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1991. Kim, Uichol, Kuo-Shu Yang, and Kwang-Kuo Hwang, ed. Indigenous and Cultural Psychology: Understanding People in Context. New York: Springer, 2006. Levy, Sandra, Imagination and Journey of Faith. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2008. McFague, Sallie. Metaphorical Theology: Models of God in Religious Language. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982. Nelsen, Hart M. and Alice Kroliczak, “Parental Use of the Threat ‘God Will Punish’: Replication and Extension,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion vol. 23 no. 3 (Sept. 1984). Nunn, Clyde Z. “Child-Control Through a ‘Coalition with God’,” Child Development vol. 35 no. 2 (Jun. 1964). Poling, James Newton, The Abuse of Power. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1991. Rad, Gerhard Von, Genesis. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1961. Rizzuto, Ana-Maria, The Birth of the Living God: A Psychoanalytic Study. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1981. Ryken, Leland, ed. The Christian Imagination: The Practice of Faith in Literature and Writing. Colorado Springs, CO: Water Brook Press, 2002. Shaw, Lucci, Breath for the Bones: Art, Imagination, and Spirit, Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2007. Stolorow, Robert D., Bernard Brandchaft, and George E. Atwood, Psychoanalytic Treatment: An Intersubjective Approach. Hillsdale, NJ: The Analytic Press, 2000. Tamez, Elsa, “The Woman Who Complicated the History of Salvation.” In New Eyes for Reading: Biblical and Theological Reflections by Women from the Third World, edited by John S. Pobee and von Wartenburg-Potter. Oak Park, ILL: Meyer Stone Books, 1987. Williams, Delores S., Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2000.

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한글 초록

한국교회를 위한 하나님에 관한 “관계적 은유”의 회복의 필요성   목회신학적 관점에서

김경 서울여자대학교 기독교학과

이 논문은 사람들이 하나님과 다른 사람들과 관계를 맺음에 있어서 하나님에 대한 은 유의 역할에 대한 연구이다. 이 주제는 한국 상황에서 억압적 관계의 희생자들에게 제공 한 목회적 돌봄의 행위에 대한 필자 자신의 신학적 성찰에 기초하고 있다. 존스의 종교 심리학과 윌리암스의 구약에 나타난 하갈의 하나님 경험에 대한 여성주의적 접근을 사 용하여, 한국인들의 하나님 경험을 형성하게 하는 은유의 역할을 분석한다. 상처 입은 개인들의 한 공통적인 하나님 경험에 초점을 맞추어 심리-신학적 대화의 결과가 나타 내는 요지는, 한국 교회에서 사용되는 주된 은유들은 주류 한국 문화에서 통치를 위해 조작하여 사용되는 주된 은유들에 의해 밀접하게 영향을 받았다는 것이다. “아버지”와 같은 지배적 은유들이 정치적 목적을 위해 조작될 때, 특히 상처 입은 사람들의 심리적 영적 고착상태를 강화하고 영속화하는 억압의 도구로 이용되게 된다. 이 연구는 지배자 아브라함 부부의 억압의 피해자인 하갈에게 나타난 하나님은 고통가운데 있는 그녀에 게 공감적으로 함께 하시는 하나님의 관계적 속성을 밝혀 낸다. 이 연구는 또한 한국 교 회가 문화에 깊숙이 물든 가부장주의에 결탁함으로 성경에 풍성히 나타나 있는 치유적 은유들을 무시해 왔음을 지적한다. 이 점은 한국 교회가 그 동안 무시되어 온 관계적 은 유들을 되살림으로 “지배자-피지배자”로 양분된 억압적 사회 구조를 변화시키는 선지 자적 역할과, 한국사회에서 공존을 위한 관계적 정의로움을 증진시키는 역할을 감당해 야 할 책임을 제시하고 있다.

주제어 목회신학, 관계성의 은유, 하나님 표상, 폭력의 내면화, 상상력 Date submitted: August 24, 2011;  date accepted: September 16, 2011;  date confirmed: September 26, 2011.