discussion below that feminists who are unreservedly committed to French
psycholinguistic feminist theory are unlikely to be persuaded of a possible accord
between the disciplines. For Jantzen, especially, such highly vaunted characteristics of
analytic philosophy of religion as clarity and rational persuasiveness are themselves
prime manifestations of “phallocentric” thought (of the “male,” “symbolic” realm, in
Jacques Lacan's terms), and hence intrinsically demeaning to the project of feminist
revision. That there is nonetheless a remaining possibility of mutual enrichment between
feminist thought and analytic philosophy of religion, on rather different theoretical
presumptions, it will be the purpose of the final part of this chapter to suggest. Anderson
also suggests some possibility of positive mediation, which we shall duly note; my own
suggestions will probe a little further. In short, I show that imprecise judgments on the
possible positive interactions between analytic philosophy of religion and feminism are to
be avoided: it is the particular form of feminist theoretical or theological commitment
that is the crucial variable, along with the willingness of analytic philosophy of religion
to broaden its consideration about what could “count” as relevant to its task.
Let us now turn, first, to an analysis and comparative critique of the work of Jantzen and
Anderson.
Although Jantzen's book appeared a few months after Anderson's, it will be more
illuminating pedagogically to treat it first in this comparison of the two. As will quickly
emerge, Jantzen's book is the more radical of the two in its sweepingly critical account of
the practices and goals of analytic philosophy of religion, and because Anderson's
position is decidedly more eirenic in comparison, it will be useful to clarify how she
softens the divide. Anderson's book fell into Jantzen's hands only as she was writing the
final version of her introduction, and she (perhaps slightly defensively) describes
Anderson as having a “quite different” “approach” (1998, 2). My own judgment is that
Anderson's initial “approach” (especially her use of French feminist materials) is
remarkably similar to Jantzen's, but her chosen form of feminist epistemology, and thus
her practical conclusions and proposals, are markedly different. Let us now explain why
this is so.
Jantzen's Critique of Analytic Philosophy of Religion
A simple account of Jantzen's book is not easy, since she discusses a great deal of diverse
literature and her central themes only emerge, cumulatively, throughout the book.
Nonetheless, a brief résumé of her core thesis might go as follows. At the outset she
claims to be writing her book to “find [her] own [sc. feminist] voice in the philosophy of
religion” (Jantzen 1998, 1), and simultaneously to build a “bridge” between analytic and
continental traditions in philosophy of religion (4). But the reader rapidly begins to
wonder whether the “bridge” metaphor is somewhat disingenuous. Once the key
categories of French psycholinguistics have been introduced, it becomes clear that
Jantzen sees modern Western thought in general, and analytic philosophy of religion in
particular, as hopelessly in thrall to a “masculinist imaginary”—a “symbolic” order (to
use the terminology of Lacan) that is obsessed with death and incapable of delivering the
liberative vision of God that would allow women to “flourish.” This large-scale thesis