To a contemporary reader, The Church and the Second Sex may seem mild in its critique of the church, but when the book was published in 1968, it created a firestorm around Daly. In fact, the Boston College Theology Department intended to fire her for having the temerity to critique “Mother Church.” She was given a one-year terminal contract, in effect denying her tenure. As Daly wrote, her
“case” became a cause célèbre. It was 1969, a year of demonstrations, and the students wanted a symbol in their crusade for “academic freedom.” I was it.1
Daly’s students (all male) and many academics around the country rallied to her support, citing both academic freedom and the intellectual integrity of her important work. Though Boston College reversed itself and awarded her tenure, Daly learned a principle of political struggle that she would never forget: there is no reward in reformism. The radical Mary Daly would never be suppressed or timid of voice again.
The controversy over The Church and the Second Sex provided Daly with visibility, and in the intellectual environment of Boston, that meant that graduate students sought her out. Similarly, Boston’s centrality to the political movements in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s meant that the stimulation and palpable progress of the women’s liberation movement immersed Daly in the cross-currents of radicalism.
The signal convergence of these forces was the Harvard Memorial Church Exodus on November 14, 1971. This event, planned by Daly and her graduate students, combined collective community consciousness, a strong metaphysical break with both the ideas and institutions of christianity, and connections to the American protest traditions (dating back to similar church walkouts in the founding of Black churches and the Abolitionist crusade against church support for slavery).2 The text of Daly’s sermon forms the first chapter in this part. This moment became a touchstone, the definitive break from institutional religion for Daly (and many others).
The rest of this section consists of excerpts from Beyond God the Father, which some maintain is Daly’s best work. It is assuredly her most consequential book theologically (though not necessarily her most significant philosophically or politically). Her unique combination of anger, ridicule, sarcasm, hope, creativity, immanence, and transcendence emerges. Furious at the illusions and lies of christianity (and all religions), she used theological tools to expose the inanity of mythology, doctrine, and above all hierarchic oppression. Far more important, though, is her understanding of a deity who cannot be reified, but is instead God the Verb. She coined the term “Be-ing” to describe this concept of a participatory divine energy.
Once again, Boston College was unimpressed and outraged, leading to Daly’s being denied promotion to full professor in 1975. A member of the committee dared to compare the groundbreaking Beyond God the Father to the hackneyed popular novel of the day, Love Story (see chapter 39 in this collection for the full story).