* In summary, if liberationists take Jesus' poverty and otherness seriously along with Paul's dictum that in Christ there is neither male nor female (Galatians 3:28), perhaps the best contemporary identification of "the Master" would be a twelve-year-old girl prostituted by two men in a public toilet in Buenos Aires (84).
Unclothed Theology in the U.S.
Those are just some of the reflections of Althaus-Reid operating as a professional theologian. Meanwhile, she points out, her less academically prepared Latinx sisters do their theology based on popular beliefs and practices. Their well-earned degrees come from the school of very hard knocks. Their insights, Althaus-Reid suggests, are no less valid than their sisters' teaching in places like the University of Edinburgh.
So, they defiantly continue to honor Santa Evita Perón. She, after all, secured voting rights for Argentine women over the objections of Argentine bishops (79). They also pray to Santo La Muerte (St. Death), Jesús Bandito and local popular "gangster saints" who are seen as robbing and stealing from the real thieves and criminals who support those who run the government (161). They have "canonized" deceased popular singers like Rodrigo and Gilda offering them prayers and novenas in chapels dedicated to El Angel Rodrigo and La Santa Gilda (157). Those who honor such avatars kneel in church like Althaus-Reid herself without underwear, engulfed, she says, in the fragrance of female sex, and offering fervent prayers to rock stars no doubt considered "indecent" by church authorities.
All of which brings me to rock 'n' roll, Tina Turner, Chuck Berry, and those unclothed grandmas.
Take the grandmas first. Althaus-Reid I think would see them as doing a kind of negative theology protesting the false church-supported Victorian standards earlier referenced. They take indecency to the extreme not just rejecting underwear, but displaying their bodies completely unclothed -- not for personal gain like strippers or aspiring models, but just for the hell of it.
Their wordless indecency is consistent with Althaus-Reid's identification of the female body as a privileged locus of rebellion against patriarchal systems of power (45). Such rebellion echoes the status of their sisters in the Global South as "single women" with no visible men (35).
After all, under patriarchy, the skirts that once signified femininity and even priesthood (37), now only convey a deep alienation (20). Set them all aside!
"Do you want indecency?" rebellious women seem to say. "Well, take a look at this! The patriarchs will not tell us how to behave and what to do with our bodies!"
As for rock 'n' roll, Tina Turner, and Chuck Berry. . .. How much saintlier can you get?
During their lives, their music performed the basically feminine function of distracting millions from the overwork mandated by the reigning system denounced by Marcuse. In the process, they brought joy, fun, and happiness to millions of people who ended up attending and participating in the huge liturgies we call "concerts" - even over the protests and askance gazes of uptight Victorians and clergy.
By the standards of Althaus-Reid nothing could be more constructively indecent and therefore holy. Thank you, Saint Tina! Thank you, holy Chuck! Thank you, dear Marcella.
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