Rs - feminist theology

Rosemary Radford Ruether

Feminist theologist who thought Christianity needed to be reformed due to patriarchal ideas

Example given about the impact of religious stereotypes

Women being persecuted and murdered as 'witches'

Gnostic writing sig

viewed women as apostles and saw god as having both male and female characteristics

Quaker and other Baptist movements

allow women in positions of leadership

Montanism

believe in the continuing inspiration of the Holy Spirit in prophecy given to men AND women & there is evidence that women were given equal state to men in the ministry of Montanist churches

four themes of the prophetic tradition

1. God's defence of the oppressed
2. critique of dominant and oppressive powers
3. vision of a new age under god
4. criticism of religious ideology that maintains injustice

example of prophetic tradition

Luke 4:18-19

Sig of Lamentations

city is compared to an abused and violated woman

Mary Daly

Christianity cannot be reform and must be left because it is so inherently sexist

3 functions of God as a noun

1. God of the gaps (filling in gaps of knowledge)
2. God as otherworldliness (rewards and punishments after death)
3. God as the judge of sin (sets rules and roles)

What Jesus sometimes referred God to

abba

the meaning of God being a verb

a continuing process of becoming in the universe as the force helps us to become who we are

the consequence of seeing god as a verb

1) original sin isn't disobedience but just turning women into objects who are forbidden from developing outside of their biological destiny

2) Salvation is not the passive acceptance of the doctrine/worship of a God-man but participating and becoming

3) Worshipping the God of the patriarchy is a form of idolatry; Christians commit ‘Christolatry’ and ‘Bibliolatry’

rape, genocide and war

rape

rapism is a culture of rape and violent oppression, it imprisons women, women are so oppressed by the patriarchy that they cannot see that this is not acceptable, weapon of war or revenge (even in the Bible), porn is a form of ‘armchair rape’ since those watching it enjoy violence against women, creates a pervasive culture of violence

example of rape in the Bible

save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.” (Numbers 31:17-18)

genocide

rape is a cultural manifestation of a sexual caste system which is hierachy that places men and women in an unequal power dynamic, perpetuated by consent of female victims and the dominant males through sex-role socialisation → conditioning process that begins at birth constantly reinforces this, rape and genocide are very closely linked: it is an act that objectifies all those who can be cost into the role of victims of violence and the raped person becomes the objective victim of the rapist and the raped person looses sense of individuality and just becomes part of the group of victims → primordial act of violation but it is more than just an act on an individual but is one group against another and therefore is an expression of the thinking of the dominant group that is perpetrating the rape

war

language of violence is hidden in technical language e.g 'collateral damage'

language has been corrupted when the killing of people in war is 'just' but the killing of unborn babies in 'unjust'

war is defended by a 'phallic mentality' and 'phallic morality'

Mary's idea for female liberation

requires women to be radically deviant in the face of patriarchal expectation

reject all moral standards because they have been constructed by men and used, by men, to subjugate women

Christianity is a key element in sustaining and shaping these moral and social standards. The incarnation of Christ is the ‘symbolic legitimation of the rape of all women and all matter’.

women in the NT

Junia in the NT is described by Paul as being ‘prominent among the apostles’ and other women in the NT were considered Apostles by some traditions in the early church and the early middle ages e.g Mary Magdalen

bad for women in the NT

Many early translations of the Bible altered the name Junis to the male form Junias as it was supposed that a female apostle must have been a mistranslation from Paul’s words

women as apostles

Stories of holy women (such as Thecla and Nino) are also described as apostles

Libby Lane

first female bishop in 2015

fact about women becoming ordained and men protesting

In 1994 nearly 1,500 women were ordained in the CoE but over 470 male clergy protested by leaving the Church

Aristotle on women

'begotten males'

galations 3:28

there is no longer male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus

Pope Francis positive

2014 showed a willingness to consider women as deacon

deacon

one of the three Church leadership positions mentioned in the NT

Ephesians 5:34

wives should submit to their husbands in everything

'opt out' in CoE congregation

means that they don't have to consider a female priest